Joyful Simplicities

Labor Day...

           Let us then, be up and doing
           with a heart for any fate;
           Still achieving, still pursuing,
           Learn to Labor and to wait.
             

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The first Monday of September the season changes officially from summer to autumn with “Labor’s Holiday” as Labor Day was known during the Victorian era.  This holiday grew out of organized marches of working men and women during the 1880s to protest the intolerable working conditions in America at that time:  very little pay for brutally long hours, unsafe and unsanitary conditions, and the great wrong of child labor in sweatshops.  In 1894, Labor Day became an official American holiday, and from that time until World War I, it was celebrated with lavish community picnics, grand parades, and oratory.  Everyone took the day off from work and enjoyed the fruits of their labor:  recreation.  Now there’s a thought.  For the last 15 years it seems I’ve worked on Labor Day trying to elevate my labor and skill to a craft…

    Of course, these traditions have long since passed away, and today Labor Day is viewed primarily as the official end to summer.  Vacation is over, the children have already returned back to school or need to get ready to next week and stores begin to display winter clothing.  Once again, it’s back to work.

    I always think of May’s Memorial weekend and September’s Labor Day in terms of potato salad.  In May we have the first heaping bowl of the season and on Labor Day, the last.  Out come and go our white shoes and bags as well because my Mother did it that way, as did her Mother.  Oh, the twig is bent early… 

    One Labor Day pursuit which is interesting is to trace the work history of your family.  If you’re lucky you can begin by interviewing the oldest member of your family (grandparents and great-grandparents) to discover what types of work they and their parents did.  Perhaps several generations back your family worked on a farm, then moved into the city.  You might discover occupations in your family’s past that no longer exist and follow that branch back with fascination and wonder… My Irish Catholic grandfather came over to the U.S. in 1920 and worked as a master electrician at Macy’s for the rest of his life.  How did he learn his trade?   By working at the Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff during the time the British shipping company White Star Lines was building the Olympic ocean liner in 1911 and her sister, the Titanic in 1912.  Now I would have never known that I had a Titanic connection (and the Titanic has been an abiding passion of mine for years), if I hadn’t been curious.So this Labor Day weekend, an excursion to your family’s past might be a perfect destination….

Precaution Closets

Whether you observed Candlemas or Groundhog Day on Monday (February 2), both share a similar theme:  are you prepared for another six weeks of winter? Clearly I was not. On the English side of the pond, we’ve had record snows with another blizzard predicted for the coming week-end and last night the larder was completely bare. Nada. Zilch. Let me just say that you know you’re in trouble when you share the last tin of tuna with the cat or the budget pizza exhumed from the back of the freezer resembles a mouthful of wallpaper paste.  So it was market day and this little lady was grateful to be going.

“Better to be safe than sorry is an old adage which we may well take to heart in war time,” Closet Close-Ups (House and Garden 1942) reminds us.  “Have you an Air Raid closet where all the supplies that pertain to this emergency are kept together?  It may be only a cupboard but it should be intelligently planned.” 

     And do we?  Well, we should because basically, the Emergency Cupboard would also be handy and a source of infinite confidence and gratitude if we outfitted one in the following way:

    First aid-kit; lanterns, flashlights, batteries; candles, practical candlesticks or votive candle holders; battery operated radio; blankets; collapsible camp stools; toilet necessities (toilet paper, baby wipes, hygienic hand gel, diapers, tampons); bottles of water for drinking and washing; tinned food supplies for three days; long-life milk and juice boxes, instant coffee, tea bags; camp stove; saucepan; plastic garbage bags and paper towels; assorted snacks in plastic tub with top; toys for children (only used in emergency situations so they will be amusing), games for grown-ups, including travel editions and playing cards; books for all ages and inclinations, one per person; pet supplies, including leash for dogs and pet carrier (a separate one from the one lost somewhere in the garage); kitty litter and rock salt stored in a bucket with an ice scraper and small shovel; change of clothing, labeled for each family member and kept in clear plastic tub containers with tops; a set of colored coded towels for each family member; pocket size personal toiletries, including travel toothbrush; extra RX (ask family doctor about special prescription for this) and regularly used over-the-counter drug needs; a file with copies of important documents and finally, a half dozen bottles of the homeopathic Rescue Remedy because if you need this closet, you also need to keep your wits about you and nothing does it for me better than my little yellow box of the Bach’s Rescue Remedy and my framed “Keep Calm and Carry On” reminder.

    But, of course, you see that if you did have this closet, neatly outfitted, labeled, in clear plastic stacking boxes with lids, ready to be thrown into the car, if God forbid, you had to evacuate your home due to fire, flood, earthquake and everything else we now know “happens to other people” you could do so, you could keep calm and carry on. If you’re stranded in your house without electricity, in the cold and dark, you know that everything you need is in one place, praise Heaven and you could grope your way there, too, on your knees if you had to, which isn’t a bad way to start or end any day, let alone, emergency.

    Now, you may be thinking to yourself at this point, “Wow, SBB’s really been in crisis mode lately, because this is a list of a woman who’s really been caught out at one point or another without this item and vowed, she’d never be caught out again, and fair enough, you’d be right.  But you’d also be right in thinking that my “Precaution Closet” has been influenced not only by Scarlett O’Hara and Mrs. Miniver, but inspired by the Bible’s description of God’s perfect woman in the Book of Proverbs (31:10-31), particularly verse 21:  “She is not afraid of snow for her household.”

-----------------XOXO SBB----------------------

Midsummer Magic...Midsummer's Eve

Midsummer Magic…Midsummer’s Eve is one of the most enchanting and sensuous nights of the year.  Falling halfway between the traditional start of summer on May Day and its end on Lammas in August, it celebrates the power and renewal of the sun at the summer solstice—the longest day of the year.  (This year we’ll just have to take it on faith, as in my part of the world it’s unsettled, rainy, and hold on to your hat blustery—more Juneuary, than June). Still, as Tasha Tudor taught me so well, tradition never fails.  As the extra daylight tiptoes into darkness, Midsummer’s Eve is thought to draw us magically closer to the natural world, and over the centuries numerous rituals—usually revolving around romance—have evolved to take advantage of this special portal.

    When my daughter was little, we always celebrated Midsummer’s Eve.  As Shakespeare tells us in his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, on this night the fairy realm holds its annual revels.  Children who prepared a feast for the fairies were rewarded the following morning with gifts, wrapped in colorful paper, netting and ribbons, hanging from the branches of trees.  During the afternoon Kate and I would make tiny fairy cakes, prepare pink fruit punch and set out her doll dishes on a little table in the backyard. Glancing back to those moments, I don’t know who loved celebrating Midsummer’s Eve more.  Oh yes, I do.

    Which is why I have no intention of weaning myself from the whimsy (and Tasha Tudor would be the first to encourage me to do so, don’t you think?)  So whether you have little ones around or not, just make part of the festivities a little more grown up—the pink punch now has a champagne kick and the fare is delicious finger food.  (Do you know, this never occurred to me when I was celebrating with, or for Katie).  The mind boggles.  There’s a lot of celebrating to catch up.

    English folklore has it that fairies are drawn to such herbs and flowers as thyme, verbena, primroses, roses, lilacs, milkweed and poppies.  Create a fragrant wreath for your door, or scatter dried herbs and flower petals on the sill of an open window to invite the wee ones to pay a visit.  It never hurts to stay on the right sides of sprites of all types.  A flute made from an elderberry branch is supposed to let the fairies know the festivities are about to begin and they’re quite partial, I’ve heard, to sipping elderberry wine or the nectar from honeysuckle.  This year let’s find out!

    Tradition also calls for scattering protective plants around to ward off bad luck, especially the romantic kind.  They say that fennel, birch, peonies and the herb rue will repel any malevolent spirits that may be lurking nearby.  And be sure to turn your pockets inside out today, to prevent a “changeling”, a flirtatious Celtic female spirit (always searching for a human hostess), from climbing in and taking over your life.  Admit it, your daily round and mine, can’t be that dreary if a nymph’s jealous!