A Friendly Gesture

Having perfected the aristocratic art of doing nothing, the small brown dog is worn out and in need of a nap.

She curls up on the pillow and falls asleep instantly, half supported by the pillow and half by my shoulder.  If I were not to move and if the cats were not to bother her, I suspect she would sleep clear til morning.  The tabby arrives and twines herself into the space between us - it's a true all creatures great and small moment but like all such moments in this house, it's fleeting -  not content to leave well enough alone, the tabby surreptitiously reaches out one paw and places it on the brown dog's exposed belly.  There is a sudden and panicked yelp - the cat leaps for safety and the small dog flings herself at me, quivering like jello.  The ensuing chaos is contagious and it takes the better part of a half hour to calm her nerves and restore order.  I want to think it was a friendly gesture and not a provocation but I know the tabby too well - like a great many people, she has never been one to let sleeping dogs lie.  


Here are some random things I've noticed about sleeping dogs.


Going "paperless" doesn't mean using or wasting less paper - it just means you shred four more times of it.


A software "upgrade" almost always means a dozen more keystrokes and twice the time to get to the same place.


"New and improved" usually refers to the packaging, not the product.


If you decide to make amends, first make certain it won't open old wounds.


Never completely trust a drunk, a cat with claws, a travelin' man or a rumor.







































  

A Lot Like Life

God gives and God takes back.

Gratitude may be the all time trick to staying clean and sober and warding off complacency.  For those who have received the gift of recovery, it's precious and fragile.  You earn it and continue to earn it each day, building trust and faith as you go, making amends where possible and learning to live anew.  Gratitude is a stepping stone leading to forgiveness of self and those who have harmed you, a bridge that will never fail under your weight.  If you so choose, it will last a lifetime.  The people I know who have found sobriety all share a common thread - they've each made a place in their lives for something more powerful than themselves - they don't broadcast it except in the most general terms, they don't force feed it to anyone else, they don't preach it.  But if you look closely, you can see it at work in their lives. 


After the death of one of their own, it was standing room only in the little bar across the river. Through a low hanging blue haze of cigarette smoke, musicians gathered to remember, tell stories, and honor an old friend with laughter and music - an Irish wake of sorts, my daddy might have said - they mourned his passing by raising their glasses but celebrated his life with their presence.  Liquor flowed but so, I noticed, did soft drinks, many there had reached an age or a stage where drunkenness was no longer an achievement.  I had a momentary flashback to a tee shirt I had once seen - Instant asshole, it had proclaimed, Just add alcohol


No one knows what precise combination of nature and nurture causes one person to step over the line and lose their way or what exact moment in time might bring them back.  Far too many don't make it at all, succumbing to od's, intentional or not, fatal liver damage, or just spending their lives in the dark.  The search to feel normal takes more and more and leads to nothing but waste.


Recovery is never something you casually or automatically slip into your back pocket each morning and assume will still be there each night.  It's a lot more like life and should never be taken for granted.  God gives and God takes back.

Collateral Damage

Trying to maintains some sense of neutrality, I listen as my friend Henry struggles to sort out and articulate his feelings.  Life would be ever so much simpler, I begin to think, without all its drama and emotional conflict.  We might all petrify from boredom and apathy, I suppose, but still it's an appealing prospect, despite the potential drawbacks.

No one was prepared for the drastic consequences of the stroke's brutal assault.  Grateful that he was still alive, we tried our best to keep him that way, staving off the depression, pain and anger.  We accepted the reassuring words of the doctors, that recovery was likely with time and therapy.  We didn't consider that they might be wrong - didn't reckon on the magnitude of the loss - the soul killing isolation of a series of nursing homes, the loss of speech, memory, coherent thought or the continuing and worsening paralysis.  And finally, adding insult to  injury, the breakdown of the last shreds of a troubled marriage - a wife's temper exploding, a random act of domestic violence, an arrest, a trial date set.


All this collateral damage aside, I still find the emotional contradictions the most mystifying.  They are bound by sickness and not love, I realize intellectually, and while a part of me understands this, another part is shocked by his determination to go home and her impatience to have him there.  They can't live quietly and together, they can't live quietly and apart.  Sickness, like some space age superglue, drives them to separate corners then pulls them back and in the interim, they scream abuse and threats and the vilest of curses.  They stalk each other, plotting and scheming revenge, hysterical and tearful.  There are endless attacks and counter attacks in this private, ongoing hell - a daughter who takes one's side then the other's and is finally driven away like a rabid dog whose wounds may never heal - and the war escalates.  Given the choice of self preservation and safety or the potential to destroy each other, each chooses the path of destruction.  Unbidden images suddenly come into my mind - sharks in a feeding frenzy, wild eyed lunatics in straight jackets, mental madness.  


Love comes and goes, friendships fade, parenting wears off but addiction feeds off itself and and is renewed and strengthened with every fix, every drink, every insane argument.   Nothing keeps people together like sickness.


Sometimes I think my baby's too good to die,
Sometimes I think she should be buried alive - Hugh Laurie, "Laughin' Just To Keep From Cryin'"

Tintinabulation

Waking to church bells rather than the factory whistle meant it was Sunday, the only true day of rest for the small fishing village where we spent our summers from each Memorial Day to each Labor Day.  The curtains at the window fluttered in the early morning breeze, carrying the sound of the gulls and the tides into my slanted roofed room - the sun was already warm and bright and there were no traffic sounds, no motors, no shouts from the men laying out dried fish on the slatted tables - just the church bells ringing clearly and steadily.  They could be heard all over the village and if the wind was right, the bells from Brier Island's small church would join in and it became a sweet symphony.


The bell ringer, mostly deaf and slightly malformed after so many Sundays of bells and ropes,was a former lobsterman, not terribly bright but dedicated to his art.  It's no simple thing, James had said once, it takes precision and strength and focus to ring the bells.  He and Lydia had offered Slocum room and board in exchange for his services on Sundays and during the week he acted as an extra pair of hands, helping Lydia make her calls and assisting James with the church's upkeep, running errands and sometimes helping Miss Clara tend the cemetery.  He was a cheerful man with a bent but muscle bound back and gnarled, misshapen hands usually kept hidden by work gloves.  Never having learned to read or write and not trusting his own speech which he had so much difficulty hearing, he communicated primarily with signs and gestures, but his greatest asset was his love of the bells and his loyalty to them.  I think, Lydia had once told our Sunday School class, It's how he talks to God.  On the morning that Slocum fell into the well, the general opinion was that God had been listening.


There were abandoned wells all over the island, mostly boarded up and fenced off to keep people away.  They were deathtraps in disguise, some said, no one knew precisely where they all were and they were only filled as they were found.  Slocum, on his way back from chopping wood and anxious to start the ritual of the bells, sidestepped a fallen tree and wandered a few paces away from his normal route - one quick misstep was all it took and he fell feet first, twelve feet down to a hard landing, a broken ankle and unconsciousness.  But for the fact that it was a Sunday, he very well might've perished where he'd fallen, possibly never even been found - but as luck or fate would have it, the morning was crisp and clear, perfect for squirrel hunting - and Gene and Buttons had been prowling the back woods above the bay since dawn.  Buttons, an able, well trained and experienced old hunting dog, instinctively followed the sound of the fall and led an exasperated Gene directly to the well.  Within the hour, the bellringer had been roped up and hauled out, Rowena had arrived to poultice and splint the shattered ankle, and Gene had made a litter out of branches - Buttons consented to being harnessed to it, proudly dragging a still unconscious Slocum through the woods and back to the church.  With the aid of Lydia's spirits of ammonia, the bellringer woke abruptly, secure in his own room and his own bed, with no memory of the fall or the well.  


James had been going to preach about forgiveness that Sunday morning, but at the last minute he hastily improvised a lesson about God's eye being on the sparrow and delivered it with quiet passion.  I didn't understand it all then, I just knew it was the only Sunday that I could remember when the church bells had been silent.  God was paying attention even without them.

Whiskers, Shutters & Strings

Friday nights almost always find me and my Nikon across the river at a small, smoke filled little bar in what used to be - and to some, still is - a highly disreputable stretch of Texas Street.  The drinks are cheap, the doors always open, the music never stops and the people who congregate come to share their gifts freely. They sing, they play, they laugh and support each other.  Each new face is welcomed and I feel honored to be part of the regular family.


Sometimes it's a search to discover where you belong but sometimes something calls to you, something knows your name.  It may be love or motherhood or art, it may be a person or a place, a career, the sound of a melancholy harmonica or fate - but whatever calls, it's wise to listen, really listen - because the things that are meant to be are inevitable.  In my case, I was meant to love and shelter animals, feed my soul with music, and take pictures.  The rest is clutter, necessary perhaps, unavoidable perhaps, but still clutter.  The trick is to clear it away, pick your way through one careful step at a time, and get to where you belong - without being derailed by drama or disappointment or failure.  It's pretty much a learn as you go process, bound to have detours and dead ends as well as soaring success and moments of complete happiness.  As the song says, Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug.


With my animals, there is unconditional love and total acceptance.  They've taught me patience, responsibility, tolerance and kindness.


With music, I've found healing, companionship, and harmony.


With photography, I've discovered an outlet for what language can't express.


May we all be as fortunate.

The Late, Great Ebenezer Isles

He'd arrived in the world under protest, the product of a one night stand between a naive young waitress from Dalhousie and a lonely, long haul trucker - there'd been a full moon high in the October sky, his mother was to say and after a few romantic hours under its spell in a deserted hayloft, she'd never had another moment's peace.  She gave birth in a Halifax hospital, signed the adoption papers, and resolutely vowed to spend the rest of her life being a better person.  A conscience is a hard taskmaster, however, and in time she was overcome with guilt and finally sought refuge with the Sisters of Charity - eventually entering their order, taking her vows, and devoting herself to a life of chastity, poverty, and obedience.  She was sent to a small convent in Sri Lanka and spent the remainder of her earthly time in religious service.


I gave my Uncle Shad a suspicious look.  Sri Lanka?  I asked edgily, Really? Is any part of this actually true?


His eyes narrowed and he gave me a look that suggested my manners could use some improvement.  Reckon you could learn some respect for your elders, missy, he said tartly but then looked away, slightly shamefaced.  It's all true 'cept for the nuns and the Sri Lanka part.  Now don't interrupt.  And he resumed.


Ebenezer's time in the orphanage was brief - he was a cheerful and pretty little boy with blond curls and bright blue eyes and was soon adopted by a shopkeeper's assistant and his young and tender hearted wife, a good couple with room in their home and hearts and no other children.  They were untroubled by his background or his occasional faraway-ness and he came of age a clever and handsome young man, book learned, good natured and hard working with fine prospects for the the future.  All that was missing was his own wife and family and this, everyone was convinced, would come in time.  If fate were to step it, people liked to say, it would surely be on the side of the angels and it was easy to forget that fate has its own agenda and keeps its own timetable.  For his part, Ebenezer took everything in stride, asked few questions and showed no special interest in any of the half dozen pretty, young women competing for his affection - he preferred to spend his free time with the gentle nuns who had first taken him in, acting as an unofficial handyman and all around extra pair of hands, even attending mass on Sundays.  The faraway-ness that had not worried his adoptive parents became more noticeable - often he was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the shop bell, didn't notice his name being called.  On his 30th birthday, he quietly announced his plans to enroll in seminary school.  He intended, he said, to convert to Catholicism and become a priest and he calmly and steadfastly rejected every plea and argument to change his mind.  


Uncle Shad gave me a sideways glance, anticipating an objection I assumed.  If this ends with him being elected Pope.....I warned him but he just shrugged and paused to light his pipe.  More'n likely it bought him time to figure out the next part, I thought but didn't say.


So, he continued presently, Ebenezer felt the call and followed it all the way to ordination, becoming Father Isles and being assigned to a dismally dark and poverty stricken church in New Brunswick.  On the morning he said his first mass, a young and strung out junkie took communion and then produced a knife and thrust it into the new priest's side.  Coughing blood and holding his wounded side, Father Isles fell while his stunned but still outraged congregation tackled the assailant, disarmed him, and called for help - fellow priests packed the wound with his vestments and prayed desperately.  As one began the last rites, a stream of light came through the old church's only stained glass window and shone upon the fallen priest. 


A miracle, I suppose, I remarked dryly and Uncle Shad gave me a glare.


Mebbe, mebbe not, he said a little sharply, But Ebenezer survived when by rights he should'a died right there in that church instead of gettin' up and walkin' his self to the ambulance.  


So what happened? I asked with a sigh, How did it end?


Near dyin' can change a man's mind, he told me with a slight smile, he give up the cloth and started a chicken ranch somewheres round Dalhousie.  Lived another 50 years, never married, and died in his bed.  Leastways,
that's what folks say.  He tapped his pipe and stuck it in his pocket, adjusted the fasteners on his denim overalls and pulled his cap over his thinning hair.  It's a story, missy, and you can believe it or not.

False Spring

Headed out on a chilly and slightly gray Monday morning, I realize with more than a little surprise that I'm looking forward to work - it's a distantly familiar feeling and not one I recognize right away -  having come to feel trapped in my current job, I'm caught off guard by my lack of negative expectations and not sure how to feel at this new prospect.  I give the matter serious consideration while driving, searching for an explanation, trying to identify what, if anything, has changed.


It's February, normally a dismal and cold month, despite the cheerful chatter of the sparrows on the telephone wires.  Robins have been fluttering about the clinic for weeks now, gathering materials for new nests and preparing.  Our winter has been unusually kind this year, mostly warm and rainy and more like April, what my grandmother would've called "a false spring".  Flowers are in bloom too early, people say, the earth hasn't slept long enough yet and there's still time for a turnaround - perhaps we fear this good fortune and don't want to jinx it. Most people I know are exceedingly cautious about the next couple of months, as if Mother Nature might still have a punch to throw.  I wonder at how we are afraid to trust a good patch won't last but so willing to believe that a bad one won't end.


The end of a comfortably busy day comes and we pack it in and head for our respective homes while it's still light. I'm still trying to puzzle out what's different - certainly not the doctor, not the patients, not the software, the weather or the light - but something has changed.  I feel it in the air, in the nurses, in myself.  For whatever unknown reason, we're in a good patch and the question becomes to trust or question it, expect it will last or prepare for a sudden bad end.



The wisest course may be to do nothing at all and see where it takes us.  Not every year brings a false spring but not every early spring proves false and there's not much point in examining this mysterious change - it is what it is and will either continue or change again.

“When you have come to the edge Of all light that you know And are about to drop off into the darkness Of the unknown, Faith is knowing One of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly”

Patrick Overton

The Dime A Dance Girl

On Saturday nights, out of whiskey and in a mood to celebrate, Charlie would down a few bottles of vanilla extract, stash a few more into his pockets and come to town feeling no pain and looking for trouble.  He had a reputation for being a mean drunk with a hot temper and a .44 pistol - the men had learned to give him room while the women scattered - we all knew that taking on Charlie was a bad idea.  He was a big man, well over six feet and heavy on his feet with no more sense than God gave a gull, as Nana often said, just a no account bully with a chip on his shoulder. 


Still, child, she reminded me sternly, You stay out of his way and keep your distance.  I didn't need to be told twice.


Charlie's common law wife, Madelaine - rumor had it, a former dime a dance hall girl who'd been born on the French Shore but found her niche in a St. John bar - was a tall and well endowed beauty with dark hair and long legs. She  spoke with a slightly cajun accent and had what the islanders called a habit of steppin' out, spending her idle afternoons in the canteen feeding nickels into the old jukebox, drinking Canadian ale with Sparrow, painting her long, curved nails and unabashedly flirting.  She was, according to my grandmother, a train wreck in the making.

Mark my words, I overheard her warn Sparrow, That woman's no better'n an old mangy cat in heat and where she goes, trouble will follow. 

The old man roared with laughter.  Alice, he sputtered when he caught his breath, I don't hold with trash and besides that woman's 'bout dangerous as dust!


Mebbe so, my grandmother said dryly, but her husband ain't.  You'll be wantin' to mind your manners if you know what's good for you.


Honor was a thing of importance on the island - maintaining and defending it mattered, especially in affairs of the heart ( and cribbage ) and the trouble my grandmother predicted came on the heels of a sudden, late summer storm.  Rather than wait it out or brave the downpour, Madelaine carelessly accepted a ride home from a passing salesman - sewing machines and notions, so the legend said - but at the turn of The Old Road, the pickup slipped into a skid, lost traction and dumped itself, a pallet of sewing machines and both its occupants into the ditch, unfortunately out of sight of the nearest house.  Madelaine and the salesman climbed back into the truck to wait for the rain to stop and seek help but Charlie, arriving home not long after to a deserted house and no supper on the stove, immediately thought the worst.   He slipped on a pair of dry hip boots and a yellow slicker, grabbed his .44 and with murder in his heart, set out to hunt his wandering wife.


By the time he reached the canteen, so Sparrow recounted, the place was deserted but for Patsy Kline on the jukebox and Willie Foot on a three legged stool just outside the doorway, peeling potatoes.  The rain had stopped and a dazzling double rainbow hung high in the sky over Westport but Charlie ignored it, grimly setting out toward The Old Road with Sparrow following at a discreet distance.  Whether by intuition or instinct, deduction or dumb luck, he found the pickup and managed to shoot out the windows with a spray of gunfire before Sparrow took him down with a clumsy, one legged tackle.  Charlie, cursing and growling like a mad bear, threw him off and aimed his pistol again - Madelaine screamed and the salesman ducked for cover - and at the moment a potato came flying through the air, Like the hand of God!  Sparrow said later.  It struck Charlie square on the back of the neck and he staggered.  The second missle caught him just under his right eye, shattering his cheekbone and spinning him around - the third, a direct hit to his groin, finished it and he fell, clutching his privates and moaning, the pistol, the pickup and the problem forgotten.  Madelaine and the salesman hightailed it out of the truck and across the open field like hound dogs after a rabbit - neither was ever to set foot on the island again.  Sparrow claimed to have heard a cackling laugh and then watched Willie Foot empty his pockets of additional potatoes, jump knee deep into the ditch and skip happily back toward the canteen.  


Heroism is often just the right mix of circumstances and and the proper ammunition.

Man the Cannons

On Lodge nights, my mother often descended the stairs like uncertain royalty.  She wore sequined evening gowns and a tiara, carried a small gold clutch, and her tiny, swollen feet were crammed into fancy slippers - hair done, nails polished, and makeup overdone, she would take my daddy's arm and sweep off into the night, a short and bulging little woman, reinforced with a few glasses of sherry and ready to take on the world.


She belonged to everything - Eastern Star, the Rebeckahs, Nashoba Valley - secret societies one and all with their rituals and rites and chains of command.  Beyond the dressing up part, I never understood their purpose but it was a long held family tradition and not to be questioned.  Even my daddy took his part seriously - he was a 32nd degree Mason, a master, past master, and past grand master - an Oddfellow and a member of one such cult that required a three cornered hat, a bright white sash, white gloves and a genuine sabre in a shiny black and gold sheath. Only this last, The Commandry, he once confided to me, made him feel a trifle silly, like an imitation Lord Nelson off to a great sea battle.  Don't be sacrilegious, Guy! my mother would snap imperiously and he would assume his solemn face for her but give me a discreet wink.  Man the cannons, he'd whisper as he kissed me good night, and be good.  And with a dramatic flair, he would don his black cape with  the gold tasseled fasteners, and take my mother's elbow.  Leave us depart, madam, he would tell her, for the night is still young and merriment awaits!  Try as she might, even my mother could not help but smile at this.


Needless to say, we were all expected to follow in these fraternal footsteps and uphold the tradition, but we were young and just learning that parental wishes, not to mention rules, could be resisted.  After a brief and thoroughly miserable incarceration in the Rainbow Girls, I hung up my white dresses and put away my white pumps forever.  My brothers were spared entirely once my grandmother had concluded they were not Masonic material and thus the tradition ended - not soon enough my brothers and I declared victoriously (but only to each other and only in private).


Looking for a lesson in this, I think there are several - about vicarious living, having expectations, issues of control and growing up - but possibly the most important concerned not taking yourself so seriously that you bypass the outright silliness of life.  It takes a brave man to wear a sword and plumed hat but it takes a man who appreciates the lighter side to wear a sword and plumed hat and dash into a corner market for a pack of Luckies.  


Even a bad childhood has its lighter moments.

Follow the Breadcrumbs

The telephone call that broke my heart came on a rainy Tuesday night - my old friend Henry, incoherent and hysterical, lonely and desperate, was in tears, threatening suicide and begging for help.  His wife was being charged with domestic abuse, a process he himself had brought about, and on advice of her attorney, had cut back her visits while the case was pending.  After setting things in motion, Henry now wants to take things back but the state refuses to drop the charges and he's just beginning to comprehend that there's a real possibility she might be convicted and sent to jail for more than just an overnight stay.  He's too irrational and ill to see beyond the fact that this will leave him warehoused and abandoned, too panicked and helpless to ever be free.

I can't imagine a life without friends or animals, without someone to talk to.  The rehab center is superficially cheerful enough, but it's still a rehab center with suffocating structure, rules, tasteless food and indifferent staff.  He's just one more paralyzed and uncooperative patient, one more burden, lonely, dangerously depressed and dying by inches.  His body, mind and soul are atrophying day by empty day and this desperate plea to turn things around leaves me stricken - I have no fix for this, quick or otherwise.  In my heart, I suspect he will never leave this ugly and barren place and though I played no role in his ending up here, guilt tears at me - for not visiting, for not having a solution, for not wanting to take this tragedy on.  Seeing my old and dear friend like this is too painful and too hard and privately I rage at his daughter for her detachment and condemn his wife for her temper, her lack of compassion, her own mental illness and her violence toward him.  I am not responsible, I tell myself - this broken, battered man is someone I don't know.

But if not me, I wonder, then who.  His doctor barely knows his name, his therapist is well intentioned but only sees him once a week, government health care has failed him, his mind is deteriorating and his body has turned traitor.  There is no insurance to pay for home health care or physical therapy or the proper medications and I have no standing in this sad drama, no means to help.  


For myself, I fear getting caught in the undertow and drowned if I get too close - it makes me feel as if I'm being selfish - in the last year and a half he's lost everything, job, independence, family, home, self respect and hope, the ability to walk, think, remember or feed himself.  It's unbearably sad and unfair.  This is a time for faith, I tell myself, for trusting that somehow it will all turn out for the best - the disillusioned side of my nature doesn't buy this for a second - but the side that hates giving up, the stubborn side, still fights to  believe.  Then, like a small miracle, I stumble upon a name - a counselor, ordained minister, and recovering alcoholic, a man I used to know who helped me through rough times and who still offers private therapy, a man of God and AA and above all, faith.  I call him and he agrees to see Henry, if Henry will call him and ask for his help.  He reminds me that he also hosts free and open self help meetings on Wednesday nights and that all are welcome - it's then that I remember I have a friend whose son drives an independent taxi, certainly there would be room enough for a wheelchair - and I email her on the spot.  Finally, I send another email to Henry's daughter, detailing what I've done and explaining that her mother will have to assume the financial responsibility if she decides to pursue any of this.  Her reply is a non committal and detached, a little vague and not too promising - she's not at all sure her mother will want to pay for counseling or taxis, but you never know.  I realize this is the best I'm going to get and I let it go.


It feels good to have done something positive for someone I love without becoming entangled.  I tuck the name and telephone number of the minister and the taxi driver into my pocket, I'll deliver them this very night.  It's a small enough trail of breadcrumbs and it may or may not be followed - but I've left it and that's enough.  A few days later, I sit up and take notice when I realize I didn't do it for Henry or to do a good deed,
I did it for me and I'm well pleased with myself.  It takes small steps and good light to follow your own trail of breadcrumbs.

Winter Weary

One harsh, freezing winter morning in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, the streets filled with police cars, lights flashing and sirens wailing - someone had found a body in a doorway not far from our little apartment - an old wino, homeless, dirty, and dead.  The coroner's wagon came and took him away, just an anonymous old drunk whose time had run out.  The police made a half hearted attempt to identify him then moved on to the business of serious crime.  There was a war on and they had better things to do.


As seasons go, New England winters can be bone chilling and uncommonly cruel, especially to those who call the city streets home.  Our's was a neighborhood of old brownstones, delicatessens and shabby laundromats, used bookstores and coffee shops.  The population was a mix of students of all ages, artists and slumlords, the working poor and the young, upwardly mobile - Northeastern was right around the corner, Copley Square just a stone's throw to the north and the victory gardens of the Fens within walking distance.  In spring and summer, the streets were alive with sights and sounds but come winter, we retreated to our separate nests, closeting ourselves with quilts and space heaters, praying for early warm weather and venturing outside only for the direst of necessities.  The cold seeped in anyway, taking advantage of cracked window panes and uneven thresholds. Icy winds whipped through the alleyways and snow accumulated waist high on the stoops and sidewalks.  The city froze and often came to a standstill in winter's fierce grip - public transportation was haphazard at best and the confining weather led to cabin fever, bouts of depression and bodies in doorways.  January and February were the most desolate months, each day a grim and gruesome affront to the senses, a full frontal assault of our winter weary bodies.  Spring, we thought, would never break through - we would never be warm again.  And then one day it was suddenly March, then April, and miraculously, the siege was over.


I was married on an April day, with both families in attendance, in a small chapel at Longfellow's Wayside Inn, in Sudbury, a genteel and casually wealthy Boston suburb.  Thoughts of winter and bodies in doorways were forgotten - there was sunshine and music and the sound of the grist mill in the background - being young and in love makes for perfect days.


I used to wonder if we'd stayed the course in New England, toughed out those cruel and unforgiving winters and kept our independence, if things might've lasted - or were we destined to go in opposite directions no matter the geography.  Like the name of the old wino frozen to death in the doorway, the list of things we'll never know is endless.