I arrived to the beauty of the hills and my mother had all the right gadgets, recipes and ingredients to go to make Norwegian Krumkake, KranzeKake (kake means cake), and rosettes, along with the fixings for spaetzle and schnitzel, sauerkraut and meatballs.... we ate well the whole week and my younger brother took the time to hike the trails of Amicalola Falls, Len Foote Inn, and Blood Mountain. For those of you familiar with the area, this means intense inclines at the beginning of each hike, a good cleansing sweat was brought forth each morning and burning all those calories before we indulged in yummy home cooking!
As we sat together and gathered around the dinner table, much like when i was growing up, with no devices, no tv, I realized that going home is much like the movie a Christmas Carol- all at once.
Christmas Past, eating familiar foods and cooking with the dishes that mom still has, from the yellow Tupperware colander to the brown pancake batter bowl (great for all batters). The dishwasher is still loaded a certain way and certain dishes are never put in the dishwasher. There is always an abundance in the house, never a hungry soul.
Christmas Present, while some things stayed the same, there we sat around the table in our various stages of life: me in sabbatical, mom and dad in retirement, my sister with her family, my brother in between semesters of graduate school..becoming who we are still.
Christmas Future, we catch a glimpse of ourselves in our parents sitting at the table- genetically our future health (potentially), where we could be depending on our investments, choices, etc.......and we can dream about seeing the joys they see where they are in their stage of life.
And then we descend back down the mountain (literally for me as i drove from the mountains of North Georgia to FL) catching snapshots along the way of where the journey will take us.
I am heading into the final weeks of my sabbatical before I go to General Convention in Austin TX, July 3- 14. I am in the midst of cooking some final recipes and reading up on Tallahassee history (a bit of our past as we dream about shaping our future) and savoring this time. I am so thankful to all who have made this time possible for me and for St John’s.
See you soon.
