Recognition by sound, by sight

Here's another story as I told it at a storytelling event with friends.

My mother (left) with sister.

My story is about recognition.  How we recognize each other.  How we’re connected to each other.  By sight, by sound, by handwriting, by smells.  I have three short stories that weave together about some women in my family—my mother, my great-aunt the Roman Catholic nun, and me.  These are intergenerational stories about how the three of us are connected.

I.                   Recognition by sound

My mother, born in Germany, was named for her aunt the nun who entered a cloister as a teenager.  It was a very strict order of nuns called the Poor Clares, and people living outside the convent walls were not permitted to have direct eye contact with the nuns.  The nuns were allowed infrequent family visits on specific days.  My grandfather took my mother with him for these visits, since my mother was named for her aunt.  They shared a name, and when my great-aunt took her vows, she chose the new name Maria Hugo.  So, my mother’s name became a special link to her aunt’s previous life.  The visits occurred in a special chamber, and a curtain was hanging between the visitors and the nun so they could not see each other.  My mother came to know her aunt by the sound of her voice.  I’ve often marveled at the fact that her family recognition of her aunt came through sound and not by sight.

II.                Recognition by sight

Conversely, my interaction with my great-aunt was in the absence of sound.  It was only by sight.  When I was about eight or ten years old, my great-aunt moved closer to my grandparents in Germany.  (I want to point out that in post WWII Germany, she was no longer cloistered.)  As a child, my family often visited my grandparents in Germany during the summer.  At that age, I had started to lose my conversational abilities in German, my first language.  My great-aunt spoke no English, and as a formerly cloistered nun, she spoke little by habit.  I remember that she looked very forbidding in her black and white nun’s habit, and we did not speak when she visited because of a language barrier.  I was a little afraid of her. 

One day, she grabbed me by the hand and took me out back in the garden.  She pulled me along through the chicken coop behind the wood shed, into the asparagus beds.  I didn’t know what she was doing, what she wanted, and stumbled to keep up with her.  Remember when I said I was a little afraid of her?  When we got to the asparagus beds, she reached down to grab the hem of her gown and started lifting up.  I think my eyes were as big as saucers.  I did not know what to expect.

The first thing I thought was, “Nuns wear pants?!”  She wore pants under her nun’s habit.  That was quite unexpected.  The hem went higher.  There in her leather belt was a knife.  I thought, “Nuns carry knives?”  That was a shock!  She pulled the knife out from her belt….and showed me how to cut the asparagus.  Phew!  That was a relief to know what we were doing out there behind the woodshed with a knife.  This was the traditional white German asparagus, called “weiss spargel,” where the asparagus beds are hilled so that the stalks never turn green in the sunlight.

After harvesting the asparagus, she cut two long stalks of rhubarb.  We walked back into the coop.  She looked me straight in the eye, sucked sour juice from the end of the rhubarb stalk, and spit the juice at the chickens.  I did the same.  So, we stayed out in the chicken coop for awhile sucking sour rhubarb juice and spitting it at the chickens.  I remember thinking, “My great-aunt the nun has taught me how to spit….nobody is going to believe this story.”  This entire experience was in the absence of speech, which is so different from my mother’s story about her aunt. 

III.             Recognition by sound

The next story is about my great-aunt after the war ended.  Her cloister had been disbanded.  She  lived in eastern Germany which was divided by Poland and the Czech Republic as part of post war reparations.  It’s interesting that my mom’s family spoke German, Polish, Czech, and Russian.  At that point, up to 15 million people left their homes and headed west.  My great-aunt finally ended up in Westphalia, a British occupied zone in western Germany.  She was now hundreds of miles from her home, which she left on foot.  She was helping care for the sick and elderly, orphans, other displaced people.

After a bitter cold winter in ~1948, it was a beautiful sunny May day, and she had some rare time off, so she took a walk.  She walked all the way to the next village, and it was so beautiful and sunny that she kept walking until she came to the next village.  She just couldn’t stop walking, it felt so good.  By this time she realized it was quite late and needed to head back.  So, she swung by the train station to see what time it was.

She saw a group of kids playing at the train station, and she paused to ask them what time it was.  That’s when my mother turned to her and said, “You’re my aunt.”

That still gives me chills.

Remember, they had never seen each other, as my great-aunt was cloistered long before my mother was born and they were not permitted to see each other during limited visitation.  They were hundreds of miles from home, and the last time they had spoken with each other had been about 2.5-3 years.  My mother was a young teenager at this time.  She too had left home on foot.

So, back to the encounter.  My great-aunt immediately asked my mother her name, where she was from, who her father was.  This chance encounter at the train station was how they were reunited, reunited by my mother recognizing her aunt’s voice.  This story for me is one of the epic stories of my family.  I have thought about this encounter many long hours.  I’ve wondered what the slim chances were for my great-aunt to be reunited with the child who was named for her in this extraordinary way.  Thinking about it for long whiles has certainly challenged my belief system and forced me to think about what my belief system even is.

Thinking about this convergence of stories, recognition by sight, by sound, remains for me an enduring experience of family connections, and that’s the image that I hope to leave with you this evening.

terms of endearment

Here is my story as I recorded it with the MOTH radio show on Saturday:

My story is called Terms of Endearment.  It’s actually a collection of four separate short stories that I consolidated under the title Terms of Endearment about how we express love, what words we use, the behavior that endears us to other people. This is my valentine’s special to you. I am fascinated by both the terms and the endearment, and how varied and vibrant they can be.  These four stories are all about my family. They are all true stories.

Terms, rather than endearment

The first vignette focuses more on the terms than the endearment.  In the 1950s, my dad was in his 30s, a confirmed bachelor.  He had a few simple terms for selecting a wife.  She had to be a good driver.  She had to be a good card player. He had to like her family.  A classic bachelor’s list, right?  He did not anticipate how he would wilt under my mother’s gaze when they met for the first time.  So…when my dad married my mother, six months after they met: she didn’t drive; she didn’t play cards; he never met her family until after the wedding.  I’m so tickled that my dad knew when to toss the terms and embrace the endearment.  That’s a good life lesson for everyone—know when to throw out the rules.

Endearing traits

This next anecdote has to do with endearing traits involving items that couples exchange. In this case clothing, the same clothing.  My husband and I can exchange clothing.  I consider this an asset to our marriage and comes in particularly handy with outdoor gear and boots of all varieties—snow boots, barn boots, skates, ski boots, coveralls, extreme weather gear.  I am somewhat loath to tell you that we can actually wear the same pants…and apparently, I am not the only one. 

My husband tells a tale of visiting a sweetheart long ago whose parents were going out to dinner.  As the parents’ car disappeared down the drive, two individuals visited the upstairs.  When the parents returned unexpectedly, much earlier than anticipated, the two individuals quickly threw on their clothes and ran downstairs, pretending that they had never visited the upstairs.  The two individuals were striving for meaningful conversation with the parents, when my husband noticed that he was wearing her bluejeans…and she was wearing his…….Some internal panic ensued.  I do not know whether there was some embroidery or a few stray rhinestones involved, but I like this vision of reversed pants. It all ended well with the parents never the wiser, and is indeed an endearing episode.

Depth of endearment

I’m due for a story about myself.  It’s more about the depth of endearment.  As a builder and physics enthusiast, my husband is very focused on math.  When we met, he had an endearing habit of gauging someone’s interest in something based on a scale of 1 to 10.  One night early in our relationship, his question had to do with the depth of my endearment to him.  He asked, what was the extent of my feelings for him?  The question was quite unexpected. I floundered.  I asked him, coolly, what’s a 1?  He replied, unnoticeable.  I asked, what’s a 10?  He replied, unfathomable.  I experienced some momentary madness, because I answered a 5, playing it safe and all.  His reprisal came….later.

At this time in my life, I felt somewhat diction impaired. I was in a serious mumbling phase.  Getting words out clearly seemed difficult.  On the night when I got up the nerve to say, I think I’m falling in love with you…he said, what? (Knowing clearly what I had said).  I felt a little panicked.  So, I said it again, more clearly.  I think I’m falling in love with you….He said, what did you say?  A third time, I said these words emphatically.  Look, I think I’m falling in love with you! (The warm, tender tone diminished at this point).  He said…yeah, I know, I heard you the first time.  Payback was his, and it was sweet.

Perceptive endearment perspective

Last, is a story from a mother’s perspective.  As a mother, I’ve learned that young children can express their endearment in incredibly perceptive ways.  On a mother’s day when my daughter was not quite four years old, we were playing a word game as we curled up for bed.  We were listing all the ways we loved each other. More than all the Os in the cereal box.  More than all the cherry blossoms on the tree.  More than all the waves on the pond.  More than all the stars in the milky way.

Then, I said, I love you like an elephant, because an elephant never forgets and I will never forget my love for you. She thought about this idea for a long while, and asked whether other animals have good memories.  Our cats?  The chickens? What about the goldfish?  Then, she turned to me and said, mama, I love you like a mother.  I was awestruck.  This was the most powerful love force she could think of, the love of a parent.  Forget the elephant! That kind of love lasts a lifetime, it is unshakable, enduring, and can bring you to your knees at the same time.  And a four year old already knows that.  That’s a life lesson from someone so small…and wise.

Ending

So, what’s my message?  If you feel love in your heart, express it, let those words fly.  It’s empowering, it’s healing, it’s fun, it’s even funny sometimes, as hopefully my stories illustrated.  Of course, if you say them to me, I might say live them live on stage, but I’ll beg your forgiveness afterwards.  What are your terms of endearment, and how can you improve them? Seriously, I think expressing love is one of the greatest gifts we have to give and receive in life.  That’s my secret valentine’s message to all of you.