Cooking with Memories

In my kitchen I have a colander that has seen long use and better days.  One of its 3 legs is wonky, a large dent mars its rounded shape and a small crease has a bit of rust.  It has the feel of age, its design a repeating pattern of small holes that is definitely not au courant.  

It has a companion:  a sparkly bright modern large-holed colander with a solid round base...no legs to wobble.

I use my Mom's every time.  Its dents and wonky leg go unnoticed.  Using something of hers in the kitchen makes me happy.  I feel the connection to her and to all those times we spent in the kitchen together.  

One of my first cooking memories is of a cold  and snowy Thanksgiving in our walk-up flat in Chicago.  

It is the day before Thanksgiving and I am 4 years old.  I am sitting on the floor, my legs straight out in front of me, white socks and lace up shoes on my feet, a red and black plaid pleated skirt covering my legs.  I hold our large dutch oven on my lap and I am picking the homemade loaf of bread into pieces for the next day's stuffing.  My mom is busy at the stove.  I am happy.

The colander reminds me of this memory and many others; it is a welcome connection to the past.  My Mom taught my sister and I to cook, her feet up after a hard day, instructing us on how to prepare yet another of her magical 150+ ways to turn hamburger into something...from her porcupine meatballs to empanadas to mystery casserole.  

The colander was always there, perhaps hidden in the back of the crowded cupboards, but definitely a star when needed, just as it is today.  I cherish it, I cherish the memories it brings, I still cherish my Mom, gone these many years.  When I hold the colander, it is a tiny bit like holding her.

My Dad was a dreamer; my Mom did not have that luxury.  She was the practical one, the one who made the budget and kept to it, the one who darned socks, made our clothes, kept our house clean, made the hard times seem easy. 

I learned many lessons from my Dad, the dreamy ones about being an archaeologist or a musician or buying a hard-scrabble place in the middle of nowhere and fleeing the city life.  From my Mom, I learned to cook and sew and clean and budget, to stick to a task, to finish what I start, to keep the worn and wonky if you can still use it.

The colander, worn and wonky, still works.  I still use it.  

Thank you, Mom.  Welcome to my kitchen.

Journeys with Stones

All my life, I have loved the feel, the look, the heft of stones.  From the smallest pebble to the jagged stone of mountains:  I have felt a connection to them all.  In these, my later years, my love of stone has finally found an outlet in making jewelry.  There, in my hobby gone wild, I can savor the feel, the look and the mood of stones and remember their connection to small joys from past times.

In my family, I shared this love with my father.  He loved rocks too.  When he had to move from his beloved Texas to Washington D.C. for business, the movers complained that "This box is so heavy...what's in it?  Rocks?"  To which my father replied simply:  "Yes".  The practical side of my Mother was horrified at the expense of moving a box of rocks; her love for my Dad labelled the box "Dave's Rocks - Handle with Care".

He took those rocks, his favorites from a lifetime of collecting, with him.  These were not stones of distinction; in fact they were generally nondescript.  But they were markers of memory and a paean to his love of stones.  He took an Edwards limestone with a large hole as well, to ground him in his new place and to remind him that they would return to San Antonio.

He and Mom spent too many years in the purgatory he considered Washington to be.  But in the end he came home with all of these rocks - and a few more to mark the time spent there.

The limestone rock with the hole once again sat on their patio in San Antonio and all was right with the world.

Those patio rocks had many companions, including the three rocks he always carried in his pocket.  Plain rocks, picked up who knows where, these stones took on a soft sheen, as though they had been tumbled.  Through the years, they had....in his pocket as he lived his life.

For me, stones are a reminder of my connection to the earth, to God and to my Dad.  I love them in all forms and I never met one I didn't want to pick up, an obsession that has made many suitcases inordinately heavy on journeys back home.

Now I make jewelry, a creative process grounded in my love of rock and stone.  Making jewelry gives me immense satisfaction, not just from the creative process, but from these deep connections I feel in my soul.

There is a Hindu proverb that I have never forgotten:  "God sleeps in stone, breathes in plants, dreams in animals and awakens in man."

What better expression of that thought than to create beauty in jewelry with the beauty found in stone?  That is my current journey.

My father still has his three stones.  I placed them in his pocket as he lay in his casket.  Now they roam the heavens with him and I sometimes dream of his journey as I work in my studio.  One day I will share it, but for now, his love of stone has a new legacy in my jewelry.