We have just passed the autumnal equinox, and the weather has quickly changed to cool and wet. Tonight as I cook dinner, a downpour falls and I worry for all my neighbors, the grape growers. This heavy wet will wash off the natural yeast, and water down the fruit. It will, most likely, not be a good vintage because of the last month. Tomorrow we go to pick at the Schaad family vineyard, a tradition now since living on Chehalem Mt. I hope the rain waits a bit.
I haven't posted anything in months now. I've been working at emptying my parent's home of 46 years and all the stuff accumulated in their married life. The experience is so often surreal - cleaning the dust from a piece of furniture, turning to pick up a wrapped pack of envelopes containing letters my parents exchanged before they were married. Correspondence exchanged over the many miles while a world war was raging on. They waited to marry until things settled down, my Dad in the Air Force, my Mom studying classical piano at Mills College in Oakland, CA.
A few years after the end of the war they married at last. I can only imagine their young selves, full of hope for the future as they embarked upon raising a big family. For 23 years my mom was open to becoming pregnant, what she told me God meant for her. This news was the way I was introduced to the 'facts of life".
Nine children and 5 miscarriages seems hard for anyone to fathom. It was always a strange struggle my educated and idealistic parents waged in the daily life of our household. Cleaning now I encounter years of dust mites and the allergy inducing mold accumulated on and in boxes of old baby clothes, their parents things, our baptismel candles, papers and programs from concerts, school materials, books from their college years, papers and papers never ending. The sum total of a family's life and not much was ever thrown away, not by them anyway.
This experience causes my siblings and I to evaluate our own lives. After a long days work my sisters and I drink chocolate wine I found at the bottom of a dusty pile. We burn my Dad's tax returns from 15 years past, and talk about the family. Which one had the power, which one had the passive aggressive fears which translate into power. We ready ourselves for the next day of haggling with the folks who show up to our sale, who want take away our parents cherished things for 10 cents on the dollar, or less. At moments I just have to say a blunt "no" to some of them. No you cannot take away this chipped hand painted dish with my great Aunt's name painted on the back 100 years ago for a mere $5. How can they not understand what being cheap with our things means? I'm sure this is a metaphor for what divides humans in politics, religion, relationships... all of what our current political and economic struggles embody.
George Carlin's words ring more true than ever, and I paraphrase: "We've got stuff and shit. Why does it always seem like my stuff is "stuff" and your stuff is shit?" Thank you George, that comic refrain comforts me when some bitter person glares at me because I won't let them walk away with some perfectly nice item already a $5 bargain, for $3 instead so they can feel that victorious sense of getting something really cheaply.
Give me, instead of stuff, fresh herbs from my front yard gracing tomato sauce from my friend's gardens simmering on the stove. Hearty soup, red and thick, packed with thyme, basil, bay, garlic and oregano I had to brave the rain to pick. Give me even this dense cloud hovering over the mountain and the sound of dripping over the greenhouse roof. Give me the children with whom I read and discuss stories, their eyes lighting up at the words "train trip". Thank heavens for stories. A story is a much easier thing to store, to share, to lend and then to pass along when one must finally downsize. A story is the true treasure of a life, lived to the last moment with no more than a fading sigh.
