(CREATIVE NONFICTION)
NECESSITIES
HANNAH BLASER
NECESSITIES
HANNAH BLASER
When I am small, maybe five, my grandma sits me down with a stained flour sack towel and a needle to teach me how to cross stitch. It’s tedious, and I am more of a big picture girl, though I don’t know it yet. She draws a duck in blue ink and I trace over it with tiny, shaky xs. For the new baby, she tells me. And my aunt is pregnant and I have no way to grasp the months as they fly by, but I do know that if I perfect the coffee-stained duck, I can move on to a clean slate that will turn into a bib.
Around this time she teaches me to make tie blankets and tuna casserole. We roll out pie crusts made from cutting shortening into flour, and we sprinkle the excess dough with cinnamon and sugar to make cookies. We snap beans in the shade of the porch and collect chestnuts to roast and salt. We walk through fields searching for deer antlers and discarded golf balls, and I collect both with growing reverence for what can be found in the dirt. We walk down the lane and feed fallen apples to the pony. She shows me that certain flowers can be eaten. We climb over fences instead of opening the gates. We whistle with blades of grass between our lips. I rip apart so many Queen Anne’s Lace trying to make a flower crown that my hands burn red. She cuts my sandwiches into butterflies. I paint twenty pictures a day. She saves them all.
Around this time she is unstoppable, to me a force not unlike the sunshine or rain, depending on the day we will either stay inside making candies and art or exhaust ourselves outside walking purposefully through mud to our next task. I assume her plans dictate the weather. I assume each painting made and each flower eaten is a task of unequivocal importance, that my days are built around necessity and I love doing what’s needed, love knowing that I am learning the skills I will need to navigate life, love imagining myself surviving a night in the wilderness with only a blade of whistling grass and the underbelly of sweet flowers to keep me company.
I am older when she falls down the stairs. I am not there. Older still when she falls to the floor while listening to the Cubs playing over the radio.
Around this time she is fragile, to me a crown of lace flowers, a sharp summer whistle, a pie crust cookie, all just out of reach. I am not five. I’m more of a big picture girl now living in a bigger place with big dreams. Alone in my apartment, I pour over old letters. I trace her handwriting. I write and rewrite replies I never send. I scour my old recipe box for any written by her. I have forgotten how to whistle with a blade of grass, forgotten which flowers can be eaten. I don’t eat tuna, don’t make casseroles, left my sewing box in my childhood bedroom with my hoops and needles. I am mad with desperation for everything time steals away. I cut a half cup of shortening into a bowl of flour. I lay the crust over the pie pan. I roll and roll and roll the excess to make cookies. To navigate life, I remember the necessities, how the setting sun danced over the brittle corn husks and we watched, me small with stubbornness and calloused feet, waiting for the new day. I remember how she rose to meet each morning, a clean slate carefully holding all my paintings, all my crowns, all my shaky stitches, saying honey girl, pointing out the smallest details in every picture.
Around this time she teaches me to make tie blankets and tuna casserole. We roll out pie crusts made from cutting shortening into flour, and we sprinkle the excess dough with cinnamon and sugar to make cookies. We snap beans in the shade of the porch and collect chestnuts to roast and salt. We walk through fields searching for deer antlers and discarded golf balls, and I collect both with growing reverence for what can be found in the dirt. We walk down the lane and feed fallen apples to the pony. She shows me that certain flowers can be eaten. We climb over fences instead of opening the gates. We whistle with blades of grass between our lips. I rip apart so many Queen Anne’s Lace trying to make a flower crown that my hands burn red. She cuts my sandwiches into butterflies. I paint twenty pictures a day. She saves them all.
Around this time she is unstoppable, to me a force not unlike the sunshine or rain, depending on the day we will either stay inside making candies and art or exhaust ourselves outside walking purposefully through mud to our next task. I assume her plans dictate the weather. I assume each painting made and each flower eaten is a task of unequivocal importance, that my days are built around necessity and I love doing what’s needed, love knowing that I am learning the skills I will need to navigate life, love imagining myself surviving a night in the wilderness with only a blade of whistling grass and the underbelly of sweet flowers to keep me company.
I am older when she falls down the stairs. I am not there. Older still when she falls to the floor while listening to the Cubs playing over the radio.
Around this time she is fragile, to me a crown of lace flowers, a sharp summer whistle, a pie crust cookie, all just out of reach. I am not five. I’m more of a big picture girl now living in a bigger place with big dreams. Alone in my apartment, I pour over old letters. I trace her handwriting. I write and rewrite replies I never send. I scour my old recipe box for any written by her. I have forgotten how to whistle with a blade of grass, forgotten which flowers can be eaten. I don’t eat tuna, don’t make casseroles, left my sewing box in my childhood bedroom with my hoops and needles. I am mad with desperation for everything time steals away. I cut a half cup of shortening into a bowl of flour. I lay the crust over the pie pan. I roll and roll and roll the excess to make cookies. To navigate life, I remember the necessities, how the setting sun danced over the brittle corn husks and we watched, me small with stubbornness and calloused feet, waiting for the new day. I remember how she rose to meet each morning, a clean slate carefully holding all my paintings, all my crowns, all my shaky stitches, saying honey girl, pointing out the smallest details in every picture.
Originally from rural Illinois, Hannah Blaser has degrees in Creative Writing and Communication from St. Ambrose University in Iowa. She currently lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin. Her poems and creative nonfiction pieces have appeared in the 2015, '16, '17, and '18 editions of Quercus and in 3Elements Review. She spends her free time writing, hiking, and playing board games.