see as i saw

This morning began on an unexpected note.  I have a habit, probably a bad one, of looking at my phone, immediately after waking, while I'm lying in bed .  It seems to help me jump start my brain and convince it that pushing snooze a fifth time is a bad idea.  This morning one of the emails in my inbox was a shocking awakening, one that has stuck with me all day.

When I first moved to Chicago, I became acquainted with a group of girls and we generally hung out every couple of weeks.  We didn't all have much in common with one another, so many of us drifted apart within a year or so.  But I have always been appreciative of this crew, because they were my first feeling of foundation in the urban jungle.

This morning I learned that one of those girls has been battling cancer for nearly two years and she passed away yesterday.  Despite the fact that we haven't spoken in years, the news hit me with a surreal thud.  My mind reeled through so many disparate thoughts, having difficulty in finding understanding in how someone that young and energetic is simply gone.  My heart aches for her family, her husband, and her close friends.  I can't imagine, and I hope to never experience, that pain.

So as we head into a day whose meaning can be overshadowed by food and football, this certainly puts my mind on the gratitude track (no doubt, I'm also grateful for food and football).  Despite my travails of the past couple of weeks, I am grateful for this life I lead - even if it's only because I am present and able to live it.

This is a story about apple pie, sort of.  It's more of a story about a story about apple pie, you know the one.  Boy meets pie, dad walks in on boy.

Once upon a time, I was in high school and planning to rent that movie and watch it at home during a mellow girls' night.  My mom has never been shy and decided that she was going to join us, no matter how much I tried to convince her that it wasn't her type of movie.

Let me set the stage a few years further back, for perspective's sake.  In eighth grade, I went to see Titanic with a friend and our moms.  My mom insisted on covering my eyes, at the age of fourteen, when Kate Winslet was posing nude for the portrait, as well as when Kate and Leo steamed up the stagecoach windows.  I couldn't quite understand why she was afraid to let me see breasts, since I had my own.

Fast forward a few years to a scene where I want to laugh at raunchy comedy and the mom who censored me from seeing portions of Titanic wants to join me.  It was incredibly awkward and rather uncomfortable.  But I lived to tell the tale.  And I made sure to watch all subsequent American Pie movies in a locale where parental presence would be unlikely.

When I saw this homemade apple pie on her counter though, I couldn't help but think about the day when I watched Jason Biggs make love to a pie on screen while feeling the awkward tension of my mom in the room.

 Since my parents moved hours away from where I spent my childhood and adolescence, I don't come to my hometown that often.  When I do, there's a strange sensation of feeling far removed and like I never left at all.

When I drive down what has always been the main hub of town, things couldn't look more unfamiliar.  What once was a truck stop is now a Meijer.  Where there used to be empty land, they've packed in a Wal-Mart.  Stores and restaurants with corporate governance now reside where local businesses or nothing at all used to stand.

But when I started winding down the dirt roads, connecting one familiar stomping ground to another, the comfort returns.  When I'm noshing on the best donuts known to man, they taste as wonderful as I remember them when I was five years old.  There's a well-worn ease in sitting around the living room with three of the people that have known you best, despite the time and distance that makes these occasions rare.

As much as I've never been one to think longingly back to high school days, I walked away from this wedding reception with a far less sour taste for that era than I have been carrying around for ten years. I forget what it's like to be around an entire group of people that know each others' pasts, spending nearly every day in the same general surroundings and events.  I suppose I enjoyed waxing nostalgic a little bit.

There's still no chance that I want to move back to the same realm where I grew up.  But an occasional reminder of where I came from and the building blocks of my adolescence proved to be welcomed.

A perk of being an artsy crafty type having the ability to create without having to go out and purchase.  That comes in handy when the spontaneous urge for creation kicks in.  That's what I encountered this afternoon.

My dad left the police force somewhere around 1997, but this piece of memorabilia lives on in my parents house.  Much like the ash gray t-shirt I still wear that bears the same logo.

Since my parents no longer live in my childhood home, or even the same city, coming home has become a juxtaposition of familiar and new.  For the most part, the material items representing my childhood and adolescence have either migrated to my own home or been purged.  My mom has a similar love for photography, but the type focused around people.  Those reminders of years past hang everywhere in my parents' home, sometimes eliciting a smile and a fond memory, other times a shake of the head and amazement that anyone would wear that outfit.

There are certain creations and art projects that my mom couldn't bear to part with, and they still have a place of honor near her desk.  For some reason, my prom dresses still hang in a basement closet.  I'm sure if I dug through a couple of boxes in storage, I might unearth some other "treasures".  For now, I'll passively sit on the couch and sip from my Novi Police coffee mug, absorbing the morning sun.  I wish it came with a donut, too.

Although my body aches and I may have a sliver of glass in my hand, I would say that I'm ending the day pleasantly content. The sun is shining, warmth returned to the Midwest, my neighbor is jamming to the best of Marvin Gaye, and it's a soothing sound drifting through my windows with the breeze.
Today's mission was an organizing job with a focus on unpacking. Interesting revelations occur when a couple moves in together for the first time. Especially when it's in a city apartment. Too much stuff, too little space. Only the man of the house was around for the unpack, so any divesting of material goods would have to wait for his lady's permission. Organization became a backseat activity to simply making the space livable for now. After eight hours, we achieved that. It was quite a feat, but he was happy with the progress.

And me, well, I was happy for a job well done.  It didn't hurt my mood that it was an active payday. To really tip the scales, after I was already brimming with contentment, the client extended a very generous gesture in the form of Rioja. That's gratitude you can't refuse!