Nothing Stays the Same

"Nothing stays the same."  Nothing. Ever.

I glanced at my cookbook binder sitting on my counter-top and it hit me like a bag of flour falling from the top cupboard and landing on my head!

Nothing stays the same. Don't get me wrong, it's not so much about the recipes in the binder in my picture below. It's more about how we've changed. With the recent diagnoses of gluten intolerance and food allergies for my husband we've had to change the way we eat. The recipes that fill my cookbooks, folders, recipe boxes and binders have served me well over the years but they list too many ingredients that my husband can't eat now.

Then I looked at the antique spoons, the salt and pepper shakers, coffee maker, jars, recipes and new coffee cup also on the counter, and realized there's more to the story.

The clippings inserted in the left side of the binder were cut out of the Columbia Tribune on October 21, 1998. It's my favorite Donna Pierce article titled "NOTHING STAYS THE SAME." Donna's story is about the day her friend and neighbor Johanna moved. Donna's articles always touched my heart.

I had the opportunity one day last year to tell Donna's father, Dr. Eliot Battle, how much I loved her articles. It was just before the dedication for our new Columbia high school (named for her late mother, Muriel Battle.) Still wish I'd followed my urge that morning to snap Dr. Battle's picture as we talked. He was proudly wearing his BATTLE HIGH SPARTANS hat and beaming ear to ear as we talked about his beloved daughter. Dr. Battle passed away soon after that.

Nothing stays the same.

To the left of the cookbook are some spoons that belonged to my grandmothers. One is stamped STREATOR ILL HIGH SCHOOL in the bowl and is dated 2•8•'03 (1903), my grandmother's fourth birthday. The berry spoon in the center (that I use almost every day to stir my coffee) was my great grandmother's. It's stamped " '96", 1896 that is!

There's a Keurig Coffee maker, which managed to replace my Cuisinart (NEVER thought I'd give that up!) A glass jar holding Stevia that has replaced our sugar. The white bird salt and pepper shakers remind me of the extensive miniature salt and pepper shaker collection my mom collected in the '40's (mom's been gone now for over 25 years.) On the right side of my cookbook is the gluten-egg-milk-butter-GMO free chicken dumpling recipe I created the other night. Finally there's the mug with two of my grandsons' picture on it. I look at the mug and I'm reminded of how fast they are growing up.

There's more at stake here though, besides the items in my kitchen. It's about more than mugs with the grandson's picture, spoons that bring out lots of memories, recipes and such; I'm talking about changing our way of thinking.

Nothing stays the same.

We're knocking out wheat, egg, milk, cheese, butter, soy, peanut, GMO's and more from our diet, but what I'm thinking about is even tougher. It's about changing the way we thinking about dyslexia; a change of attitude in the schools and in our nation.

When it comes to dyslexia, autism, ADHD, etc. it feels like nothing has changed.

Something has to happen.