Miss Domestic

Two and a half years after moving out of my house, after moving out of my life - guess what! It appears I've reached some kind of milestone. Hah! I bought some beautiful, chunky textured, chocolatey-colored dishes today, that caught my eye, and that I really love. Yep, plates, bowls, salad plates, cups; service for eight. Silly, yes, but who cares? It made me happy. For a couple of reasons. Let me backtrack here for a minute...

I think most people who've been divorced will know just what I'm talking about when I say one of the most depressing, energy-sucking, drudgeful tasks I encountered upon moving out of my home, was the first big trip to Target or Walmart for household necessities. And when I say necessities, I mean strictly the bare bones essentials to make one's house tick. Pots and pans, utensils, silverware, glasses, a dish drainer, laundry baskets. I clearly recall making those purchases; even though I was in a divorce-induced haze of horror at even having to do it.

When you have zero enthusiasm, you just walk the household aisles and load up your cart. You really don't give much of a damn what the drinking glasses look like, or what pattern the silverware is. This is survival shopping, baby. I know I was on auto-pilot filling that first cart. The newly divorced - you can spot us easily. We're the ones with the glazed look in our eyes, pale and hunched over, pushing the big cart slowly past the spatulas and corkscrews, in a sluggish state of bewilderment.

Shopping trips in general, for me, were pretty horrific. What was once kind of fun – my spouse and I picking out furniture, or a cool tv – turned into a dismal stomach-churning chore I didn’t want to do, once I was re-single.

Because I was drained, in a hundred ways, and tired in a hundred more, I also felt physically weak. I bought stuff that was light, and easy to carry. When you're single (as in, newly divorced after 25 years), you have to unload and carry all your stuff in yourself. Into a house where there's no one home but you. Then you unpack it, put it where it goes, deal with the cartons and wrappings and trash. Tiring, very tiring.

I bought the most light-weight dinner dishes I could find. Those Corelle ones; you know what I mean. You get the whole set for about $20. The ones you can't break, no matter what. In plain white, because looking at the patterned sets made me feel even more depressed and pathetic. I figured I would replace them with something nice, sometime when I was feeling better.

I just didn't know it would take this long.

This was also something that all the guys I dated during that time had in common. In each of their kitchens, inside the cabinets, was the obligatory set of cheap Corelle dishes. In white.

I've had a couple fun parties at my house in those two and a half years. And I've had some people over for dinner, but it always required huge amounts of focus and energy, or else it was just some thrown-together hodgepodge of weirdmeal. Once my sister came to spend the weekend with me and brought my nieces and their friend. After a long day of shopping, we found ourselves at home, with no energy left to go out to dinner. I got out some leftover pizza, chips and dip, cookies in a package, and a big bag of cheesecorn, without really considering I hadn’t covered the four food groups. Or even one of the four. The girls gathered around the table; they were little and really didn’t give a rip whether they were eating hot dogs or HoHo’s, so popcorn seemed normal dinner fare. My sister looked over the spread, held back some heavy duty giggling, and said... “I see you’ve outdone yourself, as usual.” Pretty much turned into a gigglefest after that.

So, today. Today is remarkable in that apparently some of my long-hibernating homemaking skills are reappearing. Remarkable in that I bought settings for eight. Hmm. I’m feeling the urge to rifle through a cookbook. I think I see a dinner party or two, on the horizon.

Baseball

Ah, the timeless sport of baseball. Eight kids at home all summer, we divided ourselves into groups; generally, but not always, age wise. The five on the top end tended to hang together, likewise the three younger ones formed a group of their own. Our cousins down the road did the same, and three of them were around our age. Plenty enough kids to play baseball all day long. My older siblings Pat and Mike, myself, two younger brothers Paul and Joe, cousins Mike, Bob and Jerilynn.

Baseball was a pretty big deal. We watched the Twins on TV on game nights, after racing home on our bikes from our own wins and losses. I had a hand-me-down glove, but my brothers' carefully hoarded money went toward purchasing baseballs, bats and gloves. We saved the baseball cards that came with the bubblegum we bought, and studied the stats on the backs, quizzed each other on them. Pat and Mike had it all down, and couldn't be stumped.

We started out playing at the Wilson town hall, which was a converted one room schoolhouse back in it's heyday, complete with still standing outhouse, out back. Home plate was the front entrance, and since the building sat at a diagonal on the lot, the shape was just naturally conducive to a baseball diamond. Second base being the corner where the north/south and east/west dirt roads crossed. The outfield was, well, anything past that. It was a good place to play, we thought.

One day someone cracked a pop-up foul, hard, up and arcing backwards just perfectly enough to smash through the transom window high above the door. Dang. When Dad got home from work, he said we'd have to call Curtis, who was on the town hall board (and by the way, was also the one who paid us for trapping gophers during the soft ground months), tell him we'd broken the window and would pay for the repair. We looked up his number in the phone book; there was some discussion over who would call, and some anxious conversation over how much it might cost to fix it. We hashed it over a bit - maybe $5? What if it's $20? We'd certainly all have to chip in, and gopher money only went so far. I've got to believe Curtis got a pretty good chuckle out of that phone call. My older brother Mike did the phoning duty, and then afterwards reported that Curtis didn't seem mad at all. In fact he said we wouldn't have to pay for it, and said he was glad we'd called and told him. Huh.

A couple years went by, and we graduated to a better ballpark. My brothers used our lawn mower to mow a ball field into the meadow across from our house. It was one of those things where if they'd asked Dad beforehand, he'd have said no, but since they went ahead and did it without asking, he got a chuckle out of it when he saw it, and it was fine after that. They made a darn fine backstop behind home plate, a fancy thing made of woven wire (readily available on a farm) and two by fours set upright into the ground, and they cut in all the base lines. It was a mighty nice play to play, almost professional like, with the real backstop and all. Wait - who is that stepping up to home plate? Is it...? Could it be...? Harmon Killebrew, just about to crack out another mile long home run? Nope, it's 11 year old Mary Ellen, leaning in to bang out a very bad, bobbling, bouncing double, and drive in a run. Yaaay!! The crowd roars...!

We played all summer, every summer, for a long time. I wonder when we played our last game, all those years ago. Whenever it was - I'm glad I didn't know it was our last.

Easter and Kites

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. Growing up, Easter was all about Lent, fish on Fridays, the Stations of The Cross, The Glorious Mysteries, the Resurrection; the religious aspects of the holiday, of course. That's what Easter IS about. But also, all the tie-ins: the deeper meanings commercialized - massive dozens of eggs for decorating, coconut covered bunny cakes, and hidden baskets heaped with candy. A big family Easter dinner. Kite flying, and if it was a warm Easter, maybe getting the bikes out. Lots of time spent outdoors after mass.

I got up early last Saturday, to drive north for the Easter weekend. The wind was strong, with a blue sky and a lot of sunshine, so I stopped in Baxter to pick up eight kites and some bubbles. Before I drove out to the lake, I went to my brother's place just west of Jenkins. It's right near where we grew up; the whole area has that familiar, comfortable feel of home.

The kids tore into their candy with great enthusiasm, the same way we'd have done when we were little. They surely have no idea how much fun they are. My brother suggested they not eat too much right away, as 1.) they'd not had candy for all of Lent, and 2.) they hadn't had lunch yet. No one seemed to hear this suggestion. The living room was a cacophony of speedy, layered conversations: Hey, I've had these before! Can you open this? Daddy can I eat the chocolate bunny? (No.) And from round faced, solemn Josiah, quietly sitting by me on the floor, plucking candy from his bag: Whut dis? An whut dis?

Luke gets up to demo his skill on the piano. He's new to playing, and taught himself. He plinks out Fur Elise. I repeat: they surely have no idea how delightful they are.

My brother Paul is visiting, and he mentions that we should all go kite flying over on the meadow by Ol Yeller. He called it Mary's Meadow. No sooner were the words spoken, and the room was empty - every kid ran to get a coat.

There's no turning back - eleven of us pile into Joe and Amber's bus-sized van. (Three rows of back seats, with room for two in the front...). Amber comes home with more kites just before we leave, and now we have more than enough for everyone.

It's the perfect amount of wind for kite flying. And blue sky and sunshine. Those white puffy clouds that look like imaginary anythings.

We fly kites and blow bubbles and explore the old sheds, till everyone's had enough, and pile back into the van to go home.

Before I leave, Anna and Rosie show me their bunkhouse in the backyard. There are two bunk beds for a sleepover, and a cool loft up above, and plenty of places to swing from and jump off. Although, as Rosie shows me a maneuver that propels her feet precariously from a shelf to awfully near a window, she tells me she's really not exactly supposed to be doing it. I ask them what's the 'worst' thing they did out here that they did not get in trouble for. They both thought about it for a minute and agreed that it was when they wanted to paint the outside of the bunkhouse pink and purple, got the paint and brushes and were just going to start painting when they were spotted by one of the boys. Plan foiled.

It does bear (continuous) repeating. They certainly have no idea how much fun they are.

Believe me, I'd like to stop writing about dating and single life too. You're probably thinking, why doesn't she just shut it, and move on. And I truly have moved on, and I'm happy. Really happy. Most of the time, in fact nearly ALL the time, I'm pretty much spouting sunshine and rainbows and chin-licking puppy dogs, butterflies and bluebirds. The works.

But I have the occasional downer day.

I mourn the loss of my marriage. I miss my ex. I miss my married life. Divorce is sad. And wrenching and hard.

I miss going to Home Depot/Menards/Builders Square with my spouse. He could build and remodel anything, expertly, and did. During the 25 years we were married we made lumberyard trips for a house remodel, three built-from-the-ground-up cabins, lake cabin renovations, and a lake home built-from-the-ground-up. Those were just the spare time weekend jobs, of places that were ours. That's a lot of trips to get stuff. I always liked those lumberyard-y hardware places. They smell nice and are full of all kinds of intriguing stuff. We had a good life together, my ex and I, both of us being the kind of people who can't wait to get up and start the day in the morning. Thrilled about life.

The other day I had an awesome day at the office, per usual really; I got a big project finished and off my slate and some interesting new ones stacked up and ready, and it was about 70 degrees outside; a crazy wonderful weather day. At the end of the day I walked out to my car, and across the parking lot I saw a vehicle loading up some windows or something from one of the bays in the building next door. And it hit me, took my breath away, brought to mind all those times my ex and I loaded up our truck with construction stuff, remodeling materials; all that fun stuff we used to do. I cried all the way home. Uncontrollably, hysterically, in the safe confines of my car.

I miss a million things we used to do together in the 26 or so years we spent with each other. I don't know how to deal with that vast hunk of space/time, 26 years that's disappeared from my life. I walk around it, bewildered and numb, this enormous hole, no apparent way to fill it. I will have to use the rest of my life to make the other side of this donut so substantial, so wide, and filled with life and living and love that eventually the hole in the middle becomes small by comparison. It will never be inconsequential, it was my life, but I have to believe it will be okay eventually.

I mourn the loss of a lot of things from those days.

But, more than that, I now look forward to the grace and peace and experience and excitement of each new day. Platitudinal? Perhaps, but true nonetheless. I'm excited to start the day when I wake up in the morning. I'm happy when I go to bed. I like my life a lot, it's interesting and full, and a whole lot of fun. I'm thrilled, for so many things. Again. And I'm thankful for that.