Last summer, shortly after I started this blog, I was home in Ohio at my dad's house. I snapped the first header photo for this blog, wandered around the yard using the old picnic table as a backdrop for the FiestaWare's bright colors. I stumbled upon a couple of recipes that remind me so much of my mom, of my childhood. I was so happy to find her recipe for tomato salad, which I posted a few weeks later. I also found a small, faded paper booklet full of feast bread recipes from around the world. Inside was a treasure I remember well from childhood - Kulich. This is a sweet, yeasted bread that my mother made every year at Eastertime. I was so happy to have found this recipe, so happy to be able to carry on this tradition for my family now.
Baked in old coffee cans, this feast bread puffs up over the top of the can, creating a dome perfect for drizzling with sweet, confectioner's-sugar-based icing. Although the original recipe calls for topping the bread with lemon icing and candied fruits, my mom always used plain confectioner's sugar icing and multi-colored sprinkles. In our house, the rule was always that the oldest child got to eat the frosted top. As the youngest, not just in my immediate family, but the youngest cousin in my generation on either side of our family, I thought this rule was completely unfair. I, of course, would never be the oldest child. Until now.
I intended to make this bread at Easter this year, but instead was traveling to my Uncle Roger's funeral at the time so could not. It's a bit late this year, although it's still technically Easter in our church. This was my first time making the bread on my own, and I have some questions I would love to ask my mom. She must have used more than the two cans called for in the recipe, because my two loaves came so far out of the top of the cans that they took on a life of their own.
I used raisins as called for but I'm pretty sure she used currants. The recipe also calls for mixing the entire thing with a mixer, which I did, but I'm pretty sure my mother never did. She most likely mixed it by hand, with a wooden spoon in the big pink Corningware mixing bowl, the pull-out metal work surface of the Hoosier her backdrop. I'm going to take this approach next time, because I think the texture will improve. And next time I'm going to toast the blanched almonds before using them. The recipe below, however, is unaltered from the original. I'll post an adapted version in the future - maybe next year, when I'll follow the rules and let Dora eat the frosted top.
Kulich - Russian feast bread
3 - 3 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon (or 1 package) active dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces
2 eggs plus 2 yolks
1 1/2 Tablespoons lemon zest
1/4 cup raisins (or currants)
1/4 cup blanched almonds (try toasting them first)
Icing:
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 Tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
sprinkles
In a large bowl mix well 1 cup flour, the sugar, yeast, and salt; set aside. In a small saucepan, heat milk and butter over low heat until very warm (120 - 130 degrees) - it's ok if the butter doesn't melt. Gradually add to flour mixture; beat at medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Add eggs, yolks, lemon peel, and 1 cup flour; beat at medium speed an additional 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Stir in raisins, almonds, and enough remaining flour to make a soft dough that leaves the sides of the bowl. Turn out on a lightly floured surface; knead 8 to 10 minutes, adding flour as necessary, until dough is smooth and elastic.
Place in greased bowl, turn to grease top. Cover; let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until doubled. Generously grease one 1-pound coffee can and one 1-pound fruit can (remove paper labels). Punch down dough; place in cans, half-filling each. Cover; let rise in warm place about 1 hour, until-doubled. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 25 - 35 minutes (check fruit can after 25 minutes) or until tops are golden brown. Remove immediately from cans and cool upright on wire racks. To make icing, whisk together milk, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Frost tops with icing, letting it run down sides. Decorate with sprinkles. Slice off the top and give it to the oldest kid in the room, or eat it yourself when no one's looking.
Earlier this week, I was minding my own business at work, typing away at a report while the sun shone brilliantly outside, illuminating a perfectly cloudless day while many of my other mom friends enjoyed trips to the playground and play dates at the Nature Center. I pushed those seemingly idyllic lifestyles from my mind and focused on the task at hand, snapshots of family and construction paper cut-outs of baby hands surrounding and sustaining me instead. My phone buzzed, and a voice over my intercom said, "your mother's on the phone". For a split second, I struggled to figure out what was happening, my brain fumbling to recognize this unfamiliar and impossible turn of events. "My mother is deceased, so this call can't be for me," I said. The voice replied "well, she SAID Carrie". I sensed the annoyance in her tone and thought, "oh, you want to argue with me about this?" "The call is for someone else" I said, and hung up.
I sat at my desk and started to cry. I know it was a simple mistake, a misunderstanding, but it felt like a joke, salt in the wound, sand in the eye. It made me realize something else, too, something I hadn't thought of for a long time. People get calls from their moms while they are at work. Some people probably have that happen regularly. "It's your mom again" says the voice over the intercom. I know it might seem strange to suggest I didn't already know this, but it's just something I had put out of my mind. I thought of my coworkers casually taking a call from their mom, or even brushing her off to get back to work, and felt that familiar heavy sadness I feel when reminders of my mom's absence jump out unexpectedly, shining a harsh spotlight on the missing piece of my life.
Friday after work, Brian watched Dora so I could run some errands. I stopped at the fabric shop for some zippers, then to Target for cleaning supplies. A mob of people surrounded the card aisle, jockeying for position in front of a huge display. I thought, "What is going on?" Graduation? Happy Spring? Oh, right. Mother's Day. How could I forget? I felt that familiar sting again, the reminder that I'm part of this "club", as my friend Gretchen calls it. I hurried away from the crowd, tears stinging my eyes. Mother's Day is a time of emotional push and pull, a fine balance between celebrating the beauty of my daughter and lamenting the loss of my mother. It is a bittersweet day, to say the least.
This morning, I got up early to hit the grocery store alone before church, just me and the dads sneaking out for last minute gifts and flowers. I came home and there was a sweet card and an iTunes gift certificate for me, and Dora said, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy". We went to church together, colored, played in the yard. I baked Kulich, a Russian feast bread my mom used to make at Easter-time. Later, the three of us went for a hike at Bent Creek, chasing blue butterflies and waving at cyclists. We went to dinner, then toasted marshmallows in the backyard over our new fire pit. At bedtime, I snuggled into bed next to Dora, rubbing her back to help her fall asleep. I thought about my mom, wishing as I often do for one more day, one more chance to ask her the questions I have now, one opportunity for her to see my beautiful girl, my good marriage, my life as it is now. Dora put her arm around me, her eyes sleepy and closed, and whispered, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy".
A week ago, as our quick visit to the beach drew to a close, I tiptoed out of our hotel room as Dora and Brian slept in the early morning. My mom loved walking on the beach in the early morning, the birds, the angle of the sun, the ocean in its most natural state. I walked along the waves slowly, the hood of my sweatshirt up against the strong breeze. I thought about my mom, pictured her on so many mornings like this one on the shores of North Carolina, watching sandpipers chase the edge of the surf. I was nearly back to the hotel when I saw what I was looking for - a rare beach treasure my mother was notorious for spotting. A tiny sparkle in the sand revealed it - a small shard of opaque white sea glass. The advent of recycling - something I practice religiously - has rendered sea glass nearly extinct. Though I know it is a good sign that it is uncommon, I still look for it, still always feel that no beach trip is complete without a smooth glass splinter riding home in my pocket. On that early morning beach, reaching to the sand for the sea glass, I felt surrounded by my mother's spirit, by all the things that remind me of her. I smiled, squeezing the glass in my hand and heading home. "Thanks mom", I thought.
Although the reminders of my mother's absence are all around me these days - even popping up unexpectedly at work or as I run errands - the reminders of her presence are here, too. I see them in nature, in my daughter, in myself. Like a tiny sparkle of sea glass against sand, it often takes a discerning and attentive eye to notice these artifacts of her spirit around me. But they are here, nonetheless, maintaining our connection, shaping my life now, our love one long continuous thread as infinite and unbroken as the ocean horizon.
"Happy Mother's Day, Mommy" I whisper. I love, love, love you.
For the past two years and nine months, I envisioned myself writing about this subject many times. I knew it was inevitable - a necessary if bittersweet step towards the sort of independence and growth my little one would eventually need. There were times when I lived in absolute fear of this happening, times when I simply felt sad that it would happen one day, and times when I was more than ready for it to be so. With a bit of nudging from me, a few nights of tears from both of us, and a lot of discussion, Dora has stopped nursing. I'm sure there are many people who might think that, at 2 years and 9 months, she was long overdue for weaning. There may be others who think it happened too soon - that the fact that I had to push her a little bit meant it was too early. Either way, it has happened, and we have thus far survived this transition relatively unscathed.
Dora and I graduated from nursing during the day or at bedtime a while ago, but it was that middle-of-the-night, get-back-to-sleep nursing that we couldn't find a way to stop. My pediatrician once told me not to get in the habit of nursing her in the middle of the night (once she was old enough to sleep through without eating). I remember thinking, "you're not the one who has to get up the next day and go to work after a sleepless night". Five minutes of nursing and she was back to sleep, and so was I. Even though I've had several business trips that have left us separated for days, once reunited we have always picked the habit up again. I kept hoping that she would just lose interest - this, the baby who refused to take a bottle with such determination that she would go 8 hours between feedings even when she was very, very young. A minor dental crisis spurned me to more decisive action. About a week ago, after many, many discussions about how mommy milk is for babies, I told Dora that we would snuggle back to sleep instead of nursing. She was tearful, frustrated, laying on the ground moaning - but I held my ground and within 20 minutes she was back to sleep in bed. We had at least one more night of real resistance, and a few tears here and there - but overall it has been much less traumatic than I had imagined.
My experience breastfeeding Dora has been absolutely beautiful. Aside from those first few incredibly difficult weeks, and the months and months of bottles refused, it was easy, loving, perfect. In those early months, I spent hours gazing at Dora's sweet angelic face, watching her deep blue eyes flutter shut as I listened to her swallows, her tiny baby hand on my chest. During my deepest moments of anxiety, settling onto the couch together to nurse was my surest way to calm down - deep breathing and a dose of oxytocin do wonders to settle the nerves. The rush of love a mother feels when breastfeeding her infant is explainable through science - the pituitary gland releases oxytocin and prolactin, causing the nursing mother to feel intense love for her baby. It's more than that, though, isn't it? To me, that's the feeling of my heart and soul expanding, opening up to a love I never knew possible. That's not a hormone working it's magic on my brain - it's my baby, reaching in and connecting with me in the most primal, most basic way.
Two nights ago we were sleeping in a hotel room in an oceanfront hotel in Atlantic Beach, NC. Brian and Dora had joined me for a work trip, and we stayed an extra night for a mini-family vacation. Dora woke me up in the middle of the night, crying. She did not want to lay down and snuggle, did not want to join Brian and I in our bed. She looked at me and said, "I want milk like a baby". I looked at her sweet face, her blond hair a wild frame around it, and I felt my heart swell with the longing to give her just what she wanted, to hold her close and listen to her breathe and swallow, breathe and swallow. Instead, I offered her an alternative - a drink of regular milk, held in my arms like a baby, followed by brushing of teeth and snuggling in her bed. Within minutes she was asleep again, a little baby island surrounded by her big white bed.
I laid in bed next to my sleeping husband, tears running down my cheeks as I bid a final farewell to nursing my sweet baby girl. I knew then that our time together in that way was gone for good. The full moon was huge and yellow, slowly rising over the black ocean, it's white streaks reaching from shore to horizon. I imagined myself on the dark sand, the moon above me and the cool, hard sand below, letting go of our sweet time together like a tiny paper sailboat, bobbing up and down, sailing out to sea. All of our love and tenderness and intimacy floating away on the dark waves, the strength of our connection like the moonlight on the water, transcending space and time, touching both shore and horizon.
I let go of this time with love, with as much strength as I can muster, with the knowledge that I will hold it in my heart forever, as a sacred and beautiful space in which I discovered the depth and breadth of my love. It's as if I've discovered an ocean within myself, a vastness unmeasurable by science or technology. Thank you, nature, for creating this experience. Thank you, Brian, for loving and supporting it for us. Thank you, sweet baby Isadora, for the amazing love you have given me, for the light you have brought to my life and the world, for the connection between us that I know will transcend space and time, touching both shore and horizon forever.
Last night was one of those nights when things did not go as I had expected. The internet, phone, and cable were out, so some of the things I had planned I couldn't do (post a blog, or look for a vintage embroidery pattern for a napkin special order I need to do). I felted another alpaca bag that I knitted for another special order and it came out totally different from the last one I knitted. It's expensive yarn - not the kind you want to make mistakes with. Dora has been regressing in her potty training - intentionally having "accidents" on our bed - so I had a set of sheets to wash that I hadn't planned to do. At bedtime, she got up three times before staying in bed. The third time, she wandered into the dining room naked, having removed her footed pajamas and pull-up before coming out to tell me she had to go potty.
This morning I woke up exhausted, partly from an interrupted night of sleep due to restless pets, snoring husband, and wakeful baby. As I sat up in bed to put on my glasses, I wondered just how long I can keep this up. I have all these little side projects, a full-time job, a marriage, a child, friendships to maintain, pets to care for, a house that is begging for attention, a partner for my blueberry bush patiently waiting to be planted in the backyard. All of these - for the most part - are things that I enjoy, yet I feel so much chaos and tension with all of them swirling around me that I often feel completely overwhelmed and unsettled. It's not the same kind of obsessive anxiety I have struggled with in the past, but more of an ever-present buzzing, a background noise preventing full focus on any one thing.
I accomplished one thing last night - creating a revised header for the blog, with a grass background for spring and summer. The weathered picnic table at my dad's house will return as the background this fall, because I love that as well, but it felt like time for a little modification, a little brightening up of the welcome to this space. I finished a baby gift for a friend as well, and if I get it in the mail quickly it might actually arrive before the baby does. Of course, we walked the dogs, too, and picked dandelions gone to seed to blow on, and snuggled on the bed. Those little moments felt like time well spent.
Last weekend, Mandy and I had our first market weekend. We were completely set up and ready to go by twenty after seven. Our little table, covered in burlap and decorated with little bottles of spring flowers, looked amazing. We were pleased to discover that no one else at the market had quite the same kinds of things we did. There were two others with textiles but with totally different aesthetics, and no other knitters. We had many visitors, saw old friends, met new ones, chatted with potential customers, basked in many positive and warm comments. I missed our first sale, at the other side of the market buying kale and asparagus. We each sold a few things, and got one special order. We handed out many of our business cards. Neither of us came home with our antique cigar boxes bursting with cash, but we came home wealthier just the same, feeling like we'd accomplished something, started something special that we can both be proud of and enjoy.
I didn't sell a single knitted item, even though I'm much more confident in my knitting skills than in my sewing and embroidery. Perhaps it is the season, perhaps its that my knitted items aren't as lovely as I think they are - I'm not sure. My prized white alpaca clutch was lovingly touched by many - it is very, very soft - but it didn't sell. I went into the market hoping that we each would sell one thing, so I left very happy, but surprised. It hadn't really gone the way I thought it might. That's ok, though - the way it went was still good, just different, unexpected. Perhaps this is the way I should try to feel about everything I do. Just because it isn't what I expect, just because things don't happen right when I want them to or exactly the way I imagined them doesn't mean its not still a good, positive thing. It's easy to get overburdened and distracted by the background noise and the cable being out and the naked toddler sneaking up on you when she's supposed to be in bed. The key is to let the other things - the things that do go well even if unexpected - drown out the other noise.
I have been really, really, really busy. We've had family in town, and work has been hectic, and every evening has been filled to the limit with crafting - getting ready for our first market weekend this Saturday. I'm thrilled that Mandy and I were accepted to sell our craft items at the Asheville City Market, but also overwhelmed that the first market date is this Saturday and I have hours and hours of work to do.
I've been so busy that I missed the weeping cherries in bloom on Blue Ridge Avenue. They must have been in bloom for all of 12 hours, because I'm on that street nearly every day - somehow I missed them. I nearly missed my lilac blooming, but caught sight of it tonight when I let the dogs out after work. I made dinner with the kitchen window open, the scent of lilac and spring grass floating into the kitchen.
I made quite possibly the best dinner I've ever made tonight. I don't know why I've never tried it until now, but tonight we had gnocchi with cherry tomatoes, zucchini, fresh basil, lemon, and butter. It was so delicious. I shouldn't have taken the time to make it, but it was so perfect, so lovely. This summer, I plan on making lots and lots of variations of that dish - gnocchi with asparagus, peas, lemon and tarragon; gnocchi with roasted vegetables; gnocchi with fresh tomato sauce.
After dinner, Dora and I walked the dogs. This was the first night I really noticed all the birds, a loud Mockingbird serenading us as we climbed the hill. I handed Dora a dandelion gone to seed, showed her how to blow on it just right to make the white fluffy seeds float all around us in a cloud. After bath, Dora laid on her bed and looked up at the red woodcut on her wall. "Mama, I see sheep!" she said. I told her that Grandma Carol made that. "For me?" she asked. I told her that Grandma Carol was my mommy. She said, "Carol is your friend?" "Yes" I said, "Carol is my friend". "Ooh, I like Carol" she said. My eyes welled up as I thought of us having our first conversation about my mom. I've told Dora about my mom before, but this is the first time we've actually talked about her. It was very, very sweet and very special.
I am so busy, I should have rushed through tonight - thrown together leftovers, skipped the walk, put off the bath for another night. But we had such a perfect little evening together - beautiful and fragrant and lovely and touching. I could have missed it, just like the weeping cherries. I am so, so glad I did not.
Last week Dora and I traveled around Ohio for my uncle's funeral. We stayed with my in-laws, my beloved Aunt Joanne, and in my childhood home with my dad and his fiance. Each night, in a different bed and with a different bed time, we snuggled up together for sleep. For being dragged all over the state, being asked to sit still during a funeral service, and having no consistency in diet or schedule for 4 days, Dora did incredibly well. She had a few meltdowns but was overall a sweet little angel, breathing softly in the bed next to me, sucking her fingers and holding her night-night close.
I thought about my mother a lot over the weekend. I was in Ohio for her brother's funeral, surrounded by members of her family - people who knew and loved and understood my mother, who miss her in the way that I do, who remember her sense of humor and her personality. It was Easter weekend, a gloriously warm and sunny spring weekend, with daffodils all around - a time of year that my mother loved. As I slipped between the sheets next to little Dora, dwarfed by the big bed, I thought of sharing a bed with my own mom as a kid when we would travel - in hotels, at family members' houses. I have an older brother, and when beds were in short supply I slept with my mom and my brother slept with my dad. It was always such a treat - a special night for just mom and I. She would jokingly tell me not to kick her, but I know now that she probably - at least sometimes - loved those times as much as I did.
At the funeral, my cousin's husband had put together a little book of stories and photographs about Uncle Roger's life. The book included a story about my grandfather, Carl Brady, being one of only two men not laid off from a job at a door and sash company. Each week, Grandpa Brady took five dollars to each of the men who had been laid off. When the stock market crashed and accounts were frozen, my Grandma Brady's father, Charles Albert Keuhn, let Grandpa Brady borrow the money to keep up with the payments. My Grandparents went on to be successful business owners, running a lumber company in Barberton, Ohio for many years.
I hold on to these stories of my mother's family more strongly than I ever have in the past. Much of the genealogy of my family has been researched and established - my mom and her sister have worked for years gathering that information, even traveling through Tennessee and North Carolina with my dad in search of answers. I feel fortunate that those details have been worked out, and it's fascinating to look back at the charts and dates and imagine the lives that have led to my own unique experience. It's the stories that go along with these charts and dates that I hope we don't lose hold of - the details and insignificant moments that could easily get overlooked but that paint a picture of those we have lost in a more vivid, colorful light.
I have often envisioned myself gathering together letters from my mother to try to more clearly understand her experience as a mom. I have already caught a glimpse of some of this through the letters I have found - a letter written when my older brother was just a toddler, into everything and keeping my parents on their toes just like Dora does now; cards sent later to my Grandma Brady, detailing our latest accomplishments and challenges as young adults. Sometimes these notes seem filled with insignificant moments or mundane details, but to see my mother's handwriting, to read her words again - even a to-do list can become priceless, can point to commonalities I would otherwise have no way of knowing.
On Easter Sunday, after church, Dora and I drove south through the sunshine. In West Virginia, the lumbering hills around us were just beginning to turn green. In Virginia, we traveled through bucolic farmland, vibrant green fields dotted with yellow daffodils and forsythia, pink weeping cherries, white Bradford pears. We played "spot the farm animal" and ate raisins. We saw baby lambs, little calves lying in fields with their mamas, a spindly legged sable colt silhouetted with its mother against the Virginia sky. It was such a beautiful, beautiful day, even if spent in the car.
I try to reconnect with my mom now through those old stories, and by staying close with her family, with photos and letters and pure reflection. What I didn't anticipate when I lost my mom is the way we would bump each other in the universe, time compressing between us as we slip between the sheets next to our daughters. Joy and sorrow and love and beauty collapse in on one another, and my mom and I are in the same place even if for just a moment - regarding a lovely spring day hand in hand in hand. When I gave birth to Dora, I felt a connection to all the mothers in my line - united by the transformative power of birth. I did not know then, as I am beginning to see now, that the experience of mothering brings that connection, too. Whether mundane or profound, that is a detail I am so thankful I have noticed, so moved to have experienced. The sun shines on me now just as it did on my mama, even if the clouds are gathering sometimes, even when the day's journey is too long. In that way, in that place and time, we are together again, now and always.
My uncle Roger, my mom's brother, passed away this week, and I'm headed to Ohio for his funeral. Uncle Roger has two beautiful daughters who are two of the kindest, most compassionate women I have ever met. He also has four wonderful grandchildren, a great-grandchild, and a second great-grandchild on the way. He was my mom's oldest sibling. He lived in Ohio all of his life, but traveled through military service and to spend time with his daughter, a missionary in Ecuador. He loved airplanes, history, woodworking. He and his wife, Erma, were married in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, in 1952.
Rest in peace, Uncle Roger.
Kulich - Russian feast bread
