Forty Year Old Canned Fruit, and a Word of Advice

There's a fruit cellar in the basement of our old house in Redford, right at the foot of the stairs. My father in law bought the property in 1949 when the neighborhood was nothing more than a large apple orchard, being sold off in parcels for eventual development. For two years he had his own little farm on the land, selling the fruits and vegetables he harvested from the trunk of his car to his co-workers at the Chrysler Assembly Plant in downtown Detroit. In 1952, he built the house, and I imagine that adding a basement fruit cellar was a big priority in the planning. My father in law was a farmer through and through, so like a photographer needs a darkroom or a dancer needs a barre and mirror, he needed a fruit cellar to contain the "fruits" of his labors. I always hated that fruit cellar. When my in-laws moved out and we moved in, they left behind a number of useful things...like appliances and furniture, stuff all newlyweds need and are happy to have provided for them. But they also left behind a lot of junk, stuff we couldn't get rid of while they were living, and by the time they died we were too busy or too tired to care about it. Over the 37 years we lived there, naturally we added our own stuff to the mix. In the fruit cellar, along with odd assortments of dishware, some old easter baskets with fake grass spilling out, an ancient rotary telephone, and some musty books, there were still a few jars of fruit my mother in law had canned sitting on the top shelf, the year it was placed there scrawled underneath in my father-in-law's handwriting.

During this past week the entire remaining contents of our old house have been removed. The upstairs rooms were mostly cleared already, but the basement and garage - repositories of six decades worth of stuff - are now completely empty.

Including the fruit cellar.

Over the past few months I've completed a major purge of our possessions, paring down the contents of two homes to fit into one 1900 square foot condominium. It's not been easy, but is HAS been incredibly freeing. I literally feel 100 pounds lighter without the burden of all that STUFF.

Don't get me wrong, it was difficult as hell to get rid of things that were an integral part of your life for almost four decades. How to decide which of your child's school papers and drawings to keep and which to toss? How to choose which paintings from the walls will work in the new house? How to grapple with the fact that your circa 1973 stereo equipment is worth more (financially) than your baby grand piano?

Since I turned 50, I've had a real sea change in my feelings about possessions. No longer  do I crave the latest fashion in clothes, or a purse to match every pair of shoes. I'm don't care about souvenir coffee cups from the places I visit. It doesn't matter if I have different placemats for every season, or a different teapot for every day of the week. I have moved out of the collecting phase of my life and into the dispersing stage, knowing that as we age, we need less and less to survive, and that possessions are not what make us happy.

As I went through everything we owned, picking and choosing what to keep, the things that consistently ended up in the Save piles were photographs, jewelry, and books.

Photographs are obvious - they capture moments in time, moments that were obviously important enough to preserve. They reflect the essence of people at all stages of their lives. They are incredibly meaningful to me.

My relationship with jewelry goes back to preschool days when I asked for a ring for my 5th birthday. My uncle bought me a tiny gold ring with and aquamarine stone in it. I wore it all the time, loved seeing it on my chubby little finger while I typed stories on the old Smith Corolla in the attic. I developed a nervous habit of taking it off and chewing it, so the band is slightly dented in the back, making it uncomfortable to wear.

Yes, I still have it, and it does fit on my baby finger.

As for books- you all know how I feel about books. But I will say that I must have donated 200 books to the library over the past six months. But I also saved out a selection of children's books that belonged to my son during his lifetime, books that I've begun to pass on to my grandson, who is a true bookworm just like has grandma.

So for those of you who are still in the collecting phase, my advice to you is start thinking about what really matters in your life, what are the things you want to carry into old age with you. Will it be trendy outfits or cute figurines from the gift shop? Will you find smoothie makers and cupcake makers and coffeemakers to be essential to the life you want to live?

Or will it be things that have memory and meaning attached, things that evoke a person, time, or place, things that reflect who you've become and how you got there?

Certainly 40 year old canned fruit doesn't fit into any of those categories.

Write On Wednesday: Take it Easy On Yourself

I love lists. I have an elaborate system of list-making that involves pretty file folders, colored paper, and 4x6 index cards. Each file folder contains a weekly list of action items for different areas of my life: Daily Living, Office Work, Volunteer Work, and (of course) Writing. Every Sunday night I sit down at my dining room table, turn on some quiet mood music, pour myself a glass of wine,  fan out my lists and folders, and plan my week.

When I told one of my friends about this system, her reaction was modified horror. "It makes me crazy to think about being that organized," she said.

Truth is, sometimes it makes me a little crazy too. I have a tendency to panic when I look at my lists on Thursday or Friday and not enough items have been crossed off. Then I move into frantic mode, and everybody better step back.

For the past several months, my Writing List has contained six items: Book reviews, Author Interview questions, blog posts, ideas to propose to my editor at All Things Girl, and The Novel Project. I've  assigned myself a posting schedule for this blog and for contributions to All Things Girl and Medium, thinking I needed the structure of deadlines, even if they are self-imposed and arbitrary.

Having a schedule comforts me, because it gives me the illusion of being In Control.

Americans pride ourselves on productivity, and that very word has been at the top of my Goal List for several months. Be more productive, I admonish myself when I'm making that weekly writing list, chiding myself for essays left unwritten, research left undone. I've been equating getting things done with being happy. Yes, it makes me happy to cross things off the list, but I'm learning that sometimes it's alright -  desirable, even - to ease up on the need to structure and organize and control. It's alright to let soft summer breezes seduce me into the garden, alright to take a morning off and visit the Farmer's Market in town, alright to sprawl out in my lawn chair and read a magazine. The resulting sense of warmth and well-being brings me peace, and that's more liable to make me happy and more creative  than a mad dash through my to-do list.

Especially in summer (when, according to George Gershwin, the living is easy and the cotton is high) it's alright to take it easy on myself.

How about you? Are you taking it easy on yourself this summer or going full steam ahead? Do you think that slowing down and savoring life boosts creativity or is counter-productive?

Porch Sitting

A British porch is a musty, forbidding non-room in which to fling a sodden umbrella or a muddy pair of boots; a guard against the elements and strangers. By contrast the good ol' American front porch seems to stand for positivity and openness; a platform from which to welcome or wave farewell; a place where things of significance could happen.
Dan Stevens 

Summer nights like this evoke memories of sitting on our front porch, eavesdropping on grownup conversation, and feeling very special. Those were quiet and happy times for me, a feeling of comfort and relaxation I still seek.

Join me on the front porch in this post at Medium. 

Write on Wednesday: Watching and Listening

“I was an only child who was often alone with adults, and, because I was in some ways a timid sort, I became practiced in the art of watching and listening.” Lee Martin  

We’re kindred spirits, Lee Martin and I. An only child who loved quiet pursuits like reading and imaginary games, whose mother was always home with her, whose grandparents also lived in the house, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by loving, caring adults.

They fascinated me. When I first read Martin’s elegant little self-description, an image of myself as an eight year old popped into my head. I spent most of my time at home either in my room, or in the basement of our little ranch house, which had been “finished” complete with a full kitchen. Because the basement kitchen was larger than the one on the tiny first floor, my grandmother –the chief cook and bottle washer in our family in those days – quickly took it over, thus making the basement our family’s main living area. I had my own play area in a far corner, with my Barbie Dream House, a large stand-alone chalkboard for playing school with a menagerie of stuffed animal pupils, and fully loaded bookshelves. Tucked away in this corner, I could engage in my own solitary pursuits but still keep one ear trained to the adult conversation and activity.

This was how I learned that my uncle was struggling with alcoholism, that our neighbor was pregnant with baby number six. This was how I finally pieced together from whispered conversation that one of my cousins had been brutally attacked by a home intruder.  This was where I first gleaned the tensions between my mother and father, how she resented the time he spent with his Masonic Lodge group and was resisting his efforts to join the Eastern Star (the corresponding women’s organization).

Some of this information was troubling, some of it was exciting, but all of it was interesting. Much of it appeared later on in the stories I wrote, first in my childish round handwriting, and later on my brand new electric Smith Corona typewriter.

Those early days of listening and watching heightened not only my interest in, but also my awareness and understanding of people. For a while I considered becoming a psychologist, because I’m fascinated by what makes people tick emotionally, why and how they react as they do.

My mother says I read people like a book, and that seems appropriate. Certainly reading has given me insight into human behavior and emotions. I gravitate toward character –driven books, because they feed that interest in people. My own writing explores my feelings about life in general and my own experiences in particular, because I believe that sharing our life stories helps us understand our own lives while it brings us closer together as human beings.

The art (as Lee Martin refers to it) of watching and listening is vital for a writer. It’s probably why writers historically spend time in café’s and coffee shops. Like me in my basement play area, they scribble away in their quiet corners, one ear attuned to the conversation of those around them. That time becomes a crucial part of their working process and is definitely an art worth practicing for any writer.

How about you? Where do you practice the art of listening and watching?

TLC Book Tours: A Dual Inheritance

My favorite novels explore the legacy of families across generations, and how a family history is played out from one generation to the next. Joanna Herson's new novel, A Dual Inheritance, does all this and more. Beginning in 1963, when two young men first become acquainted during their senior year at Harvard, and throughout the intervening decades until the present, their paths and lives cross in interesting and sometimes heartbreaking ways. The book centers on the somewhat surprising friendship between Ed, a Jewish kid on scholarship who is unapologetically ambitious and girl-crazy, and Hugh, a Boston Brahmin who seems ambivalent about everything except Helen, his first and only love. Their friendship burns brightly and intensely, until one night when something happens which causes it to end just as abruptly. The two men diverge into different paths, but remain connected through and current of relationships unbeknowst to them.

Hershon's engaging story deftly examines the contrasting worlds of a rich Boston WASP, and a scrabbling Jewish boy eager to make a name for himself. Her characters are complex and interesting, and provide some rich insight into human relationships and class differences.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read this very engrossing novel.

Buy A Dual Inheritance from Amazon.