This was my list for how to know when I was grown*:
Navigating into adulthood doesn't happen all at once. I got my license when I was sixteen, driving my aunt's dusty car. She refused to dust it, hoping that the speedometer would look cloudy enough to the examiner that he wouldn't notice my tendency to speed.
And I was in college when I was granted the privilege of Sandy's name instead of the "Mrs. Orr" I had known since I was four. She and Terry (my kids call him "Mr. Orr," following the old way. Or sometimes, "Jordan's papa," following the new way) took me to Pizza by Alex in Biddeford. It was, to them, an occasion that deserved to be marked.
So there was this long in-between... sixteen to twenty-one... an almost but not yet. And it was dotted with me learning secrets.
Mrs. Orr (because she still was that to me, then) gave me some. One was the secret of perfectly chopped walnuts. Her brownies and cookies always had just the right amount of crunch, and I envisioned her hunching over her kitchen counter and chopping them precisely. I asked her about it once, and she laughed, and pulled a grinder down from her cupboard. The secret was the tool, not her patience. Later, she gave me a grinder as a gift. A joke, but also not. It was part of a secret. I was grown.
Last month, I had to throw it out. It didn't chop well anymore. I know I shouldn't mourn such a small thing. But she's gone now, and so is the day she shared the secret with me. But it's how I knew I was grown--she shared a secret.
*when you're growing up in rural Maine in the 80s and 90s
- I would get a license (so many times I prayed that the rapture wouldn't happen until I had checked this off my list)
- I would know secrets (so many times I sat quietly when my mother's friends and sisters were visiting, hoping they would forget I was there so I could hear their secrets)
- I would call adults by their first names (my life was filled with people who were addressed as "Mr." and "Mrs." even though I'd known them for years)
And I was in college when I was granted the privilege of Sandy's name instead of the "Mrs. Orr" I had known since I was four. She and Terry (my kids call him "Mr. Orr," following the old way. Or sometimes, "Jordan's papa," following the new way) took me to Pizza by Alex in Biddeford. It was, to them, an occasion that deserved to be marked.
So there was this long in-between... sixteen to twenty-one... an almost but not yet. And it was dotted with me learning secrets.
Mrs. Orr (because she still was that to me, then) gave me some. One was the secret of perfectly chopped walnuts. Her brownies and cookies always had just the right amount of crunch, and I envisioned her hunching over her kitchen counter and chopping them precisely. I asked her about it once, and she laughed, and pulled a grinder down from her cupboard. The secret was the tool, not her patience. Later, she gave me a grinder as a gift. A joke, but also not. It was part of a secret. I was grown.
Last month, I had to throw it out. It didn't chop well anymore. I know I shouldn't mourn such a small thing. But she's gone now, and so is the day she shared the secret with me. But it's how I knew I was grown--she shared a secret.
*when you're growing up in rural Maine in the 80s and 90s
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