Category Archives: Memories

Memories of Christmas Trees Past

Memories, ,

I don’t know where my family got their Christmas trees when when I was very young, but once I was a teenager — and possibly earlier — my mom and dad used to bundle my brother and me up and take us to a Christmas tree lot run by their friend. We’d arrive after dark and the owner would usher us into his heated shack where we’d sit on wool blanket lined benches in the welcome heat. The owner would pour my parents cups of Glögg. I don’t remember if my brother and I were offered any refreshment. I’d like to think we were offered hot chocolate or eggnog, but I suspect not. After a few drinks we’d head out and find a tree which the owner would sell to my dad at a reduced “friends and family” rate.

I spent one Christmas in England and Jeremy and I brought the Christmas tree home on a bus. I clearly remember sitting on the bus, holding our tree close to us (granted it was tiny, compared to the trees I was used to) while other riders did the same.

I don’t remember where Dean and I purchased our Christmas trees before we had kids, but once they could walk we began our “over the river and through the woods” trek to cut down a tree in Virginia. We’d do this every year on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend and stop in Leesburg, Virginia for lunch before we got the tree.

This year we didn’t go to Virginia to get a tree Thanksgiving weekend. We talked about it but none of us were interested in making the trip. Clare had to go back to college on Sunday, so Sunday was not an option. I think I had a lot of work to do, so wanted to work on Saturday. We talked about doing it on Friday, but it didn’t happen.

So yesterday Dean and I drove up to Home Depot in Rockville and picked out a Balsam Fir (my favorite that we could never get at a cut-your-own lot) in 4 minutes. While I paid for the tree Dean brought the car close to the tree area and he and a Home Depot employee proceeded to Saran wrapped it to the top of the car. Not what we were used to, but we now have an incredible smelling tree in our living room.

I have issues: Part 1 — Potato Skins

Memories

Throughout my day I’m bombarded with memories that make me feel inadequate. That how I do something is wrong in some way. One of these memories is of a conversation I had with my mother-in-law. It was completely in passing and I’m sure she never remembered it after the conversation, but I did remember it. I’m hoping that getting it out in the open will take it away forever.

My husband and I like mashed potatoes with the skin intact. It probably started with my belief that the most nutritious part of the potato was in the skin — or perhaps it was just laziness, but our preference stuck for many years. Once, either just talking to my mother-in-law or cooking with her, I mentioned that we never skinned our potatoes before boiling & mashing/whipping them. She seemed surprised, then made a scrubbing motion with her hands and said, “So, first you scrub them very well…”

I suspect she then went on to describe the process she imagined we went through to make these mashed potatoes with skin, but I was stuck at, “So, first you scrub them very well…”

Well, I thought, I rinsed them, yeah, but scrub? Not always. I made sure they didn’t have eyes, rinsed them, cut them into smaller pieces, boiled them with a clove or two of garlic & then whipped them with butter & milk. But I didn’t really scrub them. Why? Were there really bad things on them if I didn’t really scrub them?

So now, whenever I make potatoes of any kind that still includes the skin — mashed, baked, boiled — I think of that conversation and my stomach tightens. And I really don’t know why it does. I doubt my mother-in-law thought I served my family unclean food. I think she was just trying to imagine what she would do if she served mashed potatoes with skins.

Whatever the case, we have a lot of rice and pasta these days. No scrubbing there.

For Carolyn — a confession that comes too late

Memories,

In 1990 I began working for Fairfax County Public Schools at Rose Hill Elementary School as a special education teacher. I taught students in grades 4 – 6 and worked with many of the “regular” education teachers. One of the 4th grade teachers, Cindy, was also new that year and we, along with Rosanne, another special ed teacher became instant friends.

Cindy often complained to Rosanne and me about the other 4th grade teachers. I don’t recall the content of the complaints, but it seemed to involve her not being welcomed into the 4th grade community. I, being stupidly and blindly loyal to my friends, immediately took her side without seeing any discrimination for myself.

At grade level staff meetings (I had to attend all grade level meetings that involved the grades I taught) I was downright rude to the other 4th grade teachers. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember being cold and abrupt. How dare these women upset my new-found friend? I thought. I’ll show them!

So all year I carried on a private battle with Joyce and Carolyn. Carolyn once confronted me at the copier about my attitude but I denied anything was wrong.

That summer I gave birth to Clare and was on maternity leave until November. I remember walking into Cindy’s room after school on one of my first days back and being shocked to see her and Carolyn laughing together as if they were the best of friends. Something had changed, Cindy no longer disliked Carolyn. In fact, Cindy liked Carolyn. The war was over and no one told me.  Later I asked Cindy when the ceasefire happened and she denied ever being at war with Carolyn.

As the year went on, I got to like Carolyn too, but I always felt uncomfortable with her because of my actions the year before. When another friend, Joan, began teaching 4th grade, she and Carolyn became very close. I too, got to know Carolyn for the warm and kind person she was and the uncomfortableness I’d felt was pretty much gone, but not entirely forgotten by me (and I suspect by Carolyn).

When I started teaching again in the fall of 1995 I worked as a co-teacher with Joan. Two years later I chose to work as a co-teacher alongside Carolyn because she was retiring at the end of the year. I didn’t realize that Carolyn didn’t want the principal to know that she was going to retire, so when asked by the principal why I wanted to work with Carolyn, said because it would be my last chance because she was going to retire.

Not long after my meeting with the principal, Carolyn met with her and came back to the classroom upset. She said that someone told the principal about her retirement plans and that she suspected Laurie, one of the other special ed teachers. I said nothing. Months later when she met with the principal again, she asked her who told her about her retirement. The principal said it was me. Caught red-handed, I admitted that it was, indeed, I who spilled the beans. Carolyn wasn’t upset that I’d told the principal, but because I’d let her think it was Laurie all those months. I apologized and she accepted it and that was that, although I still feel horrible about it.

The next year Carolyn retired and I took leave of absence to pursue a Master’s degree and never went back to teaching. I saw Carolyn several times after we both left Rose Hill, but not a whole lot — mostly with Joan.

In 2002 Carolyn was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly before her 60th birthday. I don’t know much about the stages of the disease, but she was in a stage where she’d have to be on chemotherapy for the rest of her life. We talked occasionally. I heard through the grapevine that she wondered why I didn’t visit more often — was I afraid of the cancer? It wasn’t that. It was another reason — but just as selfish. It was because once when I visited a friend who’d broken her leg after not having seen her in a long time was accused by the friend of simply paying her a pity call. I didn’t want to be accused of paying pity calls.

Carolyn hosted a Christmastime dinner party a couple of years ago and after that I sort of lost contact with Joan — we used to instant message a bit, but I’d all but stopped instant messaging on AIM. In the late winter of 2007  Joan had a Jewelry party that Clare and I attended and Carolyn was there.  That was the last time I saw her.

Recently (last week, in fact) I decided I should do something about my friendship with Joan — call her or write her. I also decided to write Carolyn a note and maybe go see her. I’d even decided to really apologize for my behavior the first year at Rose Hill and for the incident our last year as well.

I found out a couple of days ago that Carolyn died just over a month ago. At first I was angry that I wasn’t told about it so I could go to the funeral, but then the feeling turned to one of numbness. Numb because once again I could have done something and didn’t. That inertia or whatever the hell is wrong with me when it comes to communicating with those that might just appreciate it set in again and I missed a chance to say goodbye.