Each memory is like a paper flower stored up in a magician’s sleeve: Invisible one moment and then so substantial and florid the next. I cannot imagine how it stayed hidden all this time, and like those paper flowers, once they’ve been let loose in the world, the memories are impossible to tuck away again. Sharing the past with someone is different from reliving it when you’re alone. It feels less like a wound, more like a poultice.
Jodi Picoult, author of the Storyteller, is one of America’s best novelists. Her writing is full of humor, nostalgia and meditations regarding the difficult choices that confront people.
When we are young we’re swept up in the grand crescendos of the symphony of life: going to college, falling in love, marriage, children, job promotions, and vacations as well as the tragedies of life. We know better, but we gobble up life as if we were going to live forever. Bill says that when we become old we become spectators more than participants. Also, I am more introspective and pay more attention to little details and connectivities that I might not have noticed when I was busy, busy, busy.
I believe that as we age we become more and more what I would call “associative” beings. Retirement gives us the time see the associations between things and see how the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together. Sometimes something that I read and a current experience come together. I read the above quotation on the same day that I had an e-mail from my Ball State buddy, John. He responded to my essay about strawberries, saying how much his dear father had loved them and that the very word brought back memories of him in a mixture of sadness and delight.
It doesn’t surprise me that food is such a major memory trigger. Food involves all five senses: the red of the strawberry, the green of its stem; the scent of baking spices; the sound of the tender crunch of a perfect, golden loaf of French bread; and, oh, the glorious taste and touch of chocolate melting on your tongue . . . !
What wonderful minds we have to be able not only to savor the bounty of the Earth and the skill of the cooks, but to be able to connect it all together in vivid recreations of the people we have loved and the grand experiences that we’ve enjoyed. I never eat ham loaf without thinking of Grandpa Kelly’s sister, Aunt Laura, who had a feast waiting for us when we made a yearly pilgrimage to Michigantown to visit her and go out to the Old Home Place.
Early morning, July 4: Each season has special food: cider and roasting wieners in the fall, Christmas cookies and chili in winter, Easter ham and marshmallow peeps, summer strawberries and roasting ears. I know what’s for dinner today. All over America the great American cookout will feature hamburgers, hot dogs, roasting ears and perhaps potato salad or deviled eggs.
Bill and I are having bratwurst simmered in beer and onions and then grilled and served with dill pickles and mustard the way Linda Schroeder, a former Ritter Ave. neighbor and Wisconsin native, taught us. We shall have Mom Clarke’s potato salad which is like none other that I’ve tasted. It has no eggs or onions, only potatoes, dill pickles and celery. I use plenty of Miracle Whip seasoned with a judicious addition of Coleman’s dry mustard. Two secrets: The potatoes are cooked in their jackets which adds an earthy flavor, and some dill pickle juice is drizzled into the salad dressing. We shall also have baked beans and corn on the cob. We are violating our heart-healthy diet to have these treats, and I can hardly wait! .williamclarke@comcast.net
P.S. Afternoon: Hiss, boo! It’s raining. I shall have to broil the bratties in the oven . . .