Alison McGhee

Consider the dumpling, if you will. In all its incarnations – fried, steamed or boiled – it is the food of my dreams. In Taipei, in 1981, you could buy them for a penny apiece – yes, that’s $.01 apiece – and I ate them every day in a dumpling restaurant in Food Alley, where the tables were rickety, the floor was dirt (is that possible? am I just making that up? Honestly, I don’t think so), and each tabletop held a diner creamer filled with dried crushed chilis floating in peanut oil, soy sauce, and – at this particular restaurant – a coveted tiny bottle of sesame oil.

Take a look at that above paragraph. It was my goal to construct every sentence of this entire entry so that it contained a clause suspended in dashes – like this – but already I have grown tired of such a conceit, and if another such sentence appears from here on, it will not be intentional, but will have grown organically from the forest of surrounding words, the way a sunflower will suddenly appear halfway through the summer, just below the bird feeder. That was a very long sentence there, wasn’t it.

So anyway,  the various kinds of dumplings at this particular penny-apiece dumpling restaurant were listed on a blackboard. Since my knowledge of Chinese characters, even back then, when I used to work at them, isn’t good, I didn’t know what half the offerings were. Nor did I care, because what could be better than the tried and true pork+vegetable dumpling? Nothing, in my opinion. Were it not for the pig, I could easily be vegetarian, but the pig exists, and so do pork+vegetable dumplings, and there you have it.

Next week will mark our annual dumpling party in celebration of the Chinese New Year. Two giant bowls of dumpling filling will be prepared, one traditional and one veggie. Stacks of gyoza wrappers – because I’m too damn lazy and unskilled to make them myself – and here we have another dash-dash sentence,  don’t we, a triple dasher –  will stand at the ready. Dumpling eaters of all ages will try their hand at filling them, pinching them shut, curving them into the requisite crescent. The Dumpling Master will stand at the stove, frying and boiling batch after batch.

Chopsticks will be scattered about, as will small dipping bowls containing the hallowed mixture of soy sauce and rice vinegar and garlic and sesame oil.

A couple of pans of brownies will also stand at the ready, because brownies – as everyone knows (and here we go again; these sentences are out of control) – are the traditional dessert of the Han people.

In Minneapolis and St. Paul, the best dumplings can be found at my friend Ping’s house. Barring a visit to Ping’s kitchen, try the Grand Shanghai, on Grand Avenue, six blocks east of Snelling in St. Paul, and the Evergreen Taiwanese Restaurant on Eat Street in Minneapolis. In New York, try Prosperity Dumplings in Chinatown (5/$1.00!). Or if you find yourself near Madison Square Park, try the Rickshaw.

Yum. Duo chi yi dianr.

A Place that Wants Only to Take You

away from everything you know
into everything that was known.
You and your sisters, clutching berry boxes.
Brambles next to the pond, canes yearning over the creek.
Blackberries, thick tapered bodies
like bumble bees, darker than blue.
Work your way down the creek without knowing.
Drift away from this sister and that one.
Find your way into the heart of the patch.
This is where you are – a still summer day.
Your hair red-brown silk,
drifting waistward.
Sweet tang of berries
on your tongue.
Drone of insects.
Beat of sun.
Faraway days.

 

You were driving down the street toward your house when you saw a giant turtle at the crosswalk with a long stick protruding from his shell. For some reason, the sight of a giant turtle struggling to cross the street in the middle of the coldest January you can remember didn’t strike you as strange, although maybe it should have. You thought, “how odd, a giant turtle right there on my street,” and kept driving.

The second you drove past the giant wiggling turtle, you screeched the brakes and crunched to a stop in the middle of what you call a curb snowbank and the city of Minneapolis calls a plowed street. This was not a giant wiggling turtle, it was an old, large man in a dark green nylon parka, and he was fallen down onto his stomach. The long stick? His  cane, extended before him.

“Sir, what’s the best way for me to help you?”

“Up. Help me up.”

“No problem.”

You bent down and got your arms around his chest and lifted. He made it partway up and then lowered down again. He was heavy. It seemed that he had been struggling to get up for some time; he was shaky and he had a slightly panicky look in his eyes.  You remembered the woman you used to live down the street from, who had ripped her back apart trying to lift a patient out of a tub. You realized that you had no idea at all of how to get this man to his feet.

“Okay, this is what we’re going to do, sir. I’m going to lift slowly as you brace yourself on one leg. We’re going to rise together very steadily as you keep putting your weight on that leg. When we’re halfway up, you can put weight on your other leg as well.”

Where the hell did that come from? You know nothing about lifting heavy people off the ice and snow and onto their feet. Good God. And yet the words kept coming out of your mouth, soft and reassuring, as if you were some  kind of expert.

“Are you ready? On the count of three.”

He braced his weight on his left leg while you lifted slowly and steadily. Halfway up, he put weight on his other leg as well. Then he was fully up, and you handed him his walking stick.

“Can I give you a ride home, sir?”

No.

“Shall I walk you across the street?”

Yes.

Across the street you hobbled together, until he was on the other side and making his way down the poorly-shoveled sidewalk. Thank you, miss. You’re welcome, sir. Treacherous walking out here. Horrible winter. Stay warm. And off he went, and into your house you went, to stand by the fire and try to keep yourself upright and steady. For how long?

Here is a 250-year-old house in upstate New York.  Go on in and, if you dare, open the door that leads to the cellar. That’s right, cellar – no basement here. Make your way down the creaking steps, if you dare, and peer into the darkness, but since you probably don’t dare (and I don’t blame you one bit), I’d be happy to tell you what’s down there, or at least what I suspect is down there, since empirical evidence is hard to come by, here at the Homestead.

What’s down there, besides forgotten jars of 100-year-old home-canned bread and butter pickles? A whole bunch of dirt, scraps of wood, mouse skeletons, possibly a human skeleton for all I know, and a furnace. I think, anyway. So far as I know, it’s never been turned on.

That’s because we’re tough, here at the Homestead, and we heat our house with wood. Wood which we (meaning Don the Magnificent) cuts himself, legally (not always the case in upstate New York) from orange-circled trees up on state forest land in the Adirondacks.

Chainsaw the tree – ROAR – to its knees.

Chainsaw it into giant chunks.

Chainsaw it into smaller chunks.

And yet smaller chunks.

Gather ye daughters, while ye may, and, with their help, heave the chunks into  the back of the red pickup.

Head back to the homestead.

Gather ye daughters again, and, ignoring their whines, unload the chunks down by the big barn.

Take your maul and your wedge-thingie and set one of the chunks onto a giant stump and drive the wedge-thingie over and over into each of the the smaller chunks until they split into woodstove-size chunks. With daughters’ help, load up the woodstove-size chunks into the pickup and drive it up the dirt road to the Homestead.

Daughters, unload the chunks onto the porch. Form an assembly line and stack them the way I taught you.

Stack, stack, stack. This is my favorite part.  How I love to stack, and I’m good at stacking, and stack I do until that porch is filled with 6′ stacks of wood, until the small barn is filled with 6′ stacks of wood, until there is enough wood, an amount determined by Don the Magnificent.

Settle back and wait for winter, never a long wait in upstate New York, and then fire up the woodstove. Note, the woodstove, not the woodstoves. One woodstove to heat the entire house, which, being 250 years old, is beautifully insulated and airtight – kidding! – so that one woodstove in the kitchen is more than adequate to keep everyone toasty warm.

But what is this we see? Three daughters and their tiny brother, huddled zombie-like around the woodstove. Crouched, hunched, their hands under their armpits. This is where the furnace comes in, if only because it is never turned on. It could be turned on, or so we conjecture, but it is not. That is because we are upstate New Yorkers, and we are tough. Or at least Don the Magnificent is. The rest of us wouldn’t mind a hit of furnace every once in a while. Even once a month, say, during the winter months, which in upstate New York go from late August to early June.

Just a hint of fossil-fueled warmth? A whisper of petroleum-based relief?

Bwahahaha.

My plan is to build an igloo in my backyard. I will build it according to specifications downloaded from the internet, and I will do an excellent job, so that my igloo is airtight, solidly constructed, and worthy of occupation for the next few months. My igloo will be warm, because that’s what igloos are, aren’t they, according to the laws of physics, or chemistry, or biology, or Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? It’s hard to imagine just how an igloo could be warm, but I’ve been told by enough trustworthy people that they are exactly that. Since I am always cold, the warmth of my igloo will come as a relief.

In my igloo I will have a small fire, not for warmth – because igloos are naturally warm – but because fires are pretty, and I love them. There will be no smoke from my fire, but the faint smell of woodsmoke will permeate my clothes, just as it did during my childhood spent in a house heated with wood. You might think that in my igloo I will be wearing many layers of clothes, wool and Goretex and Neosporin, etc., but no. I’ll be wearing a t-shirt and a sweater, my favorite jeans, and my green cotton socks, and I’ll have an unzipped flannel-lined sleeping bag to lie on, because flannel-lined sleeping bags are extraordinarily cozy.

I’ll have music in my igloo. It will drift down from the rounded sides and ceiling of my igloo, and it will be beamed in telepathically, at will, from my own mind. Tom Waits,  Spoon, Yo La Tengo, Chopin, Outkast, the Burt Sugar Trio – anyone I want to hear,  at any given moment, will magically appear. “Appear” is not the right word for telepathically-beamed igloo music, but I can’t seem to think of a better one, and I’m sure you know what I mean.

Food? Of course. Strachiatella soup, baguettes from the long-gone New French Kitchen, Lindt milk chocolate truffles, a Shackburger from the Shake Shack, a small Mediterranean salad from the Chirping Chicken, and mounds of heavily-salted sauteed spinach with garlic. Salt in such large quantities is not good for you, you say? I’m sure you’re right, but this is my igloo, not yours.

I will have visitors in my igloo, and like the wishful music,  anyone I want to see will magically appear, from this world or other worlds unknown to me. Christine Hoffbeck, how lovely to see you again. Did you know that I think of you every morning, and I picture your smiling face and your tiny nose, especially the way it turned red that one time you drank that sip of champagne?

Caroly Bintz, wise and laughing friend of my youth, hello again, and welcome to my igloo, and let us conjure the giant glasses of chocolate milk we used to make every day at lunch when we snuck away from school and across the street to your green ranch house. And let us also conjure the half-inch-thick peanut butter sandwiches on Wonder Bread.

George Kirsch, I greet you with some reserve but also much interest, as, while I did not know you, I often picture you standing in an unknown living room and playing the violin. Please feel free to play the violin, if you wish. Or speak to me of whatever you want.

RJ and Doc and Greg,  I did not expect to see you here in my igloo, but what a happy surprise. And Ellen, and Meredith, and Susie: welcome. Betty Lee, you with your leopard-striped pants and lovely smile, hello, hello. Welcome, and isn’t it astonishing that such a small-appearing igloo can hold us all without feeling even a bit cramped, but there you have it.

Yes, I will build my igloo today. And I will live in it as long as I want. All around me the things that need to be done will be done by people who are not me, while I lie on my flannel-lined sleeping bag eating Original Flavor Bugles one by one and speaking – or not – with those dear to me.

The Perfect Patron. You make lists of books you want to read. You reserve them online. You patiently wait your turn for the new bestsellers and head promptly to the library when your time has come. You check out with a clean conscience using your own card, upon which no fines or warnings have been placed. You read said books within the allotted three-week period and return them before or by the due date. All the librarians like you. I myself don’t like you, but hey, that’s no reflection on you.

The Slightly Imperfect Patron. You occasionally go to the library and check out the books you wish to read. You also occasionally go to the library on behalf of your children in order to check out the books that said children need for the endless, mind-numbing five-paragraph essays that their schools require of them. This (the checking-out-for-your-children) along with the occasional overdue book is what makes you a slightly imperfect patron, because you should always return your books on time and you should also always teach your children that checking out the books for their five-paragraph essays is their responsibility. Librarians still like you, however, and so do I.

The Bad Patron. Even though there are many books that you wish to check out from the library and read, you avoid the library assiduously. And why is that? Because you cannot seem to return any book in a timely manner, meaning within a year or two after the date on which it is due.

This is a lifelong perversion, and despite the guilt and self-recrimination it has caused you lo these many years, you still can’t get it right. When you have to go to the library because no Half-Price Books in the entire metropolitan area has in stock the book you need – or, more accurately, the book your child needs for one of his or her endless, mind-numbing five-paragraph essays – you skulk to one of the many neighborhood libraries that dot your fair city.

With book in hand and eyes cast to the floor, you skulk to the check-out counter and hand over the book. You then try to determine which of the four library cards you carry within your wallet – one for you, one for each child – might be “clean,” as in, has the lowest overdue fine attached to it, and, trying for nonchalance, hand it over.

You are low! You are disgusting! You are the kind of patron who has carried a copy of Cherry Ames: Student Nurse with you for the past thirty years, fully intending to return it to the hometown library of your youth, aren’t you? Vile. Go home right now and hold your hand in a large bowl of ice cubes.

 

In glove compartment:

Miniature hard-plastic snap-open box of baby wipes bought in hopes of maintaining then-new car cleanliness. Small pack of kleenex received as part of complimentary “sniffles” pack given out by former health care provider (hated term #1: “health care provider,” along with hated term #2, “educator”). Insurance card, possibly up to date, possibly not (who can keep track? they come so often, and then must be punched out from their partially-laminated sheet of stiff paper). Son’s road test checklist and fee receipt. Easy-reference flip chart guide to car’s controls provided at time of then-new car sale. Winter emergency brown acrylic beret-like back-up hat to be used in case of sudden blizzard when one might have to hike nine miles to nearest town in white-out conditions with only telephone poles for guidance. Winter emergency black acrylic back-up scarf. Winter emergency pair of 2/$1 Walgreen’s acrylic one size fits all miniature gloves, each with tip of middle finger chewed off by covetous dog. Worn sheet of paper containing “How to Jump-Start Your Car” instructions kindly imparted by former student.

In driver’s side door pocket:  Pair of yellow rubber kitchen gloves placed there after reading that said gloves work wonders in removing dog hair from furniture (theory untested as of yet). Half-full plastic bottle of spring water which freezes each night and partially thaws when car has been driven more than 20 minutes. Crumpled Select-a-Size Viva paper towel kept in car in case of severe nose drip or beverage spill. Seven smooth gray rocks collected from beach on Lake Superior, which rattle each time car is braked or accelerated.

In secret lift-up storage compartment: Half-full can of mistakenly-bought “lightly salted” cashews kept in case of winter emergency hunger, used only as last resort because who wants “lightly” salted when one could have “extremely heavily salted”?

In front passenger side door : Not sure, to be honest. Perhaps crumpled cellophane wrappers. Perhaps wadded up pieces of paper containing ABC gum. Perhaps old railroad tie bolts found by side of railroad track in Bucyrus, North Dakota. Perhaps nothing, although that seems highly unlikely.

On back seat: Royal blue fleece blanket spread over entire seat and wedged between back cushions in mostly fruitless attempt to keep dog hair confined to fleece blanket and not back seat.

In back seat sleeve storage compartment: Empty plastic water bottle left by child passenger. Small winter emergency pad of paper and pen in case last note of love and reassurance needs to be left for loved ones who will be notified by the authorities of frozen body found huddled within small cinnamon-colored car. Tiny empty boxes of Jujy Fruits, Milk Duds and Nerds left over from Halloween and not disposed of by child passenger, who has many good qualities, cleanliness not being one of them.

In trunk:  One 50-pound bag of “grit” and three 50-pound bags of sand, bought from Bryant Hardware in (utterly vain) attempt to make car perform better – or, rather, perform at all – when faced with ice or snow in any amount, serving as impetus for winter emergency preparations. One 15-pound bag of Solid Gold Lamb and Rice dog food. One half-full box of Peanut Butter Madness! Dog Biscuits in shape of happy capering gingerbread boy-like creature. Royal-blue plastic dog double food+water combo travel bowl. One-third full bottle of blue windshield wiper juice. Three dog-mauled tennis balls. Three bungee cords in blue, green and orange. TwoThule tie-downs. Extra light green fleece dog blanket which could also be used in case of emergency, as when traversing North Dakota in a blizzard and forced to pull over by side of road with only dogs and fleece dog blankets for warmth and lightly-salted cashews for sustenance, followed by Peanut Butter Madness! Dog Biscuits in case lightly-salted cashews run out. Travel Scrabble in case of emergency need for entertainment. Miniature, barely-adequate scraper which will not be replaced because of the known existence – even if currently unfindable – of expensive, ergonomically correct, expandable scraper/brush combo in attractive shade of royal blue. Large plastic bag which once contained dozens and dozens of unopened,  now opened and emptied, tiny Halloween-size boxes of Jujy Fruits, Nerds, and Milk Duds, continually pilfered over months by candy-mad child despite constant stern warnings by mother to Stop. Stealing. That. Candy.

 

Pretend you have grown wings and are flying high in the night sky above the Homestead, in far upstate New York, about five hours driving distance north of New York City. (The fact that New York State geography is defined by its relation to New York City is annoying to you, but you accept it as part of the burden you must bear.) Feel the cool air on your tired body. Your wings rise and fall with a steady power. Your gaze is fixed on the distant horizon, where foothills begin their steady rise to the Adirondack Mountains. You look down at the only lights you can see, which are the headlights of a small truck, climbing slowly over hill and dale. The truck appears to be searching for something – not that you can tell, overtly, that the truck is searching, but it is something that you, with your extrasensory powers and ability to fly can sense.

Let us now descend for a closer look at this small truck. Fold your wings and dive downward. Swoop up as you draw near. What manner of vehicle is this?

Why, it is a Northwest Airlines baggage delivery truck. And where might you be heading, sir?

“I’ve got a bag to deliver to an address on Route 274.”

And is there a problem?

“I got no idea where the hell I am. I don’t even know if I’m on Route 274. There’s no signs.”

Are you worried?

“There’s no signs,” the truck driver says again. “It’s completely black out here. Does anyone actually live this far out in the woods?”

The truck driver pulls a small phone from his shirt pocket, flips on the cab light, and punches in some numbers.

“Hello? Are you the lady whose bag went missing at the Syracuse airport? Yeah. Well I’ve got it in the truck and I’m trying to find you.”

Pause.

“I don’t even know if I’m on the right road.”

Pause. The truck driver turns off the cab light and peers through the windshield, craning for a glimpse of something. Anything.

“Well,” he says. “There’s lots of trees.”

Pause.

“You’re standing on your front porch with a flashlight?” he says.

He flips shut the phone. “She says she’s standing on her front porch with a flashlight,” he mutters to himself. “She says she’ll guide me in. Jesus.”

Rise into the night sky again and peer through the darkness. The headlights of the small truck recede behind you as the driver makes his anxious and untrusting way further into the blackness. Will he find his way to the Homestead? For that is where he is headed, with the Matriarch’s lone lost rolling suitcase safely stowed behind him.
What is that we spy in the distance? Could it be? It is. Miles north, a woman stands on her front porch, holding a flashlight angled toward the North Star. It is the Matriarch, woman of light.

Behind you comes a cry of joy.

“I see the light!” the truck driver says to the dark silence of his cab. “It must be her!”

The Matriarch waits with the infinite patience of a woman used to guiding strangers to the Homestead. Her flashlight, freshly supplied with three “D” batteries, shines its light to the indifferent heavens. Now there is a crunch of gravel on the compacted dirt of the driveway. Now a man leaps from the cab, his arms spread wide. He envelops the Matriarch in a hug. He was lost, and now he is found.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

The Matriarch smiles the calm smile of one used to this scene. Those who can bear the darkness of a Homestead night, those who can take the blackness without believing themselves lost and forsaken, those who can turn off the lamp when they go to bed and see no light but the light of a million stars clustered in the heavens, are few. And the Matriarch knows it. She offers the man her flashlight.

“Would you like it?” she says.

He accepts it as he would accept holy water offered by the Pope and cradles it between his fingers.

“Here’s your bag,” he says, retrieving it from its place behind his seat. “Good luck to you.”

And off he goes, red taillights receding in the distance as he rounds the curve at the unmarked intersection of Fraser Road and Route 274, here in the starlit Homeland, where few dare to tread.

Zip codes in which you have lived: 02114 (past), 55408 (current), and 05346 (also current). Apartments: six. Houses: four. Bathroomless one-room cabins in Vermont: one. Children, two of whom are now as tall or taller than you: three. Neurotic cats: one. Hyper dogs who remain meth-head-like no matter how much you exercise them: one. Broken bones: one. Trips to Italy: two. Times fallen in love: five. Eyeballs lasered: two. Days spent rising before 5 a.m. to write until you wrote a book good enough to be published: 5,476 minus approximately 1500 spent despairing of talent, lacking in work ethic, or too damn tired = 3975. Shoe size: ten. Minutes per running mile: the same sad nine. Ability to alpine ski, despite having attended a college with its very own ski slope: zero. Novels read: approximately 750. Trips to China: three. Times spent slapping then-four-year-old son in middle of night when you were exhausted and he would not let you sleep: one. Times spent despising self for slapping then- four-year-old son in middle of night when you were exhausted and he would not let you sleep: countless. Trips to Taiwan: two. Novels written (published): seven. Novels written (that will never be published): 2.5. Trips to Paris: one. Vows to stop saying the f-word in front of children: many. Times vow to stop saying the f-word in front of children has been broken: many. How much you used to pay youngest book-hating child to read, per half-hour: $.50. Best friends named Ellen Harris Swiggett: one. Marriages: one. Divorces: one. Trips to Portugal: two. Regrets: a few. Poems read before dawn daily: three. Friends and family members seen through cancer treatment: three. Trips to Spain: one. Shortest length of hair: one inch. Longest length of hair: three feet. Shade required to maintain hair’s natural color: L’Oreal French Roast #45. Trips to London: one. Pre-dawn times at which you typically wake and rise: 2:47, 3:20, 4:54. Strong cups of coffee drunk before dawn: .7. Men who, upon noting length of fingers, have asked if you can palm a basketball: approximately 18. Times heart has been broken: four. Trips to Mexico: nine. Pairs of tomato-red suede pants: one. Times spent dreaming that you are driving up an increasingly vertical road until your car tips backward and you fall into a bottomless void: at least 46. Times spent dreaming that you are short one chemistry class and therefore cannot graduate: at least 37. Letters written to grandmother before she died: approximately 570. Lindt Milk Chocolate Truffles consumed: approximately 2100. Times spent practicing Chopin’s Prelude in F Minor without noticeable improvement: approximately 233. Trips to Bhutan, Morocco, Macchu Picchu: none. Yet. Times daily you think how lucky you are to be living this big fat life: at least three.