Jo Carson died. She was a wonderful local poet, storyteller, playwright, and occasional poker player with a group that Alan played with. I have been musing on one of my favorite of her poems, from her book Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet:
40.
The day I married, my mother
had one piece of wedding advice:
"Don't make good potato salad,"
she told me, "it's too hard to make
and you'll have to take something
every time you get invited somewhere.
Just cook up beans; people eat them too."
My mother was good at potato salad
and part of the memories of my childhood
have to do with endless batches made
for family get-togethers, church picnics,
Civitan suppers, Democratic party fund raisers,
whatever event called for potato salad.
I'd peel the hard-boiled eggs.
My mother would pack her big red plastic picnic bowl
high with yellow potato salad
(she used mustard),
and it would sit proud on endless tables
and come home empty.
What my mother might and could have said is:
Choose carefully what you get good at
'cause you'll spend the rest of your life doing it.
But I didn't hear that.
I was young and anxious to please
and I knew her potato salad secrets.
And the thousand other duties
given to daughters by mothers,
and sometimes I envy those women
who get by with pots of beans.
I thought about the poem above as soon as I heard that Jo had died. It really makes me think right now. I have been making too much "potato salad," trying hard to do all my volunteer jobs as well as possible, waking up early with "to do" lists in my mind, spending my days working as if I was still at MECC with a job. I am limiting myself somewhat, however. I get up when I want to and go to bed when I want to, and never work in the evenings. Nevertheless, I think that I still need to lighten up and make do with more "pots of beans."
Goodbye Jo, we will miss you and your wonderful sense of humor.
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3 comments:
Things I think Jo knew:
The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent. ~David Mamet
Love the poem. Don't remember my Mom ever making much potato salad, but she was hell on wheels when it came to making the old German Sauerbraten and Dumplings! Man, was that beef tasty. Took her 2 days to make it what with the marinading and all, and the dumplings in that gravy were to die for. But... if you ate 2 of 'em they were so heavy you'd have to wait till the next morning to be able to get up out of your chair at suppertime! ;^)
I remember many things about Jo. Conversations and lately warning me not to take the lemonbalm, you will regret it she said in her Jo Carson warning voice with a lilt of humor and a smile across her face. Less than six months in the ground, she was right, as usual.
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