Retribution

Round One.
From out of nowhere, the kitten rounds the corner at full tilt.  She hasn't counted upon the presence of one of the black cats, however, and she skids to a surprised stop right in front of him, rears up on her short back legs and waves her front paws in a kitten karate pose.  Unamused, the older cat sends her reeling with one bored swipe and returns to his grooming.  Undeterred, she gives an offended squeak, picks herself up and looks around for a secondary target. 

Round Two.
She settles on the passing tabby, dignified and less good natured, ignores the warning glare and launches herself into disaster.  The tabby hisses violently and there is a brief but still ear splitting scuffle before the black dog intervenes and sends both parties skittering in opposite directions.  The dog gives me her Well, someone has to be in charge look then stretches out in the doorway, head on her paws and eyes bright and alert.  She watches, she listens, she waits.  With half her energy, I think idly, I could remake the world.

Round Three.

It starts casually.  On her way to the kitchen, the kitten strolls by the other black cat who is on his way to another room.  They pass each other like ships in the night but as soon as his back is turned, she whips around and commences a low to the ground, silent stalk.  I don't know precisely what gives her away but the black cat somehow senses a shadow on his trail and stops suddenly, looks over his shoulder at the creeping menace and emits a low frequency growl.  The kitten freezes, one paw in mid-air as if pointing like a water dog - there's a second or two of absolute silence - then with a ferocious squeak, she leaps.  With one carefully timed and well aimed swat, the black cat sends her sprawling.

Round Four.
The tuxedo cat, a solid mass of feline with abs of steel and the soul of a barncat, is half asleep on the couch when the kitten begins her approach. She's stealthy as...well, as a cat...moving slowly and deliberately, never taking her eyes off her target, focusing in like a scud missile.  She scales the couch almost soundlessly and then pretends not to see the older cat.  Tails twitch with studied indifference, the tuxedo boy yawns.  For a moment I think it may come to nothing then they are abruptly nose to nose and neck in neck.  They tumble off the couch with a thud and begin to wrestle around on the floor, all tails and claws and teeth but all without a sound.  Not wanting to be left out, the small brown dog and the little dachshund decide to join this barroom like brawl and the tuxedo cat wisely withdraws, leaving only the kitten to play the prize in what turns into an enthusiastic tug of war.

Round Five turns out to be retribution.

  

Miracles

By dawn, the sky has turned the color of carbon paper.  I can hear thunder in the distance and the rain is coming down in sheets.  A dreary and dismal day, I think, already regretting last night's decision to put off the grocery store til today and wishing I'd had the good sense to have checked the forecast before turning in.  The downpour is supposed to last the entire day - what a small sacrifice it'd have been to shop last night - but what's done is done, no sense crying over spilled milk.

With Christmas just a day away, I inevitably start thinking about family, friends, lovers, the complete futility of regrets - can anything possibly be more useless than hindsight - and gratitude.  I wonder, just a little, about all the people who have come and gone in my life, where they are, how they are, how they're planning to spend the holidays.  Places and faces I haven't seen in decades come to mind and it strikes me how quickly and thoroughly we forget people and things when they're over.  We tame the most devastating and life altering events with time.  We recover from the worst setbacks and muddle through the hardest of losses.  We get over it or go through it and come out reasonably intact.  Even with all the empty spaces in our lives, what miracles we all are.

The drama of being young and worrying about what I would and wouldn't survive is behind me these days.  I loved riding the roller coaster until I didn't.  Now when I look back, I'm struck by how silly most of it was, how theatrical and melodramatic I made it.  Forlorn as it seemed then, I don't know a single soul who died of a broken heart even though at the time I was fairly convinced I would never love again, that all my dreams died with every breakup.  Age and experience bring a certain resolution, a calmness, a perspective that isn't possible when you're young and wild with hormones and imagination.  Real pain, real heartache, real tragedy don't waste themselves on foolish young girls with all their lives ahead of them.  We learn to walk as infants, then we re-learn as adults - one foot in front of the other 'til we get someplace real.

Still, the faces are clear, unlined and always young, just as we were then.  No gray hair, no frown lines, no chubby waistlines or liver spotted hands.  There was magic in being young and passionately in love but it wouldn't have done for every day.  At that pace, we'd never have seen thirty.

Christmas Eve day passes slowly and leisurely - I know the old black and white holiday movies by heart and am content to listen to them without actually having to watch - so the animals and I rarely stir from the bed.  It's our own tradition and it turns out to be a surprisingly peaceful one.   I do venture out but only to one of the numerous casinos - what amazing places these gambling halls are, no night or or day, never closing or even slowing down never mind acknowledging such a thing as Christmas - for a little sweet harmony from one of my favorite musical groups.  I visit with a few friends, take a few pictures, and leave early.

The doctor offers me a place at his Christmas table, as do a number of others who worry about people like me who are what they consider alone during the holidays.  I smile and decline as I always do, not able to imagine anything I'd rather do less but not willing to say so.  It's a kind gesture and a sincere one and while I appreciate the generosity of spirit, I'm not willing to give up a single day of being alone.  It's not so much bad memories of holidays that make me retreat - not even bad memories of family, come to think of it, I get a little further past them with each passing year - there's just no other place where I'm as comfortable or content and no other place where I have better company.

So another Christmas will come and go, quietly and blessedly uneventfully.  I look back with gratitude, a tiny bit of sorrow, and only a very small sense of loss because family - whether two or four footed - is what we make it.

Aprons & Baked Apples

Domesticity and I parted ways decades ago - it went its way and I went mine and we haven't crossed paths since - but every now and again, I think of it with a little fondness.  Well....almost.

Tradition decreed marriage and family for a girl child.  I knew this from an early age but while I thought marriage might be acceptable, I had no illusions about children - I knew as surely as I knew anything that I didn't want them - the idea of childbirth was bad enough but the prospect of a lifetime of responsibility and nurturing was paralyzing.  I refused to even consider the thought of such a burden and though I sometimes wondered if there was some integral missing motherhood link in my genetic makeup, I had no regrets.  I felt the same about cooking and sewing, coffee klatches and dinner parties and cleaning house in a cute little number with heels and hose and pearls.  Self sacrifice just wasn't my strong suit.

Junior high school did not share this attitude, however, and come 7th grade I was forced into a home economics class - one year of learning to make a baked apple, one year of learning to make an apron.  The oven and the sewing machine became my instant enemies and the class only reinforced my conviction that women were silly, trivial creatures with the instincts of sheep.  My repeated requests to transfer to the shop class were denied with appalled looks and while the apple turned out to be passable enough, on the last day of school I tossed the apron into the first trash can I came to.  Oddly enough I still remember it - red and gray, the school colors - with trimmed pockets and ribbon edging.

The inevitable results of my disdain for the domestic life - being unable to sew on a button, barely able to boil water - don't trouble me all that much.  The ancient oven in the kitchen gave up the ghost months ago and I didn't see the point in having it repaired or replaced.  Any matched pieces of leftover revere ware are purely accidental.  I doubt I could put together a full place setting using the same silverware and there's a drawer in the dining room filled with table linens, price tags still attached.  It just goes to show how we change, how the things that are important to us change, how we trick ourselves with possessions and material things.  I console myself with a simple fact - if I'd had children, they might be as dust covered and neglected and useless as aprons and baked apples.  Unless the old cycle of life thing kicked in and then they might very well have become the height of domestic engineers.  I've often thought that somehow children grow up hungry for what they don't have - raised in a rigid religious home, they become devoted atheists, raised to be neat freaks, they celebrate disorder - until their children come along and the whole process reverses itself.

Who can tell where aprons and baked apples will lead. 

Ave Maria

After several days of freezing cold and rain, the sun emerges.  There's nothing tentative or half hearted about it, it streams full strength through the windows and the chill I feared might last for months finally, although very reluctantly, is forced to give a little ground.  I am grateful but still cautious as I pack my camera gear - it is still December after all - and sunlight can be a deceptive old dog, slow to move, a little tired, and not as fierce as it once was.  Much like me, I think, and sling my bag over my shoulder.

As a venue, the small church across the river is nearly perfect for a classical guitarist on a Sunday afternoon.
Although I've listened to him for years, this is my first time to actually see him perform and I'm delighted to find he looks exactly the way he sounds on the radio - a small man, with a beard, mustache, and wavy silver hair that looks almost feminine - he's dressed in an elegant tux and perched comfortably on a raised platform at the front of the sanctuary.  He's playing, very softly but intently, as the audience begins to file in and take their seats.  Sunlight filters in through the stain glass windows and the crowd is instinctively hushed.  I'm acutely aware of how loud the sound of my shutter seems to be - the background quiet is almost unnerving - and I say a small prayer that I'm not a distraction.  As if he senses my thoughts, he looks at me and smiles and the whole room seems to light up.  Halfway through the concert, I realize that he's so focused, so one with the music, that he barely knows I'm there although I'm less sure of the rest of the audience.  I try to time my shots to coincide with the applause but I've never shot in such complete and stunning silence and I feel awkward. No one coughs or clears their throats, there's no hum of an air conditioner, no outside or background noise at all.
It's a startling and slightly eerie experience and I can only hope the pictures will be worth it.

Most musicians I know have some kind of empathy with their instruments - many actually name them - but I can't remember a single one who seemed so in tune.  I watch his fingers fly over the frets with a whispery lightness, head bent and eyes closed as he begins "Ave Maria".  There is an exquisite delicacy to his touch and without realizing it I lower my camera and let it rest in my lap.  After a moment or two, I find myself in tears, moved by the sheer and astonishing beauty of Shubert and the man who plays it so lovingly.

There aren't that many perfect moments in life but this is one.

War Stories

Once a month or so during the summers on the island, Uncle Sherry came to visit and pass the time.   Despite one conspicuously empty sleeve, he stood tall and straight and almost always arrived with a burlap bag slung over his other shoulder - usually scallops fresh from the docks at Digby, sometimes lobsters - and one memorable morning in August, an honest to God swordfish.

If you're gon' ask a pretty woman to cook for you, he would tell my grandmother with a broad wink, Then it's best to bring provisions!

Sherry, you ol' one armed bandit! she would exclaim, I'd about given you up for lost...carry your ragged ass into this house this minute!

By then the dogs had heard his voice and stormed the back door in a frenzy - he always carried rib bones in the pocket of his overcoat - and they nearly knocked him down in their excitement.  My daddy was right behind them, shirtless and with shaving lather still on his face.

Sherry! he shouted, You old horse thief!  What took you so long!

They had grown up together, so Nana said, boyhood friends who had joined the Canadian Armed Forces and served together in France along with my Uncle Vern.  The war had not been kind, certainly not what they'd expected and only my daddy came home intact - Uncle Vern had lost a leg to a landmine and Sherry's arm had been blown off my a grenade - but it had also cemented their friendship.  After an overnight stay, they would be off to the Valley for a daytrip to see other old friends - the big reunion was held in the fall but these three gathered each summer - for old times sake, my daddy said, to reminisce, drink bourbon and tell not so gently edited war stories.  It was fascinating to hear and see them slip so easily into the past with tales of French barmaids and foxholes and lazy afternoons in sidewalk cafes.  And while there was always a drink to the ones who didn't come home, there were no stories of landmines or grenades or amputated limbs.  To hear them tell it, France had been one long, glorious adventure of wine, women, song and patriotism.

My mother, horrified that no one would pretend not to notice Sherry's empty sleeve and more than a little jealous of the bonds that held the men together, made herself scarce for these small reunions.   

We managed without her.  

Convinced that a one armed man could hardly fend for himself, Nana sent Sherry off the following morning with a veritable trunk full of provisions - quarts of chowder, loaves of bread tightly sealed in saran wrap, fried chicken and spare ribs, a basket of sweet corn - he protested but was no match for my iron-willed, grey haired grandmother. 

Wars and families make strange bedfellows.

Too Cold To Snow

The morning is dim and cloudy gray - there was a brief but chilling smattering of snow during the night - and I wake thinking that my decision to move south was sound enough but incomplete.  Looking out at the frozen crepe myrtle and frost covered grass, I wonder if I shouldn't have gone a little further.  It's a too cold to snow kind of morning, as my daddy might've said - every breath sends a wave of arctic chill into my lungs and the dogs waste no time being curious, they're out and back in in a matter of seconds.  The small brown dog trembles with cold and rushes for the bedroom, not even waiting for the accustomed biscuit, while the other two - bigger and made of sterner stuff - trot hastily inside and settle by heating vents.  It's tricky maintaining your dignity while freezing.

Too cold to snow, I think dismally, how does that even make sense?

I can see my daddy - practically mummified in layers - thermal socks and long underwear, cable knit sweaters and a snug wool cap pulled over his ears, bright mittens and an oversized scarf.  He would pull a chair close to the fire and hunker down beneath multiple blankets while my mother alternately laughed and scolded.  It seemed as if all their differences could be summed up according to the thermostat - he was always too cold and she was always too hot - they never agreed on what the temperature should be and were only rarely able to reach a compromise.  Even now it's hard to imagine a more constant or enduring conflict.   

In his younger days, my daddy was up after a blizzard, whistling and shoveling in the pre-dawn hours.  He would methodically clear the front steps, then the walk, the sidewalk, and finally the driveway.  Digging out the car was cold, cruel work and for countless winters he did it alone until he was finally persuaded that there was wisdom and efficiency in a gas powered snow blower.  We trudged to Sears and Roebuck in Porter Square in the midst of an early and reasonably mild storm and purchased a bright, shiny red Kenmore blower and a plastic gas container.   By the time we were up the following morning, the entire yard had been cleared and the freshly made snowdifts were hip-high.  My daddy, looking very much like Nanook of the North, was standing on the sidewalk, chatting easily with the neighbors and triumphantly spreading salt and de-icer like birdseed.  He never picked up another snow shovel.

Here in the south, the idea of a snow shovel is fortunately laughable but the cold still comes.  I leave the house and an intake of freezing air settles in my nose, throat, and lungs.  My gloved fingers tingle and there's always that shining moment of terror when I wonder if the car will start and if the sun will ever shine again.  It may be too cold to snow, but it's cold enough for me and mine.

Spirits of the Fire

The day before Thanksgiving is bitterly cold and still damp from the last few days of winter rain.  It's the kind of weather that creeps undetected into your bones and settles like wet dirt - clingy and unseen, impossible to shake off - it calls up memories of New England during the nasty season.  You can't bundle up enough to ward it off and in my house I can feel it, slithering under door frames and around the window sills, inching its way down from the attic and seeping up from beneath the floors.  It penetrates the walls of this little hundred year old house and there's no place to hide unless I stay in bed - an obvious impracticality - or turn the heat up to 80 - an obvious extravagance - so I slip into my thermals and pull on thick socks, layer to the point of immobility and then crawl under a blanket.  The small brown dog gives me a pleading look and I leave my little nest to find her a sweater then together we burrow back in.

We shall stay here 'til spring, I tell her and she looks at me as if it's my fault.  The little dachshund crawls up next to her and arranges his small body to shield her and share his warmth.  Soon the couch is so full of animals that I can barely move, even the kitten finds a niche and curls up into a tight ball on my shoulder. Never one to follow the crowd, the black dog, thick coated and tough as old boots, takes a chair across from the couch and assumes a posture of watchfulness.  She lays her head on her paws, listening for any sound from inside or out, always on the edge of ready-set-go and untroubled by the cold.  There are times I envy her.

This is fireplace weather, I think, remembering New England.  Most everyone had one with a brick hearth and a painted mantle - a fire was a welcoming sight to come to on those cold winter evenings - the dogs would sigh and stretch out before it and Nana would make hot chocolate just before bedtime.  She served it in tiny white china cups, sweet and frothy with whipped cream and sometimes my daddy would help us toast marshmallows on skinny green sticks.  The flames would crackle in a blaze of color - red, blue, and yellow incandescence against the sooty bricks - sometimes they would snap like sharp twigs and send showers of bright, hot sparks up the chimney.  The sweet, smoky smell filled the room and when there were only embers and ashes left, the glow was hypnotizing.  I imagined I could see shapes and faces as the last logs burned down, eyes peered back at me and I thought of wolves and owls, vampires and bloodless, white-faced night creatures out of Grimm's Fairy Tales.  Spirits of the fire, come to purify and cleanse and make everything new again.  Some nights they even followed me up the stairs and made their way into my dreams where my imagination never did seem to call forth sweet spirits.  It seemed to prefer the darker, horror-tinged apparitions, usually there to do do my bidding but sometimes turning on me with bloody fangs and talon-like nails.  Every branch scratching on my window, every howl of winter wind, every flicker of wicked flame seemed to call me - I dared not think to what purpose - some dreams are like a runaway team of horses, too powerful to stop, too wild to be reined in, better to go along for the ride and hope you aren't rudely thrown off.

I still have a fireplace - gas fueled with sad, sorry imitation logs, not much to inspire the imagination and not meant to - it's efficient and quietly contained, its flames hiss steadily but it offers no magic and makes no memories.

How dull it is to be grown up.










  

Demon Music

Family holidays being my least favorite days of the year, I've created my own personal tradition - stay in bed, eat only things that are bad for me, and do nothing that requires showering or clean clothes - I find it gets me through the day nicely.  And so another Thanksgiving Day passes.

Families.  All dysfunctional in their own way - some simply quirky, others shadowy and possibly sinister, and some outright dangerous - odd little collections of still odder people created by chance and genetics and held together by necessity, habit, common needs.  Add drugs to the mix and they become held together by secrets and sickness and scores to settle.  Addiction is a contagious disease and no one in an affected family is spared.  Over time they learn coping skills - enabling, withdrawing, absence - and of course, the Big Kahuna, denial.  The lucky ones take flight and escape, albeit carrying the infection and damaged if unaware.  They won't understand why they don't trust people, why relationships are rocky to the point of failure, why they prefer a solitary life, why they cringe at a raised voice or expect a raised hand.  They won't comprehend their own free-floating anger or lack of confidence and they won't recognize truth when it's told to them.  Pleasing others will be more essential than pleasing themselves even though they know they have no real chance of measuring up.  They'll be controllers, desperate to maintain order on their own terms, obsessively focused on routine and familiar territory.  In their hearts they know that change is just a code word for chaos.

All things considered, it's a hard way to live, although often preferable to confronting the demons face to face and risk discovering that we've had a hand in their maturity and staying power.

It's good to remember that no one sets out to become an alcoholic or a junkie.  No one sets out to marry one either.

 We may not recognize it, but sickness calls to sickness and we're mostly always at home.

So I'm wary about family celebrations, even in the most seemingly healthy and happy homes.  Demons live in the undercurrents, in the things that aren't always seen and aren't always spoken, the things that we pretend aren't there.  They play their sweetest music when you're not listening.

Normal, as folksinger and songwriter Bernice Lewis penned, is just a setting on the washing machine.