Queen of the moment.

When I was little, I was certain the center of the universe was Deertrail, Colorado –precisely my grandfather’s ranch on a hill overlooking that small prairie town.  On a six section piece of earth he grew his own feed and a large herd of cattle.  He was a gentleman farmer who managed well and owned his own machinery and several box cars for storing the grain he reaped.  Most of the time, dressing up meant adding a suit coat and bolero tie to the plaid shirt and jeans he wore day to day.  There was a barn with milking stalls, a milk house at the base of a windmill and a large garage for his machinery and his well kept car.  The place was always as clean and ordered as the tall white house that sat on the crest of the hill. 

That was my grandma Bartlett’s domain.  Simply, but well furnished, always impeccably clean, it was her testament.  She was a lady in all aspects.  Though she was no stranger to the hard work of a successful ranch, she was always dressed as though she were headed someplace important.  Her short curly hair was always ‘fixed.’ I never saw her in a disheveled state. Her dresses were not fancy, but they were nice, clean and well maintained just like her house.  She wrote poetry, played piano and sang with deep feeling.

She was good at just about everything except cooking.  All of her daughters were good cooks.  Grandpa used to say they became good cooks in self-defense.  Yet even that comment was never said as an insult.  It was just a playful expression of endearment –and without apology she would laugh and confirm it as truth.  Yet, what she lacked in culinary ability, she outweighed in hospitality.  Benevolence, grace and sweetness followed her like a fan club.  For many years, most of our holidays were spent there in that peaceful, congenial spot with her organized blessing.  The aunts and uncles and cousins arrived in procession, bearing food dishes to compliment the efforts of the one or two that arrived early to begin the meal in her well supplied, impeccably kept kitchen.

After the meal, the men folk would congregate in the living room in sleepy, overstuffed disarray to discuss things that men discuss over a football game or whatever is on the TV at the time.  The women would clear away the mess and visit in the kitchen while the children chased cats, played games or discovered wonders in the yard.  At some point, strains of music would call us all to the living room to sing and play and dance.  Old range songs and Scottish folk tunes eventually gave way to hymns or Christmas carols.  Gradually, families, one by one, parted off and took their journey home after numerous good-byes, hugs and well wishes.  My grandma Bartlett was queen of the moment, ruler of the universe, for the time. 

I can’t pinpoint the time at which things changed, or the reason for the waning of her bright, colorful star. Perhaps the journey was just too long for some to make.  Perhaps the cousins grew up and got too involved in other activities.  Perhaps the aunts and uncles just replaced the large family gatherings with their own family time.  We always had those times with my grandparents, but the harmonies were less full, the table had a lot more room and a lot less children.

At some point, my mom claimed New Years as her holiday.  Our immediate family began growing with in-laws and children and my mother began setting out a spread of food that called in the masses.  My grandmother White, sometimes aunts and uncles, often friends, and eventually my grandma and grandpa Bartlett would sit down with us at a collection of tables that stretched the full length of our kitchen, dining room and living room, to tell stories, laugh and devour.  A good cook, what my mother lacked in organizational skills, she made up for with a passion for fun, a love of decorum, and delicious offerings of turkey or ham with all the traditional trimming and a few original surprises, accompanied by ample desserts, to take us all the way through to evening.  We would eat the main meal until comatose and then sprawl out in various places until we heard the siren of a ball game or the challenge of touch football or ‘horse’ or, in the case of snow, sleds on the hill.  Eventually someone would utter the word ‘pie’ and we would all run headlong to the controlling force of more food.  As darkness began to fall, there would be strains played on the old piano, a violin, perhaps a guitar and most times my father’s harmonica.  The family would gather about and sing folk tunes and range songs and wind up with hymns until we were all spent. Then the various visitors to our home would don their coats, pile into cars and make their way back to their own worlds.

My mom also became known for an excellent decorating party that left our home in Christmassy bliss.  In time, summer cookouts, Easter celebrations, church youth outings and parties were added to her entertaining repertoire.  She was good at it.  She became the center of her universe, the queen of the moment.

My own venture into being queen of the moment began in Hot Springs, Arkansas where I hosted a weekly meeting of wealthy ladies in my home during my 20s and started learning to be ‘all that’.  It was a very small universe, but for a few moments each week life revolved around my execution of a plan and I was the center of attention.  It was short lived and didn’t resurface until the mid 80s when I began hosting family reunions, beginning with my parents’ 50th anniversary. Eventually my skills enveloped Christmas Eve celebrations for my enlarging family of families.  There were also camping- or boating- efforts which allowed me to be queen of the moment.  I got into it and I enjoyed the role.

The celebrations within my tenure were always slightly lacking the luster of the former queens.  I always wanted to . . . . ., well, but we ran out of time.  There were no gorged snoozes spaced by manly conversations.  There were children playing to pass the time, but only because of delays as a result of too much planning and too little time. There were no family dance and sing sessions around an old piano with various instruments chiming in and voices rising in harmony.  I created my own inferiority long before the decline.  I don’t multi-task well and I don’t delegate –ever.

However, with the extra income of a teacher added to my husband’s good salary, I held no expense as a problem to creating a well supplied event.  I didn’t even consider what I was spending until I tried to make sense of it and looked at the spread sheet.  But I didn’t care.  What I lacked in the grace and organization of my grandmother, or the talent and passion of my mother, I made up for with dollars.  For several years, it was all good.  The universe revolved well. But gradually, the dollar did not rule and the universe began, as it had with my mother and my grandmother, to shift, wobble and implode.  My tenure as queen of the moment was ending.  I did not fade gracefully.  I don’t know whether my predecessors did or not, for I was way too concerned with my own execution of the queenly office.

I still have my moments, though I must admit that there is always something I wish to do that I just don’t make happen.  There are others who have assumed or transferred the starring role as my circle shrinks.  One day, I will be that person who is simply visited on the way to or from the great revolution around another star.  It has already begun.  My pull has weakened for whatever reason –it doesn’t really matter in the larger scope of things.  Time, distance, the creation of a new dynasty, all add to the diminishing value of time and effort.  But they will have to buy their own crown, for I shall retire mine in a soft cushion of my memory, where I shall forever be queen of the moment.