Now You're Cookin'

In leisure there is reverie.  Memoires that have been following us, perhaps running on little legs to keep up with us when we are busy, finally can catch up with us.  Sometimes they seem to secretly run ahead of us when we are not looking and stand there, waiting for us to come face to face with them, so they can see the surprise on our faces.  My parents have been doing that these weeks of summer have given way to the hunkering down, the husbanding of homes toward the great and welcoming winter quiet. 

Just now as I was cleaning out yesterday’s ashes from the wood stove and starting today’s fire, my mom came back to me.  I was nursing the new fire along as it struggled to catch from paper to workshop scraps to newly seasoned and split logs.  It makes me think of the nation’s economy, as I

play with opening the door to help the dampers along, giving the fire a quicker start without consuming the paper and kindling before they warm and ignite the logs.  Finally I’d let in just enough air to really get it going, and an old phrase popped out of my mouth: “NOW you’re cookin’!”  My mom used to say that when we got something right after a struggle.  Tying shoelaces, doing long division, pulling weeds out by the roots….  There was a certain modulation, a certain inflection in the way she said the phrase, varying according to the challenge we had been facing.  The tougher the task, the longer the nooooooooow became, and the more staccato the cookin, the more clipped and upturned that last note.  I could see (and can now, as I type through blinking eyelids) the smile on her face, the affirmation, the encouragement, the satisfaction with us.

A couple of weeks ago I was moving landscaping stones around, rearranging things as my dad had done so many times when I was a kid.  I was using a long-handled spade shovel, fighting my way through the stones that had become compressed over the past several years as the previous owners had aged and let the yard go.  I found myself naturally rocking and pushing on the shovel in a combination of movements as complex and smooth as a dance step, and it made me smile, because I remember my dad doing it, and showing me how to do it too.  Left hand back on the handle, right toward the front.  Right foot on the right side of the shovel, left foot on the ground.  Push with the right foot while rocking the handle with both hands – getting the shoulders and hips into it. The point of the shovel works its way, rocking movement by rocking movement, into the packed stones, and then a smooth scooooop pulls them out and into the wheelbarrow.  He was quieter with his affirmation, and made less eye contact.  “Atta boy, Johnny” might have slipped out, out the left side of his moth as the Lucky Strike hung out of the right side, puffing as he rocked the shovel, looking at the work, not often at me.

Last night at the shelter, I worked with my group to invite them to recall a person with whom they felt safe, appreciated, happy, a person with whom they felt prized.  I wanted them to know that even amid the reversals in their lives that has made them homeless, there are in their memory these affirming people who have been following them, perhaps running on little legs to keep up with them when they are lost, finally can catch up with them.  Sometimes they seem to secretly run ahead of them when they are not looking and stand there, waiting for them to come face to face with them, so they can see the surprise on their faces.

I didn’t realize until this morning’s “Now you’re cookin’!”  That I was merely sharing with them what I’ve discovered along my own path, surprising me with their freshness and youth.