Time in a bottle
I spent most of yesterday morning in the kitchen with my son Jack, windows open to the September air. In ten days he will move to Atlanta to begin his new life there as a student. But for now, the two of us find ourselves home alone together. (Henry left last week to return to his alma mater, St. Olaf, where he’s helping out with the fall musical; Steve has been away for a few days on business. And so, it’s just two of us here, a rare mother-son combination that hasn’t happened for years and may not recur any time soon.)
All summer, I have mourned the end of summer. Back in June, my family laughed at me for regretting the passing of time before the time I’d been anticipating had even arrived. (Yes, I know, it’s crazy.) The days were still getting longer, they pointed out, and already I was imagining how I would feel when they began to grow shorter. The lake water was perfect for swimming, and I was wondering how many more swims we would have. A piercing awareness of the preciousness, the transience, of everything is, I suppose, both the blessing and the burden of my temperament. It is also the price my family has to pay for living with me. I am always reminding them (myself!) to notice, to appreciate, to be aware of all that is and of all we have.
The truth is, I write so much about inhabiting the moment largely to help myself remember that it’s where I want to be: simply present. My tendency, always, is to live with a lump in my throat. I experience the pain of endings even as I cherish the tenderness of beginnings. I allow every joy to be shot through with a thread of sadness. And I see in all that lives, all that has passed; in all that is, all that one day will no longer be.
And so I sit in my garden amidst the wildly blooming nasturtiums and feel the fleetingness of their splendor. I adore our thirteen-year-old dog all the more for knowing her days are numbered. (When she placed her head on the bed this morning at 6 am and pleaded for a walk, I swung right into action – because, of course, I can so easily imagine the future, when there will be no need to be out taking a hike at dawn.) I fill our basement freezer with strawberries and blueberries and raspberries picked at the height of the season because I am always conscious of the season’s inexorable turning.
Hanging out with my soon to be 21-year-old son yesterday, I reminded myself to simply enjoy the moment, without layering on the fact that in a few weeks he’ll be in his own new kitchen a few thousand miles away and we’ll be texting instead of talking.
Being present, without regret for the past or anticipation of the future, feels to me like a lifelong practice. It’s a lesson I keep on learning, one I need to take up again each day. But Jack has always been good at keeping me in my place: here, now.
(“Do you want me to write out some recipes for you?” I asked him, envisioning the notebook I could create, with printed recipes slipped into plastic sleeves, complete with shopping lists – chili, chicken soup, corn chowder. . . . “Grandma did that for Dad when he moved away to live on his own,” I said, “so he would have a few things he could cook for himself.” My son declined. “That’s nice, Mom” he said. “But we live in a different world now. If I want to make chili, I’ll go online.” Right.)
So, I will resist the urge to send him to Atlanta with my recipes. Instead, yesterday, we just made some food together. I had twenty pounds of heirloom apples, gathered up from the ground around my friend Margaret’s hundred-year-old tree. The gentle, deeply resonant voice of Bhava Ram, my current favorite singer, filled the house. Jack sat at the table and cut the knobby apples into quarters. I stirred them down over low heat, adding cinnamon, anise, lemon. Good smells bubbled up. We talked about this and that, nothing special. It was just a day. I didn’t need to shape it or mourn it or grip it — or do anything at all, other than live it.
And yet, as I ladled the thick sauce into jars, the refrain from an old Jim Croce song kept running through my head: “If I could save time in a bottle. . .”
It felt as if that’s just what I was doing. Bottling not only the apples, but time itself. The quiet of the day, the sunlight pouring through the windows, the togetherness with my young adult son, the easy pleasure of making something good to eat. We have had our struggles, he and I. We still do. Let’s be honest: he is twenty, and we are different, and nothing is easy. And yet, our bond is close.
Perhaps, as we haltingly find our way into a new relationship with each other as two adults, we are closer than we’ve been in years. The more space I am able to give him, it seems, the more comfortable we are with each other. I don’t know what thoughts went through his mind yesterday; I didn’t ask. And for once I didn’t feel the need to tell him what was in mine either: a sense that no matter what mistakes we’ve made with each other in the past or what challenges we may face in the future, there is beauty in the now – and now is enough.
Can I bottle that wisdom, too? No. But perhaps, some winter night I’ll take a jar of our applesauce out of the freezer, warm it on the stove, and allow good memories of being with my son to mingle with the goodness of learning how to let him go. Again.
(I’ll confess: I’ve been listening to that Jim Croce song this morning as I write this post. And I’m here to report that, yup, the song holds up. Which is to say, it still makes me cry.)
“Time in a Bottle”
If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
Till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with
If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with.
Perfect, no-fuss applesauce
6-8 pounds of organic apples
juice of half a lemon
3 inch-wide strips of lemon peel
3 cinnamon sticks
3 whole star anise
dollop of raw honey (to taste; I use about 3 T.)
1/4 cup water
Cut apples into quarters. Place everything in a large, heavy pot over low heat. Stir occasionally, for about 15 minutes, till apples are completely soft and sauce is thick. Taste for sweetness. The lemon and sweetness should achieve a nice balance, enhancing the apple flavor. You can eat as is, run through a food mill, or whiz in a blender. I put mine in my high speed blender till smooth. The pink-ish jars? I added a few handfuls of my frozen raspberries for the last minutes of cooking. Applesauce will keep in the freezer for a year.
Still in a fall-cooking frame of mind?
It seems like a long time ago that Margaret and I were at her house, getting ready for our books to come out, plotting and planning our joint New England reading tour. We also shared my favorite lentil soup, which I’d forgotten all about til she re-posted my recipe on her blog yesterday. It looked so good, I went right out and bought some lentils. Dinner tonight! Click here for the whole story, and my recipe.
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