Kiffles

The Christmas season. On our table standing proudly are these basic ingredients: Pillsbury flour, Land O’Lakes butter, Philadelphia brand cream cheese and Rumford’s baking powder – the one in the small, red can. Next to this are her utensils: a large stoneware bowl to mix the pastry, glass measuring cups and inexpensive aluminum measuring spoons, a knife from our everyday set, and a well-worn, wooden rolling-pin. My Aunt Agnes Check’s recipe – a blending of Slovak family heritage with Italian sensibilities. A new heritage.

Pounds of Diamond’s unshelled walnuts wait for my mother and me on this winter evening – a school night. We sit at the white porcelain kitchen table-top that my parents purchased when they were newlyweds. Metal nutcrackers in hand, we sit together in a comfortable silence and begin to squeeze and crack. It is tough work for a ten-year old. Repetitive. Detailed. Inexperienced, I laboriously pick out the bits and pieces of meat left behind in the inner shells – spaces dark and convoluted in nature. My mother’s pile is substantive while mine – quite a pitiful showing for the attention I am dedicating to this task – fill only a cup.  Our conversations alleviate the tediousness; our banter brightens the evening hours. We talk of the nuns, my teachers; the friends and the cliques to which I belong and those where I am shunned, already at a tender age. Back to family, she carefully guides the talk, of Christmas gifts, wrappings, of course, eating. Ham or turkey? Both kinds of potatoes? My hands begin to hurt, but I am loathe to leave. Feeling as if I am caught in some dark fairy-tale with the impossible task, I persevere not for my survival, but for my mother’s love.

 

 

My son, plugged in, and baking kiffles for the holidays. Same recipe; different generation.

a Labor Day letter to my grandfather

5 September 2016, Labor Day, U.S.

Milý dedo,

There is a muchness in my life, and you are the  invisible force in its creation. Will language be a barrier? My tongue is ready to imitate the “chs” and rolling “r”s, but I am so sorry to disappoint you, drahá dedo, but my few Slovak words have slipped away from my childhood, along with you.

For your son, my father – Joseph, thank you. Resemblance between father and son was obvious. There are few black and white photographs of you; ones that my tety proudly display in their slightly tarnished silver frames. There you sit in your stiff, formal suit looking stern and slightly possessive of your wife, my baba. Yes, dedo, my father had that look, your face, your lines, although his evoked protectiveness, rather than possessive. Perhaps you were that way too? Protective of your fifteen children and wife. Yes. I will think of you in this light. For you are my beloved father’s father.

Joseph, your son, too, had a strong Catholic faith. This devotion was not only to be found in the pews of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, but sitting at the kitchen table, sharing the five o’clock dinner, only after we all were seated; after the blessing, hands folded.  This, every day of his long life. Reliably loving. This must be what you carried with you from Demite to Bethlehem.  In your bones and blood. This faith. This steadfastness. How else could you, #800111040064, have boarded that massive immigrant ship with other Hungarian-Slovaks, and Finns, Swedes, Germans, Russians, all strangers going to this place unknown, speaking a language that pains the ear – no diacritical markings to soften a hard alphabet?  This devotion that could not be shaken. You gifted my father, and then, me, with these qualities. Again, ďakujem, for these gifts have saved my life.

When you fell from that forty-foot steel-mill platform in 1936, your devotion to family did not die along with you. How could you know, even then, that it would be your third-born son, Joseph, never to finished high-school, who would take up your mantle? How could you know that he would put aside his mathematical brilliance, forgo offers of college, and go to labor where you died? Working the “shift.” How could you know that he would be the son who stayed home on the South Side to care for his bereft mother and the remaining thirteen siblings? How could you know that he would never carry a bitterness for lost opportunities while his oldest and youngest brothers were college-bound, the star athletes at Catholic universities? He remained on 6th Street; never wavering, walking up and down the steep incline, metal lunch pail in hand.  Countless Good Fridays of potatoes and buttermilk.*  Atonement. My father was dutiful, môj dedko. Always.

I imagine you. Like this. Steadfast. Reserved. Dutiful. Filled with a love for your God, your new country, and above all, your family. I would have loved to hold your calloused hand, to feel the tickle of your moustache, to see the softness in those eyes that saw such hardship. I imagine this. That my father was like you. I imagine that  you would have loved me, too, moj dedo.

Vaše vnučka,  Tina Hudak

 

* “Good Friday was a day of complete fast and abstinence during which the priest removed the purple veils from all the statues in order to reveal the crucified Christ and all His martyrs. On this day Slovaks generally ate only baked,skinned potatoes and sour milk” (Stolarik 79).

 

---

Works cited:

“Falls To Death Bethlehem, George Hudak, 57, Fell 40 Feet to His Death from a Platform at the Bethlehem Steel Company’s Plant.” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader [Wilkes-Barre, PA] 30 July 1936, Evening News sec.: 9. Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, The Evening News. Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. Web. 3 Sept. 2016. Need to sign-up for access to electronic edition.

Stolarik, M. Mark.  Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 18080-1976.  Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985. Print.

End of summer thoughts

The enclosed space, perhaps an afterthought, at the back of our house  is small. The size reminds me of our inexpensive rug. One that the working class buys, bordering on gaudy, to show that they too, have dreams of more. Here, windows are everywhere. They gaze back with tired faces encased in layers of hardened enamel paint. Pure white, because it is cheap. Chipped from years of opening and closing, despite their thickness. The early morning summer sun blinds the eyes. Brittle paper shades carefully rolled onto wooden rods are tinged brown. Weathered, they remain serviceable still, for this family of the sewing mills and steel yards in Pennsylvania.

My mother pulls on silky braided cords dangling at the shades’ edges. Faded from sun and use, they too, remain serviceable closing out the blistering heat – heat that runs through this long, narrow house of brick as fans whirl. She shuts out the Angelus blue morning-glories. Silently, I watch her, but do not enter. Waiting, as only a good Catholic girl can, waiting for her to relinquish this room. This back porch.

My world. To a small seven-year old girl it is an immense space with infinite possibilities. Closing the kitchen door softly – the shared kitchen door of my mother’s world – brown & white saddle-shoed feet enter. They are eager, but silent. Alone. Breathing in the heat, the tepid air, the wonder of it all.

---

To balance my life this school year, I have begun an online writing course with author, Beth Kephart. Grateful. Grateful to be able to mesh feelings, words, and imagery for so inspiring a teacher.

July4Art.part three

I am reluctant to do this. Share. Having dragged out my low artistic energy into August, I admit, right here – right now – that it is a “failure.” Did I create something? Yes. Can one call it art? Yes. Did it fulfill me? No. Absolutely not. No way. And here, dear reader, lies the most valuable experience (from which I have yet to dissect, analyze, and learn).  This failure is a teaching moment for my Self.

folio (pages 1 & 2)

Front cover

detail (page 10)

folio detail (page 7)

Back cover

center folio (pages 5 & 6)

folio (pages 3 & 4)

I know and feel this: I cannot go back. Back to former techniques and past imagery.

 

evening sketch –  sitting outside

 

I know and feel this, too: I must go forward. Forward with simplicity. Forward with eyes open.

---

 

What I did on my summer vacation

Do you remember being angst-ridden with the knowledge that when you returned to elementary school in the autumn, your teacher would have you write – in class – that dreaded essay, “What I Did On My Summer Vacation”?  For those of us who spent our summers at home – riding bicycles, walking to the local pool, and catching lightning bugs, the pressure to find something remotely interesting could bring us to tears while gripping a pencil covered by a sweaty palm, forehead millimeters above the blue-lined paper, while offering any deal to any saint for one good idea. Only one. Just to get through the assignment with some shred of ten-year old dignity. Not such a high bar. Do you remember?

I do. And I have finally done something interesting.

On my summer vacation I visited my two sisters, Sister #1 and Sister #2, in Bethlehem, PA. No sweaty hands this time, but joyous fingers, not to make you envy me, not because I did something so extraordinary, but rather because of this: I found the adventure with my sisters in doing the ordinary. Oh, and being of that age – yes, that one – this list will help me recall this summer – this one delightful summer – in detail as I mellow.

---

The summer of 2016 with the sisters included the following “special” experiences:

1. My favorite clothing store, In The Mood, one where previously I have bought countless items (with NO tax!) closed this year.  In its place, however, is an upscale “home goods” boutique to rival any located in Washington, D.C.  Walking into Domaci as in a dream, my soliloquy reads, “I am throwing out all my furniture, and buying everything from here!”  Yes, at my age -yes, that one – I was lustful…for the table, the floor mats, the sofas…even the damn candle!
2. But alas, Sister #2 and I had to scurry across the street to Healing Hands where our one hour therapy sessions (not a “50-minute one hour session”…you who recognize this misnomer, understand the reference, I have no doubt!) awaited each: me, a Warm Bamboo massage, and dear sister, a therapeutic Swedish one. Never has an hour passed so quickly and so peacefully. Soft music, soft candlelight, and strong hands. Well oiled, well pressed, and well done, it was a feat to get our feet to the floor, stand upright, and totter down the stairway resuming our mundane lives.
3. The evening brought and Sister #1 brought the next adventure to the fore – fine dinning. While this may sound trés mondain, be assured it is not. Sister #2 and I have no discriminating palates in our genes; Sister #1 possesses all of them! After much first-born lobbying on her part, and sheer guilt on our second and third-born parts, we all agreed to try a “new” restaurant located in an “old” location. Many Bethlehemites grew up with The Lantern’s steak-sandwich sauce dripping down their chins. On the very steak-sandwich spot of our past, we entered an uncluttered, cool and calm atmosphere; we entered Adagio. Have you yet eaten crabmeat in white chocolate sauce? I suggest you do. Food effusiveness –“That was really good!” – is not one of my more over traits, but I remain grateful to Sister #1 for this advocacy work.  And, it was really good.

But the heat…oh, the heat the next day. One simply had to participate in the next adventure!

1. Swimming. There is nothing that makes you feel like the brave and  intrepid explorer, than to venture outside one’s comfort zone. Sister #2 had that gleam in her eye, so we hit the open road for the pool. Oh, not the one usually frequented – the municipal pool at Monocracy, rather for one where we had to follow directions, travelling up and down the suburban lanes in the hinterlands, turning at Stop signs never seen before – all to reach the Hanover Township Community Pool. Throwing our bathing accoutrements under a magnificent locust tree swaying gently in the 90+ degree breeze, we all but ran like the twelve-year-old selves to which we had reverted, and jumped in!
2. Refreshed and energized, I talked Sister #2 into a drive-by adventure – an adventure I had quietly kept to myself- to visit an abandoned house. “It’s right on the way home!” I cried piteously. I was driving, anyway. I confess, as a child born and raised in Bethlehem, PA, I never learned anything about a remarkable man named Archibald Johnston – or his home!  Yes, kindred Moravian College graduates – that Johnston of Johnston Hall! He was quite a man; he had quite a house. Parking the car after our circuitous drive through what appeared to be a dead end, we began our early evening constitutional across an expansive green lawn, interrupting a deer, a groundhog, and almost stepping on a chipmunk. Have you ever seen something so beautiful in your mind’s eye that it hurt? It is this house. Even in its state of disrepair -bordering on decay- it is sublime. It is an evocative place. It holds memories of the past, and dreams for a future. It left me with an ache in my heart.

Within a few blocks came the final adventures…

1. No adventure is complete without the solo expedition – a late morning stroll to the nearby café, Jumbars, to meet with a former colleague. Experiencing an encounter as if time had never interrupted defies the logical order of chronological minutes, hours and days. One might wonder, “What is it about this connection that allows the threads of all those yesterdays to mesh seamlessly so that time becomes irrelevant?” Amidst shoveling fresh fruit, grilled muffins into our mouths and downing it with freshly brewed coffee, both of us shared teaching stories, tales of chickens and dogs, futures yet to be. Insulated within the familial atmosphere of this place and comforted by the home-baked love of generations (Thank you, Anna Jumbar!), time stopped. Friendship resumed.
2. Through the years on my trips “home,” I pass a lovely bookshop storefront. It is only blocks from the sisters’ home, yet I have never been inside. Today was the day. The heat was oppressive, yet one cannot remain indoors for hours on end, no? Sister #1 and I set out for a jaunt. A quick walk only a block away. She, in her charming straw  hat; I in my “Iron Pigs” baseball cap, we were the only living things outdoors. The heat. The words “used & rare books”was my bait; the opening of the door to The Old Library Bookshop, my hook. Charming. Quaint. Air-conditioned. All of these qualities kept us there browsing for close to an hour through books, photographs, until I spied a gem. An early edition, Newbery title from 1930 – Hitty: Her First Hundered Years by Rachel Field, and illustrated by none other than Dorothy P. Lathrop. Two women I admire greatly. A gift to myself,  it is this precious book to mark a treasured few days.

And so I add here,

“I could fill many pages with accounts of that first summer – of the trips we took…of the expeditions…and of all the visits from neighbors and relations who often came to spend all day now that the weather was so fine” (Field 17).

 

---

 

 

July4ART: part two

It is two weeks into July (almost) and I am myself moving very slowly with art; I am rusty, dear friend. My process is akin to the Tin Man (The Wizard of Oz) walking before Dorothy had the good sense to oil his joints. Thus far my stiff hand has lumbered  with pencils to:

• draw calligraphic lines at a whim
• color with pencils random places on the wallpaper reproduction
• repeat these two steps on varying sizes of paper
• reproduce a pencil drawing of the “key” onto my handmade paper (Why? I am not sure yet!)
• use a three-hole stitch binding with two pieces of work (the simpliest, of course)
• relentlessly ask myself, “What am I doing this for?” and “Who needs more stuff to put away?”

Work in progress

the key image

Letting go of reason or purpose and responding instinctively is a difficult behavior to regain after years of neglect. This process. This attempt to “make” art. This metaphor for  life.

linen thread & binding materials

drawing with stitched folio

---

Please note that you may read The Wizard of Oz in a beautiful color, 1900 edition online thanks to The Library of Congress.  Click HERE.

July 4ART

Working artist. These words hold an enormous meaning for me. Since 1996 I have not been a working artist, but a dabbler in the arts. Artists work every. Every day they log many hours thinking, creating, destroying, remaking, and revisiting their work.

As a working librarian, formerly a working artist, I have limited time to all but tap the creative side that lays dormant. Last year I cleared away a massive amount of art supplies and papermaking equipment in order to come to terms with personal changes as an artist – my capabilities and limitations. Now, my supplies are limited; I find this exciting. What can I express with what I have at hand? July is my month for art. A summer adventure in concrete limitations, but not those of the imagination.

My desire, dear reader, is for you to embark with me on this adventure. What do you have, right now, this very moment, in your drawers? Chalk, color pencils, your child’s Crayola watercolors?  I share my beginnings here and now to give you the gentle nudge in my direction –  a friendly push to take pencil and paper in hand. Use nature to inspire you. Play.

Supplies

• Faber Castell color pencils
• Strathmore drawing paper, medium weight
• General’s extra black layout pencil No. 555
• Found scrap of wallpaper from our farmhouse wall
• Printer & color copier
• Seashell
• Krylon workable fixative (spray outdoors for ventilation)

What you see here

Size the drawing paper to fit through the printer (8.5 x11). Color copy the scrap of 1901 wallpaper onto this paper.  Using my layout pencil to draw calligraphic strokes, and proceeding to color these according to the tones and hues of a seashell. Spraying fixative intermittently as I do not want lines or color pencil to smear, unless I CHOOSE to do this.

Check-in with me mid-July and share your process; share your art. I look forward to seeing your work in progress, as you see mine.

Father’s day in the garden

 

19 June 2016

My dear father,

The weather is sublime this morning. Sun, but cool in the shade of our wrap-around porch – the one where you smoked your cigar during the last visit. Blossoms share not only their delicate forms, but the hours in which they parade themselves before the eye. The day lilies – creamsicle orange – are fading as the beebalm’s brilliant cheddar-cheese yellow shouts their arrival.

But, dear father, it is the greens I love. Hues and shades from the ocean’s blue-green imbued in the giant hostas to the lemon-lime of creeping jenny. Green is steadfast. One is secure in the knowledge that it always returns; underneath the hard, frozen ground, green persists.

Green is hope for the faint-hearted; for love’s skeptic. Green is the father who always comes home to his children.

 

Dedicated to Joseph Thaddeus Hudak, 1907-1998. Always loved; always missed.

My father visiting our newborn son, Jack, at Allentown Hospital, October 26, 1989.

Raspberries & Motown

Five pints for $5.00!  Unpacking my sack from the local co-op, my husband asks (somewhat annoyed as he disdains raspberries and those petite seeds), “What are you going to do with ALL those?”  Defensively, and rather arrogantly I reply, “Make a cake.” Please note: In my life, I have NEVER made a raspberry cake.

I am eternally grateful to live in the age of internet (Thank you, Al Gore.) as my immediate instinct is to google “raspberry cake recipe” before I am found out to the duplicitous baker that I am. As a librarian (who is not duplicitous) I know enough to go beyond the first page, and it is on one of the subsequent lists of hits that I find one to my liking by Elaine McCardle for “Almond Raspberry Cake.”

Today, this very day, is baking day since the husband – disparager of all things raspberry – is working on his 1963 Porsche 356c carburetor which should occupy him for some time. Translation: I have the kitchen (and the house!) to myself for a few hours. Arranging the ingredients in the Dewey Decimal order on the counter, in librarian fashion, I realize something vitally important is missing – my Motown music!  Again, grateful to Al Gore, I set the Roku for Pandora and I blast the sounds of Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Jimmy Ruffin, and Detroit musicians ad nauseum (oh, how I miss my high-school dances!), and begin to mix this and that with a soulful beat.

Suddenly, it hits me!  It really is summer…I am home having one heck of a good time in the middle of the morning with raspberries and Motown.

Three cards

The ending of a school year is bittersweet, and as I grow older – as I have become “at home” with my school, students, faculty, and assorted persons of stellar qualities – it is more so. Every teacher understands the not-so-subtle adjustments made with time, relationships, and obligations during these few months. Rhythms change.

Changing rhythms bring a sharper perspective to one’s life, if allowed. Mornings. Cool breezes and coffee. Rough flagstones under my bare feet. No shoes necessary anymore, as I disrobe from the mandatory, pedagogical garb – skirt, blouse, sensible shoes. Now. it is the feel of the rough and cool. Catbird calls and the sinister tck! tck! tck! of my cats. Eyes narrow and yellow. Mellifluous sounds. No pounding feet – feet larger than mine – against the hardwood floors. No metal against metal with hard clicks as the lockers slam, one after another.

Rhythms change. Mornings in my garden. Yes to the softer sounds. Yes to the solitude. Yes to the music of a life tucked aside for many years. Until. Mail arrives. Until. Today, three cards for me. Each one scripted in pen. Student, parent, and headmaster write words that pull me back with an ache. Ah, the familiar bittersweet flavor returns. “Not now,” I say aloud. “Now is for me.” I say to you, “Now is for the rhythm in my bones.” These months will soon pass and I will once again read these cards, cards that call me to the other life. Today, they are lovingly tucked away with lavender from by garden, and love.