If you're just joining us, my interactions with the rest of the world have always been somewhat... eccentric? Tense? Yeah, there's not really a good word for it. I tried the local MOMS Club, and we still go to the big events - the Christmas Party, Easter Egg Hunt, etc. Basically, the events which are likely to include the most participants, and therefore the least amount of actual interaction required. The kids have fun, I chase the kids, I talk to the few souls brave enough to approach the "weird one". (You know... HER. The one whose interests include computers, t.v. shows we don't watch, and some bizarre thing called a "blog"...)
I do better one on one, as long as the other person is easy on my neurotic self. Somehow, in the three years since we moved to the Eastern Panhandle, there have been only a select few who put me at ease and don't make me paranoid that every move or sentence is being weighed and judged.
My sister, Kim, told me that she has always known me to take people as I find them - and accept them at face value. I don't spend my time analyzing people for every flaw, I just shrug, accept that they are who they are, and if we connect I add them to the "friends" list unless or until they do something heinous enough to warrant removal from the Circle of Trust. (*insert demonstrative, DeNiro-esque, "Circle of Trust" hand gestures here*) - (*pause will I giggle at that movie again*)
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So I can't help but be wistful when I read something like this. Not the least because I read both Amalah and Sweetney religiously, and they never fail to hit the nail on the head in their far-wittier-than-my narratives on raising children with a sense of humor. (And a well-timed glass of Pinot.)
BUT. Just when I think I'm doomed to smother my husband with the necessity of also being one of my only Buddies, something amazing happens. Something life-altering. Something that makes me a bit less wistful to hang with the cool kids.
My violin instructor, Nancy, is an amazing woman. She raised 5 children (including a set of twin boys) with her (also a professional violinist) husband, and had a 25-year career as Concertmistress with the National Orchestra. She has been all over the world, to places I have only dreamed about, and now shares a home with one of her sons and his family. Two of the three grandchildren have left the house, and the last one is a senior in high school. I haven't got around to asking her how they ended up selling their home in Potomac and moving out here to the hills, but once I saw her home I really couldn't imagine asking.
We always spend a good portion of our time (when I'm supposed to be learning the finer points of violin basics) engrossed in conversation about everything from family and motherhood to religion to literature. After a few months of this, she asked me to join her at her home for lunch one afternoon.
T worked from home so that I could sneak out after I got the boys fed and put Toby down for his nap. I drove over to her home with absolutely no idea that I was about to have one of the most memorable afternoons of my entire life.
The home is on a good-sized lot. The front yard is full of gently landscaped plants, and a giant holly bush towers over the front stoop. The house itself is a sprawling maze of rooms, each filled with thoughtful pieces of art, antique furniture pieces, momentos, and brick-a-brack I could spend the next several months looking through with relish.
We lunched on the screened back porch after serving ourselves healthy portions of her homemade quiches (crab or sausage) in the well-appointed kitchen. The pot rack hung heavy with cast iron pieces, a surprising tell about her zest for cooking. Then, I tasted the quiche. OH MY GOODNESS, y'all. Heavenly. Divine. A little green salad, some garden grown ('natch) tomatoes, and from-scratch peach cobbler for dessert. All of this with a view of the back yard, planted and landscaped like an English Cottage, and a gentle breeze rustling through the branches of the old-growth trees.
We followed lunch up with hot cups of tea, and I was like a delighted grammar-school kid when I got to choose from her varied collection of tea cups and matching saucers. I picked the one with the sunflowers. Then, she brought out her box of tea spoons.
The old Whitman's Sampler box was faded, with a crumbling hinge on the lid. Inside were those collector spoons that you can buy in shops all over the world - spoons of every shape and description, some dating back to the 1880's. One by one I pulled them from the box and studied them, the places they were from, the intricate sculptures on the oldest ones. One antique spoon had a hinged iron maiden, with tiny spiked doors that opened and closed.
We spent the end of our afternoon ensconced in the library of the house. I pondered the Civil War surgeon's kit that had belonged to her grandfather, with it's foot-long blades (still sharp!) and the bullet fragment actually removed from the leg of some unfortunate confederate soldier. She listened to a few of my poems, giving encouragements, and then we talked a little about poetry, literature, life...
I left with an ancient copy of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass", on loan from her collection (I'm still mulling over his poem about lilacs and death, written after Lincoln's assassination), and a zip-lock baggie of ginger creams.
I left with so, so much more than that.
If I could design the perfect way to spend a quiet afternoon in good company... I'm not sure I could have brought anything forth from my limited imagination that would have begun to strike the same chord in my soul as that perfect, lovely day.
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