Clothespins

Before her frail days, Aunt Belle had been a powerhouse - raising a family of six boys and two girls, managing a working tree farm, seeing to all the details of everyday life with efficiency and skill. She rose early to feed chickens and milk cows, labored long into the night to balance books, and in between found time to feed, clothe, and shelter her husband and family. She laughed often and never complained.

Life overtook her without warning one fine Monday morning as she hung the wash and suddenly couldn't remember the word for clothespins. She laughed it off as forgetfulness, Something a woman of my age is certainly entitled to! she told my grandmother, and went about her business. A few evenings later, she forgot to make dinner and a week or so later she got lost in the woods she had grown up in, not recognizing her own daughter who found her curled up next to a pine tree and crying. She began wandering into the village, asking directions to places no one had heard of, smiling and singing snatches of nursery rhymes to herself, sometimes barefoot, sometimes carrying a basket of apples that she would offer to sell for a nickel. Kind hearted friends and neighbors would come to her aid, locating one of her children or leading her gently home - sometimes they just stayed nearby, keeping an eye on her until her husband Peter arrived, at a loss as to how to talk to her to through this growing mist of confusion and lost memory. She had moments, sometimes whole days, of clarity and clear thinking and became the woman she had been but as the months passed, such times became more and more rare, until Peter reluctantly called the childen home to be with her. Even though the responsibility was shared, the stress, worrry and guilt took their toll and the family began to fragment and lose structure, the dementia was unpredictable, not well understood and fearfully strong, requiring more patience and tolerance than Peter or the children could sustain.

Belle herself - still lucid enough, often enough - knew only that things were going dreadfully wrong and that she couldn't stop or correct it. She felt compromised and a burden, murkily trying to struggle through her days and remember the basics but more often lost and frustrated, not sure of something as simple as where her next few footsteps might lead. She seemed to better at night when she and Peter would sit quietly in the orderly little kitchen but sometimes she wept and could not say why. On those nights, he put her to bed early and lay next to her until she fell asleep, hoping for rest, peaceful dreams and a better tomorrow, praying for strength to face it.

Five years to the day that she had forgotten what clothespins were called, Belle went into Dalhousie, into the hands of mental health professionals. It's just for a little while, Peter assured her as the children said their goodbyes, I promise it's just for a little while. Of course it wasn't and he could only desperately hope that she didn't know it or would forgive and maybe in time forget. For the first time, he prayed that the dementia would not let her go and that she would find some kind of contentment and peace. He visited every week, spending every spare minute with her and bringing the children and grandchildren whenever he could but seeing only a stranger with a false smile and sad eyes.

Strange how often in the battle between strength and frailty, frailty so often wins.

The Coffin Maker

I had heard stories that deep in the Maine woods, in a small and isolated cabin at the very end of a dirt road, there lived a coffin maker, a man who had fled civilization and modernization for a solitary life, an artist and woodworker who had tired of time clocks and fast food and small talk.

I came across him by accident, trailing after the dogs on an early autumn morning, through the woods and across the pasture, crossing the tiny brook where the deer often gathered, past the abandoned fence lines of Squirrel Point and finally into a small clearing. The cabin stood in the shadows of the trees, looking like a dusty old painting with the sun at its back and a carefully stacked woodpile by the door. A battered pick up truck was parked nearby, its bed covered with a tarp and its windows rolled down and behind it I could see what looked to be a well, roofed with old shingles, a wooden bucket hanging from a frayed rope in the center. The dogs, curious but strangely silent, approached the cabin door where a scarred and clearly ancient tiger cat slept on the window sill. It woke and looked at the them briefly, remarkably impassive and unconcerned, then yawned and buried its head in its paws. Just as remarkably, the dogs gave him no more than a passing glance. There was poetry and a strong feeling of peace in this place, and, I realized with a start, whistling in the air.

The front door of the cabin swung open with a creaking groan and a man appeared. He held a tin cup of coffee in one hand, a pair of worn safety glasses hung 'round his neck. He looked first at the dogs, approvingly, I thought, and then at me, a little less so. Taking a step onto the porch and paying no mind to the dogs, who immediately ran past him to inspect the interior of the cabin, he nodded in my direction. Mornin', he said evenly, Lost yer way, have you? He could have been twenty or forty, tall and thin with dark hair streaked with gray and tied back in a loose pony tail. He wore ragged jeans and a denim shirt streaked with what I thought at first might be blood but then realized was a combination of dirt, paint, varnish and sweat. He stepped aside - he was barefoot, I saw and unaccountably I was surprised - and held the tin cup toward me, Coffee?

The inside of the cabin was lit by lanterns and sunlight. It was spartan - a wood stove against the wall, a single cot, neatly made and covered with a quilt, a wooden table with two ladder backed chairs, a lone cabinet in a corner and a set of shelves mounted on the wall, holding a few plates, a few plastic glasses, a blue and white cup of silverware. A frying pan and a couple of dented pots were hung on nails by the stove and on the back of the single open closet door, a yellow slicker hung on a hook. Inside I could see a pair of muddy work boots beneath a wall of hooks and nails on which rested several flannel shirts, several pairs of blue jeans, a set of longjohns and a navy jacket. A well worn and small chest of drawers sat to the side and I suspected I was seeing the whole of his wardrobe. This was not a man who made concessions - a washstand stood next to the stove, on it a ceramic wash basin and within the basin, a matching but chipped pitcher with a delicately curved handle. I was struck by a memory of Nana's Nova Scotia house, where each bedroom featured just such a set of basin and pitcher although only for show. Mr. McCauley's washstand was obviously not just decoration - a lone and well used bar of a soap, a razor strap, and a folded, shabby handtowel lay neatly beside the basin.

He poured coffee into a mug, handed it to me, and gestured toward the table in the center of the room. Name's McCauley, he told me as he took a chair opposite me, And who are these fine boys? Both dogs had taken up positions at his side and as he scratched their ears, they contentedly laid their muzzles on his thigh, tails wagging
fiercely. Good dogs, Golden Retrievers, he told me across the table, Smart, brave, loyal as all get out. Almost as worthy as a cat. He laughed at this and glanced over his shoulder toward the window where the old tiger cat was now sitting and looking in through the glass with a somewhat bored expression.

Before we left, Mr. McCauley showed me the only other room of the cabin, a workshop that overlooked the woods and far mountains and smelled of wood and hard work, private and solitary work, done by commission only, I later learned. Each coffin was crafted, lined, hinged and polished, one meticulous step at a time - they shone in the morning light, each resting on a pair of sturdy sawhorses that stood a foot or so apart on the planked, unfinished wooden floor of the second room. There were five in all, four completed and one still in progress. They ranged from the simplest - clean lines, sharp corners and plain handles - to the most elaborate - smoothly curved edges with intricate carving and gleaming gold hardware. On the other side of the room, there were two work benches, a wooden stool, and shelf upon shelf of supplies, hammers and screwdrivers, box after box of wooden pegs in different sizes, cans of paint and varnish and lacquer, stacks of polishing cloths, cans of turpentine and an assortment or cleaning rags, sandpaper, paint brushes and hand saws. Everything was neatly arranged and easily accessible. Here Mr. McCauley spent his days, creating coffins against the backdrop of the Maine woods, with only nature and old tiger cat for company.

After a time, the dogs and I left, returning the way we had come in the late afternoon dusk. I spoke of the coffin maker to no one, keeping the visit private and never making the trip a second time. I wasn't entirely sure why, but I instinctively knew that Mr. McCauley would've preferred it. I was to see him again, though. On a frosty cold November morning in Kittery, I passed Pelkey's, the town's only funeral home, and noticed a familiar pick up truck with a tarp covered bed. Workers were sliding a padding covered coffin down a ramp under the watchful eyes of a tall, thin, long haired man in jeans and a navy jacket. As I drove slowly by, he glanced my way, nodded and raised a tin cup of coffee toward me. I smiled back.

Mr. McCauley's choice of coffin making and seclusion, his decision to live apart from the rest of us, remained his own. In some ways, privacy is a gift we can only give ourselves and should be honored, respected, and left alone.

Rabbits in the Rose Garden

My first marriage lasted a total of ten years, most of it spent in the south, living in the same city as my husband's family. Looking back, I wonder that I never got to know them any better.

My father in law was an intimidating and impressive figure - businessman, scholar, philanthropist, philosopher, newspaper publisher, teacher - but he could never could invent a way to keep the rabbits out of his prized rose garden. It drove him wild that the small brown creatures regularly outwitted him, devouring the satiny rose petals with abandon. He tried feeding them, tried barb wire and a variety of types of fencing, even tried moving the entire garden but the raiding rabbits returned night after night, season after rose growing season. The fragile flowers were too much temptation and too easy a target.

My mother in law - a mystifyingly kind and gentle spirit with the protective instincts of a tiger when it came to her children - also loved flowers but preferred to work in solitary in her greenhouse, especially on the cool, clear spring mornings. She gardened for the pure pleasure of working with her hands and the soil and often emerged with smears of dirt on her face and stray leaves in her coiffed hair. When company arrived, she would throw open the front door and cry, Come in my house! with intense sincerity and she gave untold hours of her time to charity, the elderly, the less fortunate and the Presbyterian church.

When I came to know them, they lived in a house of their own design, a showcase and the grandest I had ever seen, five bedrooms each with its own bath and some with their own dressing rooms, formal living and dining, den, breakfast room and kitchen plus servants quarters, swimming pool with changing rooms and a pool house, multi car garage, wine cellar and greenhouse. It always seemed to be filled with flowers and light, artwork and antiques, precious and beautiful things collected on their travels yet it was a touchable house. After the children had grown and left, only a cat named Socrates was kept for company. I was surprised that he never got lost.

As the end of my marriage approached, I came to realize how little I knew my in laws - their history was public enough, their community service was well known, their accomplishments were often headline news. Their name opened doors and made things possible but of the people underneath, I knew next to nothing. It was precisely the opposite with my own family - I had no idea where my parents had met or courted or even married, but I knew far too many details about the war their marriage had become.

I learned from each - that no family is perfect, that dysfunction comes in many shapes and sizes, that everyone is flawed, some far more than others, and that we all would rather keep our flaws to ourselves and pretend to be normal. We all have rabbits in our rose gardens.

A Fine Wolf

Miss Eula didn't have much use for store bought or outsiders.

She raised her own chickens, grew her own garden, kept cows for milk, did her own canning and became a beekeeper rather than pay the price for sugar in town. When the need for coffee or tobacco arose, she hitched up her old hay wagon and made the trip into town to barter fresh eggs or honey at McIntyre's. She could curse with the best of them, drink any man under the table, hold her own at a poker table and in her old straw hat and faded overalls rolled up to her knees was the best barehanded eel catcher anyone had ever seen.

As many island women did, she lived alone and liked it, preferring the company of nature and farm animals to most people. She minded her business and demanded that others do the same - she rose each day before the sun and worked in solitary silence until after dark, taking pleasure in familiar routines and chores, never allowing a moment of idleness to interfere with her daily plans. She kept her old house in immaculate order, swept her porch every morning and night, washed every window once a week and pulled weeds as if she was battling the devil himself. When evening came, she would read by lantern light or make notes in her journal, random thoughts she shared with no one, a simple one sided conversation about everyday life.

She met the wolf on a moonlit September night just as she finished an entry reminding herself that one of the hay wagon wheels needed looking at. Closing the cover of the ragtag old book, she heard a soft growl and looked up to see a pair of yellow eyes not twenty feet from the porch. Not one to panic, she calmly reached for her shotgun and braced it against her shoulder, drawing down and taking careful aim, unwilling but still prepared to shoot if need be. The standoff didn't last long, Just a few seconds, I reckon, she told my grandmother a few days later, Then he up and slunk off. But there was a blood trail. The following morning, she did a careful count of her chickens and cows before setting off, shotgun under her arm. Took three days 'fore I found her, she admitted to Nana, and when I did, wasn't a way in hell I could put her down. She had found the beast in a cave on the coast, scrawny and half starved with a badly fractured back leg, too weak to put up a fight. She muzzled it with her neckerchief and carried it home, packed it in the hay wagon and drove to Rowena's. Lord a mercy, Eula, Rowena had exclaimed, It's a wolf! The two women, each too tender hearted for their own good, doctored the animal for a month, force feeding it, keeping it warm, and eventually realizing that the leg would have to come off. They accomplished this with a good deal of whiskey, a bottle of ether Rowena kept for emergencies, and an axe - Nana cringed at this part of the story, not able to imagine the force which must have been required and the fortitude. Bandaged her up proper, Eula recounted proudly, then carried her back to the old chicken coop and fenced her in.

Neither woman held much hope for the crippled animal but the damaged wolf survived and slowly made the transition from four legs to three, learning to walk, then trot, then flat out run. Learning to trust and overcome her instincts was another matter altogether and it took over a year of Eula's patience and caregiving before they developed a cautiously distant relationship - Eula stopped carrying her shotgun and the wolf stopped baring her teeth at the old woman's approach, they seemed to respect their differences and territory and over time they worked out a plan of peaceful coexistence. Not countin' the chickens and cows, 'course, Miss Eula told me with a wink, They never did come a trustin' place. Another year passed before the nights began to be punctuated with clear, eerie howls that sent shivers down Eula's spine. She thought they might be calls, messages sent on the nightwind, pleas for freedom. She thought it might be time.

One fine fall evening, the old woman walked to the chicken coop and the sleeping wolf and unlatched the gate. She watched as the animal woke and got to her feet, lifted her head and gave out a long, lonely, wail of a howl, then trotted slowly out of the enclosure and toward the woods, back to the dark woods and the wild things. She never returned but Sometimes, Eula told Nana, Sometimes I think I see those yellow eyes through the trees, like she's passin' by and just checkin' in to make sure everythin's right. Three legs or not, she was a fine wolf.

Cash Flow

I run out of money twice a month, regular as Nana's old ship clock.

I've learned to be relatively philosophical about it - resigned might be a better choice - over the past couple of years. There is still a roof over my head and there's no danger of it being taken away, the old car is aging but still running most of the time, I have two jobs, both reasonably secure, my animals are warm and well fed, and all things being equal, I'm intact and healthier than most I know in my age bracket. These are not small things in the current environment but I find it annoying to live on a shoestring and I doubt I will ever embrace the concept of a budget - it offends my sense of free will and worse, it's confining, constraining, tiresome and, I'm convinced, bad for the economy.

Sitting on the patio of the restaurant last night with my friend Henry who has been out of work for all of this past year, I was reminded of just how much more dire things could be. A job he did for 20 years and loved went up in smoke. He feels out of options, resources and hope and I listened to him talk for the better part of 2 hours about the job market, the competition, the mindset of businesses/corporations, and the futility of depression and apathy. He didn't deflect or make jokes or hide behind a wall of stoicism, but rather spoke of how it feels to be dependent on government benefits, to have self confidence and pride be turned into self doubt and hesitation and be one of thirty or forty applicants - half his age and all degreed and hungry - in line for an interview. After ten months of searching and struggling, of watching bills mount and threaten to engulf him, of having nothing to do, he feels purposeless and is battling the impulse to retreat and dig in. The light at the end of the tunnel seems farther and farther away and moving rapidly.

Economics and income aside, working for a living gives us a place in life and a reason to get out of bed each morning. We are needed and useful, we provide a service or a product, we have substance and recognition and self esteem. We also stay connected to people, interacting and negotiating on a regular basis, being part of something outside ourselves and being challenged to stay in tune and active. Cash flow matters - we all need to eat and keep body and soul together after all - but life is more than duck, cover, and hold on while you're waiting.

Canning Season

Uncle Perry was 104 when he died, at home in his own bed, surrounded by family and the sound of the sea. He gave Aunt Millie a final smile and squeezed her hand slightly, then closed his eyes and took a last breath. Millie wiped her tears, kissed his forehead, and then put on her apron to begin feeding the friends and relatives. It was the end of summer but still a busy season and there was much to be done - she had been in the middle of canning the last of the blueberries when Perry fell ill, having spent weeks putting up peach preserves, strawberries, and blackberry jam. It was a tradition and couldn't be abandonded. Your daddy could never abide waste, she told her oldest daughter with a bittersweet smile, Not in people or time and certainly not in preserves.

There were no signs that Millie was planning to give up. She finished her canning, continued to live in the house that Perry had built for her, turned up at church most every Sunday, still made biscuits every morning. Her children and grandchildren made time to spend with her and Uncle Willie made sure the old house was kept up, that the woodpile was stocked and the chickens fed. Island women dropped by regularly and a steady parade of children ran errands and did small chores. Millie welcomed one and all, understanding that this was her community doing what it did for those in need and that any protest would have fallen on deaf ears. But after the first year, she was worn out from the attention, from missing Perry, and from the effort of every day life and feeling fragile. She was ready to move on. These old bones weren't meant to last this long, Alice, she told my grandmother over biscuits and honey, And I reckon Perry's gettin' tired of waiting. I b'lieve I won't do any cannin' this season.

And she didn't. Nana arranged for the berries to be picked and then passed out all over the island to be canned and set aside for the winter. Aunt Millie oversaw it all, even teaching those who had never made preserves and passing on her recipies and meticulous directions. When she was satisfied that all was in good hands, that the importance of preserving and preparing for long winter nights had been established for another generation, when she had said her goodbyes and thank you's and written in her Bible for the final time, she stoked the wood stove to overflowing and sat in her old rocking chair by the window, rocking and watching the sea, until she fell asleep. Her work and her last canning season were over and she was not just content, but well pleased to move on.

Prepare for the winter, preserve for the future, and leave when the season is right, she told my grandmother the night before she died, It's been a good life but I'm done now.

Brick, and Iron and Charcoal Gray

I often dream of my grandmother's house.

Solid, immutable red brick and iron on the outside, charcoal gray and somber on the inside, a quiet and conservative house with huge, uncluttered rooms and walls devoid of pictures or decorations. The carpet was mostly gray wall to wall and the wallpaper was so plain as to be unnoticed. There were heavy lamps on small end tables, understated floral furniture with iron firmness in their pillows and arms and elegant but forbidding wood. No bookcases to gather dust, no array of family portraits on the stairway wall, no flowers or ivy to soften the harshness of each perfectly kept room. It was a serious house, a house that commanded you to be calm and quiet, never run or raise your voice. There was a museum quality to it that frightened even the everyday dust away.

I slept in the room at the top of the stairs, a wide open space with one dresser, two single beds on opposite sides of the room and a remarkably long and narrow wooden table with a single cast iron lamp in the center, carefully aligned in front of the two small windows. From the only other small window across the room, I could see light from the street lamps and knew that just across the street there was a house of color and happy disarray where my friend Iris and her family lived, a house where the television would play late into the night, a house where a child was encouraged to write and draw on the attic walls, where laundry gathered in a pile on the back stairs and a huge, shaggy dog slept on the elegant oriental carpets without fear of reprimand for shedding. Dogs were fine in the Nova Scotia house, but here, the mere thought of pet hair would make my grandmother wince. Meals were sometimes haphazard, there was always music, and if you left something out of place, it might stay that way. I thought of that house as I drifted off to sleep between cool, starched sheets with hospital corners in a house that was very nearly sterile in its feel. Sometimes, knowing Nana was safely positioned in front of Lawrence Welk, I would steal out of bed and creep into her dark bedroom, so very much like my own but for a tiny dressing table and bench covered in bright checked gingham, the only touch of color in a vast, echo-y chamber, the only room beside the kitchen that even suggested her presence. It was, I came to realize later, a house my grandfather had made - somber, respectful, polished but dull, almost Victorian in its sparsity, a proper house for a successful undertaker. You did not spill things here and you most certainly did not go to bed without a bath.

After his death, I thought there might be some redecoration, some brightness, some primary colors to replace the muted pastels. But my grandmother maintained the house just as it had always been, finding, I imagine, some comfort in familiar surroundings and the perpetual duskiness of drawn shades and heavy curtains. She was, at heart, a dedicated traditionlist, republican to her core and in many ways, devoted to all the devils she knew. I often suspected the old house knew it.

Richardson's Corner Road

Darrell Wayne had worked in the lumber mill all his life, following a tradition originally set by his great grandfather. He was a rough and tumble young man, hard drinking, hard living and hard working, fond of course language and high stakes poker games but always cheerful about his lot in life, always the first in line to lend a hand to a friend. The night of the accident he had taken on a extra run with the logging truck when another driver had called in sick. He never gave it a second thought, climbing into the cab and roaring off into the cold night, airhorn blaring and every light on the truck aglow.

The collision with the pickup truck happened on a deserted, back country two lane road an hour or so later. Darrell Wayne had made the turn at Richardson's Corner and was headed downhill when the pickup came into sight, weaving and veering toward him like a drunken sailor. In the split second before impact, both drivers tried to adjust their courses but space and time ran out and they met with such a devastating and shattering force that residents of nearby homes expected to find a crashed aircraft and body parts scattered along the road. Instead, they found survivors - both men crushed, broken and burned, but alive. The woods were alive as well with rapidly spreading fire and in a matter of minutes an entire small town mobilized, pulling the victims away from the wreck, coordinating fire fighting efforts, saving the lives of two strangers as well as what was so precious to them personally.

God must've been watching that boy, Aunt Pearl remarked to the Ladies Quilting Circle when the news reached the island, I expect this will change his life. My grandmother laughed a little harshly, Don't hold your breath, dear, she told Pearl, Darrell Wayne t'ain't likely to find the Lord over this.

After several months in hospital and several more in rehabilitation, Darrell Wayne emerged, intact save for a number of pins holding his broken bones together and a pronounced limp. The pick up driver had lost an arm but was otherwise healthy and the two had, strange as it seemed, forged an enduring friendship and kept in touch for the rest of their lives. Each year on the anniversary of the accident, they traveled to Richardson's Corner Road, offered up a brief prayer and then got what Uncle Shad called "knee walkin' drunk" together. Mighty strange way to say thanks, Shad told my grandmother with a shrug and Nana just laughed. As she had suspected, Darrell Wayne's brush with death didn't change his life or alter his behavior except to make him more determined to live as he pleased and cram as much in as he could. He was just past forty when mortality, disguised as a pretty woman with a jealous boyfriend, intervened in a bar brawl in St. John. The boyfriend took a beating before drawing a knife and Darrell Wayne was, Uncle Shad reported, dead before he hit the floor.

God has his eyes somehere else that night, Aunt Pearl said tearfully and my grandmother had the good grace to keep silent.

A Case of Curious

By the time, Dev had turned 5, the island was in complete agreement - never had a more curious, adventurous child been born into their midst.

Devlin Hugh Melanson had come into the world on a loud and stormy early morning, as if the weather was in sync with his birth. He had been a discontented infant, learning to crawl at an early age and howling in frustration when he couldn't get his way. He was attracted to closed doors and locked cabinets, anything out of reach, and the world of the outside - just before his 3rd birthday, he had forced open a latched screen door and headed onto the porch and down the steps where he tumbled and fell into a patch of poison ivy. By the time he turned 4, he could open windows and go missing before his bewildered mother had even missed him, turning up in muddy sheep pens, alseep in Sparrow's vegetable garden, playing happily in the tide and jagged rocks of the coastline. John Sullivan, halfway out of the passage one pre dawn morning, discovered him tangled in a barrel of baited fish, untroubled by the bloody hooks caught in his hair and contentedly chewing on a length of greasy coated rope.

At 8, he began dismantling things to see how they worked - a ships clock that had been in his mother's family for generations, a discarded boat engine, an ancient radio. He crawled into the workings of Aunt Florrie's pump organ, took apart his daddy's scatter gun, shooting off two toes in the process, pried open padlocks, small motors and a cast off wringer washing machine to examine their parts and put them back together again. Nana allowed him to tinker with her steam iron and then reluctantly handed over her antique toaster - a strange little affair with sides that flipped up and down with the turn of a knob on either side and had developed a distressing habit of smoking bread while not actually toasting it. By then Dev had acquired a collection of tools as well as an assortment of nails and screws, bits of wire and metal, odds and ends of hardware and plastic, and after a hour or two, the toaster was repaired and returned. By 15, he could fix lamps, pocket watches, brownie cameras, push pedal sewing machines, even his Uncle William's tractor, and slowly he began to charge for his work, saving enough to build a small workshop inside the barn. That boy, his daddy announced to the men gathered at Curt's corner store, that boy got a case of curious, ain't never seen anythin' like it.

Ayuh, Curt agreed, Smart as a whip with his hands.
Yep, Uncle Willie nodded sagely, reckon it's a callin' and a good livin' both.
Dunno, Uncle Shad said with a grin, fixin' folks pays a mite better.
Mebbe so, Dev's daddy paused to strike a wooden match on the heel of his boot, But it ain't near as useful.

Private Perversions

In some ways, we are what we learn.

If, from a young age, we are taught to be lazy, irresponsible, shirkers who will never be truly held accountable for our actions, who will always have someone trailing behind to clean up the messes we make before they catch up to us, we become useless adults. If we are never asked to reason, if everything is handed down without effort, we become thoughtless, selfish and intellectually challenged. And if we are taught materialism and the value of possessions count more than integrity and kindness and peace of mind, then we become greedy, grasping, and vain. Family will turn their backs, friends will fade, even drinking buddies will move on, finally realizing that if alcohol is all you have in common, then you have less than nothing.

Such people are the clutter of the earth, little scraps of litter and discarded debris that men in orange jump suits on the sides of the road are sent to pick up. They have no purpose except to get in the way and be annoying, to trash an otherwise pretty landscape and to relentlessly disappoint those around them. Searching for the good in such people is an exercise in futility and only breeds resentment and rage at their very existence. They take without the first thought of giving back, hiding behind fraudulent smiles and counterfeit, imitated emotions. There is nothing genuine to be found - no character, no consideration, no good deeds. Take them apart, and you would find acres of emptiness in place of a brain, a heart, or a conscience.

This we learn - to be careless with others, to be assured of our own entitlements, to arrogantly dismiss those who might help, and to tread on anyone brave enough to get in the way. Is it really any wonder that such people are despised and laughed at? That at the end of the day, we have not even pity for them? That contempt would be generous? Just as I think it might be possible to find some charity, I discover that their private perversions are not rumors but advertised boldly, made public on a website, twisted, mangled, sadistic and sad.

In some ways, we are what we learn but if we choose to stay that way we shouldn't be surprised to be kicked to the curb and run over by a passing garbage truck.

Go With God - As Long As You Go

In this particular part of the Bible Belt, a great many people have taken to wishing me "A Blessed Day". It is on their checks and their answering machines and used regularly in everyday conversation. Few things annoy me more.

Religion in the south is no private affair - there are Bible Schools and camps and bookstores, religious gift stores and day care. Church attendance is high and most people who go still go in "church clothes", excepting, of course, for the Unitarians of what is affectionately known as "The Church of Anything Goes", a free spirited congregation who actually do seem to practice what they preach. Mostly, the rest is window dressing, habit, and tradition - it wouldn't do to not be seen in church, people would talk.

If my soul is to be saved, it will not be within the confines of a designated building on a designated day of worship but rather through living a life as best I can, on a wing and a prayer, I admit, trying to do as little harm as possible. Until it reaches out and wrecks the lives of others, sin is a private affair, between my conscience and my beliefs. If God is to judge, I trust Him to look at the whole picture. A life is, after all, not much more than a body of work, some good, some bad, some worthy, some not. I think that like a teacher grading on the curve, all will be taken into consideration.

It's a well intentioned phrase, probably sincere most of the time and while I appreciate the thought, I'd be happier without it being put into actual words. I never like to be told what kind of a day to have - I'd rather decide for myself.

The distance between religion and spirituality is infinite.

Free will is a bitch.
Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate

Mary Alice and The Man Who Made Rocking Chairs: A Love Story

The man who made rocking chairs made his rounds each second week of June, arriving in a dusty old Chevy and pulling a horse trailer. He carried a small notebook for order taking and a portfolio of sorts, a looseleaf plastic binder with drawings of rocking chairs. The finished products were carefully packed in the trailer, coverered with sheets and wrapped in straw and these he delivered first, unpacking each one alone and almost reverently. No ordinary chairs these - each was crafted by hand from start to finish, grooved and and pegged to fit together with perfect symetry and harmony - carved, sanded, polished and painted over the long winters, each shone with craftmanship and pride. The man who made rocking chairs was likened to an artist, known for his work and reputed to be a perfectionist of the highest degree, refusing to accept the most minor flaw in wood, working alone and until all hours, turning out treasures for front porches and kitchens and the rooms of newborns.

Mary Alice, a wood nymph of a girl who loved to draw and paint and wander the backwoods with a sketchbook and a pocketful of charcoal pencils, much loved and not at all understood by her practical and hardworking parents, thought to be shy and even distant and not much of a prospect, fell in love at first sight - first with the rocking chairs and then with the man who made them. She was a delicate, withdrawn, head in the clouds seventeen and he was an already gray at the temples, man of few words forty-one and there opposition to the match from every corner, dismal predictions of failure were heard all over the island and the phrase "cradle robber" became popular.
Nevertheless, when the man who made rocking chairs had finished his deliveries and order taking, he moved on with Mary Alice at his side in the old Chevy. They arrived on the South Shore and were married that very day, taking up residence in the second story apartment above the rocking chair workshop and immediately beginning to plan for a house overlooking the bay.

Public opinion was discreetly against them from the start, saying quietly that a marriage made of instant faith and recklessness could not survive, that love at first sight would wither with the first winter or the first hardship. They said it quietly for years, predicting that it was just a matter of time, that May - December marriages burned hotly then burned out. And through it all, Mary Alice and the man who made rocking chairs made a life together, built a house, worked and traveled together so that they would not be apart, and stayed in love. They listened only to each other and their hearts and forty years passed in the blink of an eye.

Mary Alice buried the man who made rocking chairs in the small South Shore cemetery on a bright sunny day in June, just before she packed up the latest horse trailer and the latest Chevy and began his last round of deliveries.
At summer's end, she returned to the house above the bay and to the pair of rocking chairs on the front porch, to watch sunsets alone, to smile at those who passed by, and to rock gently and wait.

Down Like A Stone

John Sullivan appeared at the back door, kicked it open with one swift motion and crossed the kitchen into the living room room before the door had swung closed. He carried Miss Hilda, riding boots, walking stick, tweed coat and all as if she weighed no more than a feather. Alice! he yelled Spirits of ammonia!

My grandmother - a practical and wise woman who knew enough to trust John Sullivan not to stride through her house unannounced without good cause - snatched the smelling salts and dashed downstairs. Miss Hilda was horizontal on the divan, her head resting on one end and her boots hanging over the other. John had unbuttoned her jacket and loosened her collar and was in the process of applying a cold washcloth to her forehead. Before Nana could brush him aside, Miss Hilda woke up. Bloody hell, John Sullivan, she shouted, her usual distinguished upper class British accent taking a decided turn toward the Cockney, What do you think you're about? Get your bloody hands off me! John backed up, trying to hide a smile and Nana took the old lady's shoulders with a firm grip and forced her back. Breathe, dear, she said calmly, Nice deep breath before you try to stand. Miss Hilda glared at her and I was reminded of one of Rowena's yearlings after a run, slightly sheened with sweat, impatient, nostrils flaring and a trifle dangerous if you got too close. My grandmother held her ground, insisting Hilda breathe and relax for a few more minutes, speaking mildly but firmly and not paying the slightest attention to the wail of protests emanating from the divan. Now, dear, Nana advised her quietly, Why don't you tell me what happened? Miss Hilda set her formidable jaw and struggled upright, adjusting her collar and smoothing her tweed skirt with as much dignity as she could muster but she said nothing, studying the worn linoleum at her feet with intense concentration.

Fainted, John Sullivan volunteered from across the room, Went down like a stone.

The very idea! Hilda snapped, I am not a woman who faints and most certainly not one who would require assistance if I should!

Down like a stone, John repeated stubbornly.

Hilda got to her feet, replaced a loose hairpin in her silvery hair, cleared her throat and rapped her walking stick against one polished boot. You, sir, she said clearly, her upper class accent restored and cutting cleanly, are misinformed. I am a woman of fortitude, endurance and independent means. Your efforts at chivalry, commendable as they may have been, were entirely unneccessary and in future will be regarded as intrusive. When John just shrugged, she rapped her boot more sharply, I am also a woman who is accustomed to being answered by those I address, she said curtly, Kindly accommodate me.

John straightened, nodded, struggled not to laugh. Yes'm, he finally managed but his voice was shaky and Nana gave him a sharp prod in the ribs. Miss Hilda gave them a final, withering look and turned on her heel, striding out, head held high, shoulders squared. One stray strand of hair curled defiantly from under her tweed cap, a small concession to her injured pride and British reserve.

She was not a woman to be taken lightly, not a woman who would afford herself the luxury of a fainting spell or a debt of gratitude. My grandmother and John Sullivan laughed themselves silly then each vowed to protect Miss Hilda's pride and never mention the incident again. Despite a world of temptations - most brought on by Miss Hilda herself - it was a promise they honored without a second thought.