butter sandwiches

colorless and cold Saturday afternoons lead to hunger between the commercials when you are ten years old. some grainy black and white movie, scarely palatable drama and a near teary eyed forlorn love scene, is painfully moving along on our tv. Mom is surrounded and covered with the latest afghan she crochets in finally having achieved her weekend peace.

my brothers drift in and out of the living room like sentinels checking on the camp of womenfolk and returning to some larger than life preteen boy plan in their room. i remain meek and bleak, feeling that mistaken zygote sensation again, defined to me as an adult reader by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD as: “was i really meant to be part of this family?!?”.

the movie begins again, after three to four nails on the chalkboard commercials. my mom is whipping out rows of warmth and color. she readjusts her back and behind, spreading out her work on her lap. she smiles in the accomplishment and then at me. this is why i endure the movie, the splash of sunshine to spend time with her.

the soldiers have been keeping a loose claim on the movie plot with their intermittent watches in the ‘camp’. now that the celluloid beast nears its end, all are settled in for the finale, soldiers, mom and the circling crochet hook, and me. it ends predictably. my brothers and i are relieved the movie is over; my mom lingers teary eyed exclaiming her still girl-like crush on the long dead actor.

we kids are hungry. allowing enough time for the emotional swell to settle, one of us, i forget who, announces the dilemma. we had filled up earlier on the no cook breakfast rule of cereal and milk during a double wrestling match length of Saturday cartoons. our little bodies now crave some real food. mom’s eyes remain on the hook and feeding lengths of yarn now several rows deeper in girth. then she begins ‘the story’.

“have you ever heard of butter sandwiches?” we look at each other in queried consensus and then back to mom to say no. she re gales us with World War II times of thrift and food rations. butter and sugar were ‘rationed’. mom painstakingly explained ration books, tokens, lines, and finally coveted times when families did receive, butter and sugar. the rationing she detailed even included women’s silk stockings. we really didn’t care about hosiery. we were hungry.

to participate in rationing was part of a patriotic duty, mom recalls. to do without was doing your part for the war effort. patriotism didn’t carry much weight with the three of us still held in this pre late lunch diatribe. mom, get to the point, please! also, we were being preened in an anti-government based religion, not having been able to say the pledge of allegiance in our own classrooms, nor wave a tiny flag merrily on the fourth of July. how did this matter to us?

we were about to find out.

mom continued. now another row or two deeper in the afghan, she revealed a special treat we had never experienced that was prized by little boys and girls of her time. some poorer children she explained couldn’t even have butter. they had an unsavory replica known as ‘oleo’. i still gag at the thought of it. mom described oleo as lard that had been colored with an orange yellow food dye to make it appear as if it were butter. these children she explained, were grateful to even have their rationed ‘oleo’. mom’s family, she affirmed, did not have to pine to this wartime degree. butter came with sugar rations and then the treat was realized. yes, children, butter sandwiches.

as this point we were so hungry, we were in. mom coached from the couch, never missing a stitch, how to create these wartime delights. the white bread was easy to find. it took us a bit longer for the sugar. i slowed the process by taking the back of a teaspoon and crushing some of the hardened rock sugar crystals that had formed on top of our sugar cache in the now open canister. smooth sugar glistened and spilled out. the butter was a drag because it was cold, a stick straight from the frig. one of us ran out to mom for advice. she suggested we cut it deli style thin and place the tabs over the surface of a slice of white bread. then the mess began. the last step was of course to sprinkle the entire open face of bread and butter tabs with sugar, fold it in half, and take a bite. we were kids, so more was better. soon shovelfuls of sugar, previously topping the butter, now began pouring on the kitchen counters and tiled floor as three hungry country kids bit into their ‘butter sandwiches’. we noticed and bolted for the kitchen sink to finish even the crusts. mom announced we had now actually participated in a bit of history with our late lunch.

at first, it felt really cool, like a time traveler, but then my stomach got sick. my brothers dove in for a second sandwich. mom even set down the crochet hook and left the couch corner cavern to make one for herself. disgusted by the wasted morning and happenstance food, i retreated to my room. this was my weekend too. i wished to create, learn, be surprised, flourish. instead I saw the day turning into night, through my bedroom window as i lie on my bed, soon to bring the blues of a sunken sunset to snow drifts outside and then inside to my heart.

i felt snookered by the butter sandwich story. the root vegetables of our summer garden are what my little body craved; sweet baby carrots pulled up to show off twisty orange roots, eaten when soil scarcely scrubbed them clean on a t-shirt, fresh tomatoes from the vine, and sweet corn that left string tassels in your teeth. i inwardly vowed never to eat butter again.

as i grew, the rift became a chasm. retreats to my room became custom, reading ancient history annals and details of archaeological finds to feed my head. books and sketchpads now occupied my time as to how i wished to spend it. i traversed the gradual incline of decision to a plant based diet. even to this day, seeds and raisins are my mainstay. still the lingering feeling of being the mistaken fertilized egg continued, the zygote who grew too excited in getting to their new family, jumping early from the basket to land in the wrong home.

as an adult i found others that felt the same way. John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote and sang:

“No one I think is in my tree

I mean it must be high or low

That is you can’t, you know, tune in

But it’s all right

That is I think it’s not too bad” *

Strawberry Fields Forever became the lullaby for my two daughters. we surrounded ourselves with books. i disconnected the cable tv service, much too late, when the girls were in high school after a divorce. my sweethearts are twenty-five and twenty-eight now. this is the benchmark of the time since i last watched tv.

as a child, and now nearly a senior, i still work to push past the norm, molding like with well-used kindergarten modeling clay, wishing to see, eat, breathe, touch, and feel only what is real. the changes extend to an aversion of the popular acceptance of the magical spiritual netherworld that bound me to years, fearful, behind closed doors, arrogant of logical thought, and lost from opportunities.

this is not a crybaby story. this is a grocery list, that is revised, crossed out and written over with a telephone number from someone you can’t remember, that list scribbled on an envelope back, ending with 'call mom', found in a pocket of your old coat with a crumpled five-dollar bill and change stuck to a fuzzy cherry cough drop. it is a vulnerable snap shot memory recall ~ that sums up where you are now and where/when you have landed in the Tardis.

it goes back to butter sandwiches. not choosing the easy fake for your stomach or your mind. taking the time to culture a food and framework your lifestyle. no proprietary ego accompanies this choice in my regard. Ben Franklin noted how the colonies benefited from his ‘Library Company’ book loaning invention. Ben shares:

‘ “The libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans,”

Franklin later noted, and

“made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent

as the most gentlemen from other countries.” ‘**

i am not intelligent. the more i learn, the more i see how little i really know. i am hungry, starving continuously for the root vegetables of knowledge, the deep buried in the ground, wishing to be unearthed and enjoyed truths of authors old and new. this hunger changes one in their life preferences as well. the sugary glisten of superficial media’s entertainment seems stomach sickening. the richness they lure is really nothing more than cold butter on white bread.

been there. no thank you.

the Beatle’s words helped me to embrace that it’s ok if no one else is “in my tree”. discontent turns to acceptance of my family and those around me who chose not to embrace deeper ways of thinking. the shyness for the world’s lemming lure is a benefit for thrift, another plus! most things we own are second hand and/or re-purposed. 

the “dream” Lennon/McCartney talk about in ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ was shaken for me when i recently came across the Russian author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. his 1864 ‘Notes from the Underground’ now challenge me to go deeper than the superficial nourishing roots I had chosen with his “Twice two makes four without my will” *** arithmetic.

Dostoyevsky inspires me to stand strong against mockers of my life choices when he invites:

“Laugh away;

I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry.”***

then he cuts me deeper than any loss to challenge:

 “Man likes to make roads and to create, that is a fact beyond dispute. But why has he such a passionate love for destruction and chaos also? Tell me that! But on that point I want to say a couple of words myself. May it not be that he loves chaos and destruction (there can be no disputing that he does sometimes love it) because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and completing the edifice he is constructing? Who knows, perhaps he only loves that edifice from a distance, and is by no means in love with it at close quarters; perhaps he only loves building it and does not want to live in it, but will leave it, when completed, for the use of LES ANIMAUX DOMESTIQUE-such as the ants, the sheep, and so on.” ***

these words leave me stumbling, having dug deeper, to know that i have settled comfortably, to love the “edifice from a distance” ~ my uncompleted life goals.

physical pain, as Dostoyevsky also reminds, need not be something that we revel in as well to block personal progress. he describes a responsible gentleman’s recoil response to his own toothache:

“His moans become nasty, disgustingly malignant, and go on for whole days and nights. And of course he knows himself that he is doing himself no sort of good with his moans; he knows better than anyone that he is only lacerating and harassing himself and others for nothing; he knows that even the audience before whom he is making his efforts, and his whole family listen to him in loathing, do not put a ha’porth of faith in him, and inwardly understand that he might moan differently, more simply without trills and flourishes, and that he is only amusing himself like that from ill-humour, from malignancy.” ***

i have unearthed a food deeper than those encountered before. sources that challenge me more than the childish decision to logically wish nutritious meals instead of butter sandwiches. this new root of knowledge, from Dostoyevsky’s ‘Notes from the Underground’, unwraps me to face the novice, myself, to fortify, yes, continue to dig deeper for personal growth and prospective.

nourished, does one build and then bravely occupy? can one quiet the theater of illness to solely suffer the unfolding play alone, all the while curtains remaining closed?

as if by digging with a soup spoon or steam shovel, these are the questions of choice faced when underground.

Jim Capaldi, of the group Traffic, released a song in 1971 on the album (remember albums?) The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, the song being called: ‘Light Up Or Leave Me Alone’. I think that sums it up.

“Twice two makes four without my will” *** arithmetic downer again. maybe, yet Dostoyevsky provides a relieving exhale:

“Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give anything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.” ***

© ruth follmann

Bibiliograpy:

* Lennon-McCartney. Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, 1967. Single. Magical Mystery   Tour, 1967. Album

** Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

*** Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from the Underground. Dodo Press, 1977.

Steps

He stood, as the sun hit his day after funeral shoeshine and the doll’s hand. Stunned, as his aunt’s voice pitched then twisted to turn, like tractor wheels pushing blades of a combine, now heading his way. Neither his faint tremble, nor burning hot ears could shield her words. He might as well have been a cowering rabbit pretending the machine of a mouth would go away. The thatching sickle cut: “She kept quoting verses about forgiveness, when she was the one who pushed him away! I’m sorry speaking of your mother, may she rest in peace, but she broke your uncle’s heart. He was never the same after. Unless, he was spending time with you, Casey.”

Sweet grey church curls framed Aunt Halina’s face and silver horn rimmed glasses. Halina remained anything but the meaning of her name; ‘calm, tranquil’. Casey cowered queasy as he mentally tucked for cover, the combine blades nearly chopping overhead.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you can always rely on family?” Sensing rhetoric, Casey kept quiet in his suit coat. “Don’t count on it because . . . “, Halina surged ready to deliver the fatal blow, but silence seeped in with a sunbeam; she sucked in air. The blades of the thatcher’s mouth retracted. Halina walked to a garden door and then outside. Casey stood alone with the stairs before him.

Sensible wooden steps reminded Casey of near slips with woolen socks on Christmas Eves.  White banisters, intertwined with glittering lights and evergreen garlands, led Casey to his favorite cache in the house. The treasures of uncle’s travels drew Casey to sit patiently on the window seat, at the top of the landing, until Mikal clambered the farmhouse stairwell to join his nephew. Within minutes, the two would be lost in times past of the Merchant Marines. Mikal’s tales usurped any party below. Casey donned a seaman’s cap and medals suspended by stiffened striped ribbons. Mikal attached honorary pins to the boy’s Christmas jumper while enhancing seafaring tales.

Soon, Casey would be at sea. Christmas seemed left far behind on a shore. The little sailor stood spine straight, feet shoulder width apart, securing the helm. With Mikal’s lilting voice, and the eagle crowned, tan woolen hat, the boy could tip the black visor against the spray of an imaginary salty sea.

The garden glass door tattled a turn as Halina, sniffling walked in. Casey felt himself return to the older cast of a grown man, in cold reaffirmation that Mikal was gone. Halina crossed the room to bury herself in Casey’s shoulder. He uncomfortably embraced the old aunt.

“You never disappointed him, not once,” Halina intoned. She stepped back to hold out his lapels. “Every day you wear a suit like uncle told you. He was right. It made you go far.” Casey looked down at a step to Mikal’s milky glass vase, now empty, and felt quite the same. He would trade every bit of success just to be with the old man again.

“Well, here! It’s yours now,” Halina denounced pushing off his chest to swivel and snatch up the doll haphazardly. Casey deftly righted the white vase before it toppled down the bottom stair.

“Here.” Halina stood, huffed, then stiffened. Her cold resolute had returned. “I am keeping my word. Mikal said, ‘It’s Casey’s doll now.’” Halina thrust the heirloom forward and released her hold, as if she were done with it. Casey scrambled once more, but now to capture the falling form. The weight of the ocean blue dressed doll surprised him. Its eyelashes fluttered when caught. Chestnut hair plumed to settle beneath the sturdy ruffled bonnet. The doll’s china lower legs clinked, below white bloomers, rebounding little laced boots of the same deep sea blue as the paisley dress. Casey recalled the figure being shelved in the corner of Mikal’s room.

Turning, Halina grumbled beneath her breath, “She came, just a girl herself, toting that doll.” Casey’s eyes widened then glared, first at the toy then Halina. The doll’s cheeks still held a blush; tiny lips pursed, to pout. Halina strolled discordantly towards the kitchen, until she caught her balance on the countertop, her hand sliding, guiding to open the refrigerator door.

“Jello mold, Casey? It’s all we have left from the funeral. Uncle would keep you busy each Christmas with his stories until only the Jello molds were left.” Halina managed a snicker. “You never minded then. Do you still like red?” Halina sighed opening the refrigerator door, her back still to Casey.

“Who toted the doll?” Casey barely managed a dry cracking voice. “What girl?”

Halina slid the red Jello from a refrigerator shelf and headed towards a counter loaded with pill bottles. “There is no one left to care but me, Casey,” Halina crooned. She tiptoe reached for two small white bowls in a cupboard, spoons from a drawer, and began to scoop. “I said you should have known all along.” Halina reached for a pill bottle and counted out two.

“What should I have known? Please, Aunt Halina!” Casey’s voice timbered; his hands sweat clenching the doll. Halina threw pills past thin lips, drank cold coffee, and wiped white hairs along her mouth with a tea towel.

“Your mother was adopted, Casey. Mikal made me swear . . .  afraid to lose you too. He loved that little sister, more than me, even after she was gone!”

Casey’s heart imploded. Grandparents had told him his mother died shortly after his birth, nothing more. The grandparents that raised him had passed many years ago.

The room spun. Casey held the doll tight to right himself. He felt, as Mikal had retold, what a rough day at sea would be like. “Rough seas make good sailors, Casey!”  He decided, then and there ~ resolute, that love not blood makes a family and dismissed the news as marginal compared to the loss of Mikal.

Halina hastily ate two bites of Jello, choking down pills. Casey held the doll, deeply inhaling. “I will always love Uncle Mikal!” he announced.

“Jello, Casey? What’s on the stairs is yours, photos of you two, mementos . . .” She was still speaking when she heard steps creak. Casey collected the filled white wicker basket and vase.

“I would check that doll for vermin, Casey!” Halina called after his departing sounds. “Her body made a ‘crunchy’ sound when I carried her downstairs, probably a nest!” The front door slammed.

Casey balanced the items safely to his car. Once inside, he sat paralyzed, still in grief, in disbelief over the news, and relief from getting away from Halina. He stared at the odd collection of items Halina had chosen. Where were the maritime treasures she knew meant so much to him? Halina and Mikal had no children. Why had she withheld the keepsakes she knew he truly desired? Casey’s left foot stepped outside the still open car door, ready to stand up, return, and face Halina for what Mikal would have wanted his nephew to have. A fall gust ruffled the doll’s dress as it lay on the passenger seat.

Casey remembered Halina’s warning and carefully lifted the doll’s lace frocked dress. The core of the manikin did feel “crunchy”. Casey’s left leg relaxed to join the right, back in the car. It did not seem as if the cotton torso had been torn or ripped. Casey then found a seam along the spine of the doll secured with sewn on snaps. Carefully, he opened the snaps, one by one.

Casey peered inside the doll, like a surgeon, to find she was a very clever receptacle. The doll’s body was filled with posted letters. Casey dismissed his earlier plan to battle for maritime treasures with Halina and closed the car door. The last thing he needed was her peering eyes and raucous voice. Casey started the car and headed for a quiet park just down the road. The ride filled him with layers of emotion, pushed down at the funeral. Layers now ripped open like the doll’s spine. He accidentally turned on the car wipers to clear his tears. Overwhelmed and somewhat dazed at his state, Casey parked the car and deadened the engine with a turn of the key.

In dimming autumn light, Casey carefully lifted a letter from the doll’s core. He speed read through tears, perfumed pages, and pressed flowers to learn of a love between Mikal and his mom. Their love had fused and bloomed into himself, a child from true hearts. Casey, now reading his mother’s words of devotion for her child to be, cried out in pain. Birds flew startled. Casey, scattered, looked past letters to carefully pick up the doll. He held it tight to his chest and slowly rocked. The doll brought him peace. Had it done so for Mikal? His orphan mother too? The questions denied consolation as did the meaning of his uncle’s name: ‘Who is like God?’

© ruth follmann