The younger black cat, minding his own business and strolling casually through the dining room, never saw the tabby coming. She launched herself from the top of the table and came flying through the air, landing squarely on top of him with the exquisite accuracy of a guided missile. In an instant, both were entangled and entwined in a blur of paws and tails - the black cat freed himself and ran for the bedroom with the tabby streaking after him, but he was faster and by the time she turned the corner he was poised to counter attack - he flew at her from the side and tackled her down. There had not been a sound during this small free for all, not a hiss or a yowl or a meow and it ended with both cats losing interest in the fray and wandering off in different directions, as if nothing at all had happened. Later in the morning, I would find them curled up together and fast asleep on the loveseat.
One of the many beauties of being a cat is their ability to express themselves and then move on without resentment, without holding a grudge. They don't remember hurt feelings or slights, they don't lose their tempers and say things they'll regret later. They are straightforward and direct animals and as my dear friend Tricia once recommended to me, their basic philosophy seems to be: Get mad, get over it, get on with it.
Unless you happen to be a cat, all of life's lessons seem premised on the theory of easier said than done. It's quicker and less trouble to blame the lettuce for not growing well instead of investigating the soil and the gardener.
Come the revolution, I think to myself.... British Petroleum, each and every health insurance executive, every Wall Street CEO and the entire United States Congress will be thrown, hands and feet tied, into an oil spill. There will be a temptation to add a sports figure or two ( Michael Vick comes to mind ) and several celebrities to the mix, possibly most if not all of Fox News. Then we would simply turn our backs and walk away - hands clean, indifferent, no accountability, no need to make things right for the country or the environment. It might not be justice but it would be deserved not to mention satisfying.
I think there is more broken in this country than government.
If Congress were not in bed with investment banks....
If marriage vows were not so temptingly in conflict with public service....
If the Interior Department was less interested in pornography and LSU tickets ....
If lying by public officials wasn't an art form .....
If greed didn't rule ....
If the President of this country was disagreed with but still respected ....
If Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh or Dick Cheney knew when to shut up ....
But none of that is nor is it likely to be. During my lifetime, we have become a country of pretty words and promises - rhetoric and lies - and meanwhile, the wars continue, the politicians profit, the poor go hungry and the rich carelessly thrive. If there is money to be made, drugs to be trafficked, crimes to be committed, favors to be traded or corruption to be kept alive and well, we have the people to do it.
What cost a salt marsh, a pelican or a beach. What cost a fisherman's livelihood or a family's life savings. What cost a foreclosure, a reputation, an honest election, an eco system. What cost peace, honor or a life. When do we stop protecting the wrong and step up for the right? I fear it will not come to pass during my lifetime.
Louisiana isn't the only place that has shrimp - Randy Prescott, BP representative
I watched my daddy put the finishing touches on the body - adjusting a strand of hair, delicately wrapping rosary beads around the hands, tucking in the corners of her dress into the satin lining of the casket and straightening her pearl necklace so it lay just so. He stepped back for a final, critical look then nodded to the apprentices - four young men carefully, silently wheeled the casket into the small chapel and transferred it from the gurney onto the coffin stand. She lay among the flowers she had loved and cared for and and slept.
I had been taught to be respectful but not afraid of the dead. Dying, my daddy told me, is a natural part of living. We all move on.
Mrs. Sterling had been a schoolteacher, a mother, wife, sister. She had died peacefully in her sleep at eighty-seven, a widow for the last twenty years of her life. The service was well attended and all her family carried orchids, her favorite flower. The minister spoke reverently of her years of teaching, her dedication to young lives, her devotion to her family and community. He spoke of loss and grief and being welcomed into heaven where, he said with a slight smile, he was sure there would be an abundance of orchids. When he was done, he said a prayer and glanced toward the doorway where my daddy stood in his three piece black funeral suit and at a signal I never even saw, Miss Hazel began "Ave Maria" on the organ. Mourners rose and began filing out with clasped hands and bowed heads. Mrs. Sterling's oldest daughter paused at the casket for several minutes - she wept silently then touched her mother's hands gently before her husband led her away.
When the chapel was empty, the same four young men glided in and transferred the casket to the waiting hearse. My daddy saw to the details of the funeral procession then climbed into the lead car for the drive to the cemetery.
It was a ritual he had performed hundreds of times but he never gave less than his best, The dead deserve our kindness, I had heard him tell new apprentices, It's all we have to offer.
The trouble with children of abuse is that they get stuck.
Here is a lovely young woman, barely 22, who has made being a bitch an art. She is one part 2 year old who has a temper tantrum when she doesn't get her way - one part defiant adolescent who thinks the world owes her a living - one part angry and battered victim with an exaggerated sense of her own self worth - and one part lost, trapped and dead ended. The part of me that doesn't want to slap her well into next week wants to hug her. The part of me that knows a little about her past wants to shake her to her senses about her future. The conflict in her ignites the conflict in me and in the end I detach from her, unwilling to put my own emotional health at risk. She will find her way or she won't and nothing I can do or say will make a difference. She is stuck in an unhappy and bitter place but it is her choice to stay. It's an intriguing sideline that while she is so arrogantly confident about her value as an employee - too indispensable and entitled to bother with being pleasant or on time, too hostile to be liked or follow orders - her personal self esteem, barely there to begin with, has slipped even lower. In the workplace, she fancies herself in charge, better than the people she works with or waits on, above the rules. At home, she slips into a far different role - fearful of being alone, bargaining for attention, desperately seeking approval. No matter that she is neglected, demeaned, and exploited - she is stuck, held fast by her own choices. It doesn't occur to her that she could change her mind and choose differently.
No road is endless, there are always turns and bends and crossroads and opportunities to change direction. Not all the woods are dark and stuck is more a state of mind than a place - one patch of sunlight will lead to another and soon you'll be out of the woods altogether.
Every other Saturday The Prince John steamed into the passage to pick up transport and deliver goods - she was the lifeline for anything too big to be trucked in since the hairpin turn at East Ferry had been the demise of a good number of 18 wheelers. She came by way of Halifax, Yarmouth, and Digby and always arrived promptly at eleven am.
She was primarily a cargo vessel although if the captain was in the right mood and space allowed, you could often buy or barter your passage, provided you didn't mind the lack of accommodations or amenities. She was a working boat, rusty in some places and sadly in need of repainting, manned by gruff, retired sailors and young men on the run. She ain't much to look at, Sparrow remarked, but she's reliable as rain and a welcome sight for these old eyes. There was usually a crowd gathered at the old breakwater on these alternate Saturdays, curious to see what might emerge from the cargo hold - it might be lumber or machinery or a boat engine - but the two things I remember most clearly were Bill Melanson's new mower and the pump organ for the church, both were cause for celebration and great excitement.
The mower meant work for the island kids too young to fish or work in the factory - Bill would pay a quarter for a day's work in the hay fields and at the end would cart us all home atop the hay wagon - tanned and tired with change in our pockets, we would sing all the way, plotting how to spend the precious silver coins come the end of the week.
The organ was a dream come true for the church and the choir and especially the congregation, all of whom were weary of the a capella bickering, not to mention the lack of harmony in Sunday services.
All in all, The Prince John, faded and world weary as she might have been, made her journey every other week and did her job faithfully and on time. She outlived more than one captain and crew, braved storms in the summer and ice in the winter, survived season after season on will power, determination and an enviable work ethic. She was, as Sparrow liked to say, One of us.
My friend Roberta and I were in grade school when her parents took us to the Topsfield Fair on a sunny October weekend. The weather was perfect, crisp and clear, and the fairgrounds were alive with music and laughter. It was my first carnival and I was instantly enthralled by the sounds and the smells and the pink ponies on the carousel. We ate cotton candy and candy apples, popcorn and hot dogs, drank cokes over crushed ice. We watched clowns and jugglers and stilt walkers and magicians, rode the ferris wheel to the sky and the roller coaster and the flying saucer ride - we were overwhelmed and exhilarated and eventually very sick from the combination of too much excitement, too much sugar, too much motion - but it was a glorious day and as we passed the painted ponies on the carousel, we begged for one last ride. Roberta chose the blue pony and I chose the purple one and her parents watched from the sidelines, standing apart from each other, stern faced and quiet, not appreciating the gentle horses with their brightly colored manes and tails and gleaming white teeth. After this one last ride, we were packed into the back seat of their old Studebaker for the ride home, a long and silent drive where the rhythm of the road eventually put us both to sleep.
Roberta and I grew apart after that final excursion. Her parents, Eunice and Alden, disapproved of my family and decided that I was a bad influence. Roberta, smart as a whip, but chunky, sloppy and stringy haired with thick glasses and bad skin, was universally disliked by other children. She bragged about her good grades and musical ability - the piano came as naturally to her as breathing - but she was excluded from school games and sports, always the last chosen for a team or a dance partner - and she was an unhappy, confused child with distant and demanding parents. The last time I saw her was after the death of Duchess, the family's ancient black cocker spaniel, a snappish and intolerant old dog with bad teeth and arthritis. We buried her in Eunice's flower bed and Roberta shed not a single tear while I cried buckets. Eunice stood to the side, a bouquet of flowers clasped in her hands while Alden, dry eyed and emotionless, shoveled dirt over the small grave. They were hard people, I thought, cut off and unfeeling, cold and without passion or pity. I walked the short distance home, still in tears, still mourning a dog that wasn't mine and not understanding the process of grief or being an outcast. The memory of the Topsfield Fair seemed light years away.
Roberta moved sometime while we were in junior high school and I never knew why or where. I never heard from her again, never was to know what she became or how. But I still remember the painted ponies.
And for the record, the Topsfield Fair is in its 186th year. Fairs will outlive friendship every time.
I suspect that one more lesson in overcoming adversity will break me. I can feel a growing urge in my soul to scream ENOUGH! but there is no one to scream at - this is just how life goes sometimes. I know this but still feel that one more crisis will drive me over the edge and into the looking glass. Like Alice, I have had several long discussions with myself over this nightmare of a weekend. I have pointed out the flaws in my thinking and given myself some excellent advice - counted to ten and recited the Serenity Prayer - tried to find a less dark side and assured myself that I am not the target of a hostile and humorless god. So far, the results are mixed - I've taken a few steps backward and away from the edge but the looking glass still beckons.
There is a voice I sometimes hear that whispers life is supposed to be better now and the struggle is supposed to be over. I've paid my dues, worked my entire life, put in my time. It's depressing to think that the good times, the easy times, have already been and I didn't know it. All the more reason to stay in the day, I argue back but the voice just laughs. Self pity and worry are for others, I snap and the voice replies But look at you now. This is the voice of resentment and anger, fear and debt, weariness and defeat. I won't listen, I tell it with false conviction, I won't hear this.
But I do hear it. It weighs me down, pulling and dragging harder and harder every hour.
It's the voice of What If......What if I get sick, what if they can't fix the car, what if I lose my job, what if the IRS won't listen, what if this is all there is. So many what if's and time's running out.
I tend the animals, shower and put on my scrubs, my makeup, my happy face. The voice hesitates then falters and fades. It may only be quiet for a little while but I will drown it out an hour at a time, at least for today. It's only a voice, and it could very well be wrong.
My mother browned the porkchops carefully then laid them in a bed of sauce made of ketchup, vinegar, onions and brown sugar. The result would be perfect - sticky sweet chops, covered with a thick, tangy coating, dished out generously and served with a green vegetable. Try as I might, I never could duplicate the texture or taste.
Searching for a redeeming quality in this woman - and always half afraid that I might actually find one - I came up with the fact that she could cook and bake with the best of them. Each Sunday night she meticulously broiled steak to perfection and delivered it along with a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes made from scratch with Land'o'Lakes butter and real milk and a vegetable, usually in a cream sauce. There was almost always a plate of right from the oven brown bread, thickly sliced with meltable crusts and smelling like the best of an early morning bakery. Dessert would be an apple pie, sometimes served with genuine whipped cream ( cheese was, in her opinion, pretentious ) or blueberry with the juices bubbling over into the pastry and covered with ice cream. During the week there was always a tin of brownies or chocolate chip cookies or egg tarts - I ruined my supper religiously on those after school afternoons.
Unlike Nana, who cleaned as she went, my mother cooked and baked with a zealous chaos, leaving a wake of flour and eggshells and utensils scattered all about the kitchen. She seldom used actual recipes except as guidelines and rarely measured, seeming to know the right proportions without having to look. Ready made horrified her and instant anything was strictly forbidden - in her kitchen, a shortcut was the same as a sin.
She smoked and drank while she cooked, keeping one eye on the stove and the other on her morning game shows and afternoon soaps. If an occasional ash dropped she simply blended it right in and a touch of cooking sherry could always be counted upon to improve the flavor as well as her mood. If she was forced to substitute or improvise, she did so with reckless abandon and confidence, sure in her choice and optimistic about the outcome.
She was a harsh, bitter woman - intolerant, angry, disappointed, unloving - but in her kitchen she seemed to find comfort, security and even a little bit of pride - here, she was at her best - productive, untroubled, too busy to criticize. The creation and preparation of food satisfied some vague need that her family and her life did not and while the entire process was a mystery to me, I was glad for those cooking and baking days when life seemed very nearly normal.
In the dark, in unfamiliar territory, looking for a bar I'd never been to before and running late. This was the moment that the car chose to give up the ghost. The next hour was a nightmare of stops and starts, of traffic hazards and blaring horns, of obstruction and road rage and desperate efforts to evade red lights and intersections, hoping against hope to encounter a cop or a carjacker. I made it to the bridge and then realized that it was over - the four lane divided highway ahead was nothing more than a series of endless red lights stretching out for miles and each engine death was bringing me closer to the inevitable moment when there would be no re-starting.
It happened at the second red light. Traffic snarled in all directions in an instant and I was caught in the middle with no way out, surrounded by angry drivers in impatient moods. Panic and rage were fighting an ugly battle in my head when at last the ignition caught long enough for me to pull onto a side street and out of harms way. A half dozen police cars were parked in the vicinity, a fact that might have piqued my curiosity under different circumstances, but for the moment I only knew that one of the cruisers was occupied. The officer lent me his cell phone to call for rescue and it was only several minutes later that I realized I was in the midst of a movie shoot with half the city's police force manning barricades and directing traffic for the film crew. I was stranded, alone, mad enough to spit, but I couldn't have been safer. With my head clearing and help on the way, I tried to begin to sort things out - the logical place to start seemed to be with the $2153.00 check I had written that very morning to the car repair shop. The next step, I was reasonably certain, would be some form of murder for hire.
The following day, after having made arrangements for the car to be picked up and towed, for my slot at work to be covered, and for a ride to the airport to pick up a second rental car, I stood at the We Try Harder counter waiting for the car I had reserved that morning, the car they had assured would be there, quoted me a price on, and thanked me for renting. Mysteriously enough, there was no car, no apology, no explanation - just a snotty, white trash young girl with dirty hair, an attitude, and a disinterested shoulder shrug. I trudged to the next two rental counters, counting to ten slowly and wondering how I could expand my murder for hire plan. Avis, it seemed, had reinvented their slogan from We Try Harder to We Don't Try At All but that was for another day.
Finally at home, fighting off anger, depression, a sense of profound injustice and a serious dread that my Visa debt would outlive me and my ability to pay it, I decided to detach by pulling up the living room carpet and dousing the mat and floor with StinkFree. I moved furniture and books and lamps until I was exhausted, then set up a rotating fan to dry the whole mess and went to bed with the scent of eucalyptus drifting on the air.
Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I will live to fight another day.
Tacked to the back of the pantry door were several sheets of pale blue stationery - short grocery lists, names and telephone numbers, recipes and reminders, a list of birthdays. All were handwritten except one which was neatly typed, double spaced and titled - "Things To Do Today". It read:
Keep your head.
Mind your tongue.
Hold your temper.
Count your change.
Check your compass.
Don't settle.
Get up each time you fall.
Know when to walk away.
I read it twice, imagining my grandmother at the small breakfast table, thinking it through before typing it up on her small portable Remington typewriter, choosing what she thought of as the most important instructions then condensing, simplifying, and posting it where she would see it every day. The paper was faded, its edges worn and a little ragged but it was a good list - straightforward, clean and direct. It was hard to think of a situation where following its wisdom wouldn't help.
Nana had been an eminently practical woman, prone to approach problems head on and at full speed, hardly one to take philosophical or tactful detours, never one to seek self help. The to do list seemed out of character for her and I began to wonder if it had been more of a goal, something she could strive for in her everyday life.
I was carefully taking the list down when I noticed the handwritten postscript at the bottom of the page - Practice makes perfect! she had added in small, precise letters and underlined the words with a feathery flourish.
Leave it to a grandmother to surprise you in life and death.
Anything to declare? the young, uniformed customs agent asked with an appraising smile as he leaned in the driver's side window and tipped his cap.
I declare I like your eyes, my mother replied with a flirtatious laugh and a fluttering of eyelashes, But no, nothing. My grandmother, sitting ramrod straight in the passenger seat, slammed her book shut with a scowl, her jaw clenched in suppressed anger. The young agent blushed slightly, then stepped back and waved us through. The multiple bottles of whiskey and the twenty or so cartons of American cigarettes wrapped and stowed under the seats went undetected. Easy as falling off a log, my mother said casually as we drove onto Canadian soil and Nana crossed her arms and stared fiercely out her window all the way to St. Andrews. I wasn't exactly sure what had made her so furious but I was old enough to rein in my curiosity and knew better than to ask.
There weren't many shades of gray for or between these two women. Both could be hot tempered and tyrannical if they didn't get their way. Both were intolerantly and adamantly republican/conservative/right wing and neither had any use for people of color, welfare programs, rock and roll, sex education in schools or modern furniture. Both were hard core, hard shelled, fire and brimstone Baptists who viewed religious freedom more as a character flaw than a right. Both were devout gossips, although they would have fought violently against the charge - both saw the budding issue of same sex relationships as abnormal and preferably punishable by death - both were anti anything that didn't fit neatly into their world view - desegregation, civil rights, modern art, career women, movie magazines, single mothers, motorcycles.
Yet with all this in common, these were two women were constantly at odds with each other. They fought about it all, the significant and the trivial, the meaningful and the foolish. There were no small disagreements, each and every conflict turned bitter and mean spirited and we learned early on that the fall out from this incessant war had far reaching effects. Caught in the crossfire was a phrase that had literal meaning for us.
I am more like both of them than I choose to admit but my battle is with myself alone.
Ninety degrees on the 5th of May.
The old lady at the bus stop sat in the sweltering heat with two plastic bags of groceries at her feet and an umbrella across her lap. She wore a large floppy straw hat and fanned herself with a magazine but even from a distance I could see the sheen of perspiration on her face and neck. Her house dress was wilted and sweated through in places but she smiled at me as I passed and gave me a slight nod. The bus arrived and she rose from the bench, gathered her possessions and climbed aboard, wincing slightly at each step she took in her well worn flip flops. I saw that her toenails were painted bright red, in odd contrast to her otherwise plain and sensible dress and patent leather black purse. She might have been in her 60's or in her 90's or anywhere in between, a little weary and a little arthritic but still up and about and doing her daily shopping, still able to smile at a stranger and climb aboard a city bus to get home. We do what we have to do, I remembered my grandmother telling me, Who ever told you life would be easy or fair?
It was a kinder and gentler version of Life's A Bitch And Then You Die, I suppose. Nana was never overburdened with sympathy when practicality and problem solving would do - she more or less accepted her lot in life and made the best of it, wasting no time on the hopeless or the inevitable. People had their place in life, she believed, a purpose and a destiny - some were born to struggle and be poor, some were born to greatness, most were born to get along the best they could. Well off don't mean happy, she often said, and poor don't always mean misery. She had no time to listen to the complaints of the bitter or discontented and especially not to the self pitying, Just get on with it and be done! she would snap at my mother, You think you're the only one with troubles?
The old woman settled herself in a window seat and the bus rumbled off, leaving a cloud of exhaust behind. I doubted my grandmother had ever ridden a bus but if she had, she definitely would have had a window seat or there'd have been hell to pay.
No one in my family spoke much about family.
My mother, an only child, and my daddy, one of 10, were both reticent about their childhoods and the subject of who they were before marrying never came up. I knew the basic details - that both had been in the military, that for one brief summer my mother had worked in a well known department store and that my daddy had been a salesman. I knew where my mother had gone to high school, that my daddy had played in an army band. It was the things I didn't know - the things that never came up - that began to interest me, especially when I realized how much everyone else seemed to know about their families. How had they met? Where were they married? Did they have a long or short courtship, a honeymoon? Did they struggle to make ends meet or have the same dreams? I didn't know what day of the week I was born, where my brothers were born, how my daddy had come to work for my grandfather, what my numerous aunts and uncles did for a living. Had my grandmothers ever met? How old was my daddy when his own daddy died? How did the family business come to be a funeral home? I knew more about the histories of friends and their families than I did my own and stranger still, knowing so little didn't seem the least bit odd. We weren't a chatty or a forthcoming family and though there were one or two old photograph albums with grainy old black and white snapshots pasted to black paper, they didn't tell much of a story and I had no idea who might have been behind the camera. My maternal grandmother had a handful of similar albums but they were mostly faded 3x3's from an instant camera and mostly scenic shots graced with very few people. We weren't much for memories either, I concluded, and later on I was to idly wonder if my own interest in photography might not have been born, in part, from this lack of a visual record keeping.
There are always only two kinds of people in this world, my grandmother liked to tell me, Only we define them in different context. There are dog lovers and cat lovers, savers and spenders, truth tellers and liars, accountants and artists, lovers of war and peace seekers. There are families who treasure where they come from and others who would rather never know. Distill it down to its most common element and it makes no matter, she warned me,
How we come to be isn't as important as the fact that we are.
Arguing with Nana was always a futile process but on this occasion, though I didn't dare suggest it, I thought she might have been wrong. A part of me, the part that writes stories and takes pictures and remembers, still does.
Oh, no, Nana sighed as she pulled the Lincoln up to the post office building, What is it this time?
Willie Foot, looking all the world like a green haired Harpo Marx, was perched precariously on the roof in a patched and dusty old sport coat, clutching an umbrella in one hand and brandishing a headless flounder in the other. Fish blood had trickled down his sleeve and splattered on his shirt and he was yelling frantically at the sky, Rend not the fish!
Rescue efforts weren't going well by the time John Sullivan arrived. Willie continued to yell and when the Sullivan boys attempted to climb up after him, he pelted them with fish he almost magically produced from a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. The headless flounder came flying through the air and narrowly missed Miss Violet and Miss Victoria as they approached, arm in arm, causing Miss Violet to nearly swoon and Miss Victoria to shriek an unladylike if mild curse. Willie! my grandmother called sharply, Come down from there this instant! In response, Willie pulled a smallish green lobster from his bag, claws still waving, and flung it in her direction. To her credit, Nana caught it deftly and immediately returned fire, hitting the little man squarely in the chest and knocking him off his feet whereupon he slid ass backwards down the roof and over the edge, landing in Long John's waiting arms. Quite a throw you've got there, Alice, John remarked, depositing Willie unceremoniously on the dirt road, Didn't know you could pitch. Willie picked himself up, dusted himself off, and gave us all what my daddy would've called a withering look, then gravely laid out the remaining fish and the canvas bag at Long John's feet and with a cross eyed grin went hip hopping down the watery ditch toward The Point. Each enthusiastic step made a small spray of water and the sunlight passing through the sprays made tiny rainbows in his wake.
Mad as a hatter, my grandmother muttered.
'Spose so, Long John told her with a shrug, but harmless and happy as a mackerel.
It was later that evening when Uncle Shad heard sounds from his chimney, scratching and scrabbling noises as if some unwelcome intruder had come calling. He prepared to lay a fire to smoke out whatever trespassing creature might have found its way in when he heard a crash followed by a loud but very human howl of pain, and there was Willie, upside down and securely wedged in with a dislocated shoulder. A second canvas bag dangling in his one free hand was found to contain several cans of blueberry pie filling and yet another flounder. It took John Sullivan as well as his brother, several yards of rigging, a gallon of fish oil and most of the night to dislodge him - to the surprise of no one present, Willie resisted all efforts to free himself, fighting with the strength of ten and the iron will of madness. Like tryin' to snag an octopus in an oil slick, Uncle Shad related to Nana the following morning with a philosophical shrug, But leastways the chimney got cleaned and I kept the pie fillin'.
