Little Awakenings

4-19-2005

In the German movie, Mostly Martha, Martha, the second-best chef in Hamburg, obsesses on her work to keep the emotional world at bay. All of that changes when her sister dies, and Martha must provide her orphaned niece with the love the child requires in order to heal. But healing love is unlimited, and Martha is unwillingly included in its cure. In the final scene, Martha’s therapist has cooked a dessert for Martha, following her instructions, but his effort falls short of perfection. “Did you do this, add this, stir just so?” Martha asks, trying to pinpoint the error. Finally she addresses the sugar. He had not use the kind she suggested. “You can taste the sugar I used?” he says. “Of course not,” she says. “I can taste the sugar you didn’t use.” And as it is with sugar, so it is with love. If my life is not quite sweet, perhaps I am tasting the love I haven’t used.

4-14-05

Pallets

Miss Fran wanted pallets for her garage and basement. Being twenty years younger and having truck access made me the get-it-girl. I quickly became pallet aware: Sears, Wal-Mart, the grocery store, the in-business plant nursery and the nursery for sale. Sears had pallets, sometimes, on Tuesday afternoons only, and we would have to come and get them before the mysterious pallet man swooped them up. Wal-Mart, the grocery store, and open plant nursery used theirs (those things cost twenty dollars apiece, the grocery man said). The For Sale telephone number on the closed nursery was wrong. I remembered years ago when all the pallets were free, behind every building to be snatched by teen-agers for bonfires; but no more. Finally the deli had five wooden pallets and two plastic ones, and the skinny young manager helped me load them because his momma would be mad at him if he didn’t. Other than being slightly taken back I was old enough to be somebody’s momma’s concern, I had netted the prize.

But I remained pallet aware. The neighbor who owned the auto parts store said she got them in on occasion, and was always happy to give them away. The For Sale sign and the pallets disappeared from the closed plant nursery. Today I went to the lumber yard. Back in the corner were haphazard stacks of pallets, plus some littering the edge of one of the tin buildings.

“Do you sell those pallets?” I asked the check-out clerk.

“No,” he said. “If you want some, ask Travis. He’s not here right now.”

Fran doesn’t need more pallets, but I’ve seen my lesson for today. If you want something, keep looking. Somewhere it’s waiting for you, in abundance.

4-16-05
Strawberries

For a while I’ve been eyeing the strawberries in the grocery. They are big and red and look very eatable. Next to them is a flat cake called Bavarian sponge cake. The package of strawberries is huge, and I have resisted. Until yesterday, in honor of delicious spring weather, when I went whole hog…strawberries, Bavarian sponge cake and whipped cream. After I got home, I waited until late afternoon. Then I sliced the berries, sprinkled them with a tiny bit of sugar (even though the berries were so large, and not real juicy, they were sweet), layered them on the cake, and topped it off with whipped cream. I could barely wait until I was seated to munch my first bite. And the cake was dry, tasteless and crumbly. Which brings us to today’s lesson…if you choose a poor foundation, no matter how much lush sweetness you layer on top, you’re going to be disappointed in the end.


4-16-07
Awareness

After my dad was paralyzed and we came home from the hospital, we badly needed a ramp. I cannot now remember how long it took us to get one. The men from his church group were going to build it, then the carpenter down the street. I read everything I could get my hands on concerning ramps. All I remember now is that the incline should be one inch of rise for each twelve inches of height, which means, I think, if your front door is two feet off the ground, you must have 24 feet of ramp. Let me tell you, that’s a lot of ramp. We finally hired the lumber yard to build it, and it was beautiful and liberating. My father’s been dead for two years now, the house sold, the wonderful ramp dismantled, but to this day I admire the fine slope of a well-built ramp.

When we cleared out my parents’ home of fifty years, I scrounged packing boxes for months. It’s still hard pass a good box wasted in the trash.

Recently it’s been pallets that I’ve been hunting for a friend. Though she’ll never require another pallet in this lifetime, I now note the location of every pallet I pass.

Busted up concrete. Yep. My neighbor landscaped her walks and flower beds with slabs of concrete, and I decided to do the same. While I don’t have the tenacity of my neighbor, I do have piles of concrete I’ve begged, and I think the guy who helped me in my yard a while, stole. Don’t ask. He’s not working for the city any more.

The church two blocks over is tearing down their original sanctuary, and I walk past it every day. A couple of days ago, I saw an amazing sight, and when I passed my neighbor’s house, she was working in the yard, in her new herb bed bounded by small, symmetrical hunks of concrete.

“Mary Jane,” I said, “you won’t believe the prize rubble over at the church.”

She fell out laughing. “Keith was so happy when I quit forcing him to pick up broken concrete,” she said. “I don’t know if I can break his heart, but I’ve got to go and look.”

Somebody else’s ramp, boxes in the trash, pallets, and rubble. Dogwoods, geese, kittens. Harsh words, misdeeds, a helping hand, a kind remark. Be warned. If you focus on it, you’re going to see it for a long, long, time.