Monthly Archives: September 2013

A Hammam How-To: Or, Get Ready to Relax

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Cheryl L. Ware

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Today I have been tired and kind of sleepy.  For some reason, today I’ve also wished that I could be transported to a genuine hammam.  It’s been that kind of day.

“Turkish bath” conjures up all sorts of images, not all pleasant.  But the very word hammam instantly lulls me — maybe it’s the ah sounds and the mmm sounds.  I mean, put your lips together and say “mmm” and feel the vibrations.  It’s like humming.  In fact, if I think about it, maybe I can just use the word hammam as a mantra.

I’d read about hammams, but never had the opportunity to try out out.  Not until I first visited Istanbul in 2005.  In the few short days I was there, I knew that I wanted to try one out.  I mentioned this to a friend who was also there, and he talked to some Turkish friends of his.  Thus my initiation into the joys of the hammam is forever tied to Istanbul.  The guys made the appointment for me, somewhere in the Beyoglou neighborhood (where Taksim Square is).  I don’t remember the name of it, if I ever knew it. But oh, what a lovely experience.

First of all, it wasn’t a tourist place.  This is where ordinary residents of the city went.  I remember walking in and no one speaking English.  I just sort of followed where I was led.  Gestures talked rather than words.  

My second experience was in Amman, Jordan, last year.  By the time I landed there, I’d read a lot and found the Ali-Pasha Turkish Bath was where I wanted to go.  The hotel concierge made the arrangements.  This time I took a taxi, clutching in my hand the addresses (in Arabic) for the hammam and for the hotel, for the taxi driver.  Sadly, the taxi driver was almost as lost as I was.  He ended up dropping me off in the area near the hammam, and I found it pretty soon.  The sign wasn’t noticeable, and the entrance was a bit off the street.  

Most recently, I was in Istanbul again, and once more made sure that I had hammam time.  The hotel concierge made the reservations for late one night, following a visit to the Whirling Dervishes.  

The hammam experience is a ritual for many people.  Again, I was fortunate to go to non-touristy places, places where “real” people go.  

The whole “Turkish bath” thing became popular in the West during the Victorian era as a way of cleansing and relaxing.  Though part of Islamic culture, the hammam is clearly related to ancient Greek and Roman bathing practices.  Some of the most famous hammams in Turkey and Jordan date to the 14th and 15th centuries.  Often the hammams were built as part of a mosque complex.  The architecture can be a clue to this since many hammams have domes similar to mosques.  

Typically when you enter a hammam, expect three interconnected rooms:  the hot room, a room that is steamy from hot water running under and around a raised, round marble structure; a warm room; and a cool room.  There will also be showers and a steam room and maybe a sauna as well as a hot pool.  You’ll be led between areas.  There will often be a domed ceiling with small round windows that let light in. The room may well be steamy and darkened, so that the light is diffused and soft.  

I’ve read that such a dome is often in the cool room, but the three hammams I’ve been to had the dome with the hot room.  There I’d lie, basically naked, on a very warm marble stone (sometimes called a tummy stone) at the center of the room.  Here I was allowed to lie long enough to work up a complete sweat.  Then came a scrub massage.  Indeed, at the first hammam I went to this was more akin to being scrubbed with a Brillo pad.  Basically, you’re exfoliated.  And cleaned.  Shallow bowls of hot water — many of them– are poured over you.  Just remember to get into the rhythm of the person pouring the water, so that you don’t breathe in just as another bowlful is sluiced over your head.  

From there, I usually was led to showers in the warm room to rinse off and shampoo.  Then it was time to soak in the pool, often with some cool refreshment, maybe a citrusy drink.  In Amman, at the Ali Pasha hammam, I then went into the steam room, which was tiled and slippery and scared me.  I could just see myself slipping and crashing onto the tiles in the darkened annex.  Rubber-soled flip-flops helped, but I still made sure to move slowly and try to hold on to something that generally was too slick for a firm grasp.  

Back to the showers, to the warm room.  Then the pool again.  Then the sauna.  Then the showers.  Then a massage, with me on a warm marble table.  

The Ali Pasha hammam had all of these things going on in areas of the same domed room.  In Istanbul, though, there were separate rooms, though these were connected. 

After the massage, each time I showered and dressed and relaxed more in a small room where I had tea.  The hot tea and the cool room were perfect follow-ups to the steam and hot marble.  In Istanbul, though, this year, there wasn’t any tea at the end because I was there so late.

In most hammams, men and women do not bathe together.  In fact, there are often separate hours for men and for women.  In the hammam I went to this year, though, there were two separate parts of the hammam, one for men and one for women.

All I know is that when I’m done, I’m incredibly relaxed.  I’m warm, glowing, and feel as though I have no bones.  No knots in my shoulders or under my shoulder blades can survive a true hammam experience.  At various points I fall asleep, only to be awakened by someone turning me over or scrubbing or sluicing me with water.  

By the time I get back to my hotel room after a couple of hours at a hammam, I’m pretty much done.  At that point, all I really want to do is slip into my pjs and crawl between crisp clean sheets and go to sleep.

For some reason, I have no photographs of the hammams I’ve been to.  That’s probably because I was fully occupied and there was no room to carry a camera.  In addition, the steam probably wouldn’t be too great with most cameras.

Just to give you a sense of what a hammam is like, let me link you to the Cemberlitas Hammam in Istanbul, which is the hammam I used in July.  This is a historic hammam dating to 1584.  Look here: http://www.cemberlitashamami.com

You can see what different areas look like.  The photo I included above is from this website, since I didn’t have any photos that I took.

In 2005 when I was done with the hammam and met my friends at a bar around the corner, I wanted a glass of wine.  I also announced that I wanted to live there.  In a hammam.

It’s not for everyone, I know.  If you’re shy, wear a swimsuit.  You don’t have to strip.  Modesty is obviously not something that most women there worry about.  There’s nothing sexual about the nudity.  Not at all.  In fact, no one seems to notice.  The women are chatting and visiting.  Apparently a lot of times friends go together for their version of what I call “Lady Day.”  It’s a weekly ritual for a lot of people.  

I don’t have any idea what it’s like for men, obviously.  You’d have to ask my friend who went to Istanbul with me this year; I made him try it.  When we left, he just shook his head and mumbled something.  

As for me, I’m hooked.  I just wish there were a hammam — an authentic one — somewhere near here.  

Oh well.  There isn’t.  What I’ll do instead tonight, as soon as I post this, is draw a very hot bath in my claw-foot bathtub.  I’ll light a couple of candles.  Put on some music.  Pour a glass of wine.  And soak.

It’s not a hammam, true.  But I can close my eyes and pretend, right?

Maybe I’ll wait until it’s dark.  The ambience, you know?

 

 

 

 

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Coffee or Tea?

Posted on September 5, 2013 by Cheryl L. Ware

I love to smell coffee — such a deep, rich, seductive aroma. Assuming, of course, that it’s not burned and thus acrid in both smell and taste. And I enjoy a good strong cup of coffee – black, no sugar. Or a wonderful expresso. Sometimes, though, a cappuccino is just what I want. Most often, though, I order a mocha light. I mean, how can you resist coffee and chocolate together?

Despite the fact that I grew up in South Louisiana, one of the coffee-culture capitals of the world, I came to coffee only as an adult. I’ve been drinking coffee a few times a week only for about twenty years. Yet I am very particular about what coffee should be, what I like.

My sister, though, is a different case. When she was still a baby, we gave her coffee milk in her bottle, more milk than coffee, to be sure. Yet by the time Kay was in high school, she had to have a cup of strong coffee first thing in the morning.

We always had a pot of coffee ready. The first pot went on just before Dad got up to go to work, and he and Mother started their day with a couple of cups. Then by mid-morning, it was coffee-klatch time when Mother and other women got together at one house. At mid-afternoon, another pot went on for when Dad came home and another coffee group got together. If we had company or company dropped over — more coffee.

I can remember visiting one family in particular, and when we got there Rose always asked if Mother and Dad would like “a small black,” as a tiny cup of Cajun coffee was called. I still have demitasse cups and spoons that remind me of how such coffee was served.

Of course, when we first moved to South Louisiana from Texas, the coffee Mother and Dad made tended to be weak — “Texas coffee,” as Dad came to refer to it. Since Dad grew up in East Texas, he had to come to appreciate dark-roast coffee. Mother, though, grew up with her grandparents making coffee the old-fashioned Cajun way — boiled in a white enamel pot on the stove. To this day, I can close my eyes and imagine my great-grandparents’ home in Beaumont by the odor of coffee alone. No matter what time of day you entered the front door, that odor lingered from recently made coffee or from coffee that was on the stove. My cousin Carolyn has that coffee pot.

Despite coming to coffee relatively late in life, I want strong coffee sometimes, just as I knew growing up. But I limit myself — too much coffee and my stomach rebels.

My personal go-to beverage? Tea. Hot tea. My Grandmother Ware, the farm wife, drank hot tea, and that’s what got me hooked. Plain Lipton’s tea was what she usually had, and so that’s what I drank too. As I got older and expanded my tastes, I came to appreciate a wide variety of tea, not always in a bag. Earl Grey may be my favorite — the pop of the bergamot perks me right up. A nice strong English breakfast tea is what I want sometimes. Other times, I crave a soothing Lapsang Souchong. Green teas. Black teas. Citrus teas. Caffeinated, non-caffeinated. I just love tea, period.

When I traveled this summer to both London and Istanbul, I returned from each place with loose teas.

The first time I was in England in summer 1974, I spent six weeks in Stratford-upon-Avon at a Shakespeare Summer School, plus a week or so in London. That was when my tea-drinking was cemented. Every class day at 10 or so, we had a 30-minute tea break. I’d head for a tea shop near the place where we had lectures every morning (and seminars two afternoons a week). Sometimes I’d have tea later that day as well, someplace else, or at the bed-and-breakfast where I was lodging. I could easily dispense of an entire pot of tea all by myself.

That was the first time I realized that I could get the shakes from too much tea. I learned to pace myself and cut back. I didn’t need to be jittery.

Of course, tea shops in England mean pastries and other goodies. And I learned about cream teas and Devonshire cream and clotted cream for scones. Quickly, I learned that unlike a lot of people, I don’t like milk in my tea, not at all. If I bought tea at some places, I quickly learned to respond “black” when I was asked “black or white?” after not responding fast enough. After a couple of milky teas, I knew that was not for me.

Afternoon teas were quite different from morning teas. That’s when tiny sandwiches were often served — cucumber or salmon or chicken salad. On white bread at some places, on brown bread at others (and depending on the filling).

Such a world of difference from my grandmother’s tea. I’d have that with biscuits and butter and syrup (either Steen’s cane syrup or Blackburn-Made syrup).

She drank hot tea year round, and so did I. Of course, she also routinely made sweet iced tea year round, so I drank that too. Now I limit how much sugar goes into my hot tea, and I have reluctantly learned to drink my iced tea without sugar at all. I’ve even learned to use fresh mint leaves in my iced tea (and in my water as well).

And so I am, without hesitation, a tea-sipper. Despite being a graduate of Texas A&M. Important facts to know: (and with apologies to my Texas A&M friends and relatives): and note to non-Texan friends — in Texas, a “T-sipper” is a reference to someone who attends or attended the University of Texas. Texas A&M and the University of Texas are mighty rivals.

That love has resulted in two collections: tea cups/saucers and teapots. As much as I like tea, I like to switch teapots often. Sometimes my mood calls for an Aynsley Cottage Garden teapot that matches one of my sets of china. Sometimes, I use a plain dark-blue pot. Recently, I brought a new one home from London, just for the beach.

Among my many books — a collection of books about tea, about making tea, about recipes for different kinds of teas. An entirely different set of notes — about how else to use tea. For example, you can use strongly brewed tea as a dye for linens, to achieve an antiqued look.

On rainy days, especially rainy days when it’s chilly, nothing quite soothes the soul like a pot of tea and some scones. I’ll settle down with a good cozy mystery and pretend I’m in some English village. Only warmer, of course.

Lately I’ve been craving some tea. Especially this week, when it’s rained a couple of days. The temperature’s still in the 90s, but some places I hang out keep the thermostat so low that I need a sweater and can pretend it’s winter already. Today, for example, I had a big cup of Earl Grey tea. That just hit the spot.

One of my favorite photographs is one taken in the 50s. I’m sitting with my cousins Carolyn and Terry in their living room. We’re joined in the photo by a dog and their pet rabbit. The rabbit, need I say, was not always friendly. We’re having a tea party. Pets too.

Many years later, when my brother Phil was in M.D. Anderson Hospital shortly before he died, Carolyn and Terry and I went to Old Town Spring in North Houston, to a teashop patterned after an English teashop. That particular day, it was raining, and it was, I remember, sometime in November or December. We had tea, complete with sandwiches and little sweet pastries. No pets, though. Just the three of us, all grown up. It’s a great memory, especially since Terry isn’t alive anymore. Carolyn and I still like to have teatime and talk, though.

Coffee? Yes, sometimes.

Tea? Oh please. Almost anytime.

This weekend? I think a visit to Dannay’s for croissants and donuts might be called for when I head back to the beach. Just right for a big pot of tea and a nice mystery.

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Handy Hardware Stores and Home Ownership

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Cheryl L. Ware

When did browsing in a hardware store become such fun?

Years ago, I could never have predicted that I’d enjoy this, but I must confess that I look forward to a trip to Lowe’s, or Home Depot, or any kind of a hardware store.  This week I needed to shop for two ceiling fans, but I put off the trip until I knew I had a couple of hours to kill.  Time just sort of disappears when I roam the aisles there.

This morning, I got my basket and immediately headed for the ceiling fans.  While I wanted two 52-inch fans that were just like the one I have in my kitchen, there were only two — one 52-inch fan and one 42-inch fan.  This particular fan style comes with the light kit.  I contemplated other styles.  Back and forth, up and down the aisles, and I ended up right back where I started.  The two fans went into the basket.

From there I headed through the tile and mosaic aisles.  Not that I’m doing anything — yet — that requires tile or mosaic tile.  Not yet.  But maybe once I get a new countertop.  Of course, that won’t be happening for a few more months.  Planning ahead, though, doesn’t hurt.  Thus pre-emptive shopping forays into aisles where I don’t need to make purchases yet.

Once I’d surveyed the new possibilities, I aimed the buggy for the tools.  One of the things I’ll be doing in the kitchen soon is prying up the stick-on tiles that I put down 15 years ago or so.  After searching in three different areas, I found a tool just made for stripping off old tiles.  Also into the buggy:  a large bottle of stuff to take the adhesive off the floor once the tiles are up.  This will make for a lot of fun over a few days.  I figure with the right music, an iron to loosen the vinyl tiles’ adhesive, the stripping tool, the right gloves, and the gunk to take the adhesive up, I have a fighting chance.  Needless to say, I don’t look forward to it.  Necessary, though, if I am to get new roll vinyl for the kitchen.  Why not some other flooring?  Well, this is an old house, and there’s a hump in the floor near the stove, where the flooring settled decades ago.  Such is life in an older home.  Oh, and my home is a cottage style from the 1920s, built on piers.  It’s not on a flat foundation.

Two tasks checked off the list.  Next:  a paint sample for the color that I think I want to paint my house.  If all goes well, and if it doesn’t decide to rain for thirty days and thirty nights, I hope to get the house painted in October.  My cousin and her husband have the spray equipment, and I’m game to try.  Hence the paint sample.  It is, I’m hoping, close to the salmon color that was originally on the house when I bought it and repainted it.  The exact color name is gone, but I think this is close.

One small sample mixed and in the basket.  Time to leave.

That took a couple of hours.  If I’d had more time, I’d have wandered many other aisles looking at all sorts of things.  However, I needed to move on to a craft store where there was a special on framing orders; I had two items that needed framing.  That stop took another hour or so, selecting frames and styles.  Then a few more purchases, and it was time for coffee.

There’s an old-fashioned hardware store on Ryan Street, too, one that is perfect for certain items.  It’s not a box store.  It’s local.  Once in a while, that’s the hardware store I need.

And if I’m at the beach?  Well, on Bolivar Peninsula, the Gulf Coast Market (also known as The Big Store) has a hardware store inside of the store.  In fact, the GCM includes many different areas that call out for casual browsing.

If I need something that the GCM doesn’t offer, then I have to go onto Galveston itself, to Home Depot.  I was there only a couple of weeks ago, getting a weed-trimmer when the one Kay had brought to the house died.

Maybe the urge to wander the hardware aisles came with the acquisition of the house itself.  I’m not sure.  I just know that it’s strangely inspiring to look at so many things on offer.

And then there’s the HGTV factor, too.  Yes, I confess — I watch far too much Home and Garden Television channel.  In fact, that’s what’s playing right now, and though I can’t see the television, I can hear the program.  Sometimes, I can watch programs for hours on end.

Over the nearly 25 years I’ve owned the house here in Lake Charles, I’ve become rather handy at some kinds of home repair.  I also willingly tackle painting.  I’ve done some small tiling projects on backsplashes and tabletops.  I’ve taped and painted sheetrock.  I’ve helped to put down flooring of several types — from sheet vinyl to vinyl tiles to commercial vinyl tiles to laminate.  I’ve taken mineral spirits and steel wool to clean hardwood floors.  I’ve painted wood floors.

So when HGTV premiered, I was an obvious junkie waiting for a new fix.  And it didn’t take long before I was hooked.

Sometimes Dad helped me with some projects.  Others, he wasn’t able to, but gave me advice.  I liked to tell him that watching him fix things around our house gave me the inspiration to work on my own house.  And he helped by giving me tools, too.

Oddly, though, he was always reluctant to give me a power saw.  I’ve got one now, but haven’t used it.

What I do need to find, though, is a sander.  I know I’ve got a couple.  But where they might be is sometimes a challenge.  There is a bag, though, in the storage house in the backyard.  I’ll look there tomorrow.

There’s a new decoration project I want to work on for the beach house.  Kay and I found two paddles in Dad’s garage.  They’re old and worn and peeling.  I’ll sand them lightly.  Then I’ll stencil the name of the beach house (The Warehouse Too) so that the two paddles (placed so that the paddle ends meet) spell out the name, use a woodburning tool to carve the name out, and finally I’ll paint the two paddles.  They’ll get placed on one of the piers at the beach.  Then I can put up the metal lighthouse that has the house numbers on it.

For here, for Lake Charles, the floor project –mundane and boring– will take precedence over anything else I have to work on.  At least for a few hours a night.

Handy hardware stores have an allure that amazes me still.  I can’t wait for my next foray into those aisles.

In the meantime, I think I need to go and watch the Property Brothers renovate some house.  Pointers are always welcome.

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Contemplating Attachments

Posted on September 3, 2013 by Cheryl L. Ware

Over the weekend Kay and I were talking about plans for the beach house. We’re still settling in, moving in furniture a bit at a time. Generally we agree on things, but not always.

Once in a while she’ll ask about whether to bring anything from Dad’s house or hers to the beach. My standard response: Can you stand to live without it? Could you stand to see it wash away if there were another storm like Hurricane Ike?

Usually that pulls her up short and makes her think, and often she decides not to move the item to the beach.

I quite like how the beach house is shaping up. We’re putting our own touches on it, slowly. Kay has contributed dining room chairs — still has one more to move from Natchitoches to Crystal Beach. Then it’s my job to refinish them and recover the seat covers. I’ve got the fabric ready. We’ve decided on the chair color, too. But I can’t start until the fourth chair is there.

There”s a small pine china hutch that I’ll move down at some point. First I want to strip it, and then paint it. A beach house, I think, should be, well, beachy. Light-colored furniture, not dark, seems ideal to me. A pale washed aqua would be perfect to unify the mis-matched end-tables and hutches and dining-room chairs. Plus that would blend with the colors I’ve used for the kitchen towels and dishes.

My own room needs a small bookcase and a small chest of drawers as well as a small desk. Looking around my Lake Charles house tells me that I’ve got plenty of extras here that will serve the purpose.

Nothing there has been inherited. Much of the furniture comes from second-hand stores or flea markets or antique stores. It’s comfortable and warm.

Yet always in the back of my mind is the reality that because we’re on the Gulf Coast, it could all blow away or wash away in a hurricane. That’s quite a thing to wrap your head around.

About ten years before Hurricane Ike hit, we were threatened with a Category 5 storm that was supposed to hit Lake Charles — ground zero was right here. I packed my small SUV with everything I couldn’t bear to live without — and when I left, I didn’t look back. I expected that my house would be gone.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case then, but the lesson was instructive. While I was able to return to an undamaged house (the hurricane made landfall at a 2 or 3, I think, and east of Lake Charles), I’d faced and accepted the loss.

Then Ike took out my beach house, leaving only a cracked slab.

Between Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike, lots of friends of mine lost houses — some twice. I remember telling Dad when Ike was coming that I hoped the beach house was completely untouched or totally destroyed. The in-between was what I didn’t want – having to clean up, sort through, and deal with what I’d seen too many friends go through.

I got my wish — nothing left.

And how strange a feeling to just shrug and know that it was okay.

My sister and niece felt the loss more obviously — Kay cried on and off for months. I certainly missed the place and felt its loss, but then I deal with things very differently.
For her, it had been a refuge, a haven. Indeed, it had been that for me as well. While I admit I got teary a few times, I could also shrug that off and keep going. I’m pretty practical and pragmatic with such things.

The difference is that I am much less attached to places, to the physical houses, than she is. Certainly I enjoyed and loved the beach house, just as I do my house here in Lake Charles, and the house in Egan. But they are just things, in the long run. And my attachment is to what I’ve lived there, to the memories.

As long as I know my pets are okay and that my family is safe, and if I’ve gotten as much into my car as I can drive away with, I figure that I can rebuild a life.

The house in Egan is a perfect example. For Kay, it’s the house she grew up in. For me, it’s the house I moved into when I was 16, and lived in for maybe 2 years before going off to college and then moving out on my own. I could sell it and be okay, though I’d have a few pangs at times. She’d be devastated; she wants to retire there. I could live there if I had to, but it’s not where I’d choose.

The houses that I have attachment to are the farmhouse in San Augustine (which the family still owns) and my grandmother Adair’s house in Beaumont (which we don’t). If I’m honest, it’s the Beaumont house that appears in dreams most often. If I had to, I could sit down right now and draw a sketch of it, of where furniture was. And that house has been gone from the family for twenty years. Yet I can see it and smell it, just as though my grandmother was still alive and living there. I can feel the floor furnace grate where I burned my feet. I can see the light coming in the front bedroom corner window, just enough that the water tower across the street shadows the view (that gave me nightmares when I was younger).

As much as I enjoy my homes, I am always aware of their transience. They are ephemeral, and on the Gulf Coast that’s not figurative language at all.

Attachment to things is something I contemplate more and more. Yes, my house is full, too full, of things I’ve collected over the years. But I’m slowly sorting and purging and clearing out things. There are boxes of books ready to be donated, just sitting in the back room ready to go when I can get the time to haul them off.

Periodically I attack my closets and sort through what to keep and what to donate and what to throw away. That will happen soon too.

Somewhere I read an article that suggested going through your house, imagining that you were moving to Europe and could only take a small number of belongings. What would make the list? From time to time, I go through the house and think of that, making a mental list of what I’d keep, what I’d store.

That list is surprisingly short. If I were moving somewhere in the U.S., I think I could get by with one moving van, a small one. Some things would go to storage. Lots would get sold or given away.

I’m feeling kind of restless lately, so I guess it’s time to evaluate what I want to get rid of and what I want to keep.

What would you keep? What can’t you live without? What can be replaced?

Once you’ve lost a house (even a second home), it’s surprising how quickly you can answer those questions.

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The Emptied Space

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Cheryl L. Ware

This weekend was Labor Day weekend, always in the past the time of my dad’s family reunion — the Richards family reunion that his maternal grandfather started. It’s the first time we haven’t held it on this weekend, but instead will meet in a month, the first weekend in October, and establish the new reunion.

Once, I suspect, this weekend made sense. With a Monday holiday, that allowed everyone to travel to San Augustine, spend Sunday morning at church and then go on to Papa Richards’s for the reunion meal. It was outside. In time, it moved across the road to Uncle Ben’s house, then back across the road to Papa Richards’s house after Uncle Ben died. The heat became more problematic, and as the elders aged, we moved the reunion into town to a community center that we rented. Now, though, many have died and fewer can come at Labor Day. So we’re moving to a friend’s place that will accommodate us all, regardless of numbers, and to the first weekend in October, when it’s cooler.

This weekend I found myself thinking about the reunion, and about Dad, and Mother, and Phil. About those who can no longer attend the reunion.

And when Seamus Heaney died this week, I also found myself thinking about his poetry. One poem in particular, “Clearances,” stayed with me, about the death of his mother.

Part of the poem, though, haunts me. I felt it when my mother died — to my own great surprise. And I feel it now, since Dad has died. Let me share those lines with you:

” Then she was dead,
The searching for a pulsebeat was abandoned
And we all knew one thing by being there.
The space we stood around had been emptied
Into us to keep, it penetrated
Clearances that suddenly stood open.
High cries were felled and a pure change happened.

I thought of walking round and round a space
Utterly empty, utterly a source
Where the decked chestnut tree had lost its place
In our front hedge above the wallflowers.
The white chips jumped and jumped and skited high.
I heard the hatchet’s differentiated
Accurate cut, the crack, the sigh
And collapse of what luxuriated
Through the shocked tips and wreckage of it all.
Deep-planted and long gone, my coeval
Chestnut from a jam jar in a hole,
Its heft and hush became a bright nowhere,
A soul ramifying and forever
Silent, beyond silence listened for.”

When Mother died, I felt that hole open up, a hole that she had filled. I knew that no one could or would ever fill it.

When Dad died, yet another hole opened, again one that could not be filled.

Between them, they’d taught me so much. Mother taught me about patience, about independence, about so many things. Possibly, even, more than either of us even realized at the time. Now I have a much greater appreciation for her own struggles with depression, with anxiety, with a sense of value. Perhaps I had to grow up more quickly as a result, and felt that I missed out on something that other “normal” families shared. Yet as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate so much more how she had to feel, and wish that I could apologize to her and thank her at the same time.

Mother was a traditional stay-at-home mother. She worked outside the home until children came, and then gave that up. To my knowledge, that’s what she wanted. I had the security of knowing she’d be there when I got home, that a snack would be ready.
Even when I knew that I wanted to work outside the home when/if I ever married, I realized how fortunate I was.

Dad worked and brought in the paycheck. Yet he spent far more time at home, and taking part in the household activities, than many men of his generation. Dad cooked at times, cleaned at times. We all had chores. We all worked. Dad spent afternoons and nights with us. He didn’t go out with other guys. When he was on a bowling team, we all went. When we had school events, Dad was there, along with Mother.

When Mother was ill– when she was having severe problems with her anxiety, problems we called “breakdowns” in the 50s and 60s, he stayed with her when many men wouldn’t have done so. “For better or worse” was lived in our house — those weren’t empty words, not at all. And we knew it.

Mother and Dad fought against the odds of different religions to marry and to create a harmonious home that was respectful of both religions, both traditions, both families.

Both sides of my immediate family knew each other. They still do. They ask about each other.

The empty holes that my parents left with their deaths are still there, but I also am left with, as Heaney noted, “the space [that] had been emptied / Into us to keep.”

Those holes aren’t really empty. They are clearances, where something passed from Mother and then Dad and now reside in me.

The holes are in fact filled beyond belief, filled with the myriad memories and lessons.

Maybe this reunion weekend was a time for such recognition, such comfort. I’m not feeling desolation right now, though I still sense the loss their deaths have left. I’m feeling the spaces they still fill, despite their deaths.

But I think today of the spaces they emptied — and what they emptied into us. I have so much that is a direct result of something Mother or Dad or Phil said or did. Or simply what they were. Our lives are still tied, though perhaps in different ways now.

This Labor Day weekend I spent time with Kay, with our cousin Barbara (Dad’s niece) and her husband Herb, with our cousin Carolyn (Mother’s niece) and her husband Larry, and our friend Charles, whose dad also worked for Sun Oil and who grew up in the camp with us.

Next month, my cousin Mike (Dad’s nephew) and his wife Sissy will meet me at the beach house. Maybe we’ll get together with our cousin Jim (Dad’s nephew), who lives on the island.

And on the first weekend of October, we’ll have the new, revised reunion. Many of my immediate family will be there. My dad’s sister certainly will be. A number of their first cousins from the Richards side will be there also. And some of the younger generation will be as well. We’ll all bring food, eat far more than we need, and share stories and laughter.

The place we meet and the time we meet don’t really matter. That we meet does matter.

We spend time together not out of obligation, but out of love.

That’s what family does.

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It’s All Relative and Friendly

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Cheryl L. Ware

It’s Labor Day weekend, and I’m at Crystal Beach, enjoying the beach house that my sister and I rebuilt last year. One of the pleasures — even joys — of having this new place is more room — and private room — to host family and friends.

Not that I couldn’t do that in the previous one, but it was only about 650 square feet in one room with a kitchen in it and a bathroom. You know the term “open concept”? That was the layout. It had a double bed, two twin beds, and a futon. If you wanted privacy, forget it. You just had to retreat into a book and your own head.

Here, though, in 825 square feet, Kay and I have 3 bedrooms, one bath, and a kitchen/living room. With a double bed in each bedroom (and a sleeper chair in addition, in one), and a double-size sleeper sofa, we can accommodate 9, depending on sleeping arrangements.

Sometimes we are here together, as this Labor Day weekend. Sometimes, Kay comes down. Other times, I’m here. We’ve both had friends stay with us.

And this time, we have had not only a friend but relatives.

I came over on Thursday, and our cousin Barbara and her husband Herb followed me; they’d been in Lake Charles overnight. Kay arrived a couple of hours after we did. Barbara and Herb and I had lunch, then rode down the beach for miles, looking at the beach houses and observing the many flocks of brown pelicans up and down the beach. Some groups of them were on the beach with terns and cow-birds. Others swirled overhead, dive-bombing into the Gulf to snatch fish out of the schools near the surface.

We rode, we stopped, we looked. We laughed a lot. There was a running commentary about the houses, the colors, the designs.

Kay had brought homemade tamales from Zwolle, Louisiana (home of the Zwolle Tamale Festival). We feasted.

Friday morning, coffee and doughnuts from Dannay’s. More laughter, more fun. Barbara and Herb packed up and left for Houston, where they were going to see their son play with the band he’s in.

By mid-afternoon, our friend Charles drove up. I’ve known Charles for 56 years — we moved into the Egan SunOil camp on his birthday in 1957. We started first grade together; we graduated high school together. Our parents moved houses onto lots across the street from each other when the camp was broken up. Now that all our parents are dead, we still have those houses.

Lots of time for tamales and cheese dip, naps, and various adult beverages.

Saturday was very slow and lazy. We did some shopping. We visited. We sat on the deck. But mainly we just hung out together. Didn’t want to waste our energy — we knew we’d be going to Galveston. That’s because last night we had tickets for a concert in Galveston. Going over about 5:30 was perfect — no lines. The concert was at 8; Robert Earl Keen played a solid two hours. By 11 we were back at Crystal Beach — again, no lines at all at the ferry. The timing was perfect — we drove right onto the ferry with no wait.

Over the last couple of days, lots of people have crowded the beaches here, seeking the last free weekend before schools really absorb them. I’ve avoided the beach — too crowded. Many of our neighbors have also come in, pulling out their golf carts and firing up grills. Music wafts in from many streets away at times. It’s lively, to say the least.

But us? We’re pretty low-key. We talk and laugh and eat and nap.

Today, we woke up whenever we wanted, drank coffee an diet Coke, munched on breakfast stuff. There was no agenda, other than a visit from another cousin.

For lunch, my cousin Carolyn and her husband Larry drove over from League City. Again more laughter and lots of chatter. We told stories about our family, about our mothers, our grandmother. Carolyn and Larry decided not to fight the long multiple lanes of waiting lines at the ferry and left to drive back via I-10 instead.

You can roast in those lines. And spent far more times than you want. I know; I’ve done it before, and will do it again, when necessary. Obviously, there were lots of people heading over here to the beach today. Another reason I’ve stayed home today, other than going out to lunch.

By afternoon, I was sleepy. I took my iPad and lay down under a quilt, read for a while, and dozed. Periodically, I’d get up, wander to the bathroom or kitchen. By six, it was time to rise and join the world.

In between, we watched television. This afternoon, for instance, we’ve watched several Alfred Hitchcock films. At least Kay and Charles have; I’ve napped. Dinner is over.

And Psycho is now on. Can’t stand the shower scene. But I watch nonetheless.

Tomorrow we’ll pack up, clean the house, and leave for now. Others will be doing the same. I know I’ll be back next weekend.

This house was built for such times. Not only for Kay and me. It’s a place where we relax completely. And we entertain.

Our house doesn’t compare to some others — even on our street. It’s modest. Others are much larger, more ornate, more expensive. But it suits us. Not too much to maintain.
One of the reasons I bought the original place in 1997 was that I could sit on the street in my car and hear the surf. I could see the beach. Once I saw the place from inside and the deck, I could seek the potential. True, there was no insulation. The plywood walls were dark. But it was close enough to the beach. And I could paint.

And so the place came to be mine. The furniture came with it. I painted. I bought some new dishes and brought things to make it mine. I bought sheets and bedspreads. With a television, a DVR, and a CD player/radio, it offered entertainment too.

I spent New Years 1999/2000 here with friends, watching fireworks and drinking champagne. Dad spent time here with me, with Kay. I have wonderful memories of our family here.

When Hurricane Ike hit here and left me with what I called “the lovely slab,” I didn’t really want to rebuild. Not then. But I didn’t sell the lot, either. I couldn’t afford to, and I didn’t really want to. I loved coming here; I always had. So I kept the lot, eventually bought a used camper trailer, moved it here, and enjoyed more beach time with Dad and Kay.

Many times Kay and I talked about rebuilding, and though we didn’t we knew that one day that would happen. Dad knew too.

So last year, we did. And we spent our first Christmas without Dad here, beginning a new family tradition.

This place is new, but it’s filled with old memories — from summers with my grandmother who used to rent down here, from the times spent here until Ike wiped it out. The furniture is a mixture of old, new, and repurposed from flea markets and estate sales and antique stores. When Kay asks about moving something here that one of us already owns, I ask here whether she can stand to watch it wash away or disappear (after all, another hurricane is always a possibility). Usually, she decides not to move it here if it’s really something sentimental.

Now, though– we continue to put our touches on this place. Today, for example, we got a wrench — didn’t have one, but we didn’t need one either. We’ve got a drill, but I know we need a set of tools here. That’s on the list of “things to get,” which grows.

But we fill the place with new memories too. Every time we visit, together or alone. With friends. With relatives.

Whether the houses around us are large or small, ornate or plain, this area has rebuilt. It’s living again. It’s got its groove back.

Tomorrow I’ll head back to Lake Charles.

It’s only a two-hour drive, and the road runs both ways. There’s always more time, more time for visits with family and friends.

Barbara and I are already planning on a visit when she and Herb will come down to meet me here — with their daughter, her husband, and their two babies. We’ll hope to get her brother Jim here too since he lives on the island.

Time to savor those family ties, those friendships.

Soon.

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