The Monday Wash

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t an actual competition  but everybody knew that any respectable island woman who didn’t have her Monday wash hung by ten in the morning was going to be talked about  by noon.  

Nana was up and dressed long before the factory whistle sounded at seven.  Provided it was a fine day, she put on her yellow Playtex gloves, tied her apron securely and prepared to do battle with the old wringer washing machine.  It took both of us to push, pull, shove and wrangle it to the kitchen sink.  We filled it to the brim and then dropped in a week’s worth of assorted laundry. 

“I declare,” she routinely remarked with a discreet glance at the old kitchen wall clock, “How so few people can manage to dirty so many clothes is beyond me.”

The old machine had served faithfully for years, a well-made and loyal old appliance it was, it made a comforting ruckus as it chugged and splashed  through  its cycles.  When it was done, we would carefully feed each piece of laundry through the wringers - “Mind your fingers!”  Nana always reminded me and always more than once - and into the frayed wicker basket.   Together we would carry the basket to the backyard clothesline where she would pull out one item at a time, holding out her free hand for wooden clothespins - I handed them to her two at a time and she put them between her teeth,  then one at a time secured them to the lines - it was slow work because she was meticulous that everything should hang even and straight with no wasted space but there was an edge of panic in the breezy morning air.  As she started each new line of clothes, I watched her check her watch and then look around and over her shoulder as if she were being spied upon.   Sheets and pillow cases and towels on the far end, delicates hidden in the in the middle, shorts and dungarees and t shirts on the near end all fluttered and swung in the sweet, salty air and with a final glance at her watch, Nana pronounced it good.

“Twenty after nine,” she said with a satisfied smile, “Five minutes ahead of last week.”

It was an adult thing, I decided, one of those mysteries that I was always being told I’d understand when I was older, like why you had to have light coming over your left shoulder when you were reading or how cleaning my plate would help the children starving in Europe.  Nana had a complete set of gold bound Encyclopedia Britannicas and had shown me Europe on one of the illustrated maps but it was on the other side of the world and as far as I could see, didn’t have much connection to scalloped potatoes. I’d begun to think that some of the adult things I’d understand when I was older were made up on the spot.

 “Waste not, want not.” Nana told me over a plate of liver and onions while I tried my best not to gag.

“It looks like it’s alive,” I protested sullenly, “It’s bleeding.  And it smells bad.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” my mother said wearily, “Just eat.”

But I was a stubborn child and if my only choice was liver and onions, I was perfectly willing to be sent to bed without supper.  It seemed a small price to pay, starving European children or not.

Monday was also the traditional once-a-week shopping day. 

The village featured not one but two general stores - Norman’s had been there the longest, a long, low and dimly lit building with a musty smell of tobacco, stale penny candy and old paint was favored by the locals - the old fishermen liked to congregate on the window seats and smoke, whittle, gossip and spit.   Nana still stopped in now and then, out of loyalty she often said, but she preferred McIntyre’s with its bright lights and big picture windows.  There was a touch of modern in the three story building with its  shiny new cash register and fancy overhead lighting, the Spiegel  catalogue was always current, and it was the only place in the village with a gas pump.  The only thing you couldn’t find (or order) at either store was meat - that came every other Wednesday in a rickety, refrigerated pick- up truck, all the way from Church Point - Bill Brown had been making rounds to island homes for as long as anyone could remember.  Steaks, chops, slabs of ribs and roasts that could feed a small army were all neatly crammed into the little truck, wrapped in slick white paper and neatly labeled, strictly cash and carry.  After a steady diet of haddock and halibut and the now and then special occasion lobster, it was like Christmas when the old truck pulled in the driveway.

 “Ready?” my grandmother asked as she hung up her apron, freshened her lipstick, and tucked her little pocket notebook into her purse.  She inspected me for a clean face and loose shoelaces, said I would do, and let me lead the way to the old Lincoln.  The Monday wash flapped and crackled as we passed, the sheets snapping sharply in the wind.

After McIntyre’s, we drove a little further up island for vegetables, filling two fruit baskets with sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers from Miss Lilly’s farm.

 

“Tsk, tsk,” Nana said under her breath but a tiny bit gleefully as we passed the rare house without a Monday wash blowing on the line, “Somebody’s sleepin’ in, I declare.” 

 By the time the back-to-work factory whistle blew at one, we were home, cruising down the steep gravel driveway and well pleased with ourselves.  The Monday wash was brought in, sorted, neatly folded and put away.  Nana stoked the fire in the cast iron stove and the kitchen shone with sunlight.  My mother had been busy and two apple pies were cooling on the windowsill while the dogs,who had gone slightly mad at the approach of the dusty Continental coming down the drive, were once again peacefully sleeping at the back door.

It was just another day passing in a long summer of contentment.

The Wharf Rat

A month in and still I sometimes feel the wharf rat feeding.

It’s like stage fright only much worse, that tied up in knots feeling in my belly, that just this side of wanting to puke until tears run down my face and I can’t breathe for gagging sensation.   I sleep badly and don’t dare to even think about eating anything.  My beloved Ghiradelli chocolates sit untouched on the kitchen counter and I rinse my mouth with last night’s now lukewarm Diet Coke but I’m scared to swallow.  What goes up must come down, but when you’re feeling the way I do, what goes down  will surely come up and it’s a prospect I can’t currently face. 

A diversion is required, I decide, something to evict, distract, and occupy my thoughts.  I pull on faded sweatpants and one of my at-home-only ragged t shirts, slip into my old Nikes and head for the door. A long walk, a healthy sweat, a cold shower when I get home, I think.   Exhaust the body and hope that the mind will follow, I think.   Whatever it takes to drive off this hovering feeling of sea sickness, I think.  It sits like lead in my gut, threatening, threatening, threatening, a small but powerful bad weather cloud of nervousness.   It would ease my mind to think I’m coming down with some brief but nasty intestinal thing but I’m not.  This is all a mind influencing body process and I’m doing it to myself.

I’ve mostly gotten over the anger and shame of being fired but facing the future is an entirely different matter.   A part of me wants to weep for it - for the retirement that will never come  - now replaced by a dreadful uncertainty, a fragile outlook at best.  I resolve (several times a day, now that you mention it) to “Stay in the Day” as the old AA slogan recommends and not look too far forward.  I remind myself (to the point of being dully repetitive and boring) that worry will solve nothing and only extend the life of the nasty little creature that’s gnawing and sawing in my belly.  I imagine it to be a sly little monster, the kind that might eventually grow up to become a wharf rat prowling  Boston’s harbor, the worst kind of emotional predator, with fang-y sharp teeth, yellow-ish eyes, a whipsaw tail and the patience of Job.  I even think about giving him a name so that when he rips into my insides, I can yell something like Whoa, Fred!  Back the hell off!  It’s a silly notion but for a moment or two it almost actually works and I conjure up an image of roadkill, stiff legged and decomposing by the curb of one Back Bay’s old cobblestone sidestreets.   Passersby cross the road to avoid it but some recognize it and a few avert their eyes while cheering on the inevitable but slow process of decay.  No one mourns the loss of a disease-carrying, nasty wharf rat, not even his own kind.

Things are not, of course, as bleak as the vicious and bad tempered little rodent would have me believe. My social security benefits arrive promptly every month and I’ve managed to find a part time job that will ease the burden.  If I’m careful and lucky, it will allow me to tread water for a time, keep the bill collectors from the door and the animals with me.   That’s the thought I try to hold onto.  It’s the  thought that keeps me from finding a high bridge over deep water.

There’s too much worry and weariness in the world, I think.  It makes us lose sight of and hope in the future, makes us forget that all trials and tribulations will end.  If it were just me, I might actually clear a little space  - no more than a lightless, unused corner, surely -  in my head for those dark thoughts that like to slither in and make themselves at home but the little ones are innocent and untouched by my state of mind or my fate.  I cannot, will not leave them anymore than I would entrust their care to someone else. More than anything else, they keep the wharf rat at bay.

Meanwhile, he must be exposed, must be driven out of the shadows  - first by admitting that he’s there, then by confronting him and daring him to come closer.  He will snap and snarl and seduce, flash those wicked little teeth and beckon with his claws.  And I will gather my little ones and hug them tightly, remind myself that tomorrow will be better, that life is too precious to live with worry and weariness, far too precious to give up without a fight.

Given sufficient time, I suspect I may see this as a good thing.  The steady income is gone but so is the anger and depression of being trapped in an environment that had turned toxic.   The future, uncertain as it may be, is better than the dark paralysis of being miserable and stuck.

So bring it on, wharf rat.  Because for right now, the kitchen’s closed.

The Cat's Meow

Sometimes I think life is a conspiracy of narrow escapes all clustered together and biding their time, waiting for the moment closest to perfect vulnerability to reach maturity, join hands, and all strike together.  In and of itself, no single one is enough to strong enough to deliver a fatal blow but there is great strength in numbers. 

My sweet tuxedo cat - normally so placid and serene that I sometimes forget she's here - expressed no interest in Sunday supper.  I discovered her lying in a corner of the dining room, unnaturally quiet and lethargic, and in the way that people who love cats have, sensed rather than knew something was wrong.  She began vomiting not long after that - nasty, mucousy puddles of bile - then bile with a reddish tinge - and then by morning, all blood.  Something cold happened to my heart at the last and for a second or three, I found I couldn't quite breathe.

She caterwauled all the way to the vet, a heartbreaking and supernatural sound that sounded like death to me.
Funny, I was thinking - as if I was thinking at all - how your mind races non-stop to the worst possible scenario at such times.  Why is it that I've never learned the art of optimism?

Just a few more minutes, I tell her and stroke her ears through the carrier, Hang on, baby, please hang on.

She answers with a chilling, searing wail then begins to dry heave.  A moment later a spray of blood explodes through the carrier's opening and mists over the metal bars, over the car seat, over the gear shift, over me.  I think it was at that precise moment that I began - probably desperately -  to talk to God.

Arriving at the vet's seems to steady my nerves somewhat, knowing there is help just the other side of the heavy glass doors calms me down.  There's another wildly painful moan from the carrier and a second explosion of blood.  It splatters over me from the knees down - I realize dimly that I'm in two day old (and slept in) clothes, green striped pajama pants and a barely decent tank top - worse, I've somehow forgotten my battered Nikes and am barefoot.  I spare a fraction of a second to grab my floppy straw hat (for those days when I skip the shower and shampoo but must appear in public) and run for the doors.  My last coherent thought is oddly comforting - at least I remembered my teeth.

There's no time to wonder what the girls at the front desk may have thought at the sight of a more than half crazed madwoman covered in blood and looking like an unmade bed stumbling and staggering through the glass doors. 

Blood! I manage to choke, She's vomiting blood!

Lisa, a long time vet tech and a veritable mountain of a woman in blue scrubs and a pony tail, is suddenly at my elbow.  She snags the carrier with one quick hand, lifting it effortlessly although the tuxedo cat alone is fourteen pounds, eases one arm around my shoulders and with a brisk, no-nonsense C'mon, guides me to an exam room.  

Deep breaths, she tells me calmly as she opens the carrier and eases the cat out onto the shiny metal table, speaking softly and handling her very gently.  She glances over her shoulder and in a less soft and gentle tone tells me, Head between your knees and deep breaths.  We've got this.

Doc comes in almost at once and with hardly a glance at me begins a series of questions.  When did it start, was there blood the first time, is she drinking, when did she last eat.  It's hard but it helps to focus on the answers - my beloved vet of the last 30 or so years isn't smiling but he isn't scowling either - I tell him all I know while Lisa keeps one eye on the cat and the other on me.

Better?  she asks after another minute and to my surprise, I am.  The initial panic has subsided and I can once again think and speak clearly.

No fever, Doc says, all his attention on the cat as he pokes and prods and feels her sides, No soreness, no indication of an obstruction or a tumor.  The vomiting likely ruptured a small blood vessel, and here he finally gives me a reassuring smile, Happens more often than you might think.  Technically it's called hemorrhagic gastroenteritus, more common in dogs as a rule but we see it in cats now and then.  I think she'll be fine in a day or two but if she's not, bring her right back in.   

Then for the first time he seems to notice my appearance and I see a twinkle in his dark eyes.

 Do you need anything?  he asks, Besides shoes and a shower?

The drive home is quiet with only the occasional protest from the carrier - far less fear and anguish, considerable more aggravation at being confined - a subtle difference if you don't love cats, I suppose, but clear as day to my ears.  It's not a happy sound, but it's a welcome one.  I put my own self to rights with a hot shower, a change of clothes, and a small prayer of gratitude to my vet and the hands that guide him.

The Tea Party

July 11^th, 1953, a Saturday and my fifth birthday, was exactly as my grandmother had promised.

“An absolutely glorious day for a tea party!” she’d proclaimed early that morning as she roused me , flinging the bedroom window wide open and watching me rub sleep seeds from my eyes.  “Happy Birthday!  Listen!  Even the dang gulls are singing!”

We’d arrived on the island barely a month before after the long road trip from Boston  to St. John, New Brunswick and after a short sea crossing to Nova Scotia were  happily and comfortably settled into the cheerful and sunny house overlooking the ocean.  There was me, my two younger brothers, my mother, my unflappable, practical grandmother and two dogs - my grandfather having long since passed away - and my daddy not due to arrive until later in the month.   As they did every summer, my Aunt Pearl and and Aunt Vi had descended on the house the week prior to our arrival and spent hours dusting and cleaning, airing it out, stocking the pantry and putting fresh linens on all the beds.  On the afternoon that my mother’s pink and white convertible and Nana’s old Lincoln Continental had finally pulled into the gravel driveway, the house welcomed us with open arms.   Its windows sparkled in the afternoon sun, the grass was freshly cut, the woodshed newly stocked, a massive pot of Aunt Pearl’s sweet cream fish chowder bubbled on the old cast iron stove and homemade biscuits were cooling on the counter.   Aunt Vi was putting the finishing touches on her made-from-scratch strawberry shortcake.  Nobody could make chowder like my Aunt Pearl or shortcake like my Aunt Vi, but I was so excited and happy to be home that it was all I could do to eat.

“Go, child,” Nana finally said in exasperation as she poured iced coffee and luxuriously lit a Kent 100, “You’ve had a long day and I’ll be wanting you in bed early tonight.  Be back by dark.”

But dark was a long way off on that perfect day.  Dark was always a long way off on those perfect summer days.   At precisely eight o’clock, the Peter’s Island lighthouse turned on its red warning beacon and it was not until then that I needed to be home - Nana would be standing on the side porch by that time, scanning the horizon and impatiently tapping one sensible shoe - but not worrying.  There wasn’t much need to worry in those sweet, summer days when every island child was not only watched quietly and discreetly by every adult but was safe with each of them.  On the rare evenings that I was not home on time, my grandmother would simply pick up the party line and ring Elsie at the telephone office up island.  In a matter of minutes, my location would’ve been pinpointed and I’d have been on my way home courtesy of some local fisherman.  We might’ve been surrounded by water  (and nobody ever discounted the hazards it presented) but we were also surrounded by a tightly knit community of family and friends.    Stranger Danger hadn’t been invented then and not a single island door or car was ever locked.

Nana slipped a chocolate chip cookie into my overalls pocket and the dogs and I went flying down the front path, headed for the rocky coast of the icy Atlantic and the first of many summer adventures. 
 

It was later in the month when my grandmother first mentioned my upcoming birthday.

“Pears to me that five is pretty grown up,“ she remarked one morning as she spread softened butter and blackberry jam on toast and tucked a napkin under my chin, “ Reckon you might like a tea party?”

I considered this for a moment, thinking of the  Alice in Wonderland picture book my daddy had ordered all the way from the big Barnes & Noble store in New York City the previous Christmas.   The illustrations were delicate but vividly drawn and the characters had come to life for me the moment  I’d unwrapped  the bright red paper with the Christmas green bow.   It was, I think, my first real treasure and I kept in under my pillow, falling asleep each night and impatiently dreaming of learning to read.

“Like The Hatter and The White Rabbit and The Dormouse?” I asked excitedly

Nana hesitated, sipped her coffee, then smiled cautiously.

“Well, not…..precisely,” she said, “ But……kind of.”

“A tea party?” my mother remarked with a sour, slightly put upon expression, “As if the girl doesn’t already have more imagination than she needs!”

“Ain’t no such thing as too much imagination in a five year old,” Nana replied tartly, “And I don’t recall anyone askin’ you, Jan. “  She paused, reached for her Kent 100’s, looked thoughtful.

“I ‘spect we could even use the company china.” she said mildly and more to herself than my mother.

“And if it rains?” my mother wanted to know with an exaggerated roll of her tired eyes.

But my grandmother dismissed her with an airy wave of one red fingernail’d hand.

“Ain’t gonna.” she said shortly.

“But…..” my mother persisted halfheartedly and Nana gave her a glare.

“I said it ain’t gonna rain and that’s that.”  Her tone, the one she used when she was at the end of her patience, had sharpened considerably.  You didn’t argue with that tone unless you were willing to risk a trip to the woodshed and upon hearing it, my mother gave an indifferent shrug and let it drop.  I had a sneaking suspicion that the part of her that bitterly resented having children might be hoping that it would rain - would come down in buckets, matter of fact, be a real gullywasher like the summer of ’83  that the old timers still liked to talk about- but Nana was having none of it.

 “Your mama got a spiteful streak, child, just like her daddy,” she told me cheerfully, “But you don’t pay her no mind.  She’ll git over it.  Now you go ‘long and let me git to washin’ clothes ‘fore it’s too late for ‘em to dry.”

Two weeks later, on a perfect blue and white summer afternoon, I turned five with Red Foley singing Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy and my mother serving ice cream and chocolate cake  (on Nana’s company china) to a crowd of laughing, singing children and adults.  We played croquet until the sun set behind the horizon and then toasted marshmallows over a makeshift bonfire until the red beacon warning came on in the lighthouse on Peter’s Island.   Nana pretended not to notice for another full hour.

Getting Fired

Getting fired is like being unexpectedly  gut punched and having the wind knocked out of you.   You’re out cold before you know what hit you.

With just a simple, neutral phrase, my whole world seemed to shimmer and then flatline.  I spent the next three days in a daze of desperation with my stomach in knots, too panicked and afraid to sleep, too sick-ish to eat, too shattered to think clearly.   Much as I wanted to and thought it would be therapeutic, I couldn’t cry although I stayed right on the edge.   I spent several hours curled up on the loveseat, clutching a pillow and burying my face in it,  replaying the brief termination scene in my head, as if I could re-write it with a happier ending or better yet, turn it into a nasty nightmare.  The television droned on night and day, the neighbors routinely came and went, the mailman came across the lawn whistling.  Life wasn’t even respectful  enough to slow down.

On the second day I had a long and quite stern talk with myself.

Nobody’s ever died from being fired, I reminded myself.

You’ll pull yourself together and find something else.  Something better.

You have to let this go and move on.

Stop brooding and worrying.  Get up. Get busy. Get over it.

And just as I dragged myself upright to make the bed, change the litter boxes, shower and dress and wash the breakfast (or lunch or dinner) dishes, my belly would clench and a rat-a-tat tightness would snatch at my chest and speed up my heartbeat.

Fear, I told myself, Just anxiety.  Uncalled for.

You’re working yourself up to a heart attack.

Quit. Quit this minute.

But other thoughts crowded past and pushed aside my advice. 

I’m sixty five years old, single, with three dogs and five cats to support and no good way to explain being fired.  There are bills due and no money.  Every hour is putting me closer to the grave or worse.

Oh, stop being melodramatic, a second voice in my head snapped impatiently.

Let me be! the first one snarled back as I crawled back to the loveseat and reached for the pillow again, hoping against hope to fall asleep and wake up with it all behind me but quite happily willing to settle for an hour or two of oblivion.

The instant I woke, the knots in my belly and the tightness in my chest returned.  On what was almost a whim, I knelt in front of the toilet and shoved my fingers down my throat repeatedly until I gagged but it produced very little except bile. 

Apparently, I said to the dogs who were hovering anxiously at the bathroom door, you can’t upchuck being afraid like it was a tuna sandwich.  I spit, rinsed my mouth, tried again and finally gave up.  It was time, I thought bitterly, to straighten up and fly right.

I took a seat in front of the computer and began.

Hating every keystroke, I started with the dismal and degrading process of filing for unemployment.  It made me feel like a deadbeat.

You’ve worked for fifty years - fifty years! - I told myself brutally, this is not welfare or charity or a handout!  But still it felt wrong and more than a little shameful.  Five cats and three dogs, I reminded myself as a sharp stab of fear traveled from my chest to my throat.  I kept on.  Panic and depression swirled in my gut like a hoard of malicious butterflies but I kept on.  I remembered a public speaking course I’d taken in high school and how I was so scared I’d nearly fainted.  I remembered what seasick felt like and how my grandmother had held me over the side of the boat.  Sick it up, child, she’d said encouragingly, You’ll feel better.  It felt like that only with nothing substantial to sick up.  Dramamine wasn’t going to help this particular kind of nausea.  When your back is up against a wall, all you can do is keep on keeping on.

I picked what looked like the best half dozen job sites and plowed my way through.

I checked the help wanted section of the newspaper.

I updated my resume and composed cover letters.

I quietly notified friends.

But mostly I tried to beat back the relentless, creeping fear that had taken up residence in my belly and spread to my chest.  And each time I couldn’t, I returned to the loveseat and the pillow.

You have social security, I told myself, it comes in every month.  And seven hundred in savings.  And you’re owed a week’s vacation.  The wolves may be gathering but they’re not on the doorstep yet so stop planning their meals.

Over two grand in credit card debt, the second voice chimed in with a nasty little whisper, and what if you get sick or the car breaks down or one of the animals……

ENOUGH!  I shriek back - outloud and loud enough startle all the dogs - Enough.  What the hell has happened to your faith?

Faith won’t pay the bills, the evil voice insists softly but I think I might detect just the slightest hint of uncertainty.

A friend who manages a convenience store suggests I come see him and I nervously pull on clean jeans and a freshly ironed t shirt and drive the short distance.  The store is huge by convenience store standards, brand new and still polished and shiny, not at all tired looking the way so many are.  We talk and I meet his boss and am asked to fill out an online application.  This turns out to be a  major undertaking and strains my memory in places (a lot of ground can be covered in 50 years) but I make my way through it as best I can.  At the end there’s an interesting and somewhat humorous 100 question survey where I’m asked to agree or disagree with seemingly random statements (“There are 40 days in a month” and “I’m not comfortable working around ignorant people”).    I think convenience store management must be far more of a challenge that I’d thought and while  I dread the thought of the learning this would require, I plug away, ever reminding myself that I have twenty some odd years of retail experience, and finally hit the submit button with a sigh. 

It’s a place to start, I tell the dogs wearily.  And it’s calmed my shaky nerves just a tiny bit to have done something .

Slowly and painfully, I begin to make my way back because when you come right down to it, neither Dramamine or self-pity is going to make much of a difference.  You can’t hide in a loveseat forever.

Whipped

Sometimes, Stephen King wrote in his novel "Dolores Claiborne", a wickedly good tale of child molestation, murder and bitterly dysfunctional relationships, Being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.

Amen, I remember thinking when I first read it.  The novel became and remains my favorite piece of his writing.  It crystallized a simple but easily missed fact of life - not all monsters come from the undead - some are born of reality and not pure imagination.

Underneath the initial panic and desperation of being fired - for the first time in my working life - I stumbled across an anger embedded so deeply I didn't even know it was there and discovered my inner bitch was alive, well, and thriving.  For the first couple of days, I was too fearful to see it, not able to sleep or eat or think clearly enough to make a coherent sentence.  Despite trying to blot it out, the termination scene kept playing and replaying in my head.  There were knots in my belly, an uncomfortable tightness in my chest, a  nauseated feeling like sea sickness that wouldn't give an inch stayed with me and grew more powerful with each passing hour.   The fact that it did not come as a surprise didn't help.  Knowing I'd contributed to my professional demise didn't help.  Kneeling in front of the toilet and repeatedly shoving my fingers down my throat didn't help.  The knots got thicker and the tightness more constricting until all I could hear was the sound of my heart beating too fast.  I couldn't walk it off, sleep it away or sick it up.

Age is no longer an ally when you reach your senior years.  It haunts you as does every poor choice and bad judgement, every failure to save or plan or prepare.  The reality is that one day you wake up out of work, with no insurance, no savings, no prospects, eight animals to support and very little hope.  I'd had plans to work for another four or five years, pay off the credit cards in another few months, and then seriously begin to put back all that social security money I wouldn't be spending.  It was a good plan - although it had some risks - but it might've worked.  It wouldn't have meant a life of luxury, perhaps not even a life of ease, but it might've been manageable.  At least I'd thought so.

Life, unfortunately, has a way of delivering ugly surprises.

It's not easy to face down your own faults.  I prefer to remember the undeserved reprimands, the vague threats, the temper tantrums, the dirty jokes and the questionable ethics.  It eases my mind.  It's time to face the facts that I'm mentally and emotionally whipped, no longer capable or even willing to give it the best I've got. 

A week later, I've decided some things and the sea sickness has - mostly - passed although it twinges every now and again, to remind me of its power, I suppose.  There doesn't seem much point to a new plan, easier to try to return to one day at a time and survive as gracefully as I can.  The bitch I'd thought was dead and gone is still alive and kicking.  She may very well be all that's left and she's holding on with a death grip.

You Can't Kill a Kenmore

You can't kill a Kenmore, I protest to the Sears repairman who is trying, against the odds, to get my ancient dryer up and running again.

No, he agrees, but after twenty years, they can die a natural death.

He gives me a what-did-you-expect kind of grin, shoulders his tools and dutifully heads back into the garage. It takes the better part of an hour but finally the old machine gasps and chokes and coughs itself back to life.

One small crisis is diverted, at least for the time being.

If it goes again, he warns me, just go get a new one.  Ain't no point in callin' for service.

Yeah, right, I think to myself with just a touch of temper even though I know he's being reasonable and most likely honest, Easy for you to say.

He trudges to his white repair van, climbs in and drives off and the dogs, who never react well to the presence of a stranger, finally relax and settle down.  The temptation to crawl back into the nest I've made in the loveseat is strong - the idea of sleeping another day away with the little dachshund curled next to me is almost irresistible - but instead, I shower and dress, change kitty litter, wash breakfast dishes, try to do a little writing.  I would much rather continue to hide/ brood/ worry/deny, but I've done that for a full week and accomplished precious little.  I don't like the direction my thinking has taken lately - it's crept into the shadows of self-doubt and worse, self-pity - dragging me along with very little resistance and flashing a slideshow of unattractive images.  Homelessness, insurmountable debt, elderly-ness and ill health.  Despair, resentment,
lack of faith and estrangement.

Truth to tell, I think I know how the dryer feels. 

The next day a musician friend arrives with her trusty shop vac in tow and as instructed by the Sears repairman, we commence to clean out the astonishing collection of lint behind the old dryer.  It's musty and moldy and as my mother liked to say, Hot as Hades but we are driven and we persist.  The dogs dance around in the yard, thrilled at this extra time outside and curious as to what all the commotion is about.  When we're done, we sit on the barely shaded back deck, drinking cold Orange Crush and Diet Coke and we begin to talk, really talk, about families, being fired, fear, depression, detachment and everything in between.  Program talk mostly, mutually supportive and painfully honest.  Her background is AA, mine is Al-Anon but we share the same kind of damaged childhood, we battle many of the same character flaws and are afraid of the same kinds of things.  It's like finding a well worn and dog eared old book with stories you already know, stories that might even be autobiographical - not all are pretty or have happy endings - but you read and re-read and re-read again, inspired by finding a kindred spirit, calmed by sharing with and listening to someone who has the same pain, encouraged by knowing you're not as alone as you feel.

It doesn't turn anything around, this long, sweaty conversation on the back deck, but it does lighten our burdens a little and rattle the teeth of a few of our common demons.

I'm not so sure about the dryer.  In appliance years it's probably on life support and may give up and give in at any moment, but it is a Kenmore, built for durability and long life, reliable as rain and just a day or two away from indestructible.

I'd like to think there's a little Kenmore in all of us.



  

God Save the Queen

I declare, Alice, Aunt Pearl casually remarked to my grandmother over toast and morning coffee, One of those tattoo places opened in Digby. 

No good will come of it, Nana replied with a disapproving frown, Mark my words.

Mother of Mercy, Aunt Vi cringed, All those needles, I can't imagine.

Miss Hilda, not a frequent morning guest but she had been in the neighborhood for what she called her morning constitutional, rapped her spoon sharply against her coffee cup.

God save the queen, ladies, she said tartly once she had all their attention, but I hardly think a tattoo parlor, though certainly a doubtful and ill conceived career choice, will mean the end of mainland civilization.  She added cream and sugar to her coffee, drank, and then smiled grimly.  Such as it is, of course, she added, Such as it is.

Nana lit a Kent 100 and exhaled smartly.

Just a step away from a pool hall, Hilda, she said with a self-righteous shrug.

A regular den of iniquity, Vi agreed, but with needles.

Do be reasonable, Viola, Hilda reprimanded her with a long suffering sigh, Have you the remotest personal experience with a den of iniquity?

She's thinking of opium dens, Aunt Pearl said mildly and patted her sister's arm encouragingly, She loves reading those Sir whats-his-name Sherlock Holmes stories.

Mr. Holmes, Hilda snapped, was a devotee of cocaine, my dear, and he rarely frequented opium dens.  If you must contribute, I must insist you make every attempt to be historically accurate.  And might I point out, that Mr. Holmes was a fictional protagonist, woven entirely from Sir Arthur's highly adventurous and eloquent imagination.

The point, Nana said darkly, ain't fiction, Hilda, and it don't matter who wrote the damn stories.  A tattoo parlor ain't got no business in Digby.  Halifax, maybe, as citified as those folks are, but not Digby.  She waved her cigarette as if to dismiss the entire matter and gave Pearl a truculent see-what-you-started glare.

Miss Hilda stood, adjusted the shoulder pads of her tweed jacket and snatched her riding crop.

What bloody rot, she said briskly, I'll be off then, shall I.  Pray continue without me.  

And so we shall, my grandmother announced tiredly as her boot steps echoed across the linoleum and out the back door, Kee-rist, but that woman can be a pain in the ass with her God Save the Queen manners and upper crust airs!

Needles, Aunt Vi said with a shiver, I can't imagine.  But a pool hall might be fun.

Viola!  the two women scolded in harmony, then all three laughed and Aunt Vi blushed all the way to her roots.