No Possibility of Parole

The factory whistle woke me promptly at seven on the first morning we were home.  I'd slept on top of the covers and in my clothes so I wouldn't miss a moment - the dogs and I raced down the stairs and out the back door and began to run, halfway up the driveway then a right angle turn to the path through the strawberry field and to the road.  We jumped the ditch and headed for Uncle Willie's front pasture, past the lobster traps stacked four deep, and finally to the dusty Old Road.  I couldn't wait another second to make sure nothing had changed, wanted to see it all as fast as I could.  In the back pasture, through the waist high wild grass and wildflowers, I could see all of the cove and smell the salt air and the hay wagons and the wet clothes Mrs. Ryan was hanging on the line.  A wicker basket was balanced on her hip and her mouth was full of wooden clothes pins but she turned and gave me a friendly wave - there were no strangers here, we would be welcomed and asked in everywhere we went.  


You can't escape, John Sullivan had told me once, So you might as well learn to get along peaceful.


For lifelong residents, it was a hard and uncertain life with no much possibility of parole - for me, it was carefree, idyllic and magic.  I passed the post office ( a crossroads of sorts where you came for your mail each night, it didn't come to you ) and the dance hall, shabby and lonely on a Monday morning.  The movie theatre next door was dark and shut up although it would come to life on Saturday night.  The barber shop, also open only on Saturday nights and then the town square - two general stores, the bank and the Prescott steps where we gathered during the summer evenings and watched the stars.  A single gas pump stood unattended.  Set far back in a field next door was the house my great grandmother had been born in.  Abandoned and empty now, a team of oxen had once been housed here, I had a dim memory of having my picture taken with them and my daddy.  The road wound around in both directions and I headed for the the one room schoolhouse, the telephone office, and Curt's tiny corner store.  Just beyond was the church, across from the house where the doctor lived, when we had a doctor, and then I was back on the main road.  Satisfied that everything was still intact and still perfect, I began the trek home, stopping only for an Orange Crush and a Jersey Milk at the back porch where Frank Thurber sold homemade ice cream and cigarettes.  I passed Uncle Len's house with its pale green gingerbread trimming and heard the sound of a buzz saw - at the Sullivans, I heard children crying, the front door was wide open and an old dog slept in the threshold - he gave a half hearted woof as we passed.   Uncle Shad was in his front yard, sanding down planks and whistling as he worked and then I was at my own driveway and looking down at the red and white house with its windows newly scrubbed and the grass just cut.  Sunlight danced  and sparkled on the ocean and a colony of seals played in the whitecaps.  Things couldn't have been more right with the world.


Nana had lunch waiting - warmed up fish chowder, hot rolls and cold milk - afterward I headed off in the opposite direction along the coast and up island where no one lived.  I picked my way through the tide pools and the driftwood all the way to Beautiful Cove with only the gulls for company, then through the woods on what was left of the rutted old road, and home again.


It was the first of an entire summer of perfect days.

Too Many Broken Birds

I've tried to mend too many broken birds, a friend writes to me of a relationship, I'm being careful.


The phrase resonated with me immediately - I survived my rescuing broken birds stage but every now and then some wounded sparrow catches my eye and the urge comes back stronger than ever.  I force myself to step away and let nature run her course.  If we're meant to fly, I remind myself, we'll find wings on our own - there are simply too many broken birds in the world to rescue them all.  Mending the wings or spirits or hearts of others is addicting, especially when we fail - and rather than accept the loss, simply vow to double our efforts next time.  In the extreme, often without even being aware of it, we find someone or something more broken to focus on - it conveniently provides an illusion of power and allows us to bypass looking at our own flaws.


Being a fixer at heart, I know this as surely as I know anything and it's only recently that I've come to see neediness as something less than a virtue.  It used to call my name with every drink my husband took, with every tear at every meeting, with every victim I passed along the way.  I validated myself with kindness and charity to others and never gave a thought to wondering why, convinced that to do otherwise would be un-Christian and even heartless.  It was comfortable to see them as weak willed and dependent, flattering to be called upon for counsel and advice and seductive to imagine I was the strong one - wiser, more stable, more emotionally adult. 


It's taken a lifetime to learn to look inward and not be so fearful of my own flaws and there are still times I hold my breath, expecting to be judged and terribly afraid of being found wanting.  


Other times, I'm taken by surprise by my own confidence. 


Sometimes these moments follow each other in such rapid succession that I'm not quite sure which face I'm wearing from one day to the next.


I wonder if the final lesson isn't to find a patch of ground somewhere between isolationism and over-helping and stake a claim to it.  Choose your entanglements with care and when you must, detach gently with love rather than a sharp stick.  Look to your own damaged self first.

Chicken Scratch

Funny how I can barely recall what I had for breakfast and yet see every face of my elementary school teachers clearly.


But for Mrs. Rankin, most were young, reasonably pretty and single.  Mrs. Rankin - fourth grade and penmanship - was different.  She favored flowered print dresses and stocky heeled shoes, her bifocals hung around on her neck on a silver chain, and she carried a wooden ruler.  At our first penmanship lesson, she handed out yellow notepads with wide, blue lined spaces and freshly sharpened pencils.  We knew our letters by then, Mrs. Rankin's job was to teach us the art of writing - capital letters were to cover two whole spaces, touching the blue lines at the top and bottom.  Small letters were to take up only the bottom space.  We hunched over our notepads with pencils tightly clenched, not wanting to disappoint and definitely not wanting to risk the wrath of The Ruler.  Any imperfect letter brought a glare and a sharp rap on the knuckles.  


Letters do not lean, we were told repeatedly, Letters do not start and stop or sprawl out of control.


We practiced this every day for an entire school year while she walked slowly up and down the rows of desks, peering over our shoulders and tapping The Ruler against her thigh.


O's are to be closed.
I's are to be dotted.
T's are to be crossed.
Precision, children, precision!  It's the sign of an organized mind!


A to Z.
z to a.
A to Z.
z to a.


Bit by bit, we began to see that she was trying to teach us more than handwriting, that the lessons had to do with self control and discipline, accuracy and clear thought.  It was her way of teaching us to know where we were to start and where we were to finish, how to focus and not blur the lines - that we emerged from her class able to write clearly and neatly was a plus.


Clarity in thought, deed, and when you put pen to paper, she liked to tell us, You'll thank me one day.


Mrs. Rankin was not my favorite teacher - she was brusque and impatient and hard to please, often reminding me of my grandmother - but she may well have done me the most good.  To this day I get compliments on my handwriting and I think of her ( and thank her ) each time.

Freedom of Speech

Never one to mix music and politics, I admit I was caught off guard by my reaction to a local singer/songwriter's recent performance - I couldn't reconcile his music ( sweet, sad love songs ) to his political views ( a little to the right of Ghengis Khan ).  I found myself remembering some of his social network postings ( before, for my own peace of mind, I'd blocked him ) and for the first time that I can remember, I damned freedom of speech and walked out.


Here in the Bible Belt, liberals are few and far between and I'm accustomed to being in a minority - we did, after all produce David Duke, although I'm relieved to say I was living in New England at the time - and between the NRA and the Tea Party, I often feel quarantined.  Still, I've never allowed a difference of political opinion to interfere with friendship or music until now.  It strikes me that it's not so much his politics as his arrogance that offends me - his condescending lectures are articulate enough and superficially reasonable - but the tone suggests he's speaking to a community of left leaning mental defectives.  He's clearly intelligent but not wise enough to completely conceal his contempt for anyone who disagrees with his positions and while he fashions his words carefully to disguise his disdain, the venom comes through anyway.  


He's entitled to his opinion, of course, but I'm not obligated to listen to his views or for that matter, his music.
It's my loss but I'll live with it.

Language Skills....Or Not

At a loss to explain or correct the glitch in our scanning software, our local tech support reluctantly initiates a fourth repair ticket to be forwarded to the so called experts in Visakhapatnum or Delhi or Jaipur.  I sign it dismally, not anticipating the call that will follow to bring any more relief than the first three.  Before the afternoon is over, my most dreaded fears are confirmed - I spend over an hour on the 'phone, only able to pick out a word here and there from the rapid fire, incomprehensible and annoying Pakistani who assures me - exactly as he assured me before - that he is committed to solving the problem.  Nicely at first, I ask him to slow down - when he doesn't, I ask a second time, a little less nicely and the third time I'm not at all nice, telling him flat out that I can't understand a word he's saying and that I have more important things to do.  Following the script, he apologizes and then picks up the pace, repeating his request for me to demonstrate the problem.  We have had this exact same conversation a number of times and my temper is reaching a dangerously high level.


It's intermittent!  I snap, It's random!  Do you understand what random means?


He promises me he does then immediately resumes asking me to go through the scanning process and show him what happens,


RANDOM!  LOOK IT UP!  I very nearly scream, IT DOESN'T HAPPEN ON A SCHEDULE!  IT'S ARBITRARY AND HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN!  FOR THE LAST TIME, I CAN'T MAKE IT HAPPEN!


There are a few moments of silence.  I try and collect my weary wits but I'm damned if I'll apologize.


By the time he asks me to email him a screen shot of what isn't supposed to happen but does, I've more or less regained control.


No, I tell him firmly, I've already sent you three separate screen shots and it hasn't changed.  Go find one of those and call me back when you figure it out.  And don't call me until you can fix it because I'm done explaining this without a translator!


I hang up midway through what I imagined might be a protest on his part, slamming the receiver down so hard it hurts my wrist and feeling an urgent longing to smash the first breakable thing I can lay my hands on.  Instead, I snatch the small stuffed hedgehog that sits on the check out counter and pitch it against the wall - it hits with enough force to activate its squeaker - then falls pitifully to the floor.  Both nurses are laughing uncontrollably and   the sound brings me back to my senses.


Sorry, I mutter to the innocent hedgehog and restore him to his place on the counter.


Note to self:  Learn some Hindi cuss words.

Dog Stew

Before his death - a drunken, late night collision with a wandering plow horse - Gene and Buttons were what Nana called joined at the hip and you never saw one without the other.  Buttons trotted patiently at Gene's side to and from the factory, to and from the days of fishing, to and from Saturday night dances and Sunday morning services.  He was a faithful and ever present companion, well trained and protective, even tempered when Gene was not, and bright as a new penny - which folks also said Gene was frequently not.  Besides our two dogs, Buttons was the only other island animal that Nana would consent to having inside our house.  He's a gentleman, she liked to say,  He earns his keep and knows his place.  Buttons would bark agreeably at this and lay his shaggy head on her lap, eyes soulful and shining in hopes of a treat.  When it came, he would take it delicately from her outstretched fingers with never an impatient nip, and lay contently lay at her feet.  Good manners, she would say with a smile, makes for a good dog.  Not like some I know, this with a scowl at Lady and Fritz who danced around her feet like wind up toys at the prospect of a biscuit, Actin' like their damn throats been cut!  She didn't precisely not like animals, my daddy often told me, but she didn't see that they served much use unless you could consume them.  Dog stew!  she would frequently threaten under her breath, Gonna make me some dog stew tonight if you two don't get out from underfoot!  The first time I heard this, I was horrified and ran to her in uncontrolled tears - Somebody needs to teach this child about exaggeration, she told my mother with an impatient toss of her apron as she began to sternly now-now me, Ain't nobody gonna cook those dogs, child, it's just an expression and I didn't mean it.  She didn't relent often or easily and an apology, even to a child, was hard won.  She shooed me and the dogs out of the house with a rare wink,

Gene and Buttons followed close behind and my mother discreetly kept silent.


Approval came hard in the maternal side of our family and praise was seen as needless and ingratiating, a sure way to spoil a child and inflate a young and impressionable ego.  Perhaps it was the harsh Nova Scotia winters or the natural New England reticence - perhaps just that women raised with only negative reinforcement tend to repeat the cycle - my mother was raised coldly and indifferently as was her mother before her, as was I after.  When my mother was married in the 1940's, children were an obligation rather than a choice or a decision.  Being an unquestioned extension of marriage is no trifling matter when you come to realize that you were less wanted than required - my brothers and I proved to be ill fitting accessories at best - not quiet, not content, not perfect, not flattering, not even fulfilling.   


Contrary to what the child rearing books of the day liked to proclaim, parenting is not for the faint of heart,
the selfish, the malcontented, or the approval seeking.  Sometimes it's all just leftovers and dog stew.

Simple Salads

The weekend passes far too quickly and Monday arrives, a little on the gray side at first, but then the skies begin to lighten and I hear birds in the crepe myrtle and the lonely wail of a stray cat - a tabby with four white paws sits in the middle of the street, raising her voice and protesting her homelessness - the black dog is outraged at the noise and crashes through the blinds to answer her with a fury of anxious barking.  She snarls and growls and paws at the window as if warding off the approach of a demon.  The cat gives her a single contemptuous glance, then dismisses her with a tail flick, casually stretching and then wandering off in search of adventure and perhaps a morning meal.  The dog, under the mistaken impression that she has run the intruder off, gives a final chuff and then curls up in the chair and falls into a restless and victorious half sleep - momentarily calm and quiet but still alert and watchful.  For her, there is danger and treachery around every corner and she rarely if ever lets her guard down - even in her sleep she twitches and growls intermittently and often comes instantly awake at the slightest sound, in full attack mode and prepared to defend her territory to the last breath.  No amount of love, attention, praise, or reassurance (not to mention obedience training - twice! - and a variety of drug therapies) has ever altered her nature.  She is what she is and you can take her or leave her but you can't change or re-invent her.


I suppose it's just this very often unappealing trait that draws me to her.  She tries my patience every single day, 
exhausts and infuriates me on a regular basis, wears me out with her limitless energy and nonstop motion.  And yet, at the end of the day when she lays her head on my knee and gives me a sad, soulful look - in between baring her teeth at any approaching cat, a ruse if ever there was one - I can't help but love her.  We all need our lost causes, I suspect - people who are unlovable, who reject help, and snarl if we get too close.  We all imagine we'd find the good if we could dig deep enough and get past the cemented layers of suspicion and hostility.  I hate the thought of peeling an onion down to its core and not finding some hidden, surprise sweetness, hate the thought of all those silly, wasted tears to make a simple salad.


At six weeks, she was a tiny, black ball of fur, even then in perpetual motion, headstrong, stubborn, unwilling to please, chasing anything that moved and without a mellow bone in her small body.  At ten years, she is exactly the same.  Who, I wonder, has really failed to learn a lesson.


Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for ~ Clarence Darrow

Sisterhood & Secret Weddings

Try as you might and with all the best intentions, you can't live someone else's life or make decisions for them.
Everyone is entitled to their own mistakes.

One sister arrives at work with a shy smile and a new ring on her left hand.

The other comes in not long after, her face dark and her eyes clouded with a simmering kind of anger.  They circle each other warily and the tension in the air is palatable.  I wonder if things between them will ever be the same.

The wedding was scheduled for later this month but then unexpectedly held over the weekend, a well kept secret that caught everyone by surprise.  The younger sister was not included - she openly disapproves and doesn't trust her new brother in law - thinks he's a user and a taker with a carefully cultivated public image that conceals his real nature.  Her feelings are quietly shared by her mother and her niece but only she speaks out to say that the marriage is a trick, a scam, and will end badly.  Her instincts to protect her older sister are strong and she won't be edited or hushed up.  Honesty may be the best policy but there are times it can drive a wedge between people, even those bound by sisterhood.


He makes her cry, she tells me bitterly, And I won't have it.


Whatever he is or isn't, whatever his intentions might or might not be, sisterhood has taken a back seat to marriage vows, at least for the time being.  Interference is tricky and treacherous ground and it's best to step lightly, think before you speak, and leave no trace.   No matter the motivation, being forced into a choice is unwise and is likely to have consequences you can't foresee. 


He makes her cry, she tells me again, her face tight and pale with anger, He isn't who she thinks he is.  She slams a clenched fist into her desk.  She's going to be hurt.  Again.


I suspect she's right.


But the thing is, we're all entitled to make our own mistakes. 


We're also entitled not to learn from them.

A Small Sliver of Glass

It was the smallest sliver of glass, barely visible even with a magnifying glass and sharp eyes.


Jacob, despite all his mother's warnings about going barefoot in the field, stepped on it and gave a loud "Ouch!" followed by a curse worthy of a sailor.  Fearful of a scolding, he hobbled to the well to wash the blood off and probe the wound, searching in vain for the source of the pain.  For such a tiny piece of glass, it was wondrously painful and as he told Nana when he appeared at the back door, She's bleeding like a sumbitch.  My grandmother sighed, set Jacob on the kitchen counter where the light was brightest, and sent me for her first aid kit.  The boy squirmed like an eel as she rinsed his heel and patted it dry, removed the glass, and applied a generous dose of iodine and a bandage.


You keep it clean and covered, she instructed sternly, Infection ain't likely but you'd look mighty foolish with just one foot.


Yes'm, Jacob said with a wince as he set both feet on the floor and limped toward the door, Thank you, ma'am.


Despite Nana's first aid, infection did set in and within a week the wound was blackened and swollen.  By the second week, there were clear signs of gangrene and by the third, Jacob could barely walk - all of this he kept hidden as best he could - but when it became apparent that the infection might cost him a foot, there wasn't much choice.  Nana recruited John Sullivan to help and after Jacob's mother had cleaned and bandaged the abscess and packed a lunch, they put the boy into the back seat of the old Lincoln and headed for the mainland doctor in Yarmouth.


It was, John said, a grim and silent ride.  Jacob was feverish, restless and in pain and his mother guilt stricken and frantic with worry, could do little more than cry.  The amputation was done the following morning, just above the ankle, an inch of two above the red streaks of blood poisoning creeping slowly upward from Jacob's heel.


A limb for a life, John Sullivan told my grandmother and Jacob's weeping mother, Boy's young and a fighter, he'll learn to get along.


By the following summer, Jacob had grown two inches and added twenty pounds.  Not only had he learned to get along, he'd gotten adept with his crutches, moving with slightly awkward but impressive speed and overcoming obstacles with practice and sheer stubbornness.  No one much noticed what they'd feared would be a disability
and, it was often repeated, there wasn't much he couldn't do once he'd set his mind to it.  


Just goes to show, John Sullivan remarked, a limb for a life is a fine enough bargain.

For Pretty's Sake

The Newcombs - a family of five plus a white standard poodle with blue hair ribbons and answering to the name of Alexander - arrived on the island one unseasonably warm August afternoon, to take a two week possession of the house that Jack had built above the bay.  They were, so rumor said, from upstate New York, and the first and only new faces to cross the passage that day.  


Nice enough folks, I reckon, Cap judged as they drove up and off the ferry slip, but I ain't real sure 'bout that city dog, looks to be sissified from what I seen.  


For the Newcombs and especially for Alexander, this was the verbal kiss of death. Of all the insults that could be tossed out, the worst was "sissified" - it implied a lack of backbone, a parasitical unwillingness to earn your keep, an insufferable vanity.  Island dogs were expected to contribute and there was no use in being pretty for pretty's sake.  Poor Alexander with his prancing gait and dog show manners, his painted nails and outright laughable coat cut never had a chance.  


Hair ribbons, for Christ's sweet sake, Uncle Shad said with a disgusted grimace, 'Spose he sleeps on satin sheets and gets breakfast in bed!


Torn between feeling pity for the dog and contempt for his owners, island folk kept their distance from the newly arrived family.  The Newcombs, while treated civilly, were discreetly and methodically excluded from the usual summer activities, the usual spirit of welcome was withheld by unspoken agreement.  The Sunday School Picnic came and went without them, invitations to the church suppers were not offered, not a single fisherman volunteered his boat to take them to see the whales.  Even island children, following the harsh example of their elders, refused to be friendly.  It was not our finest hour as a village, my grandmother was to say, although she remained disinclined to admit it publicly.  It was the preacher who finally called us all to account with a soft spoken sermon about judging others, causing every head in church to look down in shame and regret but the Newcombs had left by then and they didn't return - there was no one to apologize to.


Other families came and went over the years Jack rented out the pretty little place.  Some came with children, some came with dogs, some came alone.  Island women brought casseroles and cakes to welcome them one and all and fishermen dropped off fresh haddock wrapped in newspaper, trying, I imagined, to make up for our past lack of tolerance.  These were people "from away" but they were also our guests and as the preacher had suggested, we owed them some hospitality and kindness, even the ones with bad taste in dog breeds.


It's easier to make room for people than make it up to them later.