Deep Freeze(r)

An alignment of the best possible circumstances and necessary variables led to a spontaneous pre-dawn defrosting of the freezer Saturday morning. I was only two days into my vacation, six inches of snow and drifts on the driveway kept us happily homebound, and the high that day didn’t even clear 28 degrees. A look ahead showed Sunday’s temps soaring all the way up to 41, so now was the time; we’d best be quick about it. While Patrick slept off a quiet Christmas upstairs, I got to work.

Thirty minutes later and emptied of its contents, the harvest gold Montgomery Ward Signature Deluxe sat with its rectangular mouth open, spitting droplets of chilled water onto a thick layer of old bath towels strategically placed on the floor as chunks of ice melted randomly from each bright silver coiled shelf. Earlier in the fall, we’d smartly set up plastic bins to hold our arctic larder by category—meats, fish, poultry, grains, ice cream/desserts—making it easy to unload it all and carry it to the front porch defrosting staging area. For the better part of six hours, the deck resembled an impromptu rummage sale of edibles for which we had no customers. Surrounded by a half-foot of snow drifts, it was almost Country Living photo shoot-ready. Almost.

As farm auction purchases go, that upright freezer we lugged home on a sunny August afternoon some sixteen years ago holds a proud place near the top of our Most Excellent Auction Scores list, a bargain at $125. It’s been with us so long, I can’t recall the grunting logistics of unloading it from whatever truck we owned at the time, sliding it across the front porch, through the carpeted living room and finally pushing it into the far corner of the bathroom/storage area where it has hummed away since. Like she was born there.

A note about our home’s layout and room arrangement is necessary at this point. The bathroom fixtures used to share space with an old massive coal burner until the previous owners upgraded to a modest modern form of propane-fueled somewhat-central heat. It only reached the rooms on the first floor, so we quickly learned the value of a few strategically-placed space heaters in the upstairs bedrooms during our early years here. After a series of unfortunate furnace events of our own, we’re now on our third one and haven’t regretted shelling out the extra cash to bring a measure of that warm air into the bedrooms upstairs. Somewhere in the house’s construction evolution, a half-wall was installed to separate the old coal burner from the “business” side of the bathroom, providing at least the intention of privacy, and resulting in more than a few guests scratching their heads when we’d direct them to the facilities and the first thing they’d see was the freezer. Now when folks come to visit, they know the closed door to that space is the Signal that someone is in there, tending to the necessary. A few years ago, we slid a primitive flatback cupboard up against the freezer side of the half-wall, thinking it would blur the appearance of keeping food in the bathroom. So far so good.

It seems silly to even write the words, but that freezer has given us some great memories, and (if such a thing were possible) has become a beloved and reassuring member of our family. When we raised meat chickens, that retro golden food locker kept our poultry harvest safely stored until Patrick found a way to make it delicious (now we let Costco manage most of our inventory, and as I type this, there are five one-pound packages of pork belly waiting for a Korean garlic marinade spiced with fresh ginger to land atop a bowlful of long grain brown rice). When he was in school for his suture technician certification (to be used at the emergency room of our metropolitan children’s hospital), Patrick stored his practice pigs’ feet in there, making dinner prep a “double-check what you’re thawing” adventure until he graduated. We stocked the wire basket at the bottom of the unit with a summer’s worth of wild berries and shredded zucchini, and two summers ago with frozen grapes and washcloths for our niece’s 50-mile charity bike run that conveniently cycled past our driveway. There could be an entire chapter on ice cream alone (which reminds me, honey, we're out of spumoni).

Occasionally we’ll talk about getting a new one, but that idea soon loses steam in the presence of such reliability and nostalgia. How can something so cold make us feel so cozy? One look at her as we pass through the living room to the kitchen and we’re back in the moment when the auctioneer banged the gavel in our favor. Then more memories of other auctions and our good fortune come surging to the surface and soon we’re chatting happily from our view of the past, making note of how something that once belonged to someone else graces each corner of our home. We can only begin to wonder how many people she fed, how much venison was stored next to the peas and carrots, and whether her previous custodians kept cartons of chocolate or vanilla on the top shelf (we don’t torture ourselves with choosing; we stock them both).

Six hours after I turned the dial to “off”, the ice was gone from the shiny silver coils on the shelves, the walls and door pockets wiped clean and the tubs of food returned to their precise locations. She hummed back to frozen life overnight, greeting me with her mechanical song this morning before the daily walk, our cauliflower pizzas and green beans tucked safely in her icy embrace.

Let winter keep coming. Old Gold Montgomery is on the job.

The Scent of Snow

The tiniest snowflake landed in my eye on the morning walk last Wednesday, and I went immediately to that place of wonder that the nerve endings in my cornea are sensitive enough to even register such an infinitesimally small and simple change in temperature and pressure. It felt cool for an instant as it melted, and I blinked it out of existence in a flash. Wonder on top of wonder, because I was also well into the dead goldenrod stalks when the snow started falling. That’s rare and cherished, to be right there when it all begins.

The last time it snowed, I was tucked in and wearing my work-from-home uniform (red plaid pajamas, aka Extremely Casual Friday), watching the flakes fall as I stood on the warm dry side of the living room windowpanes until it was just too stunningly beautiful to resist and I just HAD to be standing in the middle of it. Three and a half minutes later: sweatshirt, coat, leggings and boots on and I was making tracks, my mouth a near-permanent “oh!”—the only appropriate response to the view in every direction—as the acres pulled me forward. Every curve on the path unfolded to reveal a snow-christened scene more spectacular than the one I just passed through; the pure silence swallowed me whole.

I don’t really check the weather report much anymore since I’m mostly at home and don’t need to dress for a 22-minute commute in a vehicle that finally blows heat by the time I arrive in the parking lot. Here at home, the mileage from the breakfast table to the workplace is all indoors and involves a steep but short flight of stairs (shoes and socks are optional). Sure, you need to let the chickens out at dawn and lock them back up when the fields go all dusky gray. But you can slip on your boots, slide the quilted flannel coat hanging on the cast iron bell in the mudroom right over your pajamas and dash out to do the job long enough for the hems of your pantlegs to skim over the tallest blades of snow-dampened grass. I’m back inside before I even know it was chilly out there, using the hair dryer on those hems (the after-chicken-chores reward is sitting on the far left corner of the couch, legs tucked underneath me while I sip hot green tea and eat the day’s hard boiled egg. Nothing deflates the charm of that moment more than soggy pajama pants hems soaking one’s behind).

If I hadn’t needed to be in a work meeting that Wednesday morning, I could have easily talked myself into sitting at the feet of a young black walnut sapling just inside the entrance to the meadow, watching the sky unpack its load of snow one fistful of flakes at a time. I settled for an upstairs window-framed view of the snow as it fell thick and fast, coming to rest on the hood and windshield of my brother’s ‘68 Chevy truck parked in the grass between the old old goat barn and the field to the east. Hand-painted holiday cards don’t get more charming than that tableau (when I scavenge the neighborhood the week after Christmas for discarded trees by the curb, I’ll pick the greenest one to toss in the bed, then snap the photo for next year’s card). In less than an hour, three inches of snow piled up neatly on the deck and I took a moment to appreciate it before sweeping it aside and off into the grass.

There’s a scent to fresh snow that almost defies description (a fellow writer recently offered the phrase “frozen petrichor”—such a medieval-sounding collection of letters, isn’t it? Thanks, Augie). It’s a watery, mineral-infused aroma with an immediate sharpness to it, traces of earth and rarefied atmosphere mixed in, and now we’re bordering on those elegant but sometimes bizarre wine catalogue write-ups that use phrases like “forest floor”, “sagebrush undertones”, and “wet stone”. All I know is when I catch that first scent of new snow, I go sniffing hungrily for more of it, and that usually leads me as far away from the house as I can go while still staying within the surveyor pins that mark the boundaries of our property. It doesn’t take long before I’m distracted by the stark beauty of the snow-fluffed scene that surrounds me, filling the rest of my senses with more data than they can process. I can see where the deer have crisscrossed the cut paths (or created some of their own), browsed here and there on whatever green they could find among the brown grasses, and chewed strips of bark from the curly willow by the sweat lodge. I was thirty-six years old when I saw my first set of deer tracks in snow; twenty-some years later, this morning actually, and I’ve added “deer nose prints in the snow” to a growing list of All There is Still Left to See and Learn and Be Delighted By. Another reason why I’m not that afraid of getting older. There’s so much I still don’t know yet.

Predictions for this year’s season are already grim and meeting our anxious expectations. We don’t dispute them or take them lightly. But wrapped in the warmth of a good home and beckoned by the unrelenting beauty of a landscape that knows no end to its own gifts, we still willingly step into winter, eyes wide open to catch the sights, and perhaps a few more stray flakes. What else can we do but be present to what the moment gives us?

I lace up my boots, pull on my gloves and inhale that frozen petrichor one more time. Ahhh…

What Will You Make Today?

The sun found me this morning sitting on the massive trunk of a fallen black walnut tree in the woods in complete stillness. That’s something I’m not very often, and it was delicious. As I received the silence of the forest around and above me, my eye caught the swift tawny motion of a grown-up doe in retreat, zigzagging her way through the saplings to the northwest to get as far away from this two-legged intruder as she could. I took off my earmuffs as she got smaller in the distance, and still couldn’t hear her hooves on the soggy brown leaves. If she broke any branches on her way out of the woods, they must have been mush and punky already. How could something that big and in motion not make a sound? I have a lot to learn.

I woke up this morning as I usually do, wondering if my congestion was a sign that COVID had come to claim me, and then remembering that I’ve had congestion for most of my life and it never once sent me to the hospital to be intubated. Reassured and calm once more, I set about the morning tasks: straighten the living room, wash last night’s dinner dishes, wash the stovetop and counters down with a soapy scrub pad, and dress for the morning walk. The sunrises have been yellow and gray these past several days, and I imagine those colors in a future quilt I’d like to make. I also note here that Pantone’s new colors for 2021 are are “Ultimate Gray” and “Illuminating”, hailed as gifts from the hue gods for our pandemic-weary spirits. We humans think we’re so clever, when here Mother Nature has had the color palette well in hand for-EVER and doesn’t need to make any grand announcement when a new shade of green shows up in the spring. I love being reminded of my place in the grand Scheme of Things. It keeps my life right-sized and manageable (and I’m grateful, really, that Pantone is trying to ease a burden here, in some small way. Watch for new nonprofits to adopt these two shades as their brand colors in the months to come).

Yesterday was marked by a quick trip into town to exchange food with Patrick’s mom and sister, then back home for an afternoon of unbridled creativity. For the food exchange, we’ve got quite the air-tight system in place: pull up in the driveway, Molly, masked and cheerful in her eyes, opens the garage door, we place our bags of food in front of the open door and back away at least six feet (also masked) and she retrieves them before putting down her offerings for us to pick up in similar fashion. The whole transaction wraps up with a phone conversation, Molly back inside with Joann, the glass of the front door or the patio doors between us and our masks removed in the safety of our respective places. It’s lovely to see their smiles and their lips move as they talk. It hurts not to be able to hug them. Raw and real, I look forward to the day when the rough edges of all this have softened even a little. For now, it’s enough that Molly made us a tuna ball (white albacore and cream cheese decadence, spiked with horseradish and cayenne pepper sauce, sprinkled with dill for curb appeal on the appetizer table. Patrick and Molly’s late father, Larry, introduced this pre-meal delight at a family dinner once, and I ate so much of it that I had precious little room for the main event that followed. “Liz is here—hide the tuna ball” became the joke at every future family gathering. Larry also introduced me to caviar and creme fraiche. Let them laugh all they want, I’ll be content and noshing for the rest of my life), and sent us home with cinnamon rolls. The carb pile on the counter is growing without apology.

As for the unbridled creativity, there’s a gorgeous walnut and cherry pizza cutter handle on the cusp of completion in Patrick’s studio, and the beginnings of at least two rings on the drafting table. Meanwhile, three hand-bound journals rest in pressed silence in my creative workspace, a stack of cloth journal covers await their beaded embellishments and a dozen-plus fabric bird ornaments are ready to be stuffed with poly-fil. I’m also a sucker for any book with an added pocket on the inside cover, so we’ll see what today brings as I consider the use of envelopes I made out of road maps and old wrapping paper. Suddenly, the stillness of this morning’s fallen-black-walnut-in-the-woods moment seems like a dream…

I’ve reflected (as I do on occasion), and all this busy-ness, this motion in my life isn’t an avoidance strategy to keep me from facing down some neglected part of my psyche. I’ve done battle with my dragons and am still here, victorious and appropriately scarred (which means, no longer bleeding and now healed and getting on with it). Lessons tucked firmly in my my heart and my daily practices, it’s a divine privilege to make something that didn’t exist last week, to glue or stitch two things together that maybe nature never intended but darn it, turn out to be pretty ok. The fun of seeing an idea become flesh is still available to us, dear readers. Put yourself in that grand seat of design, of trial-and-error and laissez les bon temps rouler!

And if you must, go still and silent for a while. See what rises to the surface, gently takes your face in its hands and asks for your attention. It’ll be ok. In fact, it will be wonderful.

You are precious and loved. Remember that.

Where the Entertainment Lives Alongside the Bargains

Conversation between two employees overheard in a thrift store one October Sunday morning:

“I’m gonna be moving slow today, Janet. I rode the mechanical bull last night.”

“I hear that, Connie.”

It was enough to make me linger a bit longer than usual in front of the mismatched dinnerware from the ‘80’s section, conveniently situated right next to the open door of the store’s stockroom.

Unfortunately, the rest of Janet and Connie’s exchange was inaudible and I needed to keep moving lest it become obvious I was loitering and hoping for more eavesdropped details, or better yet, a glimpse of Connie making good on her declaration as she hobbled about the aisles, stooping stiffly to place newly-priced inventory on the shelves, groaning as she stood upright again. There’s a fine line between curiosity and “none of your business”, and I didn’t want to cross it. I frequent that store weekly (or used, to pre-pandemic). Plus, you know, basic human decency.

Years ago—circumstance and setting unimportant—a co-worker and I got to talking about human behavior. She told me how she enjoyed observing people in social settings and hearing how casual conversations took shape. Once, she sat quietly at a party and unobtrusively jotted down snippets of the exchanges going on within earshot of her perch. She then strung them together as one discussion and the results were hilarious. Fortunately, the friends she listened in on were good sports and eager to hear their individual contributions to the mixed up word salad she’d created. It quickly became a game for this circle of folks and I suspect they’ve archived some doozies in the years since. Given our present circumstances of more distanced and virtual gatherings, I doubt we’d get the same results. Zoom has its limits. Another reason to keep praying for an end to this pandemic.

We’re a fun bunch, humans. In any setting, we offer up what essentially comes down to our ongoing attempts to figure out the life we’re living and we occasionally accomplish this in the presence of unknowing spectators, also trying to figure out life. If you enjoy people-watching, what’s your favorite setting? For me, it’s thrift stores, hands down. The customers (of which I am one, and fully aware that someone may be observing me) are givers, representing a wide and varied swath of circumstance, background and purpose, as well as skill sets and word choices (spoken aloud if unruly children are present). In all my decades of shopping at thrift stores, I have yet to interact with anyone who isn’t kind or quirky, creative or just browsing. Sometimes we chat about the headlines, but most often we trade comments about the items we’re picking up, turning over in our hands, and then putting back on the shelf. At the store I (used to) visit weekly, one of the regulars sings gospel songs as she travels through the aisles, witnessing to everyone and no one in particular. She’s cheerful and harmless, and doesn’t ask for anything from the rest of us except a smile. I’d go every week just for that.

As a writer, there’s a bonus here—endless story prompts as I try to imagine the history of the items donated. The coconut husk monkeys, an entire rack of XXL t-shirts with the misspelled company name over the left pocket, the inevitable Blue Boy figurine (or painting) and the odd 90’s wedding dress. We donate items to the Goodwill nearly as often as we buy them, and it’s funny to see a set of plates we no longer needed sitting among the unfamiliar dishes that might once have held our neighbor’s dinner. We always check the price, nod in agreement that yep, that’s about what we’d pay for them now. It’s also important to note that every single room in our house boasts at least one if not seven thrift store purchases; let’s not even talk about what’s in the barn and the outbuildings. But where do those coconut monkeys come from? They’ve got “bad vacation souvenir” written all over them (just like the glued-up seashell sculpture I found in a tote in our attic a few years ago). And why doesn’t anyone want Blue Boy in the house anymore? Let yourself noodle around on that for a few hours.

Some weeks after I shut down our antiques business, I stopped by the Goodwill near our house on the way home from work and came across a complete three-piece set of Pyrex mixing bowls in the Gooseberry pattern. Not a scratch or stain on them, and after parting with $6, they were mine (the current price on eBay for the same set is clocking in at $152.50. Retirement plan anyone?). They are fully employed because I live in a functioning house, not a museum, and the largest one is the perfect size for making no-knead cold-rise artisan bread. When dough needs to sit for 18 - 20 hours, might as well look charming while doing it, right? But who donated them and why, I’ll never know. I’m just grateful they did, contributing a prize gem to my retro kitchen vibe.

I’d like to suggest that thrift stores are the great economic leveler. If we shop there, we do so for such different reasons it’s impossible to draw a hard and fast conclusion or establish any sort of sociological pattern. The act of buying anything second-hand stretches across the continuum of desire and need, and even those can be dissected into limitless variables until one wonders why one is asking the question in the first place. The answer doesn’t matter. What does matter is finding what we were looking for (insights and light humor via people-watching or that thingamajig without which we can’t repair the walk-behind lawn mower properly) and trading creative repurposing ideas with folks who just might be our neighbors the next block—or farm—over. When this pandemic is over, I’ll gladly return to the shelves and aisles of other people’s stuff, listen to a woman sing her joyful faith out loud without a trace of self-consciousness and smile knowingly in front of the coconut monkeys.

I just hope Connie is feeling better.