First, I’d like to say thank you. I started this newsletter about eight weeks ago as a place to just be me and tell stories on my own terms. I’ve wanted to practice recognizing and sharing moments of everyday awe and grace, because I so often appreciate when others put those kinds of observations into the world. It’s a way we can feel our interdependence with one another and the Earth and feel nourished and fortified against the worries and heartbreaks of the world. Already, this project has been more interesting for me than I could have imagined. It means a lot to me that you are reading it.
I’d also like to share an update. Some of you might have read my first post about a milestone birthday (50!) and a 50-year-old restaurant in Nashville. It’s also a tribute to my 99-year-old grandmother-in-law Ilene. I’m sorry to say that since that post, Ilene (Mema) has died—a few months short of her 100th birthday.
Mema spent one of the last weeks of her life on a cruise. I don’t love cruises, but boy did she ever. She’d been on more than 50 of them. She was winning on the slots (her favorite), eating well (I never saw her deprive herself of this pleasure), and making new friends with young folks from Spain and generally charming her fellow travelers as she did everywhere she went. She came down with pneumonia after her return, and it took her quickly. I don’t know many 99-year-olds who embark on cruises, but she lived fully until the end.
She also had the most inspiring sense of humor about aging. Being around her these past few months felt like a lesson in presence and letting go. I remember stopping by her place one night to find her in the kitchen. She’d already been asleep and was back up. She asked us the time. We told her it was 8. She thought we meant 8 a.m., but when she realized the night had barely begun, she just laughed and offered us an orange.
I love those moments across generations when a sparkle in the eye is like a time-traveling portal to a different period of life—moments when you get flashes of deeper understanding about a life. A week before the cruise, we went for lunch at the American Legion. She had a bloody mary and fried fish and danced in her seat to the band playing classic country. She used to have lunch at the Legion nearly every day with a boyfriend named Walt. He brought her a box of Whitman’s chocolate every time they met. She had a freezer full of them. “He was from the old-school,” she said, which was a delightful thing to hear her say.
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If you saw my earlier post, you also know how she often encouraged us to look at the sky. Her vision was failing, so sometimes I doubted if she could even see it. But as she sat on the patio in the breeze, I wondered instead if it was more of a “feel” thing. Like maybe she wanted us to look at the sky to feel its expansiveness and our place in the world. I don’t know, but I know that it has inspired me, and I’m grateful for the moments with her. This is what the sky looked like on her last day here.
Recipe: My mother-in-law (a fabulous cook!) didn’t hesitate when I asked her about Mema’s favorite food: fried chicken. Sure enough, we’d made a few KFC runs for her recently. As for the home-cooked version, there are a million ways to make it, and I think we sometimes complicate it unnecessarily until its becomes an intimidating endeavor. Mema’s favorite method, though, just involved dipping pieces of bone-in chicken in eggs beaten with a splash of buttermilk. Then dredge the chicken in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Repeat the egg-flour dip a second time and fry in about an inch of hot oil in a cast-iron skillet until the edges begin to brown. (Try not to let the pieces of chicken touch.) Flip just once to finish frying til brown on the other side. Nothing fancy, but a meal made with attention and care.
Recommendations this week:
I’ve been digging Rainn Wilson’s Soul Boom podcast — the comic Neal Brennan was on recently and then Anne Lamott. I’ve also enjoyed Anne’s series on aging in the Washington Post: “Most of us age away from brain and ambition toward heart and soul,” she says.
I’ve been thinking about songs of contentment and ease and an appreciation for the simple moments and pleasures of life.
From last week’s James Clear newsletter, a reminder on the shortness of life by 19th century novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson:
"Old and young, we are all on our last cruise."
I know she was a beautiful tender spot in your heart- big hugs to you and Tony. I’ll celebrate her by blowing a kiss up to the sky. I often look up to the sky when I am looking for some grounding- that feeling of connection ! Beautiful and inspiring as always ❤️
I loved this so much, especially those photos of your Mema at her cosmetics store, and with her friend in the kitchen! Incredible. Thank you for sharing her full, fascinating life with us.