​“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.” Jagues in “As You Like It” by William Shakespeare
 
Miss Corey, my sophomore English teacher in fall 1965, included William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in her fall curriculum. She selected readers from our class, which provoked hilarious responses to our mispronunciation of the text.
     That experience endeared me to Shakespeare’s remarkable works. For one brief season, I thought it would be fun to act in a Shakespeare play, speak his fluffy Elizabethan language with passion. Yet, my mind went blank when I stood before an audience.
     Therefore, Mr. Edwards, my sophomore drama teacher, assigned me a brief soliloquy to memorize. For several weeks within my drama classroom, I recited my monologue to fellow students, blinded by the spotlight.  
     My senior year, Mrs. Andrews, our new drama teacher, suggested I take the role of prompter for our school plays.
     Her creative alternative also proved beneficial, particularly when the lead actor forgot a line in “Our Town” by Thorton Wilder.
     Almost a lifetime later, having fulfilled Shakespeare’s ages of the schoolgirl, lover, soldier (mother), and currently justice (grandmother), I don’t remember a word from my speech into the spotlight. Perhaps I’d find some wisdom as “the sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloons, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side.”
     Nor do I remember the lines I prompted from “Our Town”.
     However, more significantly, my teachers equipped me with understanding and acceptance of my limitations and talents. Both are inseparable parts of our broken, human condition, no matter our age.
     As Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Andrews illustrated the power of creative alternatives to transform disabilities into achievements, so I aim to encourage others.
     Now, as the sixth age of Shakespeare’s man blooms within my bones, I commit my days to humankind’s highest purpose: to encourage the discovery and development of a person’s God-given gifts and talents. No matter their age.
     Remember Grandma Moses.
     My heart and hands find neighbors, family, and friends who’ve entered the seventh age, the “Last scene of all.” The age that “ends this strange, eventful history, is second childishness…sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,”      
     I understand the context of Shakespeare’s metaphor. However, the world’s remarkably more than a stage. Earth and mankind are God’s creation. Ordered by His Word. Dynamic. Never vacant. We’re not just merely players in different stages of life from birth to death who eventually perish, stripped of “everything.”
    Rather, we’re created in God’s image to be His companions: loving, eternal beings who inherit the Kingdom of God. Mothers, fathers, children, siblings, grandparents, praising God and caring for one another. Sometimes children for parent, or parent for child. Wife for husband, or the opposite, until our last breath.
     Or, perchance a man like Mr. Edwards or a woman like Mrs. Andrews who teaches us how to rise above our limitations.

​It seemed my mother was happiest when she served her apple pie. She smiled when she carried her cooled pie plate to the table, the top crust lumpy from the delicious, sweet apple filling.
     Seasoned with butter, sugar, cinnamon, a touch of nutmeg, lemon juice, and flour, her apple pies filled the house with an aroma that promised my favorite dessert. Guess I could say my mother’s generous Northern Spy pies foreshowed the “mile high apple pie” of my generation.
     And when she took up her knife for the first slice of her perfect, flaky Crisco crust, an intense, content furrow formed on her brow. I can’t speak for my sisters and father, but I held my breath and salivated in awe and anticipation. Come fall, nothing pleased me more than a piece of Mom’s apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
     With skill, Mom slid her pie server under the bottom crust. Dad’s plate awaited the first slice. Mom’s left hand held the top crust steady as she lifted the slice from the glass pan. Apples oozed their juicy filling.
     My mother could not countenance a dry apple pie.
     A ten-inch pie was just enough for our family of five, then six, and seven. And when Mom cooked for Thanksgiving company, most often Kentucky relatives, she baked two apple and one pumpkin pie. I preferred apple.
     Incidentally, my mother peeled apples faster than anyone I’d ever seen, except Granny, her mother.
     “I’ve been baking pies since I was eleven years old,” Mom would say. Or, “I’d like to see the pies and cakes I’ve baked in my lifetime. Probably make a mountain.”
     Mom also peeled bushels of apples to can applesauce in October. She added thirty-some quart jars to her fruit cellar under the basement stairs. My sisters and I could consume a jar of applesauce with Mom’s delicious breaded pork chops, green beans, and scalloped potatoes.
     A bowl of applesauce on a winter day made a perfect after-school snack.
     Sometimes, Mom baked stuffed apples served with whipping cream. Oh, how I loved the sweet, nutty, oatmeal center. Following Granny’s example, Mom also peeled, sliced and fried apples in butter and seasoned with cinnamon for her hot biscuits.  
     Now, at the tail end of apple season, I crave Mom’s apple pie all the more. Unlike strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, peaches, and pears, apples have staying power. I core and slice them to toss in mixed greens with walnut halves, pomegranate seeds, and green onion. Salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, and olive oil make a fine vinaigrette.
     Indeed, dear Reader, I’m thinking of Thanksgiving dinner and my deep, ten inch, glass pie plate, edge fluted like Mom’s. And I just discovered a Butternut Squash and Apple Soup recipe which I think my grandson would like.
     And for an appetizer, an Apple Crostata recipe with McIntosh, Macoun, or Empire apples caught my eye.
     What can’t we cook and bake with the amazing apple in all its tasty varieties?   

​As no other natural landscape, Appalachia’s splendorous color inspired my soul when I drove home from Matewan, West Virginia, October 15.
    Eight days later, Marilyn’s directions led me southwest on I69 to the Charlotte exit on route to another Matewan Garden Club book talk.
     I’d never visited Charlotte before, and was glad to see a Big Boy still standing amongst every imaginable drive-through restaurant flanking the road through town.
     “Drive until road ends (Mooville on right side) Left on M66 south”, Marilyn’s printed directions said.   
     “Mooville?” I’d emailed Marilyn the night prior.
     “A petting zoo,” she’d replied. “They have delicious lasagna in their frozen section.”
     The road ended and there sprawled Mooville, a dairy farm, on my right.
     And my destination?
     Plainwell, where Marilyn, a good friend from Warren Lincoln High School, lives in a golf community with her husband. To Marilyn’s delight, their daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons live within walking distance.
     Marilyn had invited me to her home to meet her “west-side” neighborhood book club and answer their questions about my story. A perfect opportunity for a reunion.
     As I drove deeper into the home of W.K. Kellogg Co., the hillier and curvier the roads became. The land felt like Peter Creek, my Appalachian home.
         Large ponds with lily pads hugged the roads, a sight I never see in Appalachia. Then, on the next curve, farmsteads with large, rolling fields appeared beyond the gold-leafed hedgerows. As most of the crops were harvested, huge farming machinery sat resting like tired beasts.
     I parked my car in Marilyn’s driveway by 3:45 p.m. and found a beautiful table set with china and crystal. She stirred borscht soup, mashed boiled potatoes, and removed cabbage rolls from the oven as the book club members arrived.
     At last, our hostess placed on the table a bowl of sliced cucumbers in sour cream seasoned with dill. “Please take a seat,” she said.
     We filled and emptied our plates while the sun set, consumed kuchen, a Volga-German cake featured in my story. Members discussed their favorite characters, and what caught them by surprise.
     “I like what you named the botanists. I never heard the word before,” said one member.
     “Wayfarer?” I asked.
     “Yes. It fits the characters.”
     The word isn’t original to me. Several of my garden resource books use the term.
     “Does everyone have their book for next month?” a member asked.
     “Yes,” they echoed.
     “I reserved my copy of A Walk in the Woods from the library,” a member said.
     I read Bill Bryson’s memoir in 1988 when first released. A story about an unconventional wayfarer. 
    Dear Reader, if you’re somewhat adventurous, intrigued by what’s on the other side of a hedgerow, mountain, or creek, you’ll find A Walk in the Woods an engaging read.
     By the way, I stopped in Mooville on my way home. A container of lasagna waits in my freezer for an occasion to remember Marilyn’s friendship, and this wayfarer’s double portion of October’s color. North to South. East to West.

I'm ready to drive to Matewan, West Virginia, to sign copies of Matewan Garden Club in Appalachian Lost & Found, David Hatfield, proprietor

​I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. Psalm 121: 1-2
 
This past September 18, I met with a friend for lunch. We go back over twenty years to an awards event where Debra was chosen to read her memoir about making éclairs with her Jewish grandmother. Then, I recalled my Holiness Pentecostal granny, the countless biscuits and pies she baked and served, and longed to honor Granny as Debra blessed her grandmother.
   October 9, three Mondays later, I drove south on I75 for a book tour in Kentucky and West Virginia. I cried while listening to news reports of the number of Jews/Israelis and Americans murdered by Hamas. I prayed for their families, and called Debra to confirm she and her household were safe at home in Michigan, New York City, and Chicago.  
     Her husband answered. “Yes, we’re home. The kids are safe. Debra’s on a phone call. I’ll tell her you called. Thank you for thinking of us,” he said.
    “I’m driving to my sister’s house in Kentucky. I’ll call after I arrive,” I replied.
    “I’ll tell Debra.”
     At last, the Appalachian mountain range opened her arms in comfort and joy. Somewhere within the vast beauty of those ancient hills, my sister Patty and her husband Mike awaited my arrival in a town named Prestonsburg.
     Not far from their home, a serpentine drive within historic Hatfield-McCoy territory led to Matewan, West Virginia, my birthplace. I’d planned to save the best for last in my week-long book tour.
     My sister and brother-in-law set a table with pinto beans, fried potatoes, fried corn, coleslaw, and a pone of corn bread, Patty’s specialty.
     Oh, the perfect meal to soothe a hungry traveler’s soul.
     And so Patty and Mike fed me every evening and morning with tempting scents such as fried apples and pot roast. And treats like Mike’s zucchini bread.
     Each day, save Thursday when a migraine headache usurped my plans, Patty printed the route to my destination. There, in libraries, bookstores, and Appalachian Lost & Found in Matewan, I sowed seed with copies of Matewan Garden Club.
     “What’s the book about?” a Matewan teenager asked.
     “Even in our most desperate times, we’re never alone,” I said
     Before dark, I parked my car on Patty and Mike’s hill and carried my Shinola book bag inside their house.
     To sustain my positive spirit, I did not immerse my mind in the news reporting the Israel and Hamas war. Rather, I looked to the hills surrounding me. I read King David’s Psalms. “They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.” Psalm 125:1.
     Dear Reader, in those seven days driving into, through, and from Appalachia, I witnessed His promise of seasons. Again, October turned the mountains from green to gold, orange, and russet.
     As in the blessed season Debra’s grandmother taught her to make éclairs. 

​A purple morning glory catches my eye, trumpet lifted to the sun. Again, I read the wisdom of the lovely garden sign the bloom adorns: “We come from the earth. We return to the earth. And in between we garden.”
     A gift to me from my daughter, Kelly, she appreciates the space her California yard offers for growing flowers and food.
     Bougainvillea. Pomegranate. Orange. Lime. Lemon. Avocado. Guava. 
     She found the garden sign online and ordered one for me some years ago. Sure, I could ask her the year and occasion for which she purchased the gift. Yet, that’s one more thing I’ve forgotten, and she’s concerned about my memory.
      During her most recent call from the west coast, she gently repeated what she said some months ago in a phone call. “Mom, I don’t think you should drive to Kentucky and West Virginia by yourself.”
     “I drove alone down and back last October without incident,” I reminded her.
     “Yes, but you couldn’t recall turns when we drove back from Kentucky this past July,” she said. “Plus, it’s not safe for a woman to drive alone.”
      I didn’t point out that she drove solo from the San Francisco Bay Area last spring to meet her cousin Maegan to camp in the Joshua Tree National Forest. Just the two of them. Then she drove home alone.
     “I’m taking Dad’s car again,” I said. “The GPS will guide me if I miss a turn.”
     I sensed that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
     Truth is, I have another story to sow, and I can’t do that through social media alone. Besides, it’s the end of gardening season. October is a beautiful time in Appalachia to drive from town to town with my books in tow.
     “Please keep me in your prayers, Kelly,” I said.
     “I will, Mom.”
    As they often illustrate in their lifestyles and choices, my daughters know we must take risks to grow. Some of their choices concern me. Frankly, some frighten me. So I pray for their safety as they grow.
     I’m thankful for their concern, and pray they understand I’m still sowing and growing. Not just flowers, trees, and stories. But in faith and trust in God’s mercy, grace, and faithfulness to show me His ways and teach me His paths.
     Eventually, as most people who earn their driver’s license as a teenager, if we live a long life, we will face the day when we retire the most used identity card in the United States of America.
     Dear Reader, I remember the long in between season with my mother, her flower and vegetable gardens, her decline to the point where she could no longer cultivate roses or food. Or snap, string, and cook a mess of green beans. That was soon after she couldn’t remember where she placed her car keys.
     Yes, the purple morning glory blooms again in my fading gardens. I’ve begun deadheading. The burn pile grows. God willing, I’ll sow more seed in Appalachia, the earth I come from.     
     

Our household inherited Aunt Gracie’s little lavender and white afghan sometime after my mother-in-law, Rosalie Kathleen Underwood, passed away September 17, 2015.
     My father-in-law called her “Rose.” She didn’t like me to say “Mrs. Underwood,” so I addressed her as “Mom” as my husband did. She never objected.
     She named herself “Gramma Rosie” to our children. Goodness, how she loved to play possum on the living room sofa when we arrived from our long drive to their door in Grand Rapids.
     Our girls knew her game. They ran to the vintage coffee grinder she placed against the wall by the television in the living room, filled with Hershey kisses.
     Now, she purposely chose those foil-wrapped chocolates, for her only living brother and sister-in-law (Gracie) lived near Hershey, PA. Furthermore, our family of three little girls had previously vacationed at Uncle Len’s and Aunt Gracie’s home one summer. That’s when we toured the famous Hershey factory surrounded by beautiful Amish country. Uncle Len amused us by using the long “A” sound for “Amish.”
     The second the girls touched Grandma Rosie’s coffee grinder, she’d jump up from the sofa. “Caught cha’!” she’d say playfully.
     Those delightful years passed all too swiftly as her granddaughters left the nest, one by one. Gramma Rosie playing possum on the living room sofa fell into silent memory. Thankfully, Gramma Rosie never lost her “marbles” as she’d say, as did Nana, my mother.
     After Grandpa Underwood passed, Gramma Rosie’s two younger sons provided their mother with the latest electronic devices, programs, and lessons. Emails replaced her letters. She ordered product online rather than shopped, attended mass online, and self-diagnosed her illnesses by symptoms.
     She praised her younger boys who “rigged up” a pocket to her walker where she kept her ipad. She “klunked” room to room until she could no longer.
     Perhaps I saw Aunt Gracie’s lavender and white afghan on Mom’s lap during her two weeks a resident of Marywood Health Center. She must’ve found some comfort in her sister-in-law’s thoughtful gift, for she seemed at peace, and soon left this world.
     A multi-purpose, cozy blanket, Aunt Gracie’s gift is the perfect size for covering the chair arms and cushions where our pets nap. And when a winter chill seizes me, if the blanket isn’t occupied by Mitty or Cuddles, I throw it over my shoulders like a shawl.
      Washable and lightweight, the color hasn’t faded from washing and sunlight. The durable yarn withstands our cats’ and grand-dog’s claws.
     More so, the lightweight fabric washes and dries quickly. And never wrinkles.
     Dear Reader, in this season of my life where I’ve accumulated my portion of my parents’ belongings, including my in-law’s, many treasures remain packed away, out of sight. But not forgotten.
     Each item tells a story, such as my father’s Polaroid camera. However, Aunt Gracie’s afghan still serves many purposes in my household. Mitty and Cuddles, inseparable sisters, are glad about that. And so is Lily, our grand-dog. 

​Sometime last winter, half a polycarbonate panel disappeared from the greenhouse. Note, the greenhouse is under my care, and has been since my husband and an employee of the Michigan State University Extension built the structure in April 2007.
     Considering the guys nearly suffered frostbite while constructing my dream come true, I appreciate this creative space where I once grew blooming things. Hundreds of lavender babies filled racks for eight springs and summers until I retired my lavender farm at the conclusion of the 2014 season.
     Since then, large rolls of weed cloth, terra-cotta pots, a potting table, beekeeping equipment, and garden stakes with miscellaneous spades have happily cohabited their dry, cozy home. Like vacationing in Florida, I overwinter several pieces of lawn furniture in the greenhouse.
     Several years ago, a top panel and most window panels began to mold within the plastic tubing. A local greenhouse owner explained, “That happens when the caulking at the ends of the panels corrodes. There’s nothing you can do but replace the panels.”
     Well, I decided to ignore the unsightly panels. It’s a greenhouse, after all. I’d rather spend money on plants than plastic.
     Then the wind blew out half of one cracked panel (never to be found) this past winter. One warm day, I fetched a ladder and removed the remaining moldy pieces. Indeed, the caulking along the top and bottom of the panel had corroded, and moisture molded the interior.
     Preoccupied throughout the spring and summer, I ignored the jungle emerging inside the greenhouse. If I hadn’t retrieved my beekeeping gear to open my hive, and tripped on a vine, I may have avoided the mess.
     At last, one fine day in June, I ordered a replacement panel from Hortmark in Capac. Last week, husband drove his Prius to the fetch it home only to find the 4 foot by 10 foot panel wouldn’t fit in his car.
     Chagrined at my oversight, and my husband’s needless errand, I considered Plan B. Call Roland, a congenial handyman and neighbor. I explained to him my polycarbonate panel situation.
     “I’ll call my neighbor Paul and see if he’s available. His truck bed is 10 feet long.”
     Within five minutes, Paul and I confirmed his drive to Hortmark and delivery to my house. Two hours later, he removed the panel from the truck bed and carried it downhill to the greenhouse around noon. Regardless of pesky mosquitoes, Roland completed the panel’s installation well before dinnertime.
      Oh, before he left, Roland also repaired a finicky folding bedroom closet door.
     Dear Reader, regardless of itchy mosquito bites, I slept well that night. Thanks to Paul and Roland, my belongings inside the greenhouse are secure from rain, and my closet door closes at last.
      I’ve since removed the tangled mess of weeds within my greenhouse. But they’ll be back next spring. For greenhouses live up to their name by growing things. Evidence of the power of nature, much like the force of neighborly neighbors who do what comes naturally.





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​My mother’s intense concentration indicated not to disturb her while she held her icing knife. She smothered the middle and sides of her two-layer cake in either sweet buttercream, chocolate, caramel, or seafoam frosting. Then the top. Delicious perfection!
With each cake Mom baked, iced, and sliced, her patience, discipline, and joy in creating something beautiful and yummy seeped into my taste buds and memory. Sadie Lee O’Brien, my mom, became the first cottage caterer in one of the fastest growing cities in the country. She began with special-order wedding cakes for our neighbors in Warren, and eventually catered dinner parties for our family doctor.
Although I remember Granny took her home-made birthday cakes to her little church to celebrate the children’s birthdays, somehow I don’t recall Granny icing and decorating a cake when I visited her as a child.
I was a young mother the summer day I observed Granny ice a cake. Surrounded by my three daughters and a handful of nieces and nephews younger than my children, all elbows leaned on the table toward the object of temptation.
Well aware of their intent, and with Mom’s engrossed expression on her on face, Granny used a butter knife instead of an icing knife to spread the frosting.
That particular day, we gathered around the same kitchen table where I’d sat every childhood summer vacation. Then, Granny filled my plate with her fried chicken, fresh green beans boiled in bacon and onion, and buttery little new potatoes. And bottomless glasses of iced sweet tea.
Granny turned her back to the cake for a wink. A great-granddaughter swiped her frosting. Then another.
A matriarch with eyes hidden under the bun in the back of her head, Granny turned to the table, hands akimbo and dishtowel on her shoulder. “Now, don’t y’all skin my cake!” she said, belly jiggling under her apron.
Everyone laughed as Granny’s playful grace settled into our family history. To my knowledge, no one breached her trust to leave her cake alone until she sliced and served it to us that night.
There’s no family story of my children swiping my mother’s frosting from her cakes. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, particularly when my middle daughter, age nine, spent a summer month with “Nana” in Kentucky.
For Kelly roamed the McCoy Bottom with her boy cousins, sometimes with dirty fingers in wait to swipe the icing off the cake Nana baked for dinner’s dessert.
You see, as Granny, my mother practiced the same playful grace with her grandchildren when it came to skinning cakes.
Dear Reader, as my daughters now refrain from eating sugar, and so does my only grandchild, I’ve iced one cake in the past year: cream cheese frosting on a carrot cake.
How very thankful I am for friends who appreciate the intense concentration of holding an icing knife while spreading frosting over a cake. For that blessed example of playful grace in Granny’s kitchen.
 

   ​I printed Mapquest directions for my first visit to Phyllis’ home. She’d invited me and a mutual friend, Connie, for tea at 12:30 p.m. Although I gave myself ample time for taking wrong turns, I arrived late and embarrassed. Tardiness is no way to establish the harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility of taking tea together.
            What a relief to see a door open to my friends’ smiling faces! Now, I’ve known Connie’s indefatigable and playful spirit from age eighteen. We’ve since found a common interest in a bone china teacup filled with steeped, steamy Earl Gray black tea.
Phyllis waved me to the back porch. “Come on in!”
            “I apologize. I drove to your daughter-in-law’s house. She told me where you live,” I said as we gathered in the kitchen.
            “You’re not late,” Phyllis consoled.
         She removed from the oven grilled, open-faced ham, cheese, and home-grown tomato sandwiches. A ting of cloves and peaches scented the air. “I made lemon zucchini bread to serve with fresh peaches for dessert.”
            Ah, my favorite course.
         As we enjoyed our chilled lemonade, sandwich, and coleslaw on the front porch, the harmony of good food and company calmed my mind and spirit. I admired the flowering roses and hydrangeas along the railing, well aware of the effort and expense devoted to grow and sustain the plants.
       “Your gardens are beautiful, and your meal is delicious. I’m so glad I knocked on your daughter-in-law’s door at the end of the wrong road!”
         “I am, too,” Phyllis said. “Would you ladies like dessert on the back porch?”
        There, overlooking her large perennial garden’s lush shrubs, flowers, and various arbors covered with vines, we sipped hot tea. All too soon we consumed our sweet cake and pure, Michigan peaches, and Cook’s lavender lemon ice cream I delivered into Phyllis’ hands when I arrived.
       Indeed, how could two friends better respect Phyllis’ home-grown zucchini, with chocolate morsels sprinkled into the batter to boot, than together on her back porch overlooking her garden?
      Furthermore, as the aesthetic ideals of the tea ceremony embrace, Phyllis’s personal art in some medium or manner appeared throughout her house and gardens. So we sipped our bitter tea and ate our sweets as Sen no Rikyu, the Sixteenth Century’s most revered tea master, advocated.
         At last, we placed our empty teacups and plates inside on the kitchen counter. “Follow me!” Phyllis said.
       We walked around the circle within her garden, entered arbors with narrow passages that would cause a student of Sen no Rikyu to smile and bow. 
       When time came to depart, Connie said, “I’ll lead you out to Lake Pleasant Road. You know how to get home from there.”
      “Yes!” I said.
      “The Suncrest Garden is on our way home. Would you like to stop by? You gave a tea talk to their garden club in 2004.”
      Dear Reader, again, my determined friend guided me through Lapeer County’s Display Garden on Suncrest. We saw Sen no Rikyu’s imprint everywhere.
      I couldn’t resist playing with the chimes, my favorite feature.