The house smells like October
Simmer pot is on, which in this house means autumn has been officially declared. Peel from two oranges, three cinnamon sticks, a palmful of whole cloves, a sprig of rosemary, a few coins of ginger and a handful of cranberries the grandkids didn't eat. Cover with water, lowest flame, top it up every half hour.
It isn't for drinking, it's for the house. I stir it clockwise and think about who's coming for Thanksgiving and what I'd like the kitchen to feel like when they walk in. Warm. Forgiving. A little chaotic.
Only one rule: when you leave the kitchen, the pot gets turned off. I've scorched enough pans in forty years to know the house spirits don't care for burnt cinnamon.
Walt in the calendula
Six years this November since my husband Walt passed. He was not a witch, not even slightly. He called my herbs 'your weeds' and built me every raised bed I ever asked for anyway.
Two nights ago he was in my dream, standing in the garden in his green barn coat, pointing at the calendula. Not saying anything. Just pointing, the way he used to point at a fence post he'd decided I needed to look at.
So the next morning I went out in my robe and muck boots and looked. The calendula is usually finished by now up here, we've had two frosts, but there were seed heads all along the back of the bed that I'd completely missed. Those little curled crescent seeds, dozens of them, dry and ready.
I sat on the edge of the bed he built and cried for a good while, and then I collected every last one.
I don't know exactly how these things work. Forty years at this and I know less than I did at thirty. But I know that man always did want me to save seed instead of buying it. Come spring, every calendula in this garden will be from Walt's bed, and all five grandbabies are getting a packet.
The garden got tucked in today. Cut back the mint before it plots another invasion, pulled the spent beans, and packed straw around the rosemary with firm instructions to survive one more Vermont winter. It has heard this speech eleven times.
What I don't cut anymore: the coneflower and black-eyed Susan heads. The goldfinches need them more than I need tidy. Forty years ago I'd have had every stem down and bagged. Forty years ago I was in a hurry.
The johnny-jump-ups have seeded themselves into the cracks of the path again, right along the beds Walt built. I've stopped fighting them. Some blessings arrive where they please, and the best thing you can do is not step on them.
Taught my granddaughter Lily to read tea leaves Sunday afternoon. Loose black tea with a pinch of dried chamomile from the garden, wide white cups, no strainer. Drink it down to a spoonful, swirl three times toward you with your left hand, turn it over onto the saucer, count to seven.
Her cup had a very clear bird near the rim, which in my mother's book means news on its way, and soon. Mine had what I generously called a lantern and Lily called 'a trash can.'
An hour later her best friend phoned to say she's moving back from Ohio. Lily now considers me a professional. I am not correcting her.
A jar of calm for the driving test
Eli, my grandson, takes his driving test Thursday and he's been a wreck. So yesterday we made a little calm jar together at the kitchen table: dried chamomile from the garden, a pinch of rosemary for clear thinking, a few grains of rice so nothing gets "stuck," and a folded note in his own handwriting. He chose the words himself: "Steady hands, eyes up, no curbs."
He laughed at me the entire time, then quietly put the jar in his backpack. I'll take it.
The real magic was twenty minutes with a sixteen-year-old who put his phone down. Practical note: the parallel parking still needs work. Spells meet you halfway.