Pumpkin pie and the friendship-day present

27 August 2008

Once upon a time is a good beginning for a story, particularly a Pumpkin Pie story, which this is, because it’s a story about Pumpkin Pie.

Pumpkin Pie lived with her mother and father, her three sisters, Peach, Plum, and Pecan, and her brother named Chicken.

One day a new family moved into the house next door. They had a pet boa constrictor and a toucan, and books and books full of pictures from all the far away places they had lived. But most importantly they had a little girl just Pumpkin’s age.

Her name was Annabelle, and she and Pumpkin Pie became best friends right away. They had tea parties and played Monopoly. Annabelle taught Pumpkin how to sing songs in a funny language, and Pumpkin taught Annabelle how to jump rope double-dutch.

One day in school, Pumpkin’s teacher announced it was National Friendship Week. Pumpkin Pie ran home after school. She wanted to do something special for her best friend, Annabelle

“Mommy, It’s Friendship Week! Can we make a present for Annabelle?”

Together Pumpkin and her mother made a delicious batch of cinnamon rolls. They wrapped them in pink cellophane with a note: “Happy Friendship Week!” and tiptoed over to Annabelle’s house. They set the plate on the front porch, Pumpkin gave the doorbell a hard ring, and Pumpkin Pie and her mother ran back to their own house.

It wasn’t too much longer before there was a ring at Pumpkin’s door. She opened the door so fast, she caught sight of Annabelle running across the lawn. Pumpkin smiled, there on her front porch was a box that said “For Pumpkin, my best friend!”

Pumpkin carried the box to the table, and carefully lifted off the lid. Imagine her surprise when she found only a pile of mud in the bottom! Pumpkin Pie began to cry.

“Why Pumpkin, what ever is the matter?” her mother asked.

“I thought Annabelle was my friend, but all she gave me was a box of mud!”

“Oh, I’m sure she is your friend, maybe where Annabelle comes from it’s nice for friends to give eachother mud.”

“I don’t think so! I think she’s mean!”

“Maybe you should ask her, I’m sure Annabelle would explain.”

But Pumpkin Pie was so angry she didn’t even talk to Annabelle all day. Pumpkin dumped the box of mud out her window and she just sat in her room and sulked.

All week Pumpkin Pie wouldn’t talk to her best friend. She ran home from school fast before Annabelle could catch up. When Annabelle came by to play with her, Pumpkin Pie pretended to be busy. Pumpkin didn’t answer the phone, and she wouldn’t sit with her at lunch.

It wasn’t until the next Friday that Pumpkin Pie looked out her window and saw some little green seedlings growing out the pile of mud.

And it wasn’t until much, much later, when the small seedlings had sprouted into a bed of beautiful flowers, that Pumpkin Pie finally understood: there are many different ways for people to say “I love you.”

My mommy told me this story or something like it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently for a number of reasons; I hope I have changed much in the 15 years since Mom made it up the first time, but I’m still not sure how the story ends.

Good morning starshine

16 August 2008

This week I’ve noticed that I sing a lot. I’m sure it’s because in just over 36 hours the Wilson household went from Filled To Capacity to Me, and I have been singing to fill the silence.

I would here like to take a moment to expound upon the term “Filled To Capacity”: This lovely, four-bedroom Tudor was home to, besides me and Jane in the cottage, Auntie Lynne, Uncle Dow, Mariah, Abe, Pete, Hannah, Becky, plus Mom, Christian, Kate, Tommy, plus Johnny, Mikey, Levi, plus sometimes Adam, and whoever else came to dinner—the old piano teacher, the flute teacher, the Mia Maids, some friends from Europe, Adam’s classmates etc. etc. etc. “Me” refers to the mass exodus of everyone else to various corners of the country, while I remained to keep house. The silence, which is: actually hearing the soft purr of my laptop, has been a bit of a shock. So I sing.

Besides my best Jazz standards and the latest Broadway hits, I have been digging up a few old childhood favorites. While taking my girls for a picnic Wednesday, I suddenly remembered this timeless classic; I think it was Ava’s hysterical screams at a nearby bee that triggered the wave of nostalgia:

Shoo fly, don’t bother me,
Shoo fly, don’t bother me,
Shoo fly, don’t bother me,
For I belong to somebody.

I feel, I feel, I feel,
I feel like a morning star.
I feel, I feel, I feel,
I feel like a morning star.

Rising? Faint? Unnoticed? I’m not really sure how a morning star is supposed to feel.

Not even wensleydale?

13 August 2008

So, I’m reading this great book about changing your life completely just by being ridiculously honest about yourself. So I’d like to practice here:

Confession #1: I ate the whole box of Trader Joe crackers,

Confession #2: in just four days,

Confession #3: and I’m not sorry. Except I am sorry that Mom took the rest of the smoked Gouda.

Well, I feel so much better.

5:57

12 August 2008

The loneliest part of living
alone
is not the clock, which chimes
unheard
all day,
or the radio, left on,
forgotten,
entertaining the kitchen wall,
or the feeble light of the telephone
blinking
because no one answered,
or even the dripping faucet which,
unnoticed,
bothers no one’s conscience,

but the back door,
which is locked,
and shuffling for my keys,
I have time to consider
that the dishes are still undone,
that I’ll have to go shopping soon,
that dinner conversation will be the comics again,
that my footsteps will fill the whole void
because there is no one here to play the piano.

Carrot tops

08 August 2008

The door opens on Hannah and Becky lounging on my sofa, scooping out fingerfulls of nutella.

Hannah: Hi!
Becky: Write about Hanny and the nutella! uproarious giggling.
Hannah: Look Mally! Crams her whole hand in the jar of nutella.
Me: I'm gonna' call you Hannah-Banan-n'tella. Ella for short.
Becky: More giggling as Hannah licks off her whole hand.
Hannah: I think I have nutella up my nose.
Becky: I like that picture. But I think it's ugly.
Hannah: I have to go to the library.
Becky: Can I have some nutella?
Hannah: There's no more.
    Pulls out another fistful.
    What's everyone laughing at?
Becky: Snatches away the jar. Exit left into my bathroom.
    from off stage Wow! that's really messy nutella.
Hannah: I'm a messy nutella.
Me: You're face is a messy nutella.
Hannah: I know.
Enter Becky scraping empty jar.
Becky: Let's go buy some more.
Hannah: I have to go to the library.
Curtain.

Wake up call

03 August 2008

This morning I woke up at two minutes to six, as I do every morning—it’s possibly the only thing I learned in school that I have not yet forgotten, but instead of rolling over and back to sleep, I shook myself awake. Something was clinging to my ankle. In the half-lucid haze of waking I muddled my dream about street sweepers with the smell of unfamiliar sheets—then I remembered.

I’m playing mom again this weekend for Chubby, Ty-ty, Sadie and Matthew and Allie. The hand in my bed was Sadie’s. Halfway through last night’s Broadway production I called Bedtime! (“You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! You’ll refuse to wear pajamas! A 2½ hour smash-hit for the whole family!”) Sadie announced she would be sleeping in my bed. Sure. Just go to bed. I was busy wrestling a screaming Chubby onto the changing table.

When the final curtain closed on the five sleeping kids, Ty-ty’s bloody nose had been staunched, Allie had called her mother 5 times to say goodnight, Matthew had moved all his sleeping things into Ty-ty’s room, Chubby had been rocked to sleep, twice, and Sadie was sleeping, sprawled across the bed, on both pillows, snoring. As I curled up at the foot of the bed, trying to burry my head in the covers, Allie came in, dragging her sleeping bag and pillow. She’s 12, but even 12-year-olds can be scared to sleep alone.

But I was the only one awake at 5:58 am: lying upside down in bed listening to the quiet breathing of early-morning sleeping. I carefully pulled my ankle loose and opened wide the bedroom’s French doors: the early, fresh cool sifted into the room and I lay back down. I must have fallen asleep then because it was nearly an hour later when my dream (that lanky street sweeper again, and in a Hawaiian-print shirt from the bowling alley?) became entangled with the whining of a fire truck.

Grumble, grumble, EPA! I rolled over and pulled the covers to my ears…

“Fire! Fire!” It was Allie, wide-awake and panicked.

The sirens were still singing out alarum bells, and I realized they were on our street. I sat up, and scanned the room, surprisingly calm for the frantic note I could hear in Allie’s voice. No fire, no smoke, Sadie was still sound asleep, only Allie stood cowering in the middle of the room. She whimpered and looked out the big windows— then I saw it too. Across the backyard and above the neighbor’s roof, dark gray smoke churned into the sky.

Mesmerizing, really—thick air so dirty with fire’s choking vomit, like crumpled velvet draping on the great magnolias that ringed their yard.

“There’s a fire!” Allie was crying now, and I snapped the porch doors closed.

“It’s okay,” I tried to console her, "Do you want to help me check on everyone, make sure they're okay? The firefighters are already there, we're all safe, everything is going to be fine…”

She was, in fact, inconsolable, and preferred to pace the room, alternately crying and staring at the smoke in silence.

When the dark gray finally turned to white steam, I coaxed her away from the window,

“Allie, it’s going to be okay.”

“I’m just so scared!”

“Of what, honey?”

She shook her head,

“I’m just scared!”

I didn’t know what to say.

Welcome, welcome Sabbath morning.