A Week Home for the Holiday (pt. 3)

V. Wednesday

Eyes level with the table, I poured a layer of the syrup over ice. Flavored blood orange, I had been eyeing the sweet liquid since my mother had placed the brand-new bottle on the table. I mixed in some mango syrup next, then cream, and finally filled the rest of the glass with sparkling water.

It was a girls’ night in, and the others at the kitchen table were also busy concocting their own Italian cream sodas. I tasted mine, and encouraged Aunt Lara to try the blood orange. Janelle, on my right, was mixing a piña colada. Ashley was there, with Robert’s sister, Alycia. Mom was there, and Karalee, as well.

With a six to one ratio of sisters to our only brother, it used to be that most nights in our home were girls’ nights. Karalee loved to bake cookies; to this day, she still makes the meanest chocolate chip I’ve tasted. Ashley would help, but mostly chat. Janelle often would be there with her son Byron, then just a baby, now a rambunctious six-year-old. She might have sat at the table, spooning cooked and mashed carrots into his mouth.

Brittany and I would have hung around, basking in the self-assurance that our older sisters so embodied, glad no one had felt the need to invite friends, which would have precluded our inclusion. We might have painted fingernails as we waited for the cookies to bake, or watched our favorite moments from the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice (which meant skipping over the whole Lydia mess, and replaying several times the moment when Mr. Darcy emerges, dripping and delicious, from the pond at Pemberley).

Now, girls’ nights were a slightly more formal affair. We made Italian cream sodas and had cheese ball and crackers. Pedicures may have been planned and mentioned once or twice, but the talking goes on for too long and they never happen.

I was on my second soda, a pina colada. I offered it up, stating that even though I didn’t wish to finish it, it was still very good; everyone laughed.

“No, really,” I asserted, “It’s delicious. I’ve just had too much sugar tonight. I’m just starting to hit my gag reflex, which means I’m done.” More laughter.

The cream settled in a milky haze in my half-empty glass.

I basked.

VI. Thursday: Thanksgiving

I dumped puzzle pieces onto the golden tablecloth. As I started to collect the edge pieces, I realized my mistake in picking this particular puzzle. It was a photograph of Arches National Park, an arch that is bright, rich orange. The edges, however, are made up of a speckled but homogenous cream-colored frame.

I sighed, and started to sort through the pieces, forming piles: edges, pieces where the border and the photograph meet, brilliant blues of the sky, the white and blue pieces of sky with cloud, bright orange of the smooth sandstone foreground, and the deeper reddish-brown of the background.

Janelle joined me after a few moments; she had given me the task of picking out a puzzle and starting it. Puzzle assembly is another holiday tradition in the Squires home. Actually finishing those puzzles, however, is not.

The house was fairly quiet. Thanksgiving dinner had come and gone in the early afternoon, and now it was evening. Loony Tunes played on the TV. I could hear Mom and Ashley talking and dishing up leftovers in the kitchen.

We assembled the outer rectangle, slowly and laboriously. Janelle talked to me, asked me about dating. I told her about a guy I like, but already messed up a chance with. She listened, offered advice, and all the time, the pieces fell into place.

A Week Home for the Holiday (pt. 2)

III. Monday

Jenny had planned this outing at least a month in advance, a date between her, her recently acquired boyfriend Chris, and me.

I sat in the backseat, slurping on the eggnog shake that I ordered, even though I knew I wouldn’t finish the whole thing by myself. We had eaten dinner at an Italian restaurant, and now Chris was driving with Jenny in the passenger seat; I watched them interact.

It was easy enough to see that Chris adored Jenny. He deferred to her in almost everything, an attribute I’m sure my bossy friend didn’t mind. He seemed aware of her, picking up on the fact that she doesn’t really like PDA, or that she hates having her face touched; the small things that matter, things that I know only because we have been friends for so long.

I considered my position in the car, and laughed inwardly. It was somewhat appropriate. Over the years, as boys had come and go for both Jenny and me, it was consistently the case that when Jenny had a boyfriend, I took backseat.

I dragged on the straw, feeling bored. Chris and Jenny were chatting, bantering within the dynamics already created in their relationship, a dynamic I couldn’t quite match. The spiced sweetness of the cold shake felt too heavy, too thick as my esophagus constricted the liquid downward.

“That was at the same time that you were dating Jamie, right?” Jenny addressed me. I hadn’t been listening; I had no idea what she would be referring to.

“Uuuh, yea, I’m pretty sure,” I replied in a bright voice. Facts satisfactorily verified, she carried on with her story.

IV. Tuesday

At the grocery store, I called my mother. She relayed to me the list of what she’d sent me there to pick up:

“–8 bags of lemons—you know, the ones that come with 3 lemons in a little mesh bag.

–6 bags of oranges, I’m pretty sure these come in a red bag. . . .

–A loaf of bread, whatever looks good will be fine, and

–a gallon of milk. Pretty sure that’s it.”

I snagged the groceries, the citrus fruits weighing down the shopping basket on my right arm. By the time I checked out and make it to the car, my biceps were shaky from holding the burden up.

I piled the groceries onto the corner of the counter at home; Mom stood by the sink and looked as if she had been at this for to long. She was in the midst of the annual season tradition in my family, one that has been so central to my life that I couldn’t imagine a holiday season without it: making cranberry ice.

On the stove sat a large steaming stockpot. I knew what would be in it even before walking over, but I did anyway. I peered inside and breathed in deeply. It smelled tangy and thick. Cranberries winked in the bubbling water; some had already burst open, others were still firm and bright.

My mom ordered me to add sugar to the bowl sitting next to the stove. It held a soupy goop, a runny mush that was a deep burgundy pink, a magenta perhaps. I measured out the sugar, counting to eight aloud to ensure I got the amount correct. I followed Mom’s further directions to add water. Then she got busy, slicing oranges and lemons in half and juicing them with quick, deft movements.

As we worked, Taryn wandered into the kitchen. Two years old, she has an inquisitive, round face, and large eyes that sit under fast, dark eyebrows. She has often reminded me of baby pictures of myself, with the cherub face that still manages to look determined and focused. And in many ways, I am told, she acts like I might have as a young child. We share intense, curious dispositions.

And just then, Taryn was curious to know what Mom was up to.

“Nonni, want see,” she demanded, reaching her arm up to point at the juicer on the counter. My mother obliged her and set her on the counter to observe and assist in the process. Taryn swung her legs, clunking them against the wooden cupboards. The boiled cranberries and juiced citrus produced a heady mix of rich and fresh.

As I watched my mother instructing her granddaughter on the art of juicing, I felt certain she had once spoken to me in the same, affectionate way. I can’t quite conjure up the frame of time, or memory, but she must have once swung me up, seated me on the counter, and let me watch her work.

Somewhere in my memory I am studying her hands; one holds a sieve with boiled cranberries in it, the other works to mash them against the metal mesh. I am a young girl, perhaps four, or maybe an overlay of several ages. But I watch the innards of the cranberries, in consistency somewhere between goopy and syrupy. It creates a ghastly drip into a large metal bowl, looking like so much vivid blood. After a while, I am given a turn. I mash with inefficient vigor. When the cranberries in the sieve are sufficiently turned to a pulp, I turn the spoon around and scrape the velvet-rich cranberry pulp from rounded underside of the sieve and into the bowl.

In the present with her granddaughter, my mother poured the juice into the bowl. Taryn let out an awed, “Ooooh!” These were the last few ingredients.

Soon, the liquids would be mixed together and then separated into Tupperware containers and old cottage cheese tubs saved especially for this purpose. They would be sent to the freezer to sit, then retrieved again, hardened, to be added to lemon-lime soda. And on some future night, the family would gather and eat, talk, visit, laugh, and drink this treat--carrying on in the same vein of tradition it was made.

CNF Piece: A Week Home for the Holiday (pt.1)

I. Saturday

My mother hugged me warmly, despite my ten-hour road trip from college to Las Vegas that had left me tired andgrimy. As she made to release me from her embrace, I tightened mine.

She smelled clean, like laundry detergent tinged with a faint chemical trace of cleaner, possibly Simple Green or Windex. She was comfortable, familiar in the way the skin on her upper arms felt slightly dry when my hand brushed them, and how she tucked her chin over my shoulder.

I released her; leaving one arm around my shoulders, she said in a calm, even tone, “I’m so excited to see you.”

“Oh, yea, and don’t you seem so excited,” I said.

“What were you looking for, something more like this?” She clapped her hands together and then threw them up with a dramatic shriek and a wide-eyed, manic expression of faux-delight. She let out a genuine laugh then at the sheer silliness of it—such an overwrought contrast to her perpetual poise and reserve.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” I said in a mischievous tone. We both know she is not the type of mother that insists on hugs and kisses. She doesn’t fly at me with barrages of questions or smother with attention.

No, she is the kind of mother who waited, instead, with a reassuring smile, a quick hug, a simple but constant welcome home.



II. Sunday

Siblings, brothers-in-law, an aunt and uncle, cousins, nieces and nephews poured in for the first family gathering of the week that I would be home for the Thanksgiving holiday. The fare of the dinner looked like something from a poolside barbecue, almost comically incongruous to the holiday season: pulled pork sandwiches, my mom’s famous potato salad, and fresh spring salad loaded with grape tomatoes and avocadoes.

I loaded up what I would eat, skipping the pulled pork. I laughed inwardly; Janelle had apologized earlier for bringing a main dish that was so meat-centric. “I still always forget you’re a vegetarian now.” It was amusing to me, but oddly relieving that no one had over-accommodated me.

We ate, and as the food on our plates disappeared, the talk grew loud and the children ran screaming and exuberant up and down the length of the house.

Eventually, we gathered in the family room, sleepily filling in pulled-up dining chairs, the couch, the love seat. I shared a wide lumpy armchair upholstered with an earthy-colored, nubby cloth with my close friend of five years. Jenny has become as much a fixture at family gatherings as any of us.

The room quieted as Ashley began to speak, thoughts on gratitude that she had prepared. Her voice was clear and high, a voice that mine resembles. We are blood; she is the fifth child, preceding my position as the sixth, and four years my senior. She has been married for over three years, and her husband Robert sat next to her now, gripping her hand.

She spoke of experiences that the rest of us only half-knew: hospital stays, radiation and chemotherapy treatments, intensive care units, weakened immune system and bone marrow transplants. She spoke of what the months watching, waiting, serving, holding out faith for a leukemic husband had done to her soul, and what it had done for it. Sometimes wavering, she spoke of prayers proffered in despair, others in hope, of hearts aching, but also hearts healing. Her voice coagulated on those words that rose from a place that is an opening to both pain and peace.

“A grateful heart is the beginning of greatness,” she said.

Jenny placed her hand on my arm. I looked around the room at my family. My niece Taryn sat on the floor where she had busied herself pulling tissues from the box. I noticed Dad scoot his chair closer to Mom, then extend his arm across her shoulders, saw the way she settled into that elbow crook that she must know so well.

I had all the beginnings of greatness right there.

This is the first installment of a creative non-fiction piece I wrote (and still finishing) that is a memory from each day I was home for the Thanksgiving holidays. The rest will follow.

I promise.

It has been a crazy semester. I've gotten out of the habit of writing here (was I ever in it?).

But I haven't gotten out of the habit of writing.

Whatever else I may say about it, I've appreciated the 18 credits I've taken this semester sheerly because of how it pushed me to write, to think, to grow, to do new things I've never done before.

So, I will start writing more, updating you with what I've been writing.

And I'll also have backlog days, in which I will post works that I have completed in the past.

Stay tuned for awesome.

And the meek shall appreciate what they inherit.

This is a column I wrote for the Scroll, published on Sept. 22, 2009.

We all have things we’ve inherited from our family.

It might be red hair, an artistic eye or habits. It could even be horrible eyesight or a propensity for using long words.

I’ve inherited a lot from my family, which consists of my amazing parents and seven of us kids — and we are all really close, maybe unusually close.

A friend once told me, “Your family is like a cult,” a statement that I could only refute with the fact that we don’t drink Kool-Aid of any kind.

But I’ll just leave it with saying that my family gets along really well and spends a lot of time together. As a result of this, we’ve ended up picking up each others’ senses of humor, mannerisms and ideas. While we are all very different, all of us still fit quite comfortably within the same Squires mold.

The similarities extend beyond my immediate family and into my extended relatives. There are two amazing ladies in particular from whom I have inherited much: my grandmothers. They are both ladies who have been through a lot in their lives, enduring with faith.

My maternal grandmother, Grandma Bev, is a lady full of whimsy and fun. I remember the magical hours of entertainment she would spin with her animated recitations of Shel Silverstein poems. (Oh, that peanut butter-loving king. Will he never learn?)

And let’s not forget the ever-popular Candy Bar Game.

I always looked forward to going to Grandma Bev’s, knowing I was sure to get pretty well spoiled.

One of my favorite things, however, was to sing along with Grandma Bev while she played the ukulele. Eventually she taught me how to play it a bit, a little two-chord version of “La Cucuracha.”

While I never mastered the ukulele when I was younger, in high school I decided I would get more serious about it. After all, if ukulele skills can’t get you somewhere in this world, I’m not sure what can.

I went to the local music store and picked up a ukulele. I still remembered a few chords and soon taught myself and became quite proficient.

When I saw Grandma Bev next, I showed her my recently acquired uke knowledge. I was surprised by how touched she was that I had stuck with something she had taught me, to see the influence that she had had on me.

When Gandma Bev’s arthritis developed to the point that it became uncomfortable to play the ukulele, I inherited her beautiful, handmade-in-Hawaii ukulele. And while I adore it, I treasure more the memories, knowledge and love for music she shared with me. Every time I play my ukulele, I think of Grandma Bev.

The other amazing lady is my Grandma Jean. With my grandpa, she spent four years serving two consecutive missions in Africa. She is dynamic, a cheerful little powerhouse, always full of energy, advice and a kind word.

And while that kind word might sometimes be telling you that eating almonds helps with acne, or that you have a little smudge right there on your face, you still knew that it only meant she cared enough to notice.

In addition to the hairline along my neck (which veers crazily to the right), I inherited the middle name of Jean from my grandmother.

I was reminded of this while reading my scriptures one day; I came across this verse in Helaman 5:6:

“Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.”

I know we might not all be named after someone, but we all have last names to remind us of those we inherited them from, of those who went before.

My some number of greats-grandpa John Fell Squires, for example, was one of the children who comprised the first generation to be raised in the Salt Lake valley. His father was, in fact, the barber to Brigham Young. My last name stands for all those steps taken to Zion, the sacrifices my forefathers made for their faith and the many hairs of a Prophet cut.

In addition to what we’ve inherited from our families, we have a rich heritage as a Church and as a school.

We carry the name of Latter-day Saint, the title of BYU-Idaho students. Let’s remember those who came before us, whether they crossed the plains or pioneered the changes that have made this university what it is today. Let’s remember the good that they did and try to live up to the standards they set.

After all, if it wasn’t for what we’ve inherited from them, we wouldn’t be the people we are today.

Some thoughts on poetry.

I have been writing a lot of poetry lately.

Which makes sense, right? Seeing as I am in a poetry writing class.

I have also been reading poetry. I like it; some Sylvia Plath, some Louise Glück, a bit of William Stafford.

Sometimes is it hard to digest. It makes me think too hard, and my brain doesn't get it. It doesn't click.

Other times, it feels good to just read poem after poem, enjoying the shape of the words in my mouth, in my head, the way these silly little symbols on the page appeal to my senses so readily, with such ease.

When a line or image clicks within me it makes my guts tremble a little: this is what it is for. That feeling of connectedness, of commonality. Even if I have never experienced or have no reference for what they would tell me about, perhaps in the reading I feel it. Their meaning, emotion, a sadness or a joy. Some shadow, bent to fit in my world view, of what they once meant or knew.

Reading poetry is hard. Harder than watching TV or a movie, or calling a friend and conversing. You read the same poem several times, and often even then it is coy and refuses to reveal its meaning.

But it is rewarding. Why would anyone write it, or read it, if it was not? It is condensed glimpses into other lives and souls.

If I wanted to really give you a self-portrait of myself, my life, I would not use paint or graphite or ink. I would use words, words words, they are magic. They are enchanted. They can build anything. They can break it, too.

I you really wanted to see me, to know me, you might look at my poems, at the ways I indulge myself when it is just me, a pen, some paper, and the words in me head. The lines of letters are skeletons upon which I will hang my meaning, flesh it out into a picture of me, a view.

It will not be truthful. I lie about myself. We all do. But it will be something. A facsimile, sure, but one that is closer to real than most else.

And isn't that what so much of literature is, anyway?

Using lies to tell the truth.

Reformation

ELYSSA SQUIRES

It wasn't yours.

It wasn't your paint.

You bent the rules

and busted open silos

you knew held no grain,

but hid away liquid pigment.

It spilled across the earth,

clung to rock and rest

colored it living:

you declared it

a Prayer.

It was not our clay.

But we ignored the rules,

plunged our limbs in the earth

up to the joints.

Fingernails widened into shovels

and pulled the malleable soil.

It would not grow vegetation

instead, be grown into a sculpture;

we declare it

a Monument.

These aren't my words.

I broke the rules

I dashed them against my will

and squeezed them to points—

They are the tools I wield to cut into the vault

where words are stored,

written in dust.

I sweep them into a verse.

I declare it

a Curse.

Tribute to my mother

My mother watches as one of her grandsons Jr. plants a kiss on another, Elijah.

Lori Gardner Squires. To me, she is mother. To the rest of the world (besides my six siblings, I suppose), an amazing woman.

A mother at twenty, a grandmother at forty-two, she is the kind of woman who has made her family the center of her life.

My oldest sister Kristin had her first baby in 1998. My mother did what she has done with the birth of each of her nine grandkids: she traveled out to support the new mother and care for the new babe. She helped to smooth the transition from insanely pregnant woman to brand-new mother. Cleaning house, rising at unholy hours of the morning, babysitting; she has done it all.

A month or so later, the whole family made a trip to meet the bouncing baby. I was awed. I stared at this tiny little creature and wondered if it was really possible that it would someday grow into a person. I held him, breathed in his newborn scent and marveled at the process that could enable my sister to make something so perfect, soft and amazing.

My sister cradled her new joy, and I could tell she was in love. I was away at college when another sister, Karalee, had her little boy Elijah. He was a chubby baby, the pictures sent to me via camera phone reminding me of Augustus Glump from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

When I met him a matter of just five weeks later, he was unrecognizable. Born with Pierre Robin sequence, a combination of a cleft palate, small jaw, and asphyxiation caused by the tongue falling into the throat, the little guy had a near impossible time eating. He had lost a lot of weight, and was quiet and lethargic. Even sleeping was a struggle, as it caused him to asphyxiate on his tongue.

My mother was there again, reassuring my worried sister. When Elijah was hospitalized in Salt Lake City, she drove up several times to be with Karalee and grandson, to uplift and help in any way she could. Through the following surgeries and hospital time it took to get Eli healthy, that wonderful woman was there, doing what she does best: mothering.

Lori holds Elijah, August 2008.

On May 16, 2009, Lori Squires was again made a grandmother. My sister Janelle, quite pregnant at just three weeks away from her due date went into labor at a family gathering. My mother, of course, jumped right into things. She took her home, set her up in a tub full of water, and called the midwife.

It soon became apparent, however, that this baby would not be waiting for any such a luxury as a midwife. Just a short fifty minutes after she went into labor, Janelle gave birth to a beautiful baby girl—and my mother was there to deliver the baby and welcome her to this life.

I have watched my mother tenderly handle those floppy newborn beings that are her grandchildren. I have seen her goof around and play with them as they get older. She spoils them, as a grandmother rightly should.

It is no secret that she loves them. And I know my mother was once as infatuated with all 9 lbs. 8 ozs. of newborn me. She once held me with the same wonder in her eyes, and loved to hear my laugh.

I am comforted knowing that, when the time comes, my mother will be there with me as I welcome my future children into this world. She will be there to support me in all that I do.

Because my amazing mother, after 36 years, still knows what is most important, and continues to center her life on those she gave life to.

Thanks, Mom.
And I love you.