my name is barbara mahany. i am a feature writer for the chicago tribune, married to the tribune’s architecture critic, blair kamin, and the mother of two heavenly boys, will, 13, and teddy, 5. i used to be a pediatric oncology nurse. i wanted to open an inner-city clinic and take care of women and children. but a sad thing happened on my way to grad school in boston: my dad died. at his funeral the priest read a letter i had written to my papa the christmas right before he died. someone who was there, a bigwig at the chicago ad agency where my dad had spent nearly two decades, took me to lunch two weeks later and said, “kid, you can write. have you ever thought of journalism?” i walked home from that lunch, and here, 26 years later, i have a master’s in journalism from northwestern, a quarter century at the tribune, a husband and two kids, thanks to that lunch. we lived in the city until four years ago, about a year after our miracle boy was born. (both, by the way, are miracles; one just happened to come totally unexpectedly, a few years after the doctors told me i would never ever have another baby, a few months shy of my 45th birthday, i’ll have you know.) now we live in a leafy suburb, just north of the city. our old house reminded me of my grandmother’s the first time i traipsed the curving stone walk, up the stone steps and through the front door. bit by bit, we have torn down walls, tucked cupboards here, crown moldings there. it echoes my heart nearly everywhere i look. this is the house where i will grow old. this is the house that stokes my dreams.
these are the things that make my heart skip...
the tick tock of a clock early in the morning...
watching a flurry of birds come in for a landing at my feeder, taking turns, shooshing each other away...
studying mama bird build her nest, collect her stringed things, shop for just the right twig. learning patience in the way she spends unbroken hours on her unhatched hope-filled eggs...
a long, fat letter from a faraway friend...
snipping herbs from my windowsill in the winter, from my kitchen garden the rest of the year...
a wine-steeped stew bubbling away in the oven all afternoon...
a basket of garden bounty, char-striped and oozing juice, as it’s lifted from the grill, amid snow or rain or sun, it never really matters...
collecting children’s books as rich in story as they are in illustrations...
candy canes and marshmallows populating steamy mugs of hot cocoa after school...
pink lemonade and pretzels, ferried on an old metal tray to a screened-in porch, on a hot summer’s afternoon...
the cobalt of delphinium as it climbs to touch the heavens....
red tulips spilling from the old cracked milk pitcher that sits on my counter...
bread so thick and so packed with whole grains you need a butcher knife to cut it....
cranking my teenager’s tunes so loud the walls rattle, especially when he’s home to join in the madness...
my brothers, i have four of them...
the women i have collected all my life, the ones i call my sisters...
birdhouses in crayola colors, hanging from limbs, from walls, sitting on shelves...
red plaid bows. brown paper packages. all under a fir tree...
old quilts...
listening for God in everyday whisperings...
lighting candles at dinner in the middle of the week....
tea sets so tiny the cups are smaller than thimbles...
listening to my husband talk about windows, telling me they’re the source of divine animation....
old typewriters....
lists...
waking up early, making a pot of coffee for me, stirring oatmeal and a pantry full of dried fruits for my boys...
shabbat dinner every friday night; getting ready for shabbat all friday afternoon...
filling my table with friends whose ideas soar like kites, whose laughter makes the walls shake...
long walks in the winter woods...or in springtime, tiptoeing among the tender shoots as they first crack through the thawing earth...
crackling logs in the fireplace...
watching my boys, all three of them, play at the fine art of living...
tucking love notes under pillows, in lunch bags, in coat pockets...
just about everything autumnal: the smell of a bonfire under a starry night sky; sweaters, the fat bulky kind; acorns that poing on your noggin as you stroll under the oaks; crunching through the golden-hued woods or the crimson ones; pumpkins, to eat in a muffiny way, or to plop on the stoop, especially the ones that look like cinderella might climb in next time she needs a ride to a ball, or a quick exit to make it home before midnight, when it’s back to ashes again....
treasured children’s books
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1.“what you know first,” by patricia maclachlan
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2.anything illustrated by tasha tudor
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3.elsa beskow books
links i love...
black-and-white
tea party
november 2006
guardian angels, patron saints and bright lights of pull up a chair:
sandra sweetpea, my doula, the thinkiest thinker i know and love; my sweet will, a whiz of a kid if ever there was; elizabeth marie, who nudged me off the ledge; editor elaine, who always knows my heart, and gives voice to my song; my sisters who feed me, heart and soul...xxx
a farmhouse kitchen is born
nearly all of 2006
a few best things:
best bread: heavenly hearth bread co.; multigrain, cranberry corn, cinnamon swirl. yum. yum. yum.
1101 central ave. wilmette, il. 847.853.0200.
best cookie cutters: hammersong tinware cutters; so whimsical, so sweet, it’s hard to stop. http://lacuisineus.com/
best place to wanna be a kid again, a really charmed one: the “swede pea” corner of the sweden shop; sugarplums will swirl in your heads. 3304 w. foster ave., chicago. 773. 478.0327.
best all-season corner to curl up in, with a warm mug o’ tea: the bourgeois pig cafe; proust and shakespeare would linger here. vats of teas, paned windows, shelves of books. heaven. if pigs had wings. 738 w. fullerton pkwy., chicago. 773.883.5282.
