Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Tag Archives: family


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the first present

there are trees here too
grown out of deep soil pockets
heads above the hardy root dug
mountain friends of home
this gathered woody host a nest
to hold a house containing
every one I love
still sleeping as the light
creeps up all cloudy
through the rain
a christmas only minds eye white
no clear skied sunrise
catching tree tops
by surprise
red bronze briefly
glistened by those gone ahead
dropstrings of love and memory
beams creak awake
almost the hour
for letting loose small bodies
counting moments since last night
behind me thumps and sighs
two sets of eyes meet mine
my patient dogs
the first gift of the day
belongs to them
and we are kitchen bound

_____________________________________
a small gift of words, a time filled with more love than things, christmas as it should be. my heart is very full.


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Emptying a place, filling my soul

Sell a 6000 square foot house with outbuildings on 23 acres. Empty out 200 years of stuff. Add 15 cousins, stir well.

A TV series pitch? Not so much. It was my life for a while. It took about three years, but we did it, my cousin and I, with lots of family help and the sale of a painting.

There were miracles involved.

We were a typical extended family with rifts and misunderstandings. My cousin and I were trustees for the two branches (his father, my mother). We worked hard to heal the effects of the past, building a good working relationship, learning to trust each other. The rest of the family followed our lead, slowly but surely.

The potential for great drama burned off like fog. When the time came to finally empty things out, the family grew closer. There were no fights. None. Someone might get crabby for a few hours, but we all understood and helped each other through it.

Coming down to the wire the wild and wacky bartering started. Taking my name out of contention for a wooden bench, antique hay fork and french watering can produced the rug next to my bed! We all got into it. And it was never about monetary value.

So much so that when our family lawyer arrived on Monday morning to arbitrate any disputes, there were a whopping seven items waiting for him to decide about. Out of all that stuff. He said he’d never seen anything like it.

Big ticket items? Nope. The French watering can and a painting by my mother were the most hotly contested.

Even when the outcome was decided, we still made adjustments. One of my cousins (unbeknownst to me) was extremely attached to a child’s hearth chair that I got. Watching a slow tear make its way down her cheek, I simply gave her the chair. Fondness trumped by memories.

Later on her brother came up to me with a bowl he knew I really loved, but that he had chosen. He put it in my hands saying it had a small crack, and his wife had a thing about cracked bowls. I know it was because of the chair, even if he wouldn’t say it.

Losing stuff. Regaining family.

It was that kind of day.


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Local hitchhiker turns 90

May 25, 2014

I would like to claim that zinger, but my nephew Adam delivered it sotto voce during the round of group photos at my sister Annie’s house this afternoon. A headline typical of our old small town newspaper, the Hudson Register Star.

Finally mellowing, my one-of-a-kind, sometimes nasty, definitely wacky stepmother Dorothy turned 90 today, and Annie rallied us to make the trek to the Berkshires for brunch in her honor. After a nice meal in a Lenox full of City weekenders, we regrouped at her house to hang out for the afternoon.

gathering for Dorothy

It was nice to be all together for a normal, fraughtless occasion. There are six of us, of varied parental combinations, all there except for Julie, the youngest (living in New Zealand), and four of her grandchildren, two with offspring of their own in tow. Four generations.

Dorothy is the last elder in my immediate family, the only one left who remembers our childhoods. Despite a very checkered career as mother and stepmother, she has cruised into old age shedding neuroses and snarky tendencies, endearing herself to her still-wary grandchildren as she mellows out.

At the end of the afternoon my sister and I were marveling at “Zen Dorothy”, laughing that it was too bad it took her so long!

Dorothy grew up in Brooklyn, as did my Dad. She loves Lottie Lenya singing Brecht, eggs benedict, jazz, books, books, books, silly humor, left leaning politics, the theater, Ed Levin silver jewelry, bright colors, her plants and The Weavers. Her children, stepchildren, grandchildren and great-grandchildren certainly. My Dad (her second husband) once, then not. Then again for a while, but . . . eventually not. They separated for the final time a few years after they remarried.

Her friendships have been long and deep, even though she has always been able to (and often did) alienate people close to her at the drop of a hat. That quick off the mark sharp tongue. She has always been without prejudice (except perhaps towards those inflamed by it).

And she hitchhiked. Once she could no longer drive she made us all crazy hitchhiking in and around Hudson NY. If no one was available to take her somewhere at the exact moment she wanted to go, off she went.

Happy Birthday Dorothy. I’m so glad we were there to celebrate with you.


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Today, a while ago

A while ago I had a gift
and gave one too,
a lovely boy
whose soul and name
my heart reached out and held
before his birth.

And then he grew,
gifts seized with joy
and challenge met with grace,
in one quick moment,
my life’s blink
this swoosh, bright energy
old true soul, became a man
possessed of loving honesty.

Now two score on
a truth teller thinker
dreamer husband father
nephew cousin brother son,
above all friend,
his light shines bright
held always
in my soul’s arms
and in my heart.

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for my son, on his 40th birthday


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The Stuffing Bowl

Once spied up on a dusty shelf
and brought home as a prize
the stuffing bowl sits quiet
holding memory in its curve
The sisterhood of early rising cooks
assembling the ingredients
of timeless celebrations
ingatherings of family and friends
all linked by common filament
It waits for careful hands
to lift it down and fill its heart again
with love and thankfulness

_______________________________
My sister Annie and I have always called each other on Thanksgiving morning, up early, cooking.