Showers

Tomorrow I head off to a bridal shower, one of those wonderful rituals women have created to usher their daughters into new passages in life.  My friend Karen is gathering friends and family to shower her daughter with practical household items and a collection of women's wisdom to go with them.  On a 3 X 5 card, we are asked to pass along hints and advice.  Here is mine:

Advice from my mother:  "Always clean up as you go along."

Hints for cleaning kitchen appliances:  to rid yellowing from white appliances try this:  Mix together 1/2 cup of bleach, 1/4 cup baking soda and 4 cups warm water.  Apply with sponge and let set for 10 minutes.  Rinse and dry thoroughly.

I have been married for almost 40 years, yet I must confess that only within the past 10 years have I heeded and thus come to appreciate my mother's rationale--it makes cooking and cleaning up afterward more efficient and much easier.

 Note:  these traditional ball band dishcloths still remain as my favorite pattern to knit and certainly, the most durable and hardy washing and wiping cloth to use (my husband told me so, totally unsolicited a few weeks ago!).

On the flip side of the card, I pay homage to my grandma, Mildred Bame Herman. One of my most vivid memories of her is going "calling" one sunny, summer afternoon.  We carried split-wood baskets of vegetables picked that morning from grandpa’s garden and flowers cut fresh from hers, the most beautiful, abundant, and varied flower gardens I still have ever seen. Had I only appreciated and applauded her and the beauty of her art when it was so vividly before me every summer...

What my grandmother showed me by her example:

"I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn...

...To every house you enter, you must offer

healing; a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chase touch."

-excerpted from

"What I Learned from My Mother"

by Julia Kasdorf