On Thanksgiving

From an email my mom sent to Zana:

It has always been my favorite holiday and the kids are good to try to keep the tradition...That and our friend Mickey who has generously said we could gather at her house!  We'd have a tough time doing it at my little house.  I think we are up to 20 now and that is just how we like it....It's about a good meal with family and folks who maybe don't have a spot any given year for Thanksgiving, and a chance to look at everything we have to be thankful for.  Even after the last couple of years, I can honestly say I am so very very blessed.

On My (Our) Voice

My voice is my mother's, my sister's, my aunt and my grandmother's.

In high school, it was a bit of a running joke that one of my close friends always asked to speak to me when he called — even if he was fairly certain I had answered the phone — because my mom, my sister, and I all sound so much the same by phone. Even close friends and family members couldn't always tell us apart.

I wonder if our voices have grown apart in the time we haven't lived under the same roof.

My mother sounds more and more like my grandmother to my ears. It's poignant to hear Grandma in my mother's voice now, so soon after she has passed. It's a bit like she's not really gone.

My mother's voice has deepened and softened a bit over the years. So has mine. I used to be a soprano, and now I would really have to work to get that range back. (Voice is a muscle, after all.) Mom used to be a honeyed alto, and now is closer to a tenor.

She lamented to me recently that she feels she has no singing voice left.

As I write this, it's too early to tell if you will have the family voice, dear girl, but I'd guess you will. I already hear myself in you when you parrot phrases back to me (sometimes funny and sometimes hard to hear).

My voice sounds like my mother's, but my father is in it too, in my singing voice, in my love of music, in my enthusiasm for great TV and movies. My Poppy is in my voice in my storytelling ability. My Grandpa A., I believe, is in my ability to teach.

I hear my sister in my words sometimes, my mother in the phrases I choose, my grandmother in certain old fashioned things I say.

They are all a part of our voice.

On Laundry

Avoiding Extra Washing

My dad had a great system for his closet.

Because he worked a physical job all day, he would come home in the afternoons, shower, and put on clean home clothes. But he only wore those clothes for a few hours before he went to bed.

So, he would hang them back up with the hanger hook facing out (backwards from normal). Then he would know that he could wear them again one more time before they needed to be washed.

Ironing

My Grandpa A. worked for a laundromat in his youth, and he taught my grandmother (and thus, my mother) the proper way to iron a shirt or a suit.

The only tips I have gleaned (remembered) are that, when ironing a shirt, you do the sleeves first, because they will be less likely to wrinkle while you do the rest of the shirt. And then do the collar last.

Washing Machine

Mom always told me to put the soap in the washing machine first, before the clothes and when you start the water, because it will get more evenly distributed in the wash. She learned that from a man who owned a laundromat she visited. 

Organizing Your Closet

I am not very good at laundry (understatement of the year?) but I am pretty good at organizing my closet. 

If you want to see which of your clothes you're actually wearing (and which items aren't getting worn) tie a ribbon around the rack in your closet down at the right end. When you wear something, wash it, and return it to the closet, put it on the right side of the ribbon, while all the clothes that have not yet been worn stay on the left side.

You can challenge yourself to wear only the clothes on the left side of the ribbon (until you run out of clothes) or see after a period of time which clothes are not being worn, and therefore ought to be donated. 

General Laundry Tips

• You don't need nearly as much soap as you think you do. Experiment and find the smallest amount that still gets the clothes clean.
• Vinegar is a good fabric softener. Add a few drops of essential oil if you're worried about the smell.
• You don't need dryer sheets.  Fill the toe of an old sock with beans, then tie it off and roll it into a ball.  Throw one or two of these in the dryer to fluff clothes.  You can also add a few drops of essential oil to the sock to make the clothes smell nice.  Or toss some dried lavender in with the beans inside the sock.
• Wash everything possible on cold and on the gentle cycle; it will make your clothes last longer. Dry them as little as possible.
• Wash jeans inside out to preserve the color.
• Find a better system for folding and putting away clothes than I have — and then teach it to me!

On Living Life Now

The greatest lesson my father gave me was in his death.

A few months before Daddy died, he confided in me how angry he was about the whole situation.  He was deeply, deeply pissed off that he wasn't going to have the life he had envisioned for himself. He said,

My dad got 30 years of retirement to do whatever he wanted. And what do I get?

Poppy used to joke that Emily thought he'd never had a job, because he retired the same year she was born. And it's true that he lived another 29 years — a third of his life — not going to work day in and day out.

My dad didn't hate his job, but neither did he love it.  He went to college because his father wanted him to. He got a business degree (instead of an art, music, or other degree he might have been better suited for) because that's what his father wanted. And then he went to work for Southwestern Bell (later AT&T) because it was a secure, comfortable job that supported his family.

But he didn't love it.

He pursued his passions on the side. He did his art and played his guitars. He tried out photography, sculpture, and pen and ink drawing. But there was never enough time. There was a lawn that constantly needed mowing, stuff to fix around the house, kids to pick up and drop off.

So he was, naturally, really looking forward to retirement.  He never got it.

He retired to take care of his father in 2012. About six months later, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

He got six months when he had expected 20 years or more.

Is it a sad story? Sure it is. Don't get me wrong; I believe my dad lived a good life, but I still have trouble reconciling the time I feel he should have had with the hand he got dealt.

But the positive side of it is this: I realized what he was really telling me.  Live in the now. Make the life you have the life you want to live. Don't settle.

As I write this, I feel deeply, deeply grateful that I've been able to do just that. I've created a job for myself that puts me at home, with you. It lets me earn money to support our family, do something I actually enjoy, and be more of the mom I want to be.

I'm living the life I wish my dad could have had. I'm doing it because he showed me how important it is.

There's always going to be stuff we don't want to do in life. There's always laundry to fold, grass to mow, jobs we don't love (hopefully to get us to one we do). That doesn't change. But living with the idea that we are in charge, that we can create the life we want to live — and the knowledge that we must do it now, not wait for later — that is the powerful lesson he left me with.

Don't wait to live your life later, because later may never come.

On Driving

My grandfather taught me to drive a stick shift.

I was 15 or 16 and very reluctant to get my driver's license. We went to El Paso to visit my grandparents that summer, and my grandfather offered to take me out in their Nissan Z to teach me to drive.

I knew the basic mechanics of how to clutch, how to shift, etc.  But he gave me some of the best advice I've ever gotten that day, for driving and for life:

Pick a spot in the road and drive to it.

It seems innocuous at first, but I've thought of it often in tense driving situations. You only have to focus on the stretch of road right in front of you. Nothing more.

As I've gotten older, it's also come to mean more to me in a general sense about life. Goals are important, but they don't have to be monumental. In fact, sometimes just focusing on a goal you can see — a milestone you know you can achieve — can be the most beneficial.

Just pick a spot in the road, and drive to it.

On Love

My mother always said that the best advice she ever got from her father was this:

Find a man who will love you more than himself — when it matters.

I saw this realized in a letter my grandfather wrote my grandmother in 1964(?) before he underwent open heart surgery. It was a very risky procedure back then, and he knew he might not survive. He wrote my grandmother a letter, detailing many of the bits and pieces she might need to know if he died, including his life insurance policies, how he thought she should deal with the cars and the house, etc.  And at the end, he said this:

Do not doubt that this is a love letter.

It most certainly was. My grandfather was an infinitely practical man, and in trying to ease the burdens he was afraid he might leave my grandmother if he died, he was doing all he knew to show he loved her.

He survived the operation and lived for another twenty-plus years. We found the letter in my grandmother's papers after she died, 13 years after him.