I’ve been reworking some writing that I had done years ago. Some of it is too pretentious to share, other pieces are worth an edit. Many of the bits I found were written with two friends, Audrona and Lisa, at our weekly breakfast writing sessions. We used words and poetry fragments to stimulate our twenty minute, never stop writing exercises. One piece inspired the beginning for the first novel I wrote and another these memories of childhood. Here is the first story in a group I call ‘Narrating Childhood’.
I
Our mother dressed us in similar homemade clothes – reds for brown-eyed Mimi and blues for me, blue-eyed Barbara. Although Mimi is a year and a half younger we were sometimes taken for twins although I was taller. Growing up in our house on Fourth Avenue East in Superior Wisconsin in the 1950s we shared a bedroom and a double bed on the second story under the eaves of the pitched roof. The head of our bed was below the front windows. We each had a nightstand and shared a low dresser with a mirror above it. When we put on plays in front of that mirror, I was often the bad sister, the bossy sister, the prince, all the heroic roles. Mimi was the sweet sister, the princess, the one I needed to save. These performances were only for us – we were actors and audience. I remember the pleasure of pretending and thinking how grown-up and professional we were.
The closet in our bedroom was a peculiar shape determined by its location under the front eaves of the house. The closet was tucked along one side of the room, beginning as a normal closet with a door, a light, a high ceiling, hooks for our jackets, robes and pajamas. Behind the rod hung thick with our dresses, under the steeply downward sloping ceiling, was a low shelf where we kept treasures, precious things like books, pencils and tablets. It was a private hideout from our pesky younger sister and brother who shared a room next to ours. I would turn on the light and push aside the tightly packed dresses to sit in the semi – dark at the back of the closet. I jumped at the sound of the door flung open by an unwanted sister, the rustling of the hangers and clothing and her face as she asked, what are you doing Barb?
I welcomed Mimi’s warm self in our bed that was strictly divided by an invisible, yet easily found by us, line down the middle. We had to ask permission to cross the line – usually only for very good reasons like back rubs or the drawing-on-the-back game we played in the dark before sleep. We would draw pictures of growing complexity on each other’s back in turn, trying to guess what objects or words were drawn with the pressure of fingers alone. “No, do that again, what is it – a house?” “No, feel this.” “Oh, I know, it’s a table.” “Yes, yes, here are the chairs, one, two and dishes on the top – feel it?” “My turn – what word is this?” “M, okay, O, easy. Now you have to print it, your cursive is too fast. Hey, no tickling.” Then it was private time before sleep with no trespassing across the middle of the bed.
On my nightstand was a brown, boxy radio with rounded corners and a coarse cloth stretched over the front speaker. At bed time, after prayers and a kiss from Mommy, Mimi and I listened to the serials – The Shadow, Time for Love with Marlene Dietrich, and a cops and robbers show. The volume had to be adjusted just so or our father would roar from downstairs “turn down that radio” or Susan would whine from her room “we can’t sleep, Mommy”. As we entered those other worlds on our magic carpet radio we nestled more deeply under our blankets. The radio hummed, a dim glowing light and low sound to aid in our passage into sleep. I called downstairs to our mother, “Mommy, will you turn off the radio,” asking her to come up after we fell asleep, unwilling to lose my fantasy, wanting to fall asleep with those stories in my ears.
As the days shorten and evenings darken I want to fill the house with delicious aromas, something simple that will accompany either a salad or a soup. Muffins do very nicely. These apple muffins taste of fall with their warm spicy flavor.
Apple Muffins
Preheat oven to 325° Makes 18 muffins.
Combine two cups flour, one cup brown sugar, two teaspoons baking soda, two teaspoons cinnamon, one teaspoon salt. Add two large eggs, ½ cup safflower oil, two teaspoons vanilla. Stir in four cups of peeled, or unpeeled diced apples, one cup raisins, one cup walnuts, roughly broken.
Bake in a well-buttered muffin tin at 325° for 25 minutes. Test with a skewer.
Another favorite is a recipe from Bernard Clayton’s The Complete Book of Breads.
Blueberry – Lemon Muffins
I generally butter the muffin tin as I like the outside a bit brown. Use paper muffin liners if you prefer. Be sure to use the topping as the muffins are not very sweet. Makes 16. The recipe is easy to cut in half.
Preheat oven to 400°.
Combine 2 2/3 cups flour, one tablespoon baking powder, 1 ½ teaspoons salt, ½ cup brown sugar. Add two large eggs, one cup milk, 2/3 cup safflower or other vegetable oil. Fold in ½ tablespoon lemon zest, 1 ½ cups blueberries, fresh or frozen – not thawed. Bake in buttered or paper lined tins at 400° for 20 minutes until golden brown. Test with a skewer.
Meanwhile, melt four tablespoons butter in a small pan. Put ½ cup sugar in a shallow bowl. When muffins are baked, cool on a rack for ten minutes. Unmold and dip tops in melted butter, then in the sugar.
May be frozen without the topping. After warming the frozen muffins dip them in butter and sugar.
