As I was driving home from dropping Sean off at school the other day, I noticed the long line of cars wrapped around Starbucks and the crowded parking lot and I got to thinking how no one drops by for coffee anymore.  It seems that everyone goes to Starbucks instead.

Friends dropping in for coffee is all but a remnant of another era and I think that is kind of a shame that we aren’t available for spontaneous interaction anymore, that we don’t open our homes for that sort thing, that we are just too busy or that we don’t think our homes perfect enough or clean enough or whatever enough.

As I have mentioned here before, my parents live in the same house they bought in 1956.  In that time, they have served approximately 23,436 cups of coffee to neighbors, wayfarers, odd-ball relatives and the occasional long-lost friend who just dropped in.  My parent’s coffee pot has been on for 54 years.

My parent’s kitchen defies everything Southern Living tells us we need to create a warm and welcoming space for visitors.  Their home is not big and bright and you certainly will not find anything new or matching or from Pottery Barn there.  Their kitchen would make Martha Stewart cry.

The avocado green paneling is circa 1972. The pattern on the linoleum floor is all but worn off and slick from the constant ironing of the rolling chairs. (Aside:  I’ve always thought that chairs with rollers were an interesting choice for a kitchen so small you can reach anything without having to get out of your chair.  And in a 100-year-old house that has settled substantially, rolling chairs on slick linoleum means you could potentially roll out the back door if you are not paying attention.)

The refrigerator is covered in pictures of grandchildren and great grandchildren and postcards and magnets with wise sayings.  The table is always so cluttered that you have to scooch books and puzzles and prescription bottles aside just so you might carve out four square inches of real estate to set your cup down.  The trick is scooching it all en masse, like a tectonic plate, to just the correct degree, so that whatever is on the other end of the table doesn’t fall off like California into the Pacific.

The 45-year-old Melmac coffee cups don’t match, nor do any of the not-silverware.

My mother does not serve fancy or flavored coffee — it’s Folgers or whatever is on sale and if you want cream, it’s store brand Coffeemate.

Their kitchen is teeny tiny and cramped and cluttered and woefully out of date.  It’s not fancy or comfortable and would not pass the white glove test.

Nonetheless, people want to go there and hang out for a time and chat,  and they have for more than half a century.  Something there draws ‘em in and it ain’t the kitchen or the coffee.

Must be the conversation and the company.

The other afternoon Sean and I went out for a walk. It was a glorious Indian summer day, warm and peaceful and perfect in every way.

He spied the very last of the ripened dandelions and plucked it out of the ground.  “Okay Mom,” he said, “Be quiet.”

I stood quietly and respectfully off to the side while he stood as still as a totem pole, eyes closed and holding up the dandelion to his lips.  Then he whispered, “I wish Vivian could come see me every year!”

He inhaled deeply with a squeak and then blew with all his might, scattering his wish to the wind. He blew and blew and blew until there was nothing left but a bald stem.

As we continued our walk towards home, I told him I thought that was a nice wish.  I told him I thought it was much better to wish for people than for stuff.

He nodded in agreement.  Then he said, “You know a prayer is kind of like a wish you share with God.”

All I could do was nod in agreement.

I love paisley and I always have. I think paisley adds a touch of class to nearly anything.

Once, when I was a young girl, I was looking through our family photographs when my eye was drawn to one of the few color photographs in the box. I pulled the picture from the box and studied it closely for a long time.

It is a picture of my mother. She is a young woman. She is wearing a paisley dress, cyan blue, the color of a shallow tropical sea. She is seated deep in a chair with her long athletic legs crossed. She is wearing high heels. Her thick wavy auburn hair contrasts with the vibrant blue green dress in the most resplendent way, in a way that makes you want to look from the dress to her hair and back to the dress again. She is looking confidently into the camera with a sultry “I dare you” expression.

The sexy young woman in the picture is clearly my mother. But not. It seemed implausible to me that this paisley wearing woman was the same woman who nightly rescued me from the dark, pulling me into the safety of her bed, curling me into the soft warm curve of her tummy. My mother never wore high heels or fancy clothes, let alone paisley, and she certainly never sat around looking sultry!

At that moment, I realized that my mother had a life before me and beyond me. It was an odd and uncomfortable thought, almost inconceivable, but at the same time… thrilling. And I think it was then, in that moment, that I fell in love with paisley.

My mother is a smart lady. She could have been anything she wanted to be, she could have worn paisley every day. But she chose to have children instead and through us correct the hurts and injustices of her own childhood.

I don’t actually remember seeing my mother wear that paisley dress, but I remember seeing it hang in the back of her closet year after year.

If she had any regrets about the choices she made for her life, she kept them stashed away in the back of her closet along with the paisley dress. And we never knew it.

Christmas 1961.

In case you were wondering who my company was yesterday, it’s my mommy.  She’s still here.  Sometimes I like to be coy. 

The upside to that is that she is occupying my child which means I can do other things, like go get my teeth cleaned – just a little hobby of mine, something I like to do in my spare time.

The downside to that is she can’t vote for me which means I’ll probably win this prize. So, maybe you could get your mother to vote for me? (That’s once every 24-hours through November 8th! Operators are standing by! Call now and get a set of Ginzu knives with every vote!)

I leave you with this “that’s my boy” moment.   The other day Sean came home from school and told me that the teacher asked the class to name a fruit for the each letter of the alphabet.  As expected, he said “A” was for apple, “B” was for banana and I think he said “C” was for canna-wope.  I asked what fruit started with “D” and he said doughnut. 

Yep. That’s my boy!

Oops! How’d that get there??

Last week, we drove to Illinois to visit my parents and let Sean OD on popsicles and Wivian.

Knowing that in the coming week, that Wivian would be indulging Sean’s every whim and thereby be promoted to most favored grandmother status, Cleo, my mother-in-law, made a pre-emptive strike in the Grandma Wars and loaded Sean up with seven or eight presents to open along the way.

When we were about a mile away from MeMaw’s house, Sean demanded to open his first present and being the spineless jelly fish of a parent bent on instant gratification that I am, I let him.

From a beautiful gift bag laden with festive ribbon and colorful tissue paper he pulled a twenty-five cent pinwheel.

“Oh my!” he exlaimed. “I can’t believe my eyes! I’ve never seen such a thing!”

And then he spent the next 50 miles holding the pinwheel up to the air conditioning vent and cackling with joy.

If only his thrills would always be so cheap.