for Midgie

Dear Mary,

My earliest memories are of your home. It was a retreat, a playground, replete with treats and marvels. I spent hours of my childhood sifting through boxes of costume jewelry (which I never saw you wear) or scheming to get into the cookie jar (shaped like a cow) where I knew I'd find Milanos or Fudge Stripes. Yours was a home filled with comfort and mystery: apothecary jars, glass figurines, towers of books, bottles of rose-scented lotion, and your father's desk, crammed with secret cubbyholes and coin collections. I was certain that your backyard, with a swing on the cherry tree and a pool we weren't *supposed* to jump into, was my happiest place on the planet.

After we moved to Tennessee, I mythologized you. We were removed by distance from the daily annoyances of generation gaps, necessary discipline, family conflict. I wrote you hyperbolic letters and believed that perhaps you would intervene and force my parents to grant my dearest wish (which was to have my ears pierced). I read you the lyrics to Missing You by John Waite over the telephone. You sent the most fabulous and thoughtful birthday boxes, which were always late but legendary.

It is from you that I am sure I inherited my tendency to lavish affection on animals, having conversations with them, sneaking them treats. I developed a love of word puzzles and classic novels from years of sharing them with you. When I was young my mom told me about many Christmas eves when she would hear you up late, crying, overwhelmed because you had so many presents to wrap and had waited until the last minute. Even as a little girl, I recognized my own tendencies in this story, the likelihood that I would procrastinate and then be angry with myself, the self-pity, the desire to do everything for everyone and make everything the most special, the most perfect.

When I was younger, I was sure I had been granted two of the most opposite grandmothers possible. In comparison to my father's brash mother, who brooked no bullshit and used that word often, yours seemed a mild-mannered, profanity-free life. Hazel had been married often, lost husbands in wars, kept a lot of convenience foods in her vast freezer, and governed her entire family (almost none of whom were related by blood) with guilt and sass. In contrast, you were soft-spoken, a little bit silly, devoted to your church, reserved in dress and a total pushover. Even when you were angry, which wasn't nearly as often as it should have been, there was an optimism to it, a disappointment in the offending party because you expected more of everyone else around you.

I can see it clearly now: you and Hazel were united by a single driving force that provided you with a life's purpose and also something to talk about with each other, despite being on opposite sides of an historical divide. You both loved and protected your family with a fierceness that can't be captured in words, and by which I find myself shaped every day of my life. It moves me the way other people are moved by ambition or desire.

As your memories and realities faded, you kept your sweet demeanor and curious nature. Your face, as it grew more and more blank, was still always smiling. I haven't had a conversation with you that related to our real lives in years. It's like you've been gone the whole time. And now you really are, you were gifted your wish of a peaceful passing, and somehow it's made you more real in my mind than you have been in a long time. My sisters and I are flying to San Jose today for your memorial, and I'm planning the menu for the April birthday party at Bill's house after a service at the church. Wednesday night I dreamed that the food wasn't ready and there were hungry boys everywhere (and a lion) and I was deciding to cook churrasco even though we didn't have a grill or any meat marinating. And then you were there, and you gave me this long, strong hug, and I was filled with a rush of power and gratitude and light that I carried with me long after I woke up, got dressed, moved on with my day.

There is no less trite way to say it: our family was blessed to have you at the start of it. You brought countless discoveries and beauties into our lives, and I don't think any of us are going to ever stop missing you. Thank you for always bringing and keeping us together, and for giving us all the strength and intelligence to also go our own ways, wherever that has been. I'm hoping for another visit with you in my dreams soon. There is still so much I can't wait to tell you.

mercury moving forward again

Last night I dreamed that I came home to a big generic subdivision McMansion. It was either new or unloved, no landscaping, hay down on the ground, construction materials piled by the dumpster. I couldn't figure out how to get into the driveway, so I just parked in the alley behind the house and had to walk through the yard to the back door. Inside the house was shabby, needing repairs. The ceilings were lower than you would think in a house that big, trashy dropped ceiling tiles with water stains. I realized I lived there, and that my husband was leaving me, or had already left. At no point in the dream did I have a mental image of the husband, or a name, or know anything about him other than a vague sense of being glad he was gone. He might have taken our children with him. I didn't care. There were big rooms with no furniture, just bags of trash or clothes, empty boxes. We decided to have a pool party, and I was messing with the controls on the pool thermostat, warming it up to bathwater temperatures, it was wintertime. The sky was gray. The Jansens all arrived for the pool party, but it felt wrong, like a mess, like nothing was going the way I wanted it to. Everyone talked about wanting to get in one of the (two) hot tubs on the deck. I looked around and thought, "I hope this isn't one of those depressing indie movies where you just feel sort of sorry for everyone and there is no real point to the ending."

I have no reason to say this, but I'm so glad it's Friday. I took most of Wednesday off, it's not like it's been a tough week at work or anything. We had a beautiful, fulfilling, relaxed time last weekend. But it doesn't mean I'm not really happy that tomorrow is Saturday.

Since I was at home Wednesday, I worked on ripping recipes out of magazines. When Austin got home, we had artichokes and a potato-and-egg Spanish tortilla, which is not the same thing as the flat Mexican corn staple. Chopped potatoes and onions, tossed in a skillet with olive oil, cooked until soft, then poured in 10 eggs, salt and pepper, bake for 5 minutes until puffy. It's sort of a strata, sort of a quiche, and really great. I'm already daydreaming variations, mostly involving cheese. Last night we ate at Rumours East: I had orecchiette with julienne vegetables and pesto cream sauce. Austin had the mixed seafood linguine with white wine cream sauce. It was a creamy starchy spectacle, and soooo good.

I hope you don't mind if I take this NaBloPoMo opportunity to tell you about the food I cook and eat sometimes.

Halloween Pics (and others from October) here.

Daddy-Long-Legs

Last night I dreamed that there was a tornado downtown. The triangular black cloud was streaming along the streets, and buildings underneath were burning. I was with my dad and my Uncle Larry, and I said I wished I had my keys, so we could just go hide at work, since we weren't safe in the car. Then I looked in the backseat and my purse was there, with my keys. Dad said, "Let's just go to your office, " and I said, no, it's just a trailer, it's not safe. Let's go to Hatch, I still have a key. So we went to Hatch and Dad and Larry went in to get the kitties and hide somewhere secure, and I was just trying to disarm the Hatch alarm. Apparently they'd changed the code since I left, and it kept just beeping at me. I could see many different codes written in pencil in Jim's handwriting on the wall behind the alarm pad, and kept trying them, and was sort of wondering why the cops hadn't come by now. Then I realized probably alarms were going off all over downtown because of the tornado.

Hmph.

So, I have a hypothetical for you.

Let's just say I've been wandering about in this career-ennui haze. Maybe for years. Hypothetically. I didn't really have a career goal in college (majoring in Art with a concentration in Creative Writing, just to give the career counselors something to roll their eyes at). I wasn't working towards anything, and I'm sure that's why I slowly fell apart as a college student. Then I went to Hatch, and it was a very safe place for me. Some days were so much fun, and some days were so awful that I have probably blocked it. But it was easy to stay there for seven years, and to not think about it too hard. Then I did the hard thing and left and went to the gym, and we know how that ended. Now I'm here at the magazine, and I don't know where this fits in the grand scheme of things.

And now, hypothetically, what if a family friend with a healthy estate at his disposal came to me and offered to make an investment in my future? If his exact words were, "Perhaps Delaney should consider self-employment. Is there something she would simply love spending the next thirty years doing? I might be able to help." This is the only thing I've been able to think about for three days now (hypothetically), and WHAT does it mean about me if I can't come up with a SINGLE thing that I would simply love spending the next thirty years doing? Where have I gone wrong from the little girl in third grade who listed among her dozens of career goals: firefighter, chef, mother, ballet dancer, writer, cat trainer, unicorn, architect.

The first thought that floated through my brain was that maybe he'd just pay my bills so I could stay home and raise a family. I know this is not what he meant by this offer, I'm just handing this over as an example of how warped my brain has become. This is a particularly fine example, because as you well know, I have no IDEA if I want to raise a family, at least any time soon, so why would that be my immediate response if I were to be financially independent? Psh.

Every idea that comes up (or gets suggested to me), I immediately find a flaw. The long-discussed bakery idea? I don't want to have to get up before dawn every morning, and bakeries are risky anyway. Event planning? How long would I have to do that before I started making a profit? Catering? What, and ruin all the fun I have cooking for my friends and family every week? Writing? Um, that is just so unstable, and the only writing I feel prepared to do anymore is blog about why I'm never going to have affairs with douchebag singer-songwriters. Chad suggested I start a dogwalking/kennel/dog park kind of business, and my answer to that was the same as what I tell my mom every time she suggests I be a teacher: I get too attached and sensitive. If anything went wrong, or if there was some situation I couldn't control, it would just break me. Can't work with kids or animals.

The ugly reality of it is, I'm lazy, unfocused and unmotivated. I want to make a lot of money without having to work very hard. I am sure if there was something I was passionate about doing that I wanted to share with the world, I would work hard at that, but until I figure out what that is (is that ever going to happen?), the idea of just picking something and going for it makes me feel panicky, and sort of like I want to cry. I don't know if I have the discipline to be self-employed, unless my responsibilities were to make menus of a week's worth of meals and play solitaire... hypothetically.

And another thing is, I can thank my parents for instilling such a sense of fairness in me that I can't justify taking advantage of any opportunity without making sure my sisters are offered the same. Just because they got their shit together long before me, it is ok for me to take this baffling act of benevolence and run with it, without counting the M & Ms and making sure J & C each get an equal number as I?

My mom says it's helping her to focus her thoughts (she's sort of in the same place as I, scarily enough) to list the things that she knows she DOESN'T want to do. She's started that list for me: no office jobs, no strict time table but deadlines are ok (because my adrenalin doesn't start pumping until it's the midnight hour), no dress code, no coworkers hanging over my shoulder, but some kind of social aspect so I don't feel isolated. Nothing dull, routine, uncreative.

I would add to this something that is just a reminder to myself, because in my weakened state I have considered it lately: I don't want to work in the service industry.

There are plenty of people who work just to work. No restaurants would get cleaned, no garbage would get picked up, no water meters would be read if everybody got to have a career doing something they loved (I know that was a blanket statement and I'm sure there are exceptions to all those jobs, I'm sure there are people who love doing those things. I'm just saying, for the purpose of argument...). So who am I to be asked if I want to follow my dreams for a living, and to just sort of shrug and say, "I don't know?"

I will say this: I'm serious about not wanting to ruin the things I really enjoy by having my livelihood depend on them. Baking for Rumours is showing me that, like a mirror in front of my face. So instead of having an answer to the question, is there something I love that I want to do for the next 30 years, I can only say, I want to do something for the next 30 years that makes it easy to also do the things I love. So where does that leave me now?

Hypothetically, I mean.