A 25-year-old Piece of Oak

My 1992 living room table sails on the floor of my 1880 dining room. I push the table against the wall and a few days later it has slid down the wave toward the matching china closet. It doesn’t sail symmetrically; one leg is a little closer to the opposite wall. The good leg. The leg across from it on the width twists as if it’s fighting the movement. I lift the tabletop up and pop the leg back into place. Like marbles and pens dropped on the floor, the table is pulled toward the low side of the dining room. After 136 years, I see this and hope our house has finally settled. With any more listing, I envision the original structure detaching from the circa 1970 addition. Bill and I bought the oak table, six chairs, and a china hutch with money we received when we were married nearly 25 years ago. Two chairs are in the garage waiting for a ride to a wood worker to rejuvenate them. Two leaves stand in the basement at the ready to convert the 6-foot long table to a 9-foot long table. The matching china hutch holds many of the goblets also received as wedding gifts. When a fast-paced walk through the dining room makes the crystal clink as if a real toast is underway, I know it’s time to pull the goblets away from the hutch’s mirrored back. They too are within the gravitational pull of the wall opposite the table.

Setting the table when we have company takes more than putting place settings around the circumference of the rectangular slab. Ideally, this is a two-person job: Standing near the wall, Bill and I lift the end of the table, pull it toward the wall then straighten the legs before setting it down. Then we move to the other end of the table, lift it again, and straighten those legs. Finally, I run my hand along the top back of each of the chairs and with my fingernail push in the tiny tacks that poke out. Otherwise, they would scratch or jab our guests.

The tabletop is a source of stress for Bill. It shows its age. The marks from hot bowls and the peeling dry wood reminds me of all the people who have sat at or walked around this table. I think when Bill sees the same imperfections, the table registers as an asset that we haven’t taken care of very well. For his sake, I always keep a tablecloth on it, and if I want to change it for company, I do it quickly and discreetly.

The biggest culprit of that ragged table top is most likely our Curry Open House Nights held when we lived in Rockford, IL, some 16 years ago. With many Brits and cooks in our social circle, we started an annual tradition in the dead of winter. Each February we put the word out: bring an Indian dish to pass and Malcolms will provide Indian Pale Ale (IPA) beer. Indian food only. No exceptions. I had 40 enormous plates that I set out on the fully extended dining room table. The table was filled with mouth-watering Indian dishes from 10 – 20 families. One year I sent out an email asking for everyone to bring serving utensils. As the party grew in size, I knew we would be short on big spoons. One couple, not sure exactly what I was looking for, brought their entire utensil drawer. I think we used ice cream scoops that evening.

Couples, a couple couples, and a few couples have sat down to dinner at this table. Family from Iowa. Family from England. Local family friends. Illinois friends. Massachusetts friends. Friends who traveled great distances to "snack around the Malcolm table." Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Science and social studies projects. Uncountable nights and days that tabletop has gathered people together.

At a Christmas cookie swap in December 2014, only a couple invitees were able to come. Still, it was an evening filled with great conversation and laughter. And as I look at this scene, the people that I “see” outnumber the guests who were there. My friends from Rockford who gave us the cork wreath; my dad who brought back a big round platter for me from California when I was a teen; my grandma whose tablecloth is on the table; my mom who gave me the gold stand; my college roommate whose grandmother gave me the recipe for thumbprint cookies; and my sister-in-law who gave me the sugar cookie recipe. A scene filled with memories.

Its joints are loose, but the solid wood should carry us through another 25 years of memories.

Riding the Strands of Fireworks. Deja vu.

A single fuse is lit. A gust of gun powder soars into the sky as one and pops into a sprinkling of sparkling, bright fireworks. It’s not a vision of the 4th of July. It’s the explosion of everyone’s spring activities. Post spring break. Well choreographed are the questions. “Where are you supposed to be tonight?” “Who should you send these pictures to?” “Is this a practice or a game?” “What day does your flight leave?” “Where is your uniform?” “Which baseball shoes are mine?” “Do you have a white shirt and black pants for me?” “What time do you need to be there?” “What you do you want to do for Mother’s Day?” “How many more days are left of school?” And it’s me asking that last question. 21.

Families who have kids in elementary school are riding on the same combustive fuselage.

... All of that might sound familiar: I wrote it May 13th in 2014. It was a deja vu moment when I tried to write the Hump Day Short this week. A couple year's ago, a friend and I were talking about how we liked change, and I told her that I loved the change of seasons. To which she replied, "But it's the same change every year!" So it's a predictable change. That's what this post-spring break era is.

Thursday was the mid-show big firework display. I sketched out my second eight hours of the day on a yellow sticky in half hour increments. I would be leaving the house at 2:00 to drop off Liam's drum at school for band. Then I would scamper around dropping off and picking up until 7:00 p.m. when all four of us would land at the same spot, Will's spring concert at school.

As chauffeur for the day, I decided to dress as a professional driver. I slipped over my head the only dress I own. In low, comfortable heels, I packed a snare drum case, a golf bag, a baseball bag, and a trumpet, then loaded them into the van, together with three changes of clothes and three pairs of shoes. The back of my van looked like the backstage of a production about to go live on stage. I bought sunflower seeds for baseball and Cheeze-its for on-the-road snacks and deodorant and Static Guard for me, the chauffer. My mind was in the game.

As I weaved my way through the scheduled drop-offs and pick-ups, my spirits were high. I landed at the concert a bit smug with the success of my polished five-hour drive. And, while watching my 7th-grader's concert, I counted up to 12. Just five years until Will's last spring concert.

There are a finite number of these days remaining. In a few years, I will be dressed as a spring chauffeur with no place to go. The patterned seasonal changes I so look forward to will take a drastic change.

This morning, a twinge of foreseen pain accompanies my footsteps to the dryer to retrieve Liam's baseball uniform for today's game.

Coloring

I just read this quote by Anthony Hopkins: “We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. You can never trust the human mind. It’s a death trap.” I’ve thought too much about this topic. It’s time to flush it from my mind.

Adult coloring books.

I’ve tried so hard to understand their allure. I don’t know what words to first put on the page.

A page from a Harry Potter coloring book came home in Liam’s backpack this week. Scholastics Reading Club is promoting the book. The main image on the page is of Harry’s Snowy Owl Hedwig, flying with his wings wide, the tips reaching edge to edge on the paper. In the background are leaves on skinny branches, flowers on pencil-thin stems, and birds tucked into the leaves. Each of these objects is no bigger than the tip of my little finger, the smallest the tip of a pencil. I see 40,000 objects to color. With the help of a microscope.

No. In fact, I see this as a depiction of my brain trying to manage 50,000 inputs and outputs. Out of control and getting all entwined. If I attempted to color this page, I would need a blank sheet of paper next to me where I could write down what I thought of as I colored each leaf. The busyness would spark a massive to-do list:

Collect toilet tube rolls. Stuff lint from trap in dryer into toilet tube rolls. Schedule camping trip summer so Liam can use stuffed toilet tube rolls as kindling. Un-stuff toilet tube rolls for Liam’s recycled robot project at school. Collect paper towel rolls. Stuff lint from dryer into paper towel rolls. Un-stuff paper towel tubes rolls for Will’s Boy Scout model rocket. Put Ziploc bag in laundry room to collect lint.

And that’s just eight little leaves and flowers on the tiniest dryer lint branch.

Psychologists, therapists, and whoever else studies the human brain and human behavior have declared that coloring in these intricate adult coloring books reduces stress and anxiety. Not for me. I’ve flipped the page over so as not to have to look at those leaves. And the Snowy Owl. That is already white. The biggest image on the page doesn’t need to be colored!

I am intrigued by the hobby: I have quietly colored for years. Not often, maybe once every three months. And now, this new mania lends legitimacy to my guilty pleasure.

I’ve fanned pages of many adult coloring books but not found one that I like. Mom gave all of us girls one for Christmas. The images are slightly bigger than the norm, and I have colored a couple pages in it using soft water color pencils. This page took a few sittings.

I noticed when I use colored pencils, a piece of the coloring experience is missing: the childhood smell and smoothness of Crayola crayons.  Like opening a can of Play-Doh, I plunge my nose into the box when I flip back the lid.  Deep inhaling is part of the therapy.

Other than my tools of choice, the main difference between my passion and this fad is in the object to be colored.  For me and my neighbor, who has confessed the same, we like big, simple pictures.  Those where we take long sweeping strokes and gradually fill in between the lines.   Coloring books with these images are hard to find.  There are many “giant coloring books” on the market for kids, but few have giant pictures.  I flip through coloring books whenever I walk through children’s book sections at stores.  A few months ago, I came across a 224-page book that has perfect images -- no Disney characters and no Super Heroes.  Just pages and pages of simple, innocent black outlines.

And with this frog, my choices were no more complicated than the number of greens in a box of 96 Crayola crayons.  I wouldn’t want any more choices than this.

The freedom to sweep back and forth in the big white spaces is incredibly relaxing. I can stick close to reality with four shades of green or let my imagination wander and pick the colors willy-nilly.

Plus, I can finish a page in less than five minutes. I can finish a project in less than five minutes and have something to show for it!

It takes nearly five minutes to pick the lint out of five paper towel tubes.

Click here for a little gem of a clip that sums up exactly how I want to color Hedwig’s 100,000 leaves, birds, and flowers. Scroll down to the video in #3.

Happy Hump Day.