Cantata

The word cantata came up in the spelling bee puzzle this morning and it sent me down roads and byroads of memories of my Bach-loving Dad, and especially of Sunday mornings.  Dad and I would do the shopping at Daitch Market on Mamaroneck Avenue and we would bring home bagels, cream cheese, lox, smoked whitefish and, if Dad was feeling flush, a chunk of smoked sturgeon. We’d spread the feast on the table.  It was the one time of the week when you could be nearly certain everyone would be at the table at the same time.  We generally all ate dinner together, but someone was often out with friends or up to something.  But Sunday mornings were, without any overt agreement, family time.

After the chatter over breakfast Dad would put Bach (or maybe Teleman or Vivaldi, but usually Bach) on the record player and we would all pipe down.  Dad would stretch out on the couch with the front section of the Times, Mom would start on the crossword puzzle or the Science Times.  Shayne or I, whoever got to it first, would claim the Magazine section and the runner up would get the Book Reviews. Tamar and Aviva, not yet interested in the newspaper, did kid stuff – maybe up in their room, but more often on the living room carpet. I don’t remember ever thinking explicitly that this was such a happy time, that we were so lucky to be together, well housed, well fed, at peace with one another.  But it was a happy time.  And we were so lucky.  Of course there were disagreements and strife, but not on Sunday mornings.

Then, as now, if there was sun it was the pale winter sun.  These Mamaroneck Sundays happened only in our family’s extended winter season, the period from Halloween to Passover when we did not spend weekends in Amenia.  So Dad and I would have bundled up to do the shopping, and on many Sundays our feet would have crunched on the frozen snow as mine did this morning on my way to Moe pond. I loved shopping with my Dad, and for some reason I was usually his shopping partner.  He was a decisive shopper, as I am now.  Jay says I shop like a man – this is what I want, if you have it, I’ll take it, if not, I’m out of here.  My mother, by contrast, could stand in front of a shelf of canned soups lost in uncertainty over which to choose for what seemed like ages to me. 

But if my mother was a maddening shopper, she was a wonderful observer outdoors.  I never walk to Moe pond without thinking of her.  She taught me to see and smell and hear what was around me, to learn the names of things, to learn how things grew and reproduced, to learn how they changed with the seasons, to understand how they were interrelated, to pay attention, to be curious, to be amazed.  We were incredibly lucky to have parents whose interests and skills were so different.  Mom had learned to enjoy Bach, but her favorite music was the sound of a brook or the song of a chickadee. Dad was oblivious to the pleasures of a crossword puzzle or the beauty of a mathematical equation, but he could quote Lincoln and tell you how the battle of Gettysburg unfolded in great detail. Their life together was far from perfect, but they were each, in their own ways, fabulous parents and wonderful teachers.  They gave us the great gifts of unconditional love, of enormous confidence in us, of admiration for our differences, of patience with our shortcomings.  They gave us those Sunday mornings.