On a beautiful Friday, a couple weeks ago, a dear friend and I were enjoying our dessert after a delicious lunch when we glanced out the window at the people seated outside, and both lost our appetite.  Without any regard for the other patrons of the restaurant, this brazen woman was breastfeeding an apparently overfed baby, who was most likely being fed because he was on a schedule, rather than that he was hungry.  What annoyed the most, was that there was nothing remotely discrete about what the mother was doing.  No shawl, or sweater, or blanket to cover up.  And to add insult to injury, she was wearing a horrible acrylic type bra.  I mean, if you’re going to fly the flag of your sex (as Helena Frith Powell likes to say), at least do it in silk or lace.

All kidding aside, we got to talking about the lack of manners in today’s society.  Yes, we have become our mothers, and what of it?  They certainly know a thing or two.  Individuality and spontaneity, or whatever else it is people want to call the going through on an impulse without concern for others, is all well and good in the privacy of one’s home and family, but don’t subject unsuspecting strangers to your crude behavior.  The same goes for blowing noses in the restaurant’s napkins or dislodging food stuck in your teeth.  Excuse yourself and go into the restroom.  Every restaurant has one. 

My husband has a theory about obnoxious breastfeeders.  There’s a type of woman who does that, he says.  She does it for attention and she does it as a dare.   She considers herself superior in the fact that she gave birth (most likely without any painkillers, so that she may boast about it to everyone), and she can’t wait for someone to come up to her, so she can tell that person off.  Her individuality and spontaneity is artificial, he says.   She’s more concerned with how she looks and the image she portrays, than is the woman who spends an hour every morning getting herself ready for the day.  Because he is a great observer of human nature, I’m ready to believe him. 

I am appalled at the lack of common courtesies.  Yet, I see it everywhere.  Television shows and movies almost seem to take pride in this blatant disrespect for other people.  In my own culture such a person is said to be missing the first seven years of home.  I suppose that’s what it boils down to: etiquette begins at home.  Start young and they’ll never forget it.   

I have been spending a lot of time with my children lately, and paying close attention to the little things they do and say.  There’s such growth and change from one day to the next, and I want to catch that moment of transitioning and record it down, so that I can look back and say that I remember it happening.

For the first three years of my son’s life, I made periodic journal entries about his progress, my thoughts on motherhood, and my hopes and dreams for his future, and our future as a family.  Reading through the leather bound journal now, I either cringe in embarrassment at my naivety as a young mother, or am impressed at the insight I had into specific situations (mostly I cringe).    

When my daughter came along, I meant to repeat the process, and bought the perfect journal for it.  Needless to say, the journal gathered dust on my bedside table for a long time.  Then one day I read in a magazine about how a family writes things down as they occur, on pieces of paper, which they then drop into a box to read at the end of the year.  As bits of paper are always fluttering around my house, I decided that this is what we must do. 

The only problem?  None of the boxes I had were worthy of their soon to be contents.  But I knew what just would.  I had been eyeing a collection of gorgeous vintage apothecary jars at a local antique store, hoping to find a justifiable reason for making them mine.  They were five in all, and, of course, could have been individually bought, but I felt they had to be displayed as a group in order to be fully appreciated. The price was a bit steep, but as a house of transitory moments in my daughter’s life, nothing else would do. 

I saved the tallest for my daughter, and filled the remaining four with fleeting objects from nature.  They glint and sparkle, and fill me with joy almost as much as my daughter’s being does.  Occupying a prominent place in the family room, they’re a daily reminder to record what I see and hear, and enjoy my life with my children to the fullest.   

I love the sound of trains at night.  Sitting at the kitchen table with all three windows open, the curtains ruffling in the breeze, I listen to them, and to the nighttime stillness of the house, and feel so comforted.  As a child we didn’t have an automobile.  My parents didn’t need one as we lived in the city, and the tram and bicycles delivered us wherever we needed to go. 

Every summer, as soon as school was out, our mom packed our suitcases and off we went to the countryside to spend our summers with Tanti Marie, our cousins, and the kids in her village.  It was a six-hour train ride from our place to hers, mostly filled with anxiety over the summer-long separation from our parents, and worry that our elder cousins might have outgrown the wish to play with us.  My sisters and I were the youngest of the bunch, and still very much interested in physical play, not talk, boys, or dress-up.  

Despite the uncomfortable wood benches in our compartment, and the beauty of the red poppy fields flying by, the train would eventually lull us into a restless sleep until our mom would wake us urging to eat some of the chicken schnitzel she had prepared for the road.  Because we were picky eaters, we needed to be bribed with candy.  Sweets were a scarcity then, as was pretty much everything else, but somehow or other, our dad never failed to produce the most delicious candy for us. It was their hope that the fresh mountain air, and fresh cheese and milk would stimulate our appetite and upon our return we would be a few kilos heavier.

When the train pulled into the station closest to our destination we were overjoyed. Whatever trepidation we may have had up to that point was replaced with excitement by the promise of an entire summer of freedom and play.  We couldn’t sit still for a moment.  We were ready to shed our shoes and take off running. 

Although the village was remote, and another half hour by bus from there, the air was different, almost pungently sharp to our unaccustomed city noses, and the country folk with their baskets returning home from the market in town, were loud and crude in their manner toward each other.  There was a ton of winking and pinching going on, and we stared unabashedly fascinated, despite our mom’s urging to look out the window.

Tanti Marie welcomed us with her customary pink raspberry cake.  To this day, it is the most scrumptious raspberry cake I have ever eaten, and sadly I will never know how to make it, as she had passed away before I had a chance to ask for the recipe.  She served huge slices of it with fresh glasses of goat milk for the kids, and thick Turkish coffee for the adults.  It was the first day of summer, in the most beloved home of my childhood.

Land is passed down through men, fabric through women. (L. T. Ulrich)

While browsing the aisles at Powell’s last week, I came across three wonderful books, all by the same author, and all dealing with the history of the early American housewife.  I had just finished reading Freya Stark’s memoir, The Journey’s Echo, and didn’t feel like anything in my ‘to read’ pile was good enough.  I was looking for adventure.  I had a need to explore new territory, previously unexplored through my reading.  The three books offered all that.  I couldn’t wait to get home and gobble them up.

The author, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, is a Harvard historian who has researched for years the subject of domesticity in Colonial America.  Housewives, and their role within the familial fold, have been explored in the smallest detail.   Ms. Ulrich, mother of five, and a housewife herself well into her thirties, began researching the subject for pleasure while taking graduate courses at the University of New Hampshire. 

I had a hard time putting the first book down.  In fact, I read it within a day and a half, as that night I didn’t sleep more than a few hours, so absorbed was I.  Good Wives, shows what it was like to be a woman and a wife between the years of 1650 and 1750.  The roles of women were clearly defined, yet at the same time they overlapped with those of men.  While women were mostly subservient, they did assert themselves and indirectly influenced decisions within their communities.

Her second book, A Midwife’s Tale, won the Pulitzer Prize.  In it, Ms. Ulrich scrutinizes the diary of Martha Ballard, housewife and midwife, between 1785 and 1812, to offer a better view into the daily life of women.  Besides exploring the role of women in the community, the book also looks at marriage and sex, and the history of medicine.  The fascinating thing about this book, is that this working mother and wife dealt with some of the same issues that women deal with today.  Two hundred years later we still go to work, come home, cook, clean, and try our best to raise our children.

In The Age of Homespun, Ms. Ulrich focuses on the history of the homemade.  From baskets to furniture to cloth, she offers the history of the time and place where each of the selected 14 objects originated, as well as the lives of American women and the value placed upon them. 

Years ago, a friend and I took a few sunny summer days to explore the Pacific Northwest coast. Our main goal was to stay off the beaten path and experience life at a slower pace. Antique shops, flea markets, and art galleries were our destination, as were berry farms, deserted beaches, dusty book shops and coffee houses. We had reserved a couple of nights at bed and breakfast places along the way, provisioned ourselves with a picnic basket overflowing with Belgian chocolates, crusty bread, and the best cheeses we could afford, and set out.

She was to be married that summer, and soon after to move away. I suppose, in a way, we were gifting each other a last memory of our girlhood. Ours was a friendship that had carried us from childhood, through the turbulent, self-conscious adolescence, and into our twenties.

The views were stunning. Rolling pastoral beauty giving way to dense emerald forests. We followed a river that shined like mica and came into a village right out of a nautical painting. The sun was setting, all rose and apricot colored over the bay. We parked our car and strolled the heart of the main street in search of a coffee house. With steaming drinks and chunks of cheese filled bread, we made our way to the beach, content to sit on the sand and soak up the beauty before us.

As darkness was approaching, we didn’t linger too long. Somewhere along those dusty roads, the hostess of a white Victorian house was awaiting our arrival, probably eager to lock up and go to bed. Our bedroom, at the top of three flights of stairs, was under the eaves and decorated with a large-scale lilac print wallpaper right out of a Victoria magazine. The brass, queen-sized bed was piled up with fluffy pillows, and in the bathroom a claw-foot tub occupied most of the space. We loved it.

A misty morning arrived too soon. We took our time over breakfast in the ornate dining room, both decided that the food could be better, yet stuffed ourselves nonetheless, and set off for a day of treasure hunting. It seemed that time stood still. The clouds and morning drizzle cleared away, and our minds emptied of everything but the joy of each other’s company.

That night’s bed and breakfast was a far cry from the first. We took one look at it and turned our car around. It was spooky! Our overactive imaginations had us roaming the dark roads in search of acceptable lodging. Finally, after it seemed as though we drove for hours, we found a newly built hotel, devoid of character, as expected, but with views of the silver ocean lapping at the rocks below.

Before we headed home the following afternoon, we stopped into a local bookshop and sealed our three days together by each purchasing a copy of Jane Eyre. It was a favorite book to both of us, and a talisman to remember our friendship and our last adventure before matrimony.

just had to take a picture before I took a bite!

I’ve decided that I will pamper myself daily.  Why not? Life’s short and we each get but one chance.  I’m brimming with ideas, but I will start today with crepes for lunch. Nothing savory though. Need something sweet, to sweeten my disposition on such an overcast July day.    

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups milk — may need to add more once it’s all mixed

half cube melted butter

1 tbsp. orange rind

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup mineral water (makes them fluffy)

Process:

In a deep bowl, sift the flour and sugar and make well in the middle. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, butter, orange rind and vanilla extract and pour over the flour and sugar.  Mix until all lumps disappear.  Add the mineral water.  Extra milk may be necessary, because the consistency needs to be really thin.  

Medium heat is the best, as they are pretty thin and could easily burn. Enjoy!

my attempt to design my dining room

my study... favorite room in the house

Many houses are deserted by the men of the family for lack of… simple comforts. (Edith Wharton)

The Decoration Of Houses Edith Wharton

I love interior design almost as much as I love to read.  I salivate over glossy magazines and books featuring exquisite residences from around the world, and wish that my work would be featured as well.  Wishful thinking.  For one thing, it’s nowhere near as good, and for another, I could never be as detail oriented as required. 

Edith Wharton, however, was not just one of the best female American authors  (Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country, and The House of Mirth, are just a few of her novels) she was also a superb interior designer. The Decoration of Houses, is one of the best books I’ve read on design.  On the Lenox MA property she had bought in 1902, five years after she wrote the book, she created a peaceful and harmonious space where she was able to entertain her closest friends.  Known as The Mount, it is currently owned by a preservation group, who has restored it to its original grandeur, as the original furnishings are long gone.

Readings of her books and tours are offered daily during the summer months. Check out: http://www.edithwharton.org/index.php for more info and some great photos.

Hunting and Gathering Anna Gavalda

I love this book!  A love story of the best kind.  That’s all I’m going to say about it.  Have to add the author on my fave list.