Traditions: the tree

For years, I searched for one with flaws. Tall, skinny, and scraggly topped my list of desired attributes. But a blemished specimen eluded me.

Until this year.

At last I located the scrawny, misshapen Christmas tree of my dreams, and we brought it home. After its first night in our house, though, I awoke to a surprise; the wood floor wore a carpet of pine needles too thick to excuse. I dropped to my hands and knees and poked my head under our holiday guest’s lowest branches. Usually in the first twenty-four hours, our trees sucked water like a wet-dry vac, but this time the stand was still full.

I picked up the phone and dialed Husband. “You did make a fresh cut on the bottom of the tree before bringing it in, right?” 

“Of course.”

“I don’t think it’ll survive the next four weeks.” I plucked a twig from my hair. “It’s already too dry.”

Husband agreed to return the tree, and I performed the messy task of dragging its remains outside, a trail of needles following on my heels.

“It’s always something with the tree,” Flicka said as I swept up the remnants of Christmas before the season even started.

“Not really.” I furrowed my brow while I emptied the dustpan. “Why do you say that?”

“Last year, the lights kept shorting out, so we undecorated it, put on all new lights, and redecorated it. Remember?”

I washed sap from my hands at the kitchen sink. “Oh, that’s right.”

“And then there was that year when the tree kept tipping over.”

“It’s all coming back to me now.”

That night, Husband brought home a fresh tree from a different lot. By the following morning, its branches had settled, so I could see the stark truth: this new one was short, fat, and the general population's definition of perfect. I sighed. There was always next year.

"Who gets to put the star on the top this time?" Dicka said.

"Uh..." Husband traced his finger down a copy of The Christmas Ornament (and descriptions) List. "You do."

She pumped her fist in the air. "Yes!"

The Christmas tree—naked, except for its white lights—stood in the corner like a stout elf who had overdone it on Thanksgiving leftovers.

Husband sank into a living room chair. “Same as always, girls, you’ll take turns putting on the ornaments as I read through the list. We’re starting in 1992, Mom’s and my first year of marital bliss—before you freeloaders came and cramped our style.”

“Thanks a lot, Dad,” said Ricka.

Dicka shuddered, wrinkling her nose. “Don’t say ‘marital bliss’.”

Husband cleared his throat. "Here we go. From the top. The gold heart represents Mom's Victorian period."

Flicka went to the dining room table and picked through the ornaments, locating the heart with roses etched into it. She snickered and shook her head. "'Mom's Victorian period'."

"Our apartment was filled with dishes of potpourri back then," Husband said.

Over the next hour, we marched through The List. The girls' ornaments highlighted their interests over the years, from baby mittens to ballet slippers to Converse tennis shoes. And the family ornaments drove us back to Tucson, Puerto Vallarta, Seattle, Asheville, and more. Pewter skis from Vail, a wooden boat from Charleston, a plastic King Kong from New York City, and hockey skates from Quebec again told us vacation stories. 

"This is still the cutest." Dicka dangled a clay miniature dachshund on a ribbon from her finger. "1996, the year you got Dexter."

"And 2011, our first year with Lala," said Ricka, cradling a ceramic pit bull in her palm.

At the mention of her name, the ornament’s inspiration lifted her head off her nearby cushion and eyed us.

"Speaking of Lala," I said, pointing at the list in Husband’s hand. "Check out that note."

“’In 2011, Lala ate the Queen Elizabeth from the Westminster Abbey gift shop, the painted gourd from Bisbee, and two of the straw pine cones from Grandma Mathilda’," he read.

“Naughty girl.” Dicka nuzzled the sleepy animal.

I rummaged through the box of Christmas decorations and extracted the ugly sweater vest and reindeer antlers for the grand finale. And like every year, Husband put on the items and opened the book ornament, The Cajun Night Before Christmas, from New Orleans.

“’De moon on de bayou was so bright it glistened. Even de bullfrogs were quite and listen’n,’” he read in his best accent, sounding more like an early twentieth century Norwegian immigrant trying on an Irish brogue than a dweller on the bayou. “’When what to my wonder’n eyes should appear, but a flying pirogue, and eight gators coming near, wit a petit ole driver so red and dedicated to his cause, I knew at dat moment it got to be Santa Claws!’”

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The Thanks List

I’m thankful…

… my house is too small for more things.

… when the baby we’re hosting is still breathing in the morning.

… when next-door neighbor Dallas beats us to the shoveling.

… for neighbors and friends who love Lala (the dog) while we’re on vacation. (And she loves you back, Glenda, Veronica, and Trixie!)

… for North Minneapolis.

… when Target’s end-caps brim with clearance items.

… for our neighborhood Aldi.

… Flicka rubs my shoulders when she passes through the room.

… Napoleon Dynamite still wins a unanimous family vote. (It’s yes.)

… when other parents give my girls a ride home.

… Ricka speaks the truth into the noise, even if she stands alone.

… creativity flows from a stormy day.

… Dicka discerns the hidden pain or motivations of those around her, and she’s moved.

… Husband and I laugh together at least once a day.

… Flicka sees art in life’s shadows; her pencil ignites the mundane.

… when I’m off the hook for cooking dinner.

… The Light spilled from heaven and stepped into flesh, so we could see our way.

What are you thankful for?

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Beauty

A black cloud blotted out the sky over The Problem House down the street. The property belonged to our friends, but some young adults rented it from them, earmarking our summer and now fall of 2016 with drama we could hear all the way over at our place. Marijuana smoke and screams wafted from the open windows of the house, and we counted at least fifteen people coming and going. Which ones were actually on the lease? The driveway was a used car lot and somebody at the residence fancied himself a mechanic and serviced vehicles all hours of the day and night.

Eventually our friends, the owners, told us the young people would be evicted if they continued to neglect the rent. And the tenants had dodged their other bills for long enough that the water was shut off, and the City was next in line to kick them out.

The main guy on the lease had grown belligerent with our friends, slinging around threats of arson and bodily harm. He had also done his own brand of home renovations in their charming 1919 home, violating code and undoing their painstaking work to update and beautify the property.  

Then one morning at the bus stop, a woman approached me.

“Did you see all the graffiti on our block?”

The familiar churning in my stomach. “No. Where?”

She and I walked through the alley, and she showed me the affected properties. Swastikas, anarchy symbols, a racial epithet, and directions for where to find drugs—with arrows as long as my arms, pointing to our friends’ rental property—disfigured three garages.

When would the ugliness end?

At one o’clock in the afternoon a few days later, the girls and I arrived home. A young woman, half-naked, was squatting on our house’s landscaping stones, relieving herself.   

I put the car into park and jumped out. “What are you doing? This is my house!”

Still crouching behind our rain barrel and now bewildered, she shifted her gaze to me and squinted for a few seconds. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Since she didn’t move, I edged closer. “Who are you?”

She tugged her footie pajamas back on then, zipped them up, and shuffled to an idling car in the middle of the street.

The previous night, The Problem House had had a party that raged until morning. Had she come from there?

Two weeks later, our friends employed Husband’s assistance; it was time to move the renters out. The tenants hadn’t done much to pack, though, and like a child too stubborn to help his mother clean his room, the main guy on the lease watched them haul out his possessions. Amid the items headed for the driveway were three pellet guns.

The day after the rental property was free of its abusers, the window in its front door was shot out. Husband found damage on our Honda too, and it didn’t take a crime scene expert to recognize the pockmarks on the windshield and side of our car were consistent with a pellet gun. Where was the ex-renter now? Living in his car, parked in front of our friends’ property.

My thoughts, laced with fear and anger, twisted my attitude, so I set out for a walk. Even in a city, nature—stronger than concrete—erupted in beauty. Before my stroll could start, though, I spotted a used maxi pad splayed out on the sidewalk in front of our house, its presence eroding my outlook even more. I stalked back inside, grabbed some disposable gloves and a plastic bag, and trudged out again.

Ugly circumstances threatened to urinate on my spirit, but then I looked up.

… whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

After soaking in the Living Water and some bathwater too, I lit a candle and grabbed Luci Shaw’s Sea Glass like it was a life preserver instead of a volume of poetry. Then I scrolled through an online friend’s Facebook page to drink in the loveliness she captured in photos: her stainless steel crock-pot sitting on a marble countertop, poised to simmer a batch of apple butter; her palm brimming with rare November raspberries; her pink and salmon-colored zinnias flirting with the camera.

Softness rested on my shoulders again. Darkness could be pervasive, but beauty was persistent too, and it always carried peace with it.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The same

Wednesday morning, my alarm clock jolted me out of bed at the usual time. The coffeemaker brewed my customary dark roast, and with the normal splash of cream, my coffee tasted the same too. 

Like I do every weekday, I walked Dicka to the bus stop at the end of the block. And again, the fallen leaves and garbage fluttered by our feet as we strode down the sidewalk together. I side-stepped the trash and sighed; it seemed the identical litter appeared every morning, even though I picked it up daily on the way back to the house.

But something about the day was different.

“I don’t want to go to school,” Dicka said.

I assessed her face. No red, drippy nose. No glassy eyes. “Why not?”

“Because everyone will be talking about the election.” She tugged her hood forward to cover her ears. “I just want it to be over.”

I curled my arm around her. “I hear you.”

At the corner, we waited for the school bus. The sixth grade girl from across the street plodded toward us like she always did. And as usual, an invisible weight—bigger than her backpack—pulled her shoulders down. My heart pinched, and I greeted her. She said hi back and then patted her mouth as she yawned, keeping an eye on me the whole time. 

I accepted her non-verbal invitation. “So, you’re pretty tired today?” 

“I watched the election last night,” she said. “I got to stay up until it was over.”

“Wow. That was late. I was asleep by ten-thirty.”

Her posture straightened, and her eyes sparked. “Did you hear Trump won?”

“I did.”

“He’ll be impeached soon. Like Nixon.” 

I imagined the conversation swirling around her TV the night before as states on the screen lit up in red or blue. What else had the adults in her house told her to make the world right for her—and for them?

The bus pulled up and the door screeched open. I kissed Dicka on the forehead and said goodbye to the neighbor girl. The two of them climbed the steps and were gone.

I walked back to the house, plucking the garbage along my path. This morning, the citizens of the country dressed in new clothes: elation, hope, shock, fear, anger. Groups had decided to protest, and others had threatened to unleash riots throughout the nation on neighborhoods like ours. But our street was quiet at eight o’clock in the morning, and the message for me and my family again reverberated off the pavement and houses that lined our block. In our changing times, our calling stayed the same.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.

If the national debt rose or fell, if immigrants were ousted or welcomed, if discrimination stamped out love like some feared or acceptance for all became the rule, nothing would change for us. We’d still talk to the girl at the bus stop, remove snow in the winter for the neighbors, take in kids in crisis, pick up the garbage. We’d still notice the invisible ones living among us, respond to the needs that were delivered to our door, and say no to the deeds that were good but not meant for us. 

And we’d stay rooted in the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Forgiveness

I pulled up in front of my girls’ school, and the topic fluttered into my mind. I recalled the ancient words:

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Classes would start in twenty minutes, so I had time.

“Girls,” I said, putting the car in park. “I have a story to tell you.”

At the word ‘story’, my girls fell silent in the back seat.

I met a boy from a neighboring town during my senior year in high school, and the early months of 1988 were a flurry of happiness. Surely Richard Marx had penned his songs with the two of us in mind, and the boy must have noticed it too, because he captured them on cassette tape for me. In those days, I often stretched the telephone’s cord across the kitchen—all the way to the basement stairs—so I could perch on the steps and listen, in privacy, to his voice on the other end of the line.

Then one day, the boy asked me to his school’s prom, and I invited him to mine too, which would come two weeks after his. The days leading up to the first big event were dizzying. I shopped for a dress, had satin pumps dyed to match it, tracked down the perfect accessories, agonized over how to style my hair, and ordered a boutonniere for my date.

At last, the big day arrived. My boyfriend came to my house, his tuxedo impeccable, and with shaking hands, I opened the door. I looped my arm around his, and we were off to his prom. The night was magical.

Then came the after-party.

Crepe paper swags dripped from the doorways, and music pulsed through the atmosphere. People danced and played games. Soon, my shoes pinched my feet and my boyfriend eyed me.

“Do you wanna sit down?” he said.

I nodded, and he led me to a table and released my hand to pull out a folding chair for me. Then he sat too.

A girl sashayed toward us, her softness spilling from her neckline. She shook back her spiral-permed hair, flicked my boyfriend a coy smile, and slid into the seat next to him. Her date threw another guy a playful jab and then plopped down on a chair by her.

The girl pulled a pen and scrap of paper from her purse. She scribbled something on the paper and folded it. She waited a beat and passed it under the table to my boyfriend. I saw their hands touch as he slipped the note from her. He read it, using the table as a shield. A subtle smile. My stomach lurched.

On the drive home, my boyfriend and I chatted as though the girl at the table hadn’t existed, as though she hadn’t passed him a secret message, and as though I didn’t know what was going on.

But why should I feel insecure? It was just a note. Wasn’t it?

The telephone was silent for the next week and a half. I worried. My school’s prom was only a few days away, and no word from my boyfriend. Finally, I phoned him.

Yes, he had meant to call. Yes, he was looking forward to the event. Yes, he’d pick me up at such and such a time.

The second big day arrived. My boyfriend came to the door and with shaking hands, I motioned him inside. Mom snapped pictures of the two of us—as stiff as mannequins—in the living room. And we were off to my prom. Because of my friends, the night was magical.

Then came the after-party.

“Do you wanna leave?” my boyfriend said thirty minutes into it. “Go somewhere to talk?”

“Uh, sure. I guess.” I tossed my friends a shrug and left with him.

We drove the streets of my small hometown and talked. He had feelings for the note-passing girl, he told me. Actually, he confessed, they were already dating.

I took the emotional punch to the stomach while maintaining a plastic smile; he didn’t deserve my real one anymore.

“I want to go back to the after-party,” I said.

“Sure, let’s go.”

He drove us back to the event, but the chaperones turned us away at the door. By leaving early, we had violated one of the rules for attending the post-prom fun. My date shrugged at the news. I tried to slow my breathing. My senior prom—all gone. He drove me home.

In church with my family the next morning, I relived the previous night. I hadn’t said a word about it to anyone. My parents sat like bookends at either end of the pew, my siblings and I lined up like novels between them. But the story inside me was too painful for my covers, so I wept silently during the sermon, my body shaking the whole bench. Soon, Dad’s white handkerchief—the one reserved for Sundays—bobbed down the pew, through my siblings’ hands, until it came to a stop at me. And I cried even harder.

Two years later, I lived with my brother in Saint Paul. I rarely thought of my high school prom boyfriend anymore, but when I did, I gritted my teeth and slung the memories of him into the past where they belonged. Then one day, a letter arrived for me. And in the top left-hand corner of the envelope was his name.

How had he found me, now away at college? I narrowed my eyes and opened the letter. He wrote about how sorry he was for what had happened two years earlier on our prom nights. He should’ve been honest, kinder, better, more sensitive, he wrote, because I deserved only good things. He had been stupid, he said. And then he closed the letter with a question:

“Will you forgive me?”

I pulled out a piece of paper, an envelope, a stamp, and I sat down to write back. But unlike his letter, I kept mine short:

“No. I don’t forgive you.”

My girls, their eyes wide, had hooked their hands on the car’s front seat, pulling closer to my story. Twenty-six years had passed since prom night and twenty-four years since the letter. My date’s actions had lost their power long ago, leaving only a shadow over my thoughts of him and a wrinkled nose at the mention of his hometown. My unforgiveness had seemed benign. Until now.

“Don’t be like me,” I said, my voice catching. “Forgive people when they ask. You might not feel like it, but do it anyway.”

“You could do it now, Mom.” Dicka’s voice was soft, tentative. “You could still forgive him.”

“Mom,” said Ricka, her eyes bright. “You should try to find him.”

I pulled my cell phone from my purse and with only a few key strokes, found my prom boyfriend on Facebook. I typed a private message, reminding him of his letter all those years ago—and my response to it then that I regretted now. I did forgive him, I said. And then I asked a question:

“Will you forgive me?”

A minute passed—then two. Up popped the notification that he had seen my message. Another few minutes ticked by, and then came the answer:

A thumbs up. “Yes.”

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The bathtub

We learned it was only cheap steel—and not cast iron, after all—the day we tore out the old tub in the summer of 2016. I gazed at its marred surface, wounded by love and use. The previous homeowners had applied adhesive anti-slip treads in the shape of flowers to its bottom and then ripped them off, damaging the tub’s finish. I could never scrub away those blemishes in the enamel, and the sight of them had often irritated me over the years. But now the tub was going away and taking its scars with it.

“Are you ready?” Husband said, handing me a pair of work gloves.

“Yep.” I pulled them on. “Let’s do this.”

Then he and I muscled out the old tub, much lighter than it had appeared when it was larger than life, occupying so much space in our bathroom. He led the way as we inched the beast through the door and out of the house for good. This tub—never a thing of beauty but one of function—was not only a cleaning vessel but also a time capsule.

As we hefted the tub down the back yard sidewalk, I heard three-year-old Flicka’s wails again, her skin screaming from the stinging nettles, and then my next door neighbor Glenda who had witnessed it too, advising from over the fence, “Rinse her off in the tub!” The bathtub washed the nettle hairs from my girl’s skin that day before the baking soda paste did its work.

I recalled the weeks I had washed dishes in the bathtub during our kitchen renovation of 2004. I had been pregnant out to there with Dicka at the time, and my low back had never been so happy to see a working kitchen sink again.

I saw the girls’ communal bath times, the water tinted by food coloring. Sometimes miniature Dachshund Dexter joined the party of three for a swim; the flapping kids didn’t scare him one bit. But once, when he was only a spectator, the water became too warm for preschooler Flicka, and she leaned over the edge and threw up on him.

The bathing hours were often teachable times too.

“Jry me off, Mama,” four-year-old Flicka said one day.

“Actually, the word starts with a ‘d’,” I said. “It’s ‘Dry me off’.”

“Mama,” said two-year-old Ricka. “I go potty in the tub.”

I grimaced. “Oh no. Don’t do that, honey.”

“No, it’s okay. I do it.” Her tone was lilting, accommodating.

“Everyone out!” I said a little too late. Thanks to Ricka’s generous donation to bath time, I was forced to do the vilest fishing of all and afterward, to spritz the tub with a good dose of bleach.

Deep into their elementary school years, Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka entered their hair dyeing stage, and the bathtub took on a new job title: Salon Assistant. Of all the possible colors, the girls chose only reds: Vampire Red, Pillarbox Red, Rock ’N’ Roll Red, and Infra Red. Maybe the brand name of the semi-permanent hair dye—Manic Panic—got its inspiration from how mothers felt when they saw their kids’ heads dangling over the edges of their bathtubs, the dye—like blood—dripping off them in viscous strands and circling their drains.

The tub had also hosted the dozens of small houseguests we had entertained over the years. They were burgeoning archaeologists, those little ones, their skin collecting dirt samples from Folwell Park, Webber Park, and other parks in the city. And when they had finished their bathtime routines, they clung to their memories but left a coating of grit behind.

Dad had sat, contented, in our bathtub too, like one of my babies, his head drooping. The bone marrow transplant had given him something, but taken away more, including his sense of modesty.

“Dad, I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, me bathing you.” I squeezed a sponge full of warm water onto his back, taking care not to scrub his skin too hard.   

“Nah.” He closed his eyes. “If I were a thirty-year-old man, sure. But not now. Not anymore.” 

Husband and I lugged the tub to the end of the back yard and lowered it to the ground by the chain-link fence. We had an errand to run, but later we’d haul it to the alley for removal. We climbed into the car.

“Let’s take some pictures of the tub when we get back,” I said as we drove down Dowling Avenue North. “No, in the tub. Wouldn’t that be hilarious? With the caption: ‘Our yearly bath’. Or something.”

Husband grinned. “It can be our Christmas card this year.”

We returned to the house forty minutes later, but the area by the chain-link fence was bare. The bathtub was gone.

“Seriously?” Husband shook his head.

I wrinkled my nose. “Who would steal an old bathtub?”

But it didn’t matter. We didn’t need a sentimental send-off or funny snapshots to memorialize our once faithful roommate. We could just be thankful we had had the tub at all and let the memories wash over us. 

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The homework

Sunday’s dusk drew me to the living room windows. The time had come to pull the curtains shut and tuck the house in for the night. First, though, I paused to take in the view. Outside, a soft breeze ruffled the fallen leaves—more pink than orange in the rosy hue of waning light—and they skittered across the sidewalk. But something even more colorful than the handiwork of autumn sat near our front door, capturing my attention. 

I stepped outside. A stack of homework, neatly squared, perched on the steps. 'Thyara' was scrawled on the top folder. No kid hovered nearby to claim it, and so I brought the items inside and leafed through one of the notebooks, most of the writing in Spanish.

Ricka sauntered into the room. “Whose are those?”

“Someone named Thyara." I flipped open a folder. "I found this on our front steps.”

She pointed to one of the notebooks. “That’s a planner. There might be a phone number in there.”

She was right. Thyara had written her full name, Grade 5, a phone number, and an address in New Brighton—a suburb ten miles away—on the inside page.

I dialed the number, and a woman answered, an accent flavoring her words. I asked for Thyara, but she hesitated, saying something I couldn't decipher. Soon a man came on the line, and I explained the appearance of Thyara's homework on our front steps.

"Could you text me a picture of the things?" he said with a Hispanic lilt. I did as he asked. "Yes, those are hers, but I don't know how they got there. We've never been to North Minneapolis."

"Maybe Thyara has a friend in our neighborhood?" 

"I don't think so."

"Why was it on my front steps, I wonder?"

The man chuckled. "It's a mystery."

"I'll bring it back to you, so she has it for school tomorrow."

The man introduced himself as Eduardo, and we agreed on a time and place halfway between us to meet.

While Husband drove us to meet Eduardo, I ran my hand over the homework in my lap. If one of our girls had lost her schoolwork, tears would've soaked through the time spent finding it. Maybe Thyara was the same way.

We pulled into the parking lot of our meeting place: Menards on Central Avenue. Eduardo jumped out of his vehicle, a grin stretched across his face. A small girl and an even smaller boy followed him.

"These must be yours," I said to the girl, returning her possessions.

Thyara nodded, a smile almost breaking loose.

Eduardo introduced us to his boy and told us the name of his wife who waited in their vehicle.

"Thank you for this," he said, bobbing his head. "Thank you."

An hour after we returned home, the phone rang. Eduardo.

"I just now saw that someone broke into my other car," he said. "Some of my things are gone. Thyara's backpack was in there. It's gone too, but thank you that we have her papers back."

The pieces of the mystery clicked into place. After the crime in New Brighton, the thief had passed through our block, chucking the unwanted parts of his or her spoils. But who had later gathered up the homework and delivered it to us?

The next day, Husband and I puttered around in the back yard. Our neighbor Bruno pulled up in his car.

He rolled down his window. "Did you find the stuff on your steps?"

He told us a new homeowner on our block had discovered the schoolwork in the street, picked it up, and asked him about it. He had looked it over and suggested she leave it with us. Since we had kids, he had told her, maybe we knew something about the girl who owned it.

"We brought it back to her," said Husband.

"I figured." Bruno nodded. "Good."

The story of the homework, though small, was one of many similar accounts. And it spoke a greater truth about our block in North Minneapolis. What the thief meant for trash, several of us had seen as an object of value. And we would pass it on until it made its way home.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The bus ride

A work meeting, an oral surgery consult, a volleyball game, and five other commitments. It had been a coffee-to-go and a wolf-down-a-handful-of-trail-mix-at-the-stoplight kind of day. And now at six o'clock, I fought through the evening rush hour traffic in downtown Minneapolis, each minute at a standstill twisting my stomach into a tighter knot. I would drive my girls home, then turn around and head to an evening gathering in a southern suburb twenty miles away. If I made it by the scheduled time of seven o'clock, it would be a miracle.

"Mom, just drop us off here," Ricka said. "We'll catch a bus home."

"Yeah, go, Mom," said Flicka. "We'll be fine."

"Really?" I blew out a breath. My first real exhale of the day. "I appreciate this, girls."

Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka hopped out at the next stoplight. I looked at the three of them—ages sixteen, fifteen, and twelve—standing on the corner and gawking at their surroundings like a pack of tourists. At least it was still light and warm on this Wednesday, September 28. No fear of hypothermia at the bus stop today.

I signaled right, turned the corner, and buzzed down the street until I saw signs for 35W South. Thanks to my girls, I would make it to my engagement on time.

Ricka led the way up the steps of the 5M Northbound bus and flashed her GoCard. She scanned the place, packed with commuters.

"Right here," she said over her shoulder to her sisters, pointing to some empty seats near the front. The girls settled in for their ride to North Minneapolis.

Ricka's day had been a long one. School, volleyball practice, homework. Her stomach rumbled. Since Mom was gone for the evening, she and her sisters were on their own for dinner. She'd bake a frozen pizza before burrowing into her Advanced Algebra.

At the next stop, four teenagers—two boys and two girls—boarded the bus with their Footlocker bags. All the seats were full, so they stood next to Ricka and her sisters, the two girls grabbing onto the hanging straps while they faced the boys.

"Then I got this one," the guy in the blue hoodie said to his friends, pointing to a tattoo on his wrist. "Still hurts just as much as this one." He rolled up his sleeve to show off more artwork. One of the girls grabbed his arm to get a closer look and then poked at the new design. The guy in the red shirt laughed.

How was the kid able to get tattoos? Ricka guessed he was seventeen—at the most. His parents would've had to sign permission for him to get the work done. Not something that would happen in her house. She listened as the teens’ talk turned from ink to plans for the weekend.

Twenty minutes later, the bus driver pulled up to a stop along bustling 7th Street. The two guys split from their female friends and headed to the front of the bus. When the door opened, Red Shirt jumped off and followed the sidewalk to the right. Tattoo Boy darted down the bus steps and around the front of the bus to the left, dipping out of sight.

Bang!

A car blasted Tattoo Boy's body ten feet into the air. He plummeted headfirst back to earth. Ricka jumped up, nausea punching her in the gut. The other passengers scrambled to their feet too, and stared through the front windows. Tattoo Boy lay on the pavement in front of the bus. The driver of the car swerved to the side of the road and then zoomed away. The boy's friends bolted from the bus and ran to his side. The commuters' commentary rose to an uproar.

A woman with long, gray hair stabbed her finger in the direction of the runaway vehicle. "It was an SUV. No, no—a Jeep! A black Jeep."

"Why would he do that?" said a man dressed in a suit, craning to see the boy lying in the street.

"It's obviously a suicide," a woman said. "He must've had stress on him."

Ricka's chin quivered, but then she looked at twelve-year-old Dicka who was planted in her seat with her face down, shaking, and she swallowed the urge to cry. A woman with an African accent stroked Dicka's head.

"It's okay. It's okay," said the woman, handing her some tissues.

Ricka remembered the day she had witnessed a classmate have a seizure. He had convulsed, slipping from his desk, and there was nothing the teacher could do about it. Fear had grabbed onto her that day too, stealing her innocence—and now this. But Dicka...

Ricka searched her sister's face. "What did you see?"

Dicka shook her head.

"How about you?" Ricka said, turning to her older sister.

Flicka's gaze was fixed on the body in the street. "I didn't see it happen either."

A squad car pulled up, then a second one, and a third. Police officers crouched around the victim and other officers climbed the bus steps to speak with the driver. 

"Let's go," Ricka said.

Her sisters followed her past the commotion, down the steps of the bus, and out onto the street that held the broken boy. 

When I returned home that night, Husband met me at the door.

"The girls witnessed a hit-and-run tonight," he said.

Pleasant memories from my evening vanished. "Oh no."

Red splotches dotted Dicka's face, and she sat in silence while the other two girls told me about the sound of the impact—much louder than the expected thud of metal meeting flesh. They spoke of the other passengers, the kind African woman, and their sixteen-block walk afterward because Dicka refused to board another bus.

I pitched back and forth in bed that night recalling the accident I hadn't witnessed. I offered up a teenager whose name I didn't know and begged for the life of a kid who wasn't mine.

Let him live!

Following a lead the next morning, I made a call to North Memorial Hospital.

"You don't have a name?" said a man on the other end of the line. "We can't tell you anything because of patient privacy."

"I just want to know if he's alive or not," I said. "That's all."

But I had to give up my need to hear the end of the story.

A few days later, Husband had an idea.

"I posted the details on Facebook, asking anyone in the neighborhood if they happened to know anything," he said.

Husband had chosen a North Minneapolis Facebook page with more than three-thousand members, and my mind filled with images of needles in haystacks. But minutes later, the answer came anyway.

"I work with his aunt," a woman wrote. "He's doing okay."

Tragedies happen every day, and strangers witness atrocities without ever learning the outcomes. But that night, we celebrated the miracle of an answer and the life of a teenage boy who was given another chance.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Happy second birthday, My Blonde Life!

The blog turned two in September. How did we celebrate? With a cake, of course!

I ordered this North Minneapolis-themed beauty (an 8-inch honey wine cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream frosting) from a North Minneapolis business, The Thirsty Whale Bakery.  (Thank you, Megan, Kyle, and Sarah!) (Note: They offer free delivery in Minnesota until they have a storefront.) Besides ordering your own cake, visit their Facebook page and vote to help them win a Brassy!

*Subscribers: If you have trouble viewing the following images, please click "Read on" below. 

The iconic mural on the 4th St. Saloon

The flower sculpture at the bus shelter (corner of Broadway and Penn)

Here I am with the cake (and Lala, photobombing.)

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: France (part 5)

Dinnertimes were more than the food set in front of us. They were vocabulary lessons that ventured far beyond the textbooks. My host mother, Jacqueline, chose our time at the table to tell Andie and me about the fickle coastal weather, the functionality of shutters, and the neighbors' grating habits. Above all, though, she preferred medical topics. In one evening alone, she spoke of glandular problems, skin discolorations, what was good for the kidneys, and horror stories about vomiting exchange students. If everything hadn't sounded so beautiful in the Romance language, the duck pâté may not have gone down.

Sometimes Monsieur Germanaud joined us for dinner, and on those nights, Jacqueline's favorite subjects fluttered away on the sea breezes of the nearby Bay of Biscay. The man’s eyes shone as he told us about French poets, authors, music, and history. Then I thought about Amie's host home across town and her French dad—always the jokester—who ate dinner, shirtless, wiping his mouth with a piece of baguette which served as an edible napkin.

Monsieur Germanaud and Jacqueline shared three grandchildren who cropped up around the house as often as the green beans Monsieur came daily to pick. While the two preteen grandsons were watchful but aloof, five-year-old Collette became my shadow.

One evening while Andie and I did homework at the table in our living quarters, Collette pattered downstairs to show us her picture book. I pushed aside my work; sentences could wait. Collette's book of obscure animals beckoned us. The little girl slowed her words and taught us names of creatures I didn't even recognize in English. As she quizzed us, I stifled a smile and repeated the words. Though short in stature, her patience was long. And she doled out praise when we got the pronunciation right.

"Now I have to do my homework," I told her at last.

Collette pulled up a chair next to me, propped her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her fists. She eyed me as I worked. I smiled at her between sentences.

"Can you say the word for this?" She tapped on the bottle of water next to my books.

I chuckled. "La bouteille d'eau."

"Very good,” she said in a kindergarten teacher voice. Then she widened her eyes and leaned in, laying a hand on my back. "Do you know how to open a bottle, or do you need me to help you?"

One day after school, Amie came over to my house to swim. She stayed a few hours, and then Monsieur Germanaud offered to drive her home so she wouldn't have to take the bus. The next day at school, she told me the story of her car ride.

As my French dad navigated the late afternoon traffic the previous day, his face had brightened as he spoke of Don Quixote and how the play was slated to be performed in the city square at the end of the summer. He then mentioned his two adult daughters, les jumelles, and how they loved theater too.

"Les jumelles?" Amie said. "I don't know that word."

"Ah, but let me show you." He signaled and made a quick U-turn, zipping onto another street. After a couple of minutes, he parked in front of a house and beamed at Amie. "Here's my daughter's place. She'll help you learn what the word means."

His gaze first settled on a squad car parked in the driveway and then on the house. His smile dissolved. Amie took in the scene too, her confusion at the word les jumelles dwarfed by what she saw.

The man's daughter—in only a t-shirt and underwear—stood outside her front door, speaking with a male police officer. The woman told a story with her hands, and then she laughed. Monsieur and Amie watched from the car, their brows furrowed.

"Hm," Monsieur Germanaud said after a beat. "Let's get you home." He shifted the vehicle into drive and zoomed away.

As soon as she returned home, Amie made a beeline for a dictionary. Les jumelles meant 'twins'. If only there were a reference book, though, for life's other mysteries.

At one of our last dinners in France, while Jacqueline spoke of abscesses, the désagréable symptoms of menopause, mucous skin (direct translation), and tragic car accidents, my mind drifted to the big picture of my travels. I saw dogs in the grocery stores, beggars in the metro, musicians on the streets. I recalled cafés, baguettes, cathedrals, postcards, the ocean. I would miss my first family who had wrapped me in their excellent care and my second family too—a broken French home that maybe wasn't so broken after all.

My friends and I had danced and swum and eaten our way through a glorious country. We had shopped and studied and sunned. We had bumbled through awkward social moments in a new culture and blundered through conversations over some of the world’s most delectable meals. We had endured misunderstandings and stomach pain and a lack of toilet paper. We had been tutored by a five-year-old who probably thought we had more than one significant challenge. But we had loved France with all our hearts.

And she had loved us back.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: France (part 4)

As the bus pulled out of the parking lot of the Mont Saint-Michel, Leeza, Kate, Mel, and I leaned in to hear Amie’s Harrowing Bathroom Adventure. 

Amie had found herself alone in the restroom—without toilet paper. She had called out for my assistance, but I was already gone. Then she rummaged through her purse, to no avail. All travel literature warned that public restrooms in France never provided free toilet paper. One should always bring one’s own tissue, she had read, or purchase some from the restroom attendant. Should she call out to the attendant? Was there even a woman with a basket at the door selling the valuable commodity? She wasn’t sure she had seen anyone.

Then dozens of school children stampeded into the communal restroom. If an attendant existed and Amie beckoned her, the racket from the kids would drown out her voice. And could she formulate a sentence in French to explain her predicament anyway?

“So I went through my purse again, looking for paper of any kind,” she said. “But I only found one thing I could use.”

“What?” I edged closer, as if my proximity to her would bring a suitable resolution.

“A twenty franc bill.”

“Get outta town!” Leeza said, and our hoots of laughter even caught the bus driver’s attention.

Aside from the possible illegality of flushing currency, I thought of the economic repercussions and did a quick calculation. With the exchange rate, Amie’s only solution had cost her $3.64. But it was money well spent; because of her cautionary tale, we all learned a valuable lesson that day.

After five hours of traveling by bus, we arrived in the southwestern coastal city of La Rochelle, an ancient fishing village, replete with medieval architecture, arched walkways, and a collection of lighthouses. Our new host families clustered, waiting to welcome us, on the parking lot of l'Institut d'Etudes Françaises, the school where we would study for the next six weeks. My assigned roommate was Andie, a girl from our touring group whom I had met in Paris, and our host mother was a woman named Madame Germanaud.

Madame Germanaud drove us to her home—where she lived alone—and showed us our downstairs living quarters which opened out into a back yard with a swimming pool. At the dinner table that night, she invited us to call her Jacqueline, and with that simple invitation to familiarity, she plunged into her life’s story, stretching both my vocabulary and my empathy.

Years earlier, Jacqueline’s husband had been unfaithful to her, leaving her for his maîtresse. Soon, though, the other woman abandoned him, and he longed to return home. But my host mother was a woman of principles, she said, so she refused to take him back.

"It's better that way." She pursed her lips, sniffed, and passed me the Salade Niçoise.

The next morning when Andie and I entered the kitchen for breakfast, the sight of a man sitting at the table startled me.

“I’m Monsieur Germanaud,” he said, jumping to his feet to plant the customary kisses on our cheeks. “I’m here to ramasse les haricots verts.” His gaze flitted off to his wife who stood at the counter tweezing the greens from some strawberries.

Andie shot me a confused look and mouthed, "Pick the green beans?"

Jacqueline puttered around the kitchen, and a smile tugged at the corners of Monsieur’s mouth as he watched her. Andie and I exchanged shrugs, ate our breakfast, and then hurried off to catch our bus for school.

We attended French classes with other international students until noon. Then a group of us girls ate our déjeuner in the school cafeteria before padding off to the beach near the marina. Along the shoreline, vendors hawked their trinkets from tiny huts. Seagulls zoomed through the air, their caws scaring every last cloud from the sky until only a sheet of blue covered our afternoon. Under these conditions, homework would have to wait until dark.

At the beach, the French men wore Speedos, small children skipped naked through the waves, and the local women—half nude—basked in the sun. In contrast, we American girls appeared prim in our swimwear.

"What are they gawking at?" Kate whispered, nodding toward a group of males passing by our beach towels.

The men ogled us, and I frowned back, wrinkling my nose.

"I've read about this," Mel said. "It's because we still have our tops on."

We were a spectacle at Jacqueline’s home too, but for different reasons. When my friends came over for a swim one day, my host mother’s three visiting grandchildren stared at us like we were three-toed sloths dangling from the trees. The kids cocked their heads while they listened to our chatter and watched us behave more like ten-year-olds than twenty-somethings. Then Amie choreographed a synchronized swimming routine in the water.

"C'mon in and do this thing with me," my friend hollered to us lazy ones. Her laugh reverberated off the white limestone of the house.

Jacqueline snapped her floral swim cap in place and eased into the water near me. Then she nodded toward Amie, furrowed her brow, and drew her lips into a bunch. "Elle s'amuse bien, n'est-ce pas?"

"Yeah, she has fun," I said, trying to act my age to please my host mother. But then I bit my lip to keep the giggles away.

*Come back next week for the conclusion of our traveling adventures in France.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: France (part 3)

The train whisked me away from my French family and back to Paris where I stood in the lobby of the Résidence Bastille, a youth hostel, along with thirteen other American students from colleges across the United States.

“Welcome to Paris,” said Janc, a French professor from Mankato State and our trip chaperone. He briefed us on our upcoming twelve days in The City of Light and then distributed handouts of our itinerary, architectural terms, and other vocabulary. “Have fun, but remember: you’ll be tested on what we see together.”

The jetlagged group around me nodded and yawned. Later that night, while the others slept off their disorientation from the time change and new surroundings, I rested in the bottom bunk in a room with five other girls and listened to the sounds of distant traffic, the foreign sirens, and the cooing of the pigeons that floated through the open window.

The next morning in the hostel’s dining room, Janc paced with his clipboard. We had a tight schedule to keep, and so we gulped down our bread with jam and tossed back our lattés. Then we set out to conquer Paris.

We made our first sightseeing stop at La Sainte-Trinité. Janc spoke of naves and chancels, but nausea rolled through me, forcing my thoughts away from the church’s structure. I tried to take notes, but next came the dizziness, and I grabbed onto a pillar. My vision tunneled to pinpricks, and our chaperone’s voice faded. What if I got ill in this pristine place? I shuffled toward the back door. Would I faint right here? Pain stabbed my stomach, and nothing else mattered. So much for the lesson—and the test to come—about the ancient building. I lowered to my hands and knees on the stone floor and pressed my cheek against its coolness.

A man helped me outside for fresh air. I didn’t understand his words, but kindness sounds the same in any language. Another student came out to check on me as I sat, woozy, on the front steps. I had just met my traveling companions, and here I was: The Sick One. 

The next several days were equal parts architectural grandeur and gut-knifing agony. What had I eaten? I couldn’t imagine what had backfired, since the sandwich I had purchased from a street vendor had looked benign.

I made my legs walk along with the group. La Place Vendôme, Le Jardin des Tuileries, Les Champs-Élysées, L’Arc de Triomphe, and Le Tour Eiffel washed by me. I prayed the stabbing misery would ease off. I slogged through the day and consumed a little bread and bottled water that night before balling up, listless, in my bed at the hostel.  

Still unwell the next day, I rallied anyway, refusing to miss a single outing. The smell of urine and adventure tinged the air at Montmartre near the innumerable steps to Le Sacré-Cœur, and the nearby Place de Tertre brimmed with aspiring artists selling their vibrant work. We visited the Père Lachaise Cemetery, its tombs the size of phone booths just large enough for a mourner to step inside, pray, and leave some flowers. Then we ambled by the final resting places of many famous people—Oscar Wilde, Molière, Edith Piaf, and more—and followed the spray-painted arrows which led us to Jim Morrison’s grave, the seeming pinnacle, if graffiti were any indication of a cemetery’s highlights.

The following day at the luxurious castle of Versailles, I was well enough to eat another sandwich, and I rejoiced with every bite. But somewhere between one of the countless gilded balconies and a marble bust of a notable person who would undoubtedly be on the final exam, pain again ripped through my stomach. What was wrong with me? My world shrank once more, and I longed to shove past the stanchions that cordoned off the king’s private chambers and curl up on his opulent bed.

Architectural terms like voûte d’ogive, voûte d’arête, and œil-de-bœuf blended with my malady, scarring my first five days in Paris. Once I recovered from my mal au cœur, though, the precarious wonders of foreign travel fused five of us students—Leeza, Kate, Mel, Amie, and me—and we snatched any free time we could to explore together. We tripped through the cobblestone city in impractical shoes. We shared fruit tartes, delicious dinners, and carafes de vin. We bought inexpensive jewelry and cheap t-shirts, blew through art museums in record time, and with our limited language skills, explained to a stylist at a salon how Leeza wanted her hair cut.

Soon, our twelve days in Paris ended. We would spend our next six weeks studying at l'Institut d'Etudes Françaises in La Rochelle. But first, we boarded a tour bus and set out for the Mont Saint-Michel, an island village built on a rock in Normandy. Janc told us stories about the famous ancient fortress surrounded by water while we trekked up the winding paths like the commoners who, centuries earlier, had made the same pilgrimage to the abbey on the hill.

But all good things end in a trip to the restroom, and so my friends and I visited les toilettes, a communal set-up with men’s stalls on one side and women’s on the other. As I washed my hands, I glanced at my watch. It was time to board the bus again, and our chaperone had urged us to be punctual. With only minutes to spare, we scrambled out to purchase the obligatory postcard or two and then hustled to meet up with the rest of the group.

I dropped into a seat toward the back of the bus while Janc took a headcount, bobbing his finger in the air like an orchestra conductor.

“We’re missing someone,” he said.

I darted a look around me. Leeza, Kate, Mel—but where was Amie? She had been in the restroom with us, but then what? Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t remembered seeing her in the postcard shop. Worry—and then guilt—needled me. How could I have rushed off to the bus without her?

I peered through the bus windows, hoping to spy my friend somewhere in the crowd of tourists that poured from the famous attraction. And then minutes later, she appeared. She bounded up the bus steps, made her way down the aisle, and plopped down next to me.

“Hey, where were you?” I said.

Winded, Amie laughed. “You’re never gonna believe what just happened in the bathroom.”

 *Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: France (part 2)

The man pulled a wooden peel from the fire, extracting the loaves—round and crusty with floury tops.

My host mother Paulette nudged me, her eyes shining. “It’s just how they made it in the old country.”

The special trip for bread to the tiny neighboring village had been worth it. I contemplated le pain, every meal’s companion and the daily sustenance that moved the French world. Bread was a clock too; when I ventured out, I could tell by the number of people scurrying about for it—none of it wrapped in cellophane like the loaves in the United States—if mealtime was near.

I spied a man walking down the sidewalk, a baguette tucked under one arm. He saw another man—likely a good friend—and his face lit up. He bopped his buddy over the head with the bread, and they laughed and talked. A woman pedaled by on her bike, a baguette strapped to the front of it. And Paulette chucked loaves into the back seat of her car with as much care as one would toss a sweater.

But le pain wasn’t my only fascination; food, in general, held the keys to the culture, and I would learn more by eating anything I was offered.

“Somehow when students come, they suddenly turn into vegetarians,” my father Jean said with a chuckle one night at dinner. Like Paulette, he only spoke French, and whenever he turned to me, his eyes grew large, and he cranked up his volume, forming words slowly for my learning ear. “But you would make a good French person; you like all the foods and cheeses.”

One day, Madame Andrée Pinot, a family friend, came for afternoon tea. The spring day was cool, but the table on the patio basked in a pool of sunlight, so Paulette and I entertained our guest outdoors. The three of us nibbled on pieces of apple tarte as the chickens meandered in the grassy distance. Daisy Belle, the family dog, curled into a donut at Paulette’s feet.

Paulette told her friend about our trip to the poissonnerie for fresh fish that morning, which sparked something in Madame Andrée’s eyes, and she recounted her own story. Since the word pêcheur meant both fisherman and sinner, she said, as a child she had thought confession to the priest was only for the men who caught the fish. She tittered, a hand splayed on her chest, and Paulette let out a chortle.

Just then, Daisy Belle zipped out from under the table and lunged at one of the chickens. Paulette flew from her chair, trilling and whooping and clapping her hands at the animal who had zeroed in on one of her beloved birds. I had thought my French mother’s tongue was lightning fast before, but this time her words streaked through the atmosphere in one long unintelligible trail. In the end, some feathers were lost, but the chicken lived, and Daisy Belle got a stern reprimand.   

That evening at dinner, Paulette told the family about the dog’s afternoon escapade. Jean, who used dinnertime to teach me new words, asked if I knew the meaning of the dog’s name. I had always wondered why they had chosen an English name, so I repeated it—Daisy Belle—saying it was a type of pretty flower.

“No, it means a degree of loudness,” he said. Then as usual, his eyes widened as he watched me try to digest the new definition.

I furrowed my brow and shook my head. He grew a grin, and I thought harder. What was I missing?

Then revelation struck: The dog’s name wasn’t Daisy Belle, but Décibel—like the English word decibel. I spelled it aloud to be sure I had it right.

“You’re easier to understand than the English when they speak French,” he said, serving me a portion of approval even more delicious than the Coquilles Saint-Jacques on my plate.

At the basilica in the town of Josselin on one of our day jaunts, Paulette showed me a fountain where people came to drink the water and be healed. She didn’t mind that I reached for the communal cup that dangled from a chain near the statue of Mary and the Christ Child, dipped in, and drank, but that was unusual; she normally fussed over my health. If I opened a window in my bedroom, she worried I’d catch a flu, and she feared I’d become sick from eating mussels. I padded through her house barefoot, but she said her stone floors were too cold for that. The day she took me to the family’s second home in Carnac—nestled beside the Gulf of Morbihan—she said I could enjoy the beach if I covered up.

“Vous aurez un coup du soleil!” she said, holding a finger in the air and frowning.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “I won’t get sunburned.”

But permutations of the same conversation speckled the warm afternoon. I was too fair for the sun, she said. I would suffer a sunstroke if I wasn’t careful, she said. What if I became ill from too much exposure? she said. Finally, I ambled off to the water’s edge, but in deference to ma mère, I toted the beach umbrella with me.

Shops, markets, restaurants, and museums—scenes straight out of my French textbooks, minus the vocabulary labels—filled my three weeks in Brittany. Soon, I would catch the train back to Paris to connect with other American students with whom I would share the next two months. I would miss my French mother’s art and history lessons, along with her ooh-la-las, ho-la-las, or ho-dee-dos, which marked our outings. My new family had embraced me with lavish generosity and open arms, but my time with them was nearing its end.

“C’est dommage!” Paulette said, waving away talk of my departure. “It’s too bad!”

My sister Anne and I headed upstairs to our bedrooms on my last night in their home. But first, we paused in the living room to say goodnight to her father.

“Bonne nuit, mon père,” she said.

Then he replied in his loud, slow French, so I could understand too. “Bonne nuit, my daughters.”

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: France (part 1)

Passing through the doors of an airplane that day in 1994, I entered a hybrid world. The signs showed me I was in Newark, but French and English floated in the air amongst the passengers, evidence that I instead hovered somewhere between two countries.

A woman settled into the seat next to mine, and I learned she was a sixty-six-year-old retired French teacher of Russian and Hungarian heritage who had studied in France in 1950.

“You remind me of myself forty-five years ago,” she said, nostalgia warming her features. She spent the next minutes scribbling sentences onto a piece of paper, then tore it from her notebook and pressed it into my hand. “A poem. Just for you.”

She had described me, a young university student on my first French adventure, and herself too, having lived out her own, decades earlier. I thanked her and folded the poem into a small square I slipped into my purse.

A world later, we disembarked at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. I was alone, and I tugged my two years of college French around me like a windbreaker in a blizzard. I collected my luggage and flagged down a taxi.

“The Montparnasse train station,” I said in French to the cab driver. He nodded and tossed my suitcase into the trunk. I crawled into the back seat and frowned. I had forgotten to tack s'il vous plaît onto my request, so I would make up for it later by thanking him twice.

Even though it was rush hour, the driver mashed his foot on the accelerator, and I clutched the seat, my thoughts racing as fast as the vehicle. Motorcyclists zipped in and out of traffic. I held my breath for the sounds of grating metal I was sure would follow. Would I die on this ride to the train station? In case I didn’t, I would do well to freshen up on my verbs, and what was the conditional tense’s third person singular for être again?

At La Gare Montparnasse, I wended my way through all the people—their small dogs attached to them like accessories—then bumbled onto the TGV, France’s intercity high-speed train, and traveled three hours to St. Brieuc where my host family welcomed me. In a flurry of hospitality and maternal concern, my French mother Paulette insisted I drink an orange juice at a nearby café, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer—or at least that’s what I thought she had said in her fast French. Minutes later, she bought me a jus d’orange, and then we were off to her home in Loudéac.

After dinner that evening, my French father Jean, Paulette, and my new siblings Phillipe and Anne gathered in the living room and opened the gifts I had brought them: a Native American dream-catcher and a bag of wild rice. They took turns holding the dream-catcher and examining it from all angles, pronouncing it a treasure.

Each day, Jean worked at his dental practice, Phillipe went to his own job elsewhere, Anne attended classes in her final year of high school, and Paulette spent her time with me. As a retired teacher, all moments were teaching opportunities with my French mother. Every day, she drove me somewhere, but since it was difficult to understand her descriptions of our destinations, I hopped into the car like an unsuspecting pet being taken to the vet. Instead of encountering shots or blood draws, however, she treated me to castles or rock formations, lace shops or boulangeries, beaches or lunches at cafés.

Paulette buzzed around the house each day too, assigning me small tasks in her rapid-fire French. She plunked a bowl of apricots in front of me and told me to tear them in half—or had me prepare other seasonal fruits—while she mixed up pastry crusts. And then we would pause for tea and fresh tartes together in the afternoons, and she would entertain me by telling me stories, rattling off snippets of Italian, or crooning Brettonne songs.

Paulette eyed me during meals, and her face lit up when I raved over certain dishes. I accompanied her to the store for each day’s shopping, and I noticed the foods I most loved had found their way back onto the grocery list. She handed me a wicker basket and half the list, ordering me to fetch the items while she gathered the rest. Sometimes at the boucherie, she’d ask me to point out a cut or kind of meat I’d never tried before, and she would buy it and prepare it that evening with homemade sauces and herbs from her garden.

One morning, Paulette stood in front of the mirror in the foyer, knotted a silk scarf at her throat, and swiped on some lipstick. She slipped into a jacket and turned to me. Apparently, we were going out again.

“Débranchez le fer,” she said. She waggled two fingers like little legs and then pointed to the stairs. I furrowed my brow, and she repeated the command. She wanted me to run upstairs and do something. When she said le fer, she moved her fist back and forth in the air. Was she making the motion of turning a steering wheel with one hand? I said the word for drive, affixing a question mark to my tone.

“Non, non, non,” she said. Then she plucked at her clothing and made the fist motion again, and I remembered. Le fer meant 'the iron'. She wanted me to run upstairs for her and do something with the iron. But what? 

She held a finger in the air, then walked toward a wall, bent down, and acted out a new gesture. Because of her lack of English, there was no danger of her spoiling our game of charades by giving me the right answer. I was eager to do her bidding, if only I could decipher it…

Finally, she led me up the stairs. In the first room on the second floor stood an ironing board and an iron—still plugged into the wall.

“Débrancher le fer,” she said and unplugged it to demonstrate the action.

My eyes grew wide, and I bobbed my head. I had just gained a verb I would never forget. And I could unplug the iron in two languages now.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The twins: Part 2

By Sunday night, my sleep deficit was mounting like a stack of unpaid bills. Was somebody waking up every twenty minutes, or did it only feel that way? I ticked off the list. New diapers? Check. Fresh bottles? Check. Good burps? Check. Pleasant room temperature and blankets in place? Check.

The babies’ new routine with us strangers—and without their mama—in a foreign environment had disrupted them. And we might have ruined them for self-soothing by dazzling them with too many daytime delights. Hopefully, their life of leisure at our place wouldn’t make life harder for their mom when they returned home. As usual, she texted the next morning.

How are the babies?

I thumbed a message back. Happy and smiley. They’re up a lot at night, though.

Are they fussy during the day too?

Not at all. Probably because they’re held all the time. Sorry to spoil them for you.

No, that’s perfectly fine. Lol

On Monday, I began to notice that while I maintained both my gross and fine motor skills, my brain was mushy at the edges.

I interrupted the story I was telling my family at the dinner table that evening.

“Wait. What was I saying?” I pursed my lips and frowned. My girls fed me snippets of what I had just said, but I shook my head. “Nope, it’s gone.”

Monday night arrived like the end of a glorious vacation. The reality was stark: I was at the mercy of six-month-olds, and there was nothing I could do about it. Would they sleep at all tonight? Or was the party about to start?

At ten o’clock, Husband and I sat in the dimly lit living room, each of us feeding a baby.

“Say the mom decided to give them up,” he whispered to me as Minnie drifted off in his arms. “We could take these two.”

“You sound like Dicka.” At the sound of my voice, Mitsy switched her eyelids open, then fluttered them shut again.

We tucked the infants into their beds and crept from the room. Maybe tonight they’d sleep for a few hours at the same time. Then the ensuing silence sang me a lullaby, and the stillness rocked me to sleep.

But the night shift began at eleven-thirty. This time, Mitsy’s arched back and caterwauling announced her disdain for her bed, in case I had forgotten. I picked her up and ran through the list again. Bottle, diaper, burp, blanket. All complete. Then I pressed my lips to her forehead. No fever. Teething? Her mother had included a tube of numbing gel with the girls’ things, so I rubbed some on her gums. I cuddled her until she dozed off, returned her to her bed, and tiptoed out.

Fifteen minutes later, a wail sliced through the quiet. This time, Minnie. I repeated the process I had just finished with her sister. Then I swayed her in my arms until her eyelids floated shut, and the truth hit me: A couple of six-month-olds were holding me hostage. If I had been a POW, I would’ve told the babies all the secrets by now. And on top of it, I suffered from Stockholm syndrome; my heart brimmed with affection for the most adorable captors in the world.

On Tuesday morning, my shift over, I shuffled the babies off to my girls and stumbled into the kitchen. I slapped around on the counter until I hit the coffeemaker, sprinkled some coffee grounds into the old filter from the day before, realized my mistake, dumped it, and started again. New filter, fresh grounds, start button. Oops. Forgot to add the water. Soon, though, I settled into a chair with a steaming cup of joe. I can do this thing, I told myself as the caffeine coursed through my body. It’s just a week.

I had cleared away work commitments and extra activities, and as I had done years earlier with my own infants, I set the bar low.

“I’ve got nothing to do but hold babies,” I had told their mother the day they came home with us. And it was still true. But as the daily concerns that usually claimed my mental space evaporated, so did my vocabulary.

“The guy who works with pipes in the bathroom called back today,” I told Husband when he returned from work.

He chuckled. “The plumber?”

“Yeah.” I passed a baby to him. “His number’s on the counter.” But by accident, I had scrawled only six digits on the scrap of paper.

Later, the little ones’ mother texted. I’m missing the babies too much. I’m going to get the rest of my business done today, so I can get them back tomorrow.

Tuesday night washed by in a blur of bottles and diapers and beauties in blankets. I might have stayed up all night—or I might have slept for an hour as the sun hovered on the eastern horizon.

On Wednesday morning, I loaded the car and drove our little house guests back home. I slurped their cheeks one last time and then deposited them into their mother’s arms.

Back at our place, the girls and I bustled about the house. We folded up the pack-n-plays, started a load of laundry, lugged out the garbage, and stowed our stash of baby toys. Then I sank into a chair and scrolled through pictures on my cell phone. Toothless smiles and matching dresses with tutus. Mitsy clutching Minnie’s hand during tummy time. And every combination of people in my house—visitors too—grinning while holding the infants. My heart squeezed.

For now, the babies were gone. But give me a good night—or two—of sleep, and I’d happily do it again.

*To learn more about Safe Families for Children, click here.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.