The Garden

This morning I woke up dreaming of a garden. The dream unfolded calm and fluid. Shafts of milky sunlight illuminated flowers blowing in a light breeze, and in the dream, I knew it was the end of summer. I felt every petal and blade of grass intimately, the sounds of life around me, heightened. Behind me, stood my grandmother, her head bent modestly, an errant lock of  hair caressing her right eye as always, the faint smell of lilacs and egg white on her warm, white skin. In the dream, she explains to me how the red poppies grow and then, she points to the yarrow  growing around the garden and that it is known for it's healing qualities. Her words are rhythm only, like listening to a babbling brook of water gliding over stone. I understand everything and nothing at the same time.

Why is my beloved grandmother here, on this day of remembrance? On this day when I am in a space where I find myself  wishing to move on.  Yes, I will gladly say a prayer for the dead -  but then let me go, let's all go -  further than that one place of sorrow and shock.

She waits patiently, forming words with her eyes. She wants me to unlock the secret of the garden. 

How?

Grandmother was a witchy woman (she is crossing herself now, appalled that I would use this word to describe her) and she knew her herbs, the folklore wisdom of old Bosnia, deep inside her, even though she would not have admitted to it. Bosnia. The place, like other places, carries the shame of war memories whenever mentioned aloud. My Baka, felt this shame, more than most.

I go deeper into my dream, to look for meaning.  I want to know why she is whispering to me in my sleep about Poppies, which I don't remember her liking, indeed I don't remember any growing in the fields surrounding us when I was a little girl.  The Yarrow, though, grew abundantly and she never failed to point it out it better qualities.

Achillea Millefolium - the Yarrow. She would bring back bunches of it and spread it on newspaper on the kitchen table to dry along with other roots and stalks from her daily walks. From the dried pieces, she would make tinctures and pomades, wraps and powders. Tiny little pieces of white paper with abbreviated names indicating prescription. These were written in German but with Serbo Croatian accents over 'sh' and 'ch' sounds, as she was only patient with some things and not with others - so never bothered to perfect her Deutsch.

When we had bruises, stomach ache, head pain, cuts and fever she would rub and knead and administer with damp cloths or tiny droppers her magic potions and heal us whole. And so, a whole brood of us grew up with witchy blessings on our heads, crosses around our necks and herb tinctures mixed in our blood.

Here is a story.....As a young man, Achilles the famous soldier/hero of ancient times was schooled by Chiron the Centaur.  Chiron was versed in medicine and the healing arts and supposedly passed his powerful knowledge on to Achilles. In his turn, Achilles the leader/prince taught his troops to use yarrow flower to stop the bleeding and hemorrhaging of wounds received during their epic battles. Hence the Latin name for Yarrow: Achillea.

Soldiers, Hero's, War, Magic, Wisdom. There. I see a pattern emerging from the dream....

Poppies too, I discovered,  live deep in our psyche as a symbol of sacrifice and memory. Somewhere there is a poem about fallen soldiers and poppies that spring up around their unmarked graves. In Greek and Roman myths, poppies were used as offerings to the dead and by the Christians as a symbol of resurrection.

Red, Christ, Blood, Dreams and Memories, Acceptance, maybe 

I'm not sure what the dream aims to show me. Today is a ritual of remembering for many, though it is not about mourning soldiers or wise men or herbologist Centaurs, I know. 

It is about remembering ordinary citizens on that day, the 11th of September, going about their business of life one minute and then dead the next.

 I think about them in the city and the skies and at the same time, I think about all the others too -  the people caught in between ideologies and fantasies, dreams and delusions. I think about soldiers on foreign soil and how unbelievable that is, to me. 

 Ordinary people going about their business of life one minute and then dead the next.

What were the words she said that would unlock the meaning of the dream, unlock the meaning of the jumble that is life and death, war and peace, forgiveness and acceptance? I will never know. 

German Step Potatoes

I have a picture in my mind. It is of me. I am maybe 3 or 4, sitting on the front steps to the house I live in with my mother and grandparents in a small village in southern Bavaria. It is still early morning, almost Spring.  The sun shines weakly onto the gravel and grass before me as I sit and wait. The air is still except for my grandmother humming in the kitchen inside and the klinking of the cow bells in the fields beyond the road.

I observe my hands, chapped from playing in the water puddles a few days ago when it rained. "It's too cold to play in the water, your hands will get chapped." And at night, before I go to sleep and the chubby skin between my thumb and fingers is red and scaly, ('tomorrow it will bleed' she says) she is shaking her marama covered head in frustration while smearing thick petroleum jelly mom bought in the commissary on my hands. After this, old socks with holes cut in them 'for the fingers to breathe' get pulled over the wounds. Clucking and wrestling the sock onto my greasy paw hand with her forever cold fingers, she makes me cry. She was not a gentle woman. Later, in the dark, I lie in my little bed translating her loud whisper as she moves around empty dishes while recounting my digressions to my grandfather, who's skin smell I love.

The sun creeps closer to the steps as the window panes get fogged up in the kitchen. I watch the ants on the ground,  magically appear and disappear underneath the gravel as they march straight for the house. Good German ants.  My stomach grumbles. I am waiting for my treat. Baka will bring me a boiled potato because today she is making potato salad. It's a recipe that uses vinegar, one that she learned since coming here from Yugoland, via the camps in Poland. But that was many years before I was born.

Never allowed to be outside by myself except very early when every one has gone off to work or is in the fields with the animals, she sits me here 'to keep out of trouble'. I am her favorite and I know this because I am the only one here, my cousins and brother wailing in the background. I peek at my raw, reddish hands. The potato will burn my fingers a little bit and I will have to blow hard hard to cool it down. She will bring it to me with a flower bud opening on the top that she makes with a swift knife trick which releases the heat. Once in my hand the steam dances into my nostrils as I peel away the thin, brown skin, which falls to the concrete under my feet like soft butterfly wings. She comes back out and drops a piece of sweet butter onto the yellow mound in my hands. My grandmother and her flowered apron watch me eat. We are both happiest at this moment.

Baka's German Potato Salad

8-10 small yellow-fleshed potatoes, washed well

 diced slab bacon

 onion, chopped

  pickles diced

½ teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoon mild vinegar

some vegetable oil

 fresh parsley leaves chopped

  

Directions: 

In a large saucepan combine potatoes with salted water to cover by 1 inch and simmer until just tender, a (20 minutes)

While potatoes are cooking, in a medium heavy skillet sauté bacon over moderate heat, stirring, until browned and crisp. 

Take out the bacon and keep the drippings for the onions. 

Saute the onions in bacon drippings till translucent

Add sugar, vinegar and oil and mix together in bowl  

 Drain potatoes. Put a fork into potato or take into hand and peel while still warm.

Slice potatoes. 

Add sauteed onions and bacon with drippings to warm potatoes and then pour the oil/vinegar/sugar mixture over that.
 Add parsley. 

Season with salt and pepper.

Gently toss.

Serve potato salad warm or at room temperature, garnished with parsley and sliced boiled egg.

There are variations, of course. More sugar, some people like that. I once had a husband who put thinly sliced cucumbers into the mixture to make the salad more crunchy and sometimes, mustard or beef broth is added for flavor. Experiment. It's much more fun that way.