Buried Treasure


Have you been doing some rainy day projects while you’ve been at home? We have, and wow! I’ve found buried treasure! It happened yesterday, when I was cleaning out my bulging recipe folders. (Seriously. Who needs old recipes from newspapers and Borden’s Condensed Milk anymore?) In the bottom of one file I found a small paper that made me catch my breath: I recognized my mom’s handwriting on it. My mom died suddenly and unexpectedly when she was only 71. Because I didn’t get to say goodbye to her, anything she ever wrote is a precious treasure to me now. And here in my hands was a note she wrote to me:

The grocery ad on the back shows that this is from July 2001, just a few years before she died. And it was just what I needed yesterday. It’s so perfect. I’m sure my mom knew that I’d be unlikely to have instant rice or to ever use it, so she had to make sure to tell me that it was needed. And why.  🙄 She even gave me a kiss and hug at the end. ❤️

But here’s the amazing part. Did you read the instructions? The first one is “Wash hands.” Have you ever seen a recipe that says that? I haven’t. But isn’t it amazing that it’s in the recipe from Mom that I found now, when all we do is wash our hands all day? Right when we probably all want to just have our mom hold us and tell us what to do, here’s a sweet note from my mother telling me to wash my hands. Maybe not in her own words, but it’s good enough for me. It gives me comfort and helps me feel her love at what may turn out to be the hardest time of my life.

I’m pretty sure that I will never make Sassy Chicken Skillet Dinner. But I know for a fact that I will never toss this recipe. Thanks, Mom!

Now that I think about it, I’ve been uncovering treasures every day. There’s the unexpected slowing down of my still hectic life; even in retirement, it seems that I’ve been going at high speed most of the time. Now there's the luxury of having time for all kinds of things that might usually fall to the bottom of my agenda, especially things that I enjoy and don’t do often enough. There are new opportunities to to take online classes or listen to performances and presentations even though we can’t attend in person. We were able to attend last night’s terrific OMSI Science Pub from our living room. (It’s available for viewing now, too:Columbia Gorge Science Pub) There’s the joy of being with family. Carl and I always said we wanted more time together. Now we have it. And while it grieves me not to be able to hug my children and grandchildren, we are finding new ways to be in touch, and our conversations feel more precious. These are only a few of the prizes I’m finding these days.

How about you? Have you found any buried treasure lately? Maybe it’s even buried within you. These days are giving all of us a chance to be more introspective, to summon our creativity, and to pay closer attention to our experience of daily life.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some information and resources about mindfulness. Until then, take care, and stay healthy.

Love,
Nancie/Mom/Mimi/Grandma

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Counting the Chicken Money

Image
I worked as a bank teller while I was in college. After I graduated in 1974, I went to work at a branch in a busy commercial district. This was back in the days of night deposits. One of the businesses that brought its cash to the bank dropbox each night was a fast food chicken restaurant. Each morning the tellers would count night deposits in a ritual that I can see -- and smell -- to this day. Nobody wanted to count the chicken money. We'd gather around a conference table while our manager wheeled in a big cart of night deposit bags and dumped them out before us. The heavy canvas bags were nearly identical: each fairly grimy pouch had the name of the bank stenciled across the side and a strong zipper across the top. But even though they looked alike, the chicken money bag always stood out from the rest. You could smell that bag no matter where you were sitting. And that was before it was opened. The actual money reeked. Counting the night deposits was like a game of musical c
Read more

Motivation

Yesterday I talked about trying to hold more realistic expectations for ourselves and others. I know that that's a challenge for a lot of us right now. It's a struggle for me, and I hear from many of you that you're wrestling with it, too. One of the things I hear is that some are feeling a lack of motivation. I've been told that it's hard to get even paid work done, much less personal tasks that we need or want to do. I'm also hearing concerns about getting students to do their online schoolwork. "How do I motivate my children," some of you ask, "when I'm having a hard time motivating myself?"  When you say, "I'm having a hard time being motivated right now," what I hear with my therapy ears is, "I may be struggling with stress and mood." And who would be surprised by that? The ongoing stress affects us all, and likely even more than we know. We're probably all grieving on some level, whether we perceive i
Read more

Choosing Joy

It seems a lifetime since my last post. In that time, my photographer son was arrested while on assignment to cover the protests, and I broke my left heel in several places in a freak accident with my little grandchild. More about those later. The point is that life as we know it can turn in a heartbeat, and in ways completely outside our control. We always have a choice, though, about how we respond. If anyone knows about unjust imprisonment, physical pain, or mental and emotional anguish, they would be His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and the Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. The same could be said for the late Honorable John Lewis, Member of Congress representing the Fifth District of Georgia. Between them, these three icons of grace under extreme circumstances have experienced deep personal and community pain. Archbishop Tutu grew up poor in a segregated society. Childhood polio left him with an atrophied hand, a younger
Read more

Land Acknowledgments

Image
My husband and I own a home that stands on sacred and stolen land, land once home to indigenous wildlife and to indigenous peoples. The deer and coyotes we sometimes see in our neighborhood are descended from creatures who roamed here freely before the developers descended.  On our street, October 2020 I have not yet been able to determine exactly which First Peoples lived on the land where my home sits, but the Atfilati band of the Kalapuya (Tualatins) seasonally migrated to a nearby area to fish, hunt, and forage, and the Clowella Chinooks also made their home near mine. The Portland Metro area rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Tumwater, and Watlala Bands of Chinook, the Tualatin Kalapuya, the Molalla, and other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River.  Beginning with the first "settlers" in our area, the Native peoples here were nearly wiped out by disease. Territorial and, after 1859, federal policies such as boar
Read more

Weekend Edition: Holding Space for Humor

Image
These are dark and heavy times, to be sure, and there is much cause for weeping. I had a moment myself yesterday, after spending distanced time with a beloved small grandchild I cannot hug or hold. We all have griefs to bear. All the more reason, though, to keep space for humor in our lives and to look for it every day. Not to deny the pain or minimize its reality, but to strive for some balance. Here are some photographs of humor we've spotted on our recent walks in our neighborhood and elsewhere around Portland: Misspelling aside, I'd love to have this one in my yard. And for those who've forgotten Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks sketch, here it is again, complete with corny laugh track: Silly Walks This one is a repeat for this blog, but in case you missed it the first time: You probably know all about the plastic ponies hooked to the horse rings around old Portland neighborhoods. But have you seen this one? Here's one from my friend Ted, a
Read more