Over the River and Through The Woods

I had that dream again last night.

I'm not usually one to repeat dreams--let alone remember my dreams--but I've been having the same dream consistently over the past two years.

I guess the dream itself is always different, but the setting is always the same: my grandparent's house.

I had what one could appropriately call a "magical" childhood. We lived next door to my grandparents, down a dirt-and-gravel lane, on several acres full of trees. Not just any kind of tree, though--my grandfather grew Christmas trees.

Even in the summertime, the setting was a wonderland. Grandpa would take us for tractor rides, loading as many small bodies as he could into the bucket and raising us high in to the air, then taking us for a tour around his unconventional farm. In the early spring, my mom and I helped weed my grandmother's flower garden. I remember the zinnias. Those were my favorite, and the most colorful of all the flowers in Grandma's garden. During the summer, Grandpa would have me help him pick raspberries. In the fall, the leaves from the deciduous trees lining the lane would fall like golden sprinkles on the rocks, and we would crash through them on our bikes as we played cops and robbers. In the winter, Grandpa would groom the ice on the hilly part of their driveway moat so that he could race his red flexible flyer sled down it whenever he liked. Sometimes he'd even let us join in, but for us, it was more fun to watch him than to sled down ourselves. I remember watching deer sneak through the fields in February, finding Easter Eggs hidden in the rocks in June, building forts amid the trees in August, watching families trek through the fields to find the perfect tree every November.

As magical as Grandpa's outside was, there was something even more loving about Grandma's inside. Sometimes, when I am stressed or need an exit from reality, I close my eyes and walk through their house.

I enter through the garage, pausing to stop and look at the surrey bike that I wish I were still small enough to climb into (also wishing that the battery pack Grandpa rigged onto it still worked). I pass by the ancient deep freezer, picturing all of the frozen fish from Grandpa's Yellowstone trips and Grandma's Emergency supply of at least 20 cartons of ice cream hidden inside. I walk up the ramp, past Grandpa's muddy boots, and open the door to the mud room. I see Grandpa's collection of mesh trucker hats hanging on their pegs--there must be at least 30. The room is full of shoes, mostly from aunts and uncles and cousins come to visit. When I step through the next door, I am greeted by the kitchen--and Grandma sitting on one of the twirly stools, watching the news on the small TV sitting on the counter next to the cookie jar, always full of Fudge Stripes for my little brother and Pepperidge Farm gingerbread men for the rest of us. The kitchen smells simultaneously like goulash and pot roast, although to my knowledge Grandma never made those two meals together.  I kiss Grandma's leathery cheek as she gives me a hug, then I still on a stool and spin around a little bit--because really, who could resist? We talk books and ice cream and the weather and school and she shares all the family news: an angel told her how to cure my cousin's chronic illness, another cousin is getting married, my aunts are coming up in a few days to stay for the weekend. She invites me to get a Fat Boy or a Monkey Bar out of the freezer, and on my way I am stopped by the collection of my cousins's faces on the freezer door. Grandma has an unspoken rule that she only replaces your picture if she likes this year's better than last year. My Australian cousins always get updated, because Grandma only sees them every seven years or so. Some of my Salt Lake cousins are stuck in Kindergarten. My little sister is in fourth grade. I'm lucky enough to have made it to my Junior year of High School.

Bits and pieces of real memories weave their way through my daytime dreams as I wander through their home, searching for the love and peace that I always found there, even when Grandma was swearing at Grandpa.

I walk into the pink bathroom that smells of everything floral and sink my toes into the pink shag rugs before I step on the antique scale. I don't really care what number it lands on, I just like watching the numbers spin past. On Grandma's scale, the higher you can make it go, the better. The digital scales we have now are just so much meaner.

In the laundry room, I check Grandma's homemade cloth birthday calendar, just to make sure I'm still on it, though the decades-old ink is permanent and is only slightly faded. Newer names, from a handful of younger cousins and the great-grandbabies that have started coming (much to Grandma's delight!), stand out in their bold black lettering.

I peek into their bedroom, only for a minute, because somehow that room is sacred, and private, just for them. There is a picture of the younger version of my Grandpa, one from his teaching days, displayed on the dresser.

I pass the seven frames of  Grandma's school-aged children. My dad must have been in second grade in that picture. He has the same mishevious smile as my grandpa, only we rarely catch it on film. I go into Grandma's sewing room, which is filled with dusty silk flowers and boxes of family artifacts. I open the top drawer of the dresser and pick out a video--either Heidi or Annie, but if Grandpa and Grandpa are around to sit down with me, then it is definitely Sarah Plain and Tall. But since we probably watched that yesterday, I pick out Skylark or Winter's End. If Grandpa is in the mood for music, it's Rigaletto.  I take the movie back through the house, to the family room, and I cuddle up in Grandpa's Lazy Boy, and Grandma joins me.  I look around at their book cases, old wooden stove, pots of flowers, the old leopard stuffed animal that always sits on the couch should a small child come for a visit with his or her parents.

There is a wall full of family photos, framed and varying in age: ancestors in pioneer clothing, my grandpa as a marine in WWII, my uncle in his military uniform, my older brother as a baby. That wall tells as many stories as the chuck-full wall of book cases connected to it.

I tip toe through the untouched carpet of the parlor, past the red front door that nobody actually uses, to the staircase where I look for the preserved fish my Grandpa caught and the framed picture of him fishing. I'm still not so sure what is so special about that fish--it creeps me out, actually--but at the same time there is something comforting about it always being there.

I know every inch of the basement, from the storage closet full of red and brown folding chairs under the stairs to the cleaning closet and the storage room full of canned fruit and cranberry juice. The only room I don't know is tucked in a forgotten corner, locked and guarding all the memories and souvenirs of Grandpa's military service.

There is a red coverlet on the bed that hangs out in the open--it is almost identical to the one on my Molly doll's 1940's-replica bed. The bathroom downstairs is decorated in a pale orange, and it still smells like peach from the time I accidentally spilled a whole bottle of peach shower gel on the floor. There are two actual bedrooms downstairs--one is cream-colored and there is a small decal of an Argentine soccer player stuck to the mirror attached to the dresser. There is a rocking chair, an old crib that probably isn't safe, but we all climb into it anyway, just to play. The closets in that room are full of my grandma's old clothing--and when we think Grandma doesn't know, my sister and cousins and I try all the dresses on.

In the pink room, there is a lovely bedroom set, a Victorian style chair, and a vintage pink chair from the mid-1900s that I just love to curl up in because it is perfect for reading. This room was mine for a whole summer once. In the closet are old games, a spirograph, decorations from my aunt's wedding, old quilts, more old dresses, and a solid hope chest that is perfect for climbing.

Out in the open, there is a wooden stove that Grandma feeds daily. The pot of water on top has crusted over so completely I don't think it would be possible to remove it. Grandpa has stacked the brick storage area with wood, and the smell of it burning combined with the radiating heat feels like a hug.

The walls show evidence of my father's mission to Argentina, with decorative cow hides. There are also Native American artifacts. Or perhaps they are Maori, from my uncle's mission to New Zealand? I don't know, I just like to run my fingers across them and feel the fibers.

When my cousins are over, we push the velvety, ugly red couches together to form a boat. One couch is longer than the other, so there is a perfect opening for entering and exiting. There is a small cupboard, a tiny table, a shelf of children's books, and a bucket made into a seat for the smaller children to play in. There is the piano with another spinny stool, where I would come and practice before my family had a piano of our own. I didn't know then that the air vent in the ceiling led directly to the upstairs family room and my grandpa liked to sit in his chair and listen to us pound out our practice sessions. It was all music to him, even though it in no way compared to the operas he would play on the ancient stereo in the upstairs closet.

Above the piano are three shelves of books--hardcover from Grandpa's college days, paperbacks and Reader's Digest collections for my Grandma, church books from the 1960s. Grandma used to pay me to clean her basement. The first few times I cleaned, she told me I went too fast. I learned to slow down by dusting each book separately, lovingly touching their old familiar spines and looking inside the front covers for signatures and publication dates.

Many (okay, most) of those books now sit on my shelves.

And sometimes, when I am missing my grandparents and the home that was also, in a way, mine, I stand in front of my bookshelves and I touch the spines, smell the pages, trace the signatures.

To Grandmother's house I go.

Lifelong Learning

My husband will be done with graduate school in six weeks. (That is, he will be done, provided he passed his class last semester--we are still crossing our fingers for that one.) Although he has technically only been in graduate school since January of 2014, he has been attending school for our entire five-year marriage, minus the six months he took off between his undergraduate and his graduate degree.

For the first 15 months of our marriage, I was also attending the university. Sometimes I think of this time as our "Golden Year." We always seemed to have enough--enough time together, enough money, enough to keep us busy. We would spend our evenings doing homework side-by-side on the couch. Our brains were constantly being exercised. And I loved it. I love to learn. I love school. I loved learning with him.

But then I graduated. That last semester of school, admittedly, was my least favorite, but that could have been because I had morning sickness as a constant companion and a job with a boss that was highly stressful to me. So, once graduation happened, parenthood happened, and me quitting my job happened, my new life was a relief and a blessing.

I enjoy being a stay-at-home mom. I wouldn't want to be ANYWHERE else, despite the hard days. There is one thing I do miss, however.

My brain.

A friend once told me that she lost a quarter of her brain with each child. She has five children. You do the math.

According to her logic, I should still have half a brain left. I seem to have misplaced it though. There are so many days when I can't remember the simplest things--how to do math, grammar rules, basic history facts. It didn't help when last week a friend posted an article on Facebook about how Type II diabetes is pretty much the same thing as Alzheimer's. That induced a bit of panic in me.

It is difficult for me to send my husband off to school each week more than just because it means another three hours without him and being a one-woman show with our cranky kids. I suppose, in a word, I am jealous. Every day he comes home and tells me about what he has been doing that day--talking about the software problems he countered, the complicated processes he has run, the future of the business where he is employed. On school nights, he comes home full of enthusiasm about what he is learning and the discussions he has experienced. I nod my head and pretend like I understand the business jargon. To me, he seems so smart. Of course, he has always been smart, but now he just keeps getting smarter. He knows so many things. He can do this complicated job, and what can I do? Name every character on Daniel Tiger and Sofia the First. Recite the first Pinkalicious book by heart. Sing 20 different songs about spiders, pigs, buses, pumpkins, witches, or monkeys on command.

Growing up, I was always the smart child. My siblings struggled in school, each for their own different reason and challenge. I never really did. My biggest challenges were people and my own emotions. But the actual acadmics? With the exception of one pop quiz in geometry when my brain just plain quit, I never struggled to learn and know and succeed in school.

At this point, however, I'd probably say I am the least smartest child of all my siblings. My older brother has a juris doctorate. My little sister is a CNA, working toward being an MA and she is so stinkin smart when it comes to all things children and medical. My little brother, well, he knows everything (and what he doesn't know, he covers up with his charm and witty comments that have you laughing so hard you forgot what he was supposed to be doing in the first place).

So, I've lost that title, and you know what? It's taken a while, but I'm okay with it. I'm happy--ecstatic, really--to see my siblings succeed.

But sometimes I do miss that intellectual part of me that seems to have retired.

Here's the thing I am realizing, though. I may not be gaining academic knowledge or career experience or excelling at a recognizable, formal institution, but every day I am still learning, and the things I am learning now are just as important as the things I learned in school, if not more so.

Things like how to adapt recipes to fit my family's needs and what we have in our pantry.
Finding the best deals to make our money stretch farther.
Recognizing when those around me are in need of love and service.
Instilling a love of reading in my children by not only reading to them every day, but being an example to them of a person who truly loves to learn through reading.
Working through threenager and toddler meltdowns with patience and a calm demeanor (still practicing that one).  I

 am learning how to learn from the past to shape the future. I am taking the time to do the small things--kiss an owie, play the piano while my kids "sing" on their chosen stage of our staircase, playing catch and baby dolls--and still, somehow, finding time to still be myself in the midst of it all.

This past week we picked up a book at the library by Weird Al Yankovic entitled, "When I Grow Up." During show and tell at school, a little boy named Billy shares with the class the long list of things he hopes to do with his life--everything from being a famous chef to a snail trainer to a deodorant tester. When his teacher kindly reminds him that he should probably narrow down his list, Billy says that his great-grandfather is 103 years old and still hasn't figured out what he wants to be.

Here's what I learned from that book: I've got time.

And according to the Christian Rock radio station, when your kids leave for college, mom gets her brain back.

I hope, wherever that half of my brain is being stored, that it has enough preservatives to last another 20+ years, because I've got a lot of things left to learn.