A song, a pond, or a good book can make the pandemic feel far away

By Beverly Beckham

In the midst of this pandemic, which, like a monster from a 1950s horror movie feigns death but then springs to life again, I made a few discoveries. Because we didn’t travel this summer, I found some things close to home that made me forget, for at least a little while, this shape-changing creature that refuses to go away.

I’ll start with Shirley Horn. I googled a song, “Here’s to Life,” because I love it and it led me to YouTube. And YouTube led me to her. I watched a clip from 1993, when this pianist and jazz singer performed with John Williams and The Boston Pops. And for a solid five minutes, I didn’t think about anything except this song because Horn infuses so much feeling into her lyrics that you feel as if you’re watching a movie, not simply listening to a person sing. Why had I never listened to her before?

Why had I never listened to Alicia Keys, either? I know she is a singer but only because I watched “The Voice” when she was one of the judges. Somewhere I read that the audio of her autobiography, “More Myself,” was excellent. So I downloaded it. “A song, at its core, is a testimony. It’s how we tell our stories ... It’s how we forget our troubles for a time,” she read in a voice that is music all by itself. And then I listened to her sing. And she, too, made me forget the beast banging at the door.

I discovered Houghton’s Pond in Milton, which is near my home. It’s a great place to walk, swim, picnic, and forget. So far, I’ve only walked, but I’ve seen people picnicking and playing games and singing and dancing and barbecuing and even getting baptized, adults in white being immersed in a pond formed 10,000 years ago by receding glaciers.

A 10,000-year-old pond puts even a monster in its place.

And then there’s Tangerini’s Farm in Millis, which is only 26 miles southwest of Boston but feels a galaxy away. A place out of time, it’s a 60-acre working farm with ducks and geese and chicks, just like in the old song. Only instead of a surrey with a fringe on the top, there’s an ice cream stand and a small store that sells fresh produce and a restaurant that serves the freshest foods. And on weekends there is live music. Plus, all summer long you can pick flowers from their fields and depending on the season, you can pick blueberries and peaches and apples, too.

But my best discovery this second summer of COVID-19 is a book my friend John said I’d love. He’s almost always right about books. But this one was written by a young woman, Liz Hauck, who lives in the same building he lives in. So I thought he might be biased.

He wasn’t.

“Home Made,” subtitled “A Story of Grief, Groceries, Showing Up — and What We Make When We Make Dinner,” is flawless. How someone, anyone, never mind a first-time author could write a page-turner about cooking one meal a week with teenage boys in state care who live in a group home is stunning. Equally stunning is that Hauck lives in Boston and the home she wrote about was, until it closed its doors in 2009, in Boston, too.

Hauck wrote “Home Made” for her father, Charlie, who until his death in 2004 worked at that home. It was her way of honoring him. And giving him a kind of immortality.

She was cooking with her father. And they talked while they cooked and he was trying to figure out a way to get to know the kids he worked with better. And she said, “What about a cooking class?” Once a week. Dinner. Teach the kids how to cook. And her father agreed. And then he got sick. And then he died.

So she took on teaching the boys how to cook herself. Asked them what they liked. Bought groceries. And soda. Taught them how to dice and fry and sir and mix. Made them birthday cakes. And birthday dinners.

But Liz Hauck has a very small part in her unforgettable tale. The boys, all of them damaged, abandoned by people who were supposed to love them, are the main characters. Every week she showed up and they didn’t talk much. But week by week, year by year, she learned about these boys. And the reader learns, too, and cares more and more with every turn of the page.

“Home Made” reads like a movie and it’s paced like a movie. But it isn’t a movie. It’s a true story about boys who got the short end of the stick through no fault of their own, inequality the most destructive and most indestructible monster of them all.