People in New York talk fast about world news, the stock market, the crossword puzzle of the day, football or the Yankees, politics. Philosophy. I yearn for this kind of stimulating, intelligent discourse, relationships built around invigorating topics. It is why being a university professor and writing guide is such a thrill. What is better than meeting new people with fascinating depth of insight and robust story?
My Mama
How comforting it is to hear her talk about her projects around the farm, how her harvest is done and stored away: quarts of green beans, peaches, cinnamon apple sauce, and red beets, in neat rows of glass jars down in the root cellar. Her firewood is stacked neatly by the door. What I once found mundane and repetitive, I now yearn for.
Cozy are the simple phrases, the tag lines, the turns of phrase that fill the spaces with those we love. I lean back into my mama’s worn jokes and oft-told stories as I would a favorite chair softened with the passing of years. When I feel displaced or lonely, I call my mama to hear about the birds, or cattle, or quart jars of tomato sauce and apple pie filling. She is refinishing a piece of furniture or building a table. “Oh hello. I was just thinking about you.” She says, and I pull my feet up and tuck in.
My Parents
Tonight, I’ll fall asleep under the familiar comforts of quilts, cedar smoke, and my parents’ voices. After several long days of travel, I have turned in for the night. They sit, Mama in her rocker and Daddy in his recliner close to the woodstove in the living room. Their muted dialogue is about family and feeding calves. The 55-year timbre of their ritual discussion about local news and the day’s events carries up the metal flue to my childhood bed where I’m camped directly above, a cantor calling back across the years, primal vocal patterns woven into the earliest cords of my childhood memory.
As the heft of the moment settles upon my chest, I lie wide awake in wonder of it all. I’m grateful they have each other now. Still. After all these years. After all the mundane victories and glorious defeats. After the push and pull, and near disasters, here they are. How remarkable. What a mystery love is. How many nights have I lain awake here and miles from this place trying to make sense, trying to reason, trying to right how many wrongs?
But tonight, I surrender to the business of gratitude and to memorizing the cadence of my parents’ voices.