Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Why Do I Own This? and Other Pressing Matters Friday Round-Up
This has been on my bookshelf, apparently for a long time, but I just saw it a few days ago. Written on the front cover is 12-13-44 which I take to be a date. Inside is stamped a very faded $1.75, its price. I am not a classical music history buff nor does anyone in the house play an instrument, my repeated efforts to learn “Rocket Man” on the piano notwithstanding. The house and the room and the shelves were empty when we moved in nearly forty years ago. I think it was somehow just coughed up by the house. That’s my theory.
My mother’s wedding dress and mine are in a box taped shut in the attic and I am wondering: why? I put them there like I was preparing a time capsule for the downtown library. It’s impossible to throw stuff like that away and yet no one wants it – no one will ever wear my wedding dress (although it was pretty nice for $100 made by a seamstress from a Butterick pattern in 1969) or my mother’s which she made herself with purple velvet in 1937. Every time I look at the handsewn seams, I want to cry. Stuff like that – and there is plenty in this old and very large house – probably ought to go into a big bonfire, have a ceremony attached to their end on the earth.
This week I talked about trauma with a Vietnam Vet who was a combat medic. This was part of my effort to get to know better the people serving with me on the Commission on Aging. The hour-long talk with this man, his ready smile and great laugh, his stories about the military, his hopes for the future, his serious reflections and deep empathy for all veterans and everyone experiencing hardship was a gift. I love old people. They are so brilliant and strong.
I love slinging hash at Street Angels. Yesterday afternoon, we packaged 160 meals with a Taco Rice Bake with cheese, tortillas, salsa and sour cream, and little wee fruit cups. The meals went into insulated bags and on to the outreach buses for last night’s routes. It’s not saving the world or rescuing people from homelessness and poverty. Other people do that, not me. But that bake, made with donated ground bison, rice, tomatoes, onions, and black olives was a thing of beauty and I packed enough into each little meal container to sink a ship. I know how to sling that bake. Give me the biggest spoon.
Two of my kids have birthdays this weekend. They are both smart and good looking as my dad would say. They are also really nice to me which I appreciate in many ways. And funny. Both are exceptionally funny. Together they could do standup. Of course, I am funny. But usually only in writing and then in an understated, very subtle way. Wry. Wry is good. But outright funny is better. My two oldest kids. Hilarious.
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
love the phrase …. something that the house coughed up. Inspired!
I tend not to hang onto stuff so I would be as puzzled as you Jan over mystery items being showing up as gifts from the house. I mostly want to take care of extraneous things now so at some point down the line my kids don’t start cleaning out my stuff, stumble onto something and say out loud to each other “where the hell did this come from? I guess we never really knew mom at all…” in puzzled voices.
Extraneous things is a great term – there are sure a lot of them around here.
I write comments and they just disappear. I tried. I give up.
I have a lot of old music, but it was music I played when I could play which I can’t do anymore (my hands don’t want to). Some of it looks so difficult, I can’t even imagine how I ever did. It turns out, the ability to play the piano or probably, any instrument, is NOTHING like riding a bicycle. You do not remember unless you keep practicing. I don’t even own a piano anymore. I finally threw out Grieg’s Concerto in A Minor because I picked up the cover and it literally turned to dust in my hands. It had my name written on the front in my best 14 year-old handwriting. I had hands back then.
Marilyn – your comment came through. I should send you this book or whatever you would call it. It’s not a ‘score’ and it’s sure not sheet music – it’s 176 pages of music notation. Incredible.
Goo0d evening! I grew up in Milwaukee and Brookfield, went to UWM for a while. I wonder if you know or knew someone named Clarence Johnson, people called him CJ. He was a Black graduate student at UWM in sociology in 1969-1970 and a Vietnam vet. He had a pet rabbit, and he was very kind to me back in the day. I’ve never been able to find him, and I’m hoping that he’s had a good life. PS “Wry” is very good!
Hi Jean – send me an email at jwilberg@wi.rr.com
Love your words, but I’d love to see pics of the wedding dress and taco bake.
Oh my – well, the taco bake is easier than the wedding dress. I’d have to go in the attic and untape the box which is not nothing because I made sure it was very secure. LOL
Wry, hilarious, and aging. Not necessarily in that order, though, ALL worthwhile, as is this post is! Thank you, Jan!
Well, thank you Carin!
You are my Queen in so many ways. Keep, on, baby!