Judy Sunde Hanawalt

Things I'm Thinking About

Year: 2014 (Page 1 of 3)

Thanksgiving

November 14, 2014 / / 3 Comments

Thanksgiving does not sparkle with magic and mystery, or glow with the promise of gifts and wishes come true like it’s holiday partner, Christmas. It is instead a day to be content, to appreciate what is already seen and known. Somewhere between the giddiness of childhood and the practicality of adulthood, I began to enjoy Thanksgiving instead of rushing past it as just another hurdle to clear before Christmas. It was a calm before the frenzy of holiday activity; a day to enjoy for it’s own sake, not for what would be given or gotten.

I was still living at home, and Thanksgiving meant traditional foods, grandparents and cousins, sitting and talking and playing games. I watched my grandmother, mother and aunt cook, sneaking tastes, disappearing when work was needed. When my grandfather began to carve the turkey, I would be at his elbow, ready for any small bits he would offer as he worked. The anticipation and satisfaction revolved  around the meal and the foods eaten only on that day. The gifts of Thanksgiving were received around the table.

My childhood Thanksgivings were spent as a happy recipient of the feast, almost as a guest. Whether by my choice or by design, the work was behind the scenes. I had little appreciation for how it happened that the lavish meal appeared on the carefully decorated table.

My perspective changed again when I had children and began hosting the day at my house. No more gazing into the kitchen in anticipation of delicacies to fill the holiday table.  I became the cook, with splattered apron, pumpkin in my hair, and the scent of stuffing as my perfume. I was up early to finish the pies, make the stuffing and get the bird in the oven. The day flew by as I was making messes and cleaning them up, rotating side dishes in and out of the oven, calling for helping hands and later chasing out sticky-fingered tasters, and then, with a sigh of relief, sitting down, everything done, to give thanks.

As my children have gotten older, they have ventured into the cook’s domain and wanted to help, even taking over a favorite dish. Their joy of eating was enhanced by the preparation, the camaraderie in the kitchen, and the pride of serving something that tasted good. One daughter would work on the pies, another on the green bean casserole, and others on the rolls, jello salad and stuffing.  Some would collaborate on the decorating and setting of the table, pulling the good china and silverware out of the cupboard, arranging the flowers and candles, and creating a centerpiece from fall leaves and persimmons from our tree.

The commotion in the kitchen tends to draw others in, and the jostling, the stepping over the dog and the ducking around sparring siblings–the happy confusion of so many in a small space–tempts me to shoo everyone out. When I stop, take a breath and look around, though, I love the busyness and the laughter.

Another change is upon me now. With only one child still living at home, my house feels quiet and a little empty, and when they all come home for Thanksgiving, I welcome the busy, loud explosion of activity. They come like waves, tumbling in with their bags and the food they are going to prepare and their excitement at seeing each other, dancing around with the dog, flooding the house with life. They come in with the cold, fresh scent of their journey  on their coats and wraps, but they take them off, leave them by the door and settle into being home.

They come hungry for all their favorite traditional foods, but also with new ideas. The sugary yam casserole topped with marshmallows was the first to get a make-over, becoming more about the vegetable and less about the topping. A couple of years ago, my practice of using a roasting bag for the turkey ended when a more ambitious cook found a better way, involving lots of butter and fresh herbs.  Another Thanksgiving, my dry, bagged stuffing went unused in favor of a delicious, from-scratch recipe. Last year, new side dishes free of processed foods were introduced, so the jello and the green bean casserole were replaced by seasonal fruits and greens. I think it is only the butterhorn rolls that remain unchanged.

With so much competence in the kitchen, I find time to sneak off to the living room to sit down and rest, leaving the meal to my opinionated, energetic children, and basking in the happy chatter and laughter. I’m still involved in the process,  but I can see a new era just around the corner. I will find myself again the recipient of the feast, and I will be content to savor these gifts of a life full of love and family.

Knitting Socks

November 11, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Sticks and yarn, twisting and looping and wrapping into stitches and rows, transform the linear into the three dimensional–a thin stand of wool into a thick pair of socks. The instructions for a sock are cryptic: knit, pearl, slip, turn, make, drop, join.  Reading through the steps, the process doesn’t seem to make sense.

I had wanted to make socks for a long time. I learned the basic knitting stitch when I was a little girl. My mother gave me two fat plastic knitting needles and some yarn, put a dozen or so loops on the first needle for me and showed me how to slip the point of the other needle through a loop, wrap the yarn around the point and pull it back through to create a knit stitch.

Clumsy at first, soon I was knitting back and forth, turning out long lacy folds of fabric, an intricate pattern of dropped-stitch holes and uneven, added-stitch edges. When I was tired of it, or out of yarn, she would knit my creation off the needles and I would have a scarf, a doll blanket, or a cape. I marveled at what I could create, something from nothing.

In a cold climate and on a tight budget many years later, the idea of creating something out of almost nothing appealed to me. I took a class to learn how to knit mittens. I learned how to cast on stitches, knit around in circles to create the cylinder of the mitten, and bind off. Everyone on my Christmas list received mittens that year. I loved each pair, the yarn, the colors, and the different sizes, from toddler to adult. I was a happy, confident knitter.

Looking around the yarn shop, though, I began to long for more. A sweater? Too big of a commitment. Socks? Perfect. But the heel! Fearful, I stuck with scarves and the occasional replacement mitten. I thought about making tube socks, basically a long mitten with no thumb,  to warm the feet instead of the hands. That would be easier, but the call of real, shaped-heel socks lingered in my mind.

Occasionally, I asked other knitters about the heel experience. Most agreed they were too timid to attempt the turning of the heel. Then, I got an answer that bolstered my courage. Just follow the directions, she said. They don’t make sense when you read them, but if you just do it, row by row, the heel, mysteriously, almost miraculously, turns into that cup shape that makes it a real sock. This new courage, combined with abandoning my attempts to seem like a savvy knitter to the yarn shop employees, took me into my local knit shop with one bold question: Do you have a really easy sock pattern?

She did, and her own experience confirmed the wisdom of giving up trying to visualize how it would work. I was a woman obsessed. Most of the next day I was knitting around in circles toward the heel. Then, it was time. Checking and re-checking the pattern, I knit each row carefully, doing what it said even though it felt wrong. Turn and start knitting in the other direction before I get to the end of the row? I was almost holding my breath, knitting, turning, pearling, knitting two together, slip-slip-knitting, turning some more.

And then, there it was: the heel cup. It was true, it worked. And it didn’t take any advanced skills. I showed everyone and I posted it as my status on FaceBook. I was so proud of myself. Only a few people truly rejoiced with me. Many, who never cared about making a sock, were puzzled by my excitement, but I didn’t care. I had socks to knit.

There it was again, something from nothing. Something useful and beautiful had come from my fingers and some sticks and some yarn combined in their ancient dance. These socks, my little creations, didn’t actually come from nothing, though. The expense, it’s true, was minimal. I already had the wool and the needles, and the directions, copied on one sheet of paper, were cheap. Creativity wasn’t there in measurable amounts, either. I simply took my place in a long line of sock knitters and did what has been done countless times before.

I did use my time, my effort–the doing of it. I added some faith in the directions, and got the satisfaction of seeing the transformation of yarn to socks and the joy of my success. Still this effort doesn’t seem like art. Not the type to be observed, to be hung in a gallery and understood as message or a representation. It is just a useful item, a pair of socks to be worn and washed and worn out. But the joy of creating was there. In this broader definition, our whole lives can be art–the effort, the fear, the faith, the going in circles, the satisfaction and joy, and finally, the wearing and the wearing out is beautiful.

High School graduation

Did You Plan to Have Six Kids?

November 6, 2014 / / 2 Comments

People ask me all the time if I planned to have a large family. Just last week, four people asked me this nicer version of their real question: Why do you have so many kids? It’s taken me a while to be able to answer this honestly. No, I didn’t plan on having a large family. The reason I have six children is, to put it simply, I wanted to. They came one at a time, and six times, we eagerly anticipated a new member of the family.

I didn’t particularly love children as a young woman. I babysat only reluctantly as a teen, preferring my own activities to trying to entertain children. I did plan on having a family eventually, like I planned on owning a house and taking two weeks vacation every year. No plan, though, could have prepared me for the experience of having my own child.

I was excited to be pregnant with my first baby. I had been married for three years–a respectable amount of time, one friend recently assured me–when I started to long for a baby. I started having dreams about babies, and thinking about what it would be like to be a mother. Suddenly, I saw mothers and babies everywhere, and I imagined having my own cooing, adorable bundle of joy.

As my pregnancy progressed, I felt like an alien being had taken over my body. My hormones were bringing chaos to my moods, my skin, my hair and my brain. My growing belly threw me off balance in every way. My clothes didn’t fit, and eventually I didn’t fit. Forgetting my new shape, I tried to squeeze by a grocery cart in checkout line in one embarrassing moment late in pregnancy. I was clumsy and forgetful, frighteningly emotional and hungry all the time.

I felt out of control and unprepared. I volunteered to work in a nursery, hoping to get an idea of how to hold and care for an infant. I was not a natural; I was stiff and afraid of hurting this little person and making him cry. The idea of doing this myself was terrifying. To push back the fear, I took classes on childbirth and nursing, read and re-read books on what to expect, what to buy and what to do. I could not really prepare, I know now. This was not merely a lifestyle or scheduling change. It was a transformation.

If someone had been able to make me understand–really understand–what I was going to have to do to birth this baby, I would have said it was impossible. I’m not that strong. There was no choice, though, and the result of my Herculean effort was a tiny, red infant, crying in my arms. I was overwhelmed. I was in love. How could this perfect little person have come from my body? This was a sense of accomplishment and amazement unlike any I’d known. I was witness to a miracle.

A mother doesn’t give life to a child. A mother is host to creation far above her control, an intimate observer, a captive witness. I began to see other mothers as fellow witnesses to the miracle, and children not as miniature adults, but as someone’s baby. This was wild, messy and mysterious, a connection to the world at a deep, basic level. I was dipping my toes into the surging, primal deep, peering into the unfathomable rhythms of creation, and it was intoxicating.

I dove in. One at a time, we were blessed with five more unique and amazing gifts of new life, and fell in love each time. I loved the whole process: the pregnancy, the birth, the babies, the community of other mothers and babies. As our family grew, I loved the dynamic of older and younger siblings, the playing, teaching, helping; the happy busyness. We had so much fun exploring, camping, creating and being together.

There were times, of course, when I was tired and overwhelmed, but my memory of the days when I was consumed with nursing and diapers and school and birthday parties has taken on a gauzy glow of sweetness and kinship that I think is not too far from the reality.

Sometimes I feel like I was greedy to want to prolong my stay in that stage of life longer than most women do. Sometimes, when I’m completely spent, emotionally, physically, or financially, I think I was crazy. Most of the time, I feel grateful.

I’m amazed by the love I give and receive, the incredible, gifted women and men who call me Mom, and the deep satisfaction I experience in motherhood. I could not have planned for this. My imagination would not have been big enough.

Oliver and Tie

November 4, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Oliver, our golden retriever, was 12 when we said good-bye to him. Our hearts were broken; he had been part of our family since we brought him home as a puppy. He is in the background of almost every childhood memory, his happy, goofy presence at every birthday party, every holiday, every trip to the family cabin in the mountains. Furry blurs of a golden wagging tail brush the edges of photos, and especially in the later years, his sleeping form stretches out in the backdrop of family events. He was always there, a constant companion, calmly witnessing our lives, then jumping up to join us at even the spelled word w-a-l-k.

When he died, I missed him. In the grief though, there was also relief. I didn’t have to worry about leaving him home alone too long, or about his increasing pain and difficultly with daily tasks . Over the course of a few weeks, the tumbleweeds of golden dog hair diminished and the floors stayed clean. When the mood struck, we could leave home for a few days without having to make arrangements for dog care. I decided I would get used to the empty feeling the house had when the kids were away. I was a one-dog woman, I consoled myself. I had known one great dog love.

The kids, though, began to agitate for a new dog. We need a puppy, they told me. Even the kids no longer living at home joined the cry for a new dog. A dog exactly like Oliver. It doesn’t feel like home when there’s not a dog greeting us, they lamented. We can’t go to the cabin without a dog, they implored. I admit, I had looked at Golden puppies on the internet, just a quick peek to see what was out there. When the pressure came, it didn’t take much to persuade me. Before the excitement had a chance to mellow into reality, we were hot on the trail of a puppy.

Our little Tie came home two months after we lost Ollie. We named him for the tiny town our cabin is near, Tie Siding. He was adorable, energetic, hilarious–he cocked his head and perked up his ears and we were smitten. He reminded us so much of Oliver, but was so different at the same time. He charmed us with his love of snuggling, his ability to lay on his back and manipulate his toys with his agile front paws, and his eagerness to please. He was exhausting, though. The promises of help and commitment from the kids wore thin and all but vanished when school started in August. It was me and Tie, and he wasn’t lying down in the background.

Walks and exercise became essential daytime events, and missing one meant an unpleasant evening of diverting Tie from destructive chewing and annoying attempts to pull us into his slobbery games of tug-o-war. He loved his toys, and he loved putting them under the furniture and then digging and barking to get them. A tired dog is a good dog, so the adage goes. It was my job to do the tiring out, and I wasn’t very good at it. I began to question the wisdom of getting another dog. He was driving me crazy.

A neighbor who also had a puppy told me about a park up the street where neighbors with dogs met to let them play. A few minutes of frolicking with other puppies was much more effective than a long walk, he assured me. After trying it once and reaping the benefit of a calm evening, I became a regular. As often as I could, I went to the park, let Tie off his leash for his romp, and settled in to chatting with the dog owners who visit the park every evening. After a few weeks, I started seeing these neighbors around town, and inviting other dog owners I met to join the fun. Some evenings, the park was crowded with racing, wrestling dogs. Other nights, it was just a dog friend or two. Every time, Tie would come home happy and tired. A good dog.

Still, I wonder if it was a good idea to get a puppy. My fifth child left home to start college, leaving our nest nearly empty. One more remains at home for a few years, and Tie will be a sweet companion for him. The work of caring for a dog, though, could outweigh that on certain slobbery, busy evenings. I was ready to be done with that responsibility. He ties me down. Was our name choice a subliminal cry for prudence?

He also pulls me out, though–out into my neighborhood for some exercise when I would rather sit on my couch, out into my community to meet people I otherwise would have no connection to, and out of myself to see the world from the viewpoint of a purely happy, loving, excited canine. Tie is breaking into my one-dog heart. I can’t resist the look of expectation on his furry face when he rides in the passenger seat of the car, taking in the sights; his love for his blankie, and how he shows it to all visitors; the way he leaps in the air with all four paws when he sees me putting on my shoes for a walk; and his warmth on my feet when he follows me wherever I go and lies down near me. Whether it was a good idea or not, I think I love him.

The other day on a walk with Tie, I realized I don’t accidentally call him Ollie anymore. I’m not constantly evaluating Tie’s personality and behavior in contrast to Oliver’s, the only way I could make sense of him at first. My memories of Oliver aren’t quite as distinct as they were, now blending into general dog experience. That makes me sad, missing Oliver again, my first dog love, but also happy for Tie’s sweet company.  I guess I’m not a one-dog woman.

More Science than Art

October 24, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Preserving food–canning–is more science than art. The acidity, temperature and sterilization are all crucial to ensure that the end product, a jar of tomatoes or peaches or pickles, is safe to eat.

Fruits and vegetables must be at the peak of ripeness, with no bruising or mold. Sugar or acid, such as salt, lemon juice or vinegar, must be present in sufficient amounts. Food and liquid needs to come to a certain height in the jar, with headroom to allow expansion, but not to compromise the seal. The lids must be new, the jars must be free of nicks or cracks, clean and hot, and the water they are processed in must be be deep enough to cover the jars by an inch, boiling constantly for the prescribed amount of time to kill any bacteria in the food. The lids must seal, with their distinctive pop when the flexible middle of the lid pulls in as the contents cool, creating a suction that protects the food from outside air and contaminants.

There isn’t much room for creative interpretation of the instructions. The story of the unfortunate canner who erred in some crucial step, and paid dearly by dropping dead from one taste of a green bean from a contaminated jar keeps would-be experimenters in line.

Canning is not required for survival the way it once was. Before canned goods were readily available at the grocery store, preserving the harvest in warm months was essential to eating in the cold months when the garden was asleep beneath frozen earth. It still may be the best way to cope with a prolific garden, when there are more tomatoes or beets than can be reasonably consumed, but it is not a hungry winter that compels the modern-day canner.

For me, it is the desire to keep bounty from going to waste, and to preserve it for enjoyment later. There is romance to capturing the abundance of the season, whether from my garden, the farmers market, the neighbor’s fruit tree, or even the grocery store when produce is sweet and cheap. It is a way to reconnect with the values taken for granted by our great-grandparents–local, organic, in-season food prepared simply, so the natural flavors and nutrition are preserved and savored.

There is a wholeness to home-canned foods that is missing from grocery store cans. It isn’t big business, it’s personal. The peaches that grace the table in February were lugged home in August, peeled and pitted and snugged into jars, fitted with lids, carefully submerged in a boiling-water bath, then cleaned and dried an tucked away for the day when the only fruit the market has to offer is bananas from Ecuador and apples from Australia. The peaches in cans at the store can’t have been as lovingly prepared, and whether the taste is markedly different or not, the  experience of serving and eating them is unique.

A home-canned jar, taken from the limited stores in the pantry, is like a gift. The gentle whoosh as the lid lifts, breaking the seal that kept summer ripeness safely locked inside, the glugging of the contents into a bowl or pan,  and the aroma of the preserves recreate the ambiance of the hot kitchen at the peak of harvest.

The delight is not just in the serving, it’s also in the the storing. Rows of white pears, golden peaches, orange salsa, red tomatoes, ruby pickled beets, purple plums, brown cinnamon-spiced applesauce and green pickles line the pantry shelves, a rainbow of well-being.

As I survey my work, there’s a sense of fullness and readiness for the dormant season. As the cold months count down to spring, the jars are emptied and returned, and the color drains from the the shelves just as the the first blooms of forsythia, then lilac, begin to color the landscape and fill the air with a sweet scent; no fruit yet, but the promise is in the air.

Somewhere along the way, art mixes with science and the two are intertwined. The science of preserving food is necessary for the process, but the the labor and the sharing blend into the food to create something that feels more like art.

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