I confess to being a hopeless romantic, unwilling to give up on dreams or not make a wish on a falling star. It's a part of me that is rarely satisfied but I keep on hoping. I want the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr moment from "An Affair to To Remember" when he sees the painting and realizes that she's paralyzed - he closes his eyes in self recrimination as he thinks of how he's treated her and then they each wipe away each other's tears and the New York skyline appears over her shoulder while the familiar theme reaches it's finale. Unrealistic and staged as it may be, it's still a heart wrenching moment in movie magic, a moment filled with hope and possibility and it brings me to tears every time I watch it.
In real life, the skyline is more gray than blue and life is more ordinary than magical. I am one of millions of working people struggling to work and survive and find time to smell the roses before life runs out. Days often run into one another in this parade of time, often they are so alike that it becomes hard to tell the difference without a calendar. There is no fortune to be found, no celebrity, no 15 minutes of fame - there is just the ordinary repetition of working, sleeping, eating, caring for animals or children or elderly parents or each other. We climb the everyday mountains one step at a time and no one notices. The movie magic eludes us, remaining so close but always just out of reach. Seasons slip away then return, love comes and then goes, leaves turn then die then grow back green again, reminding us that in patterns there is always the chance to break free, to take a different road or make a different choice. There will always be another crossroad, another bargain to be made, another intersection to stand at and consider which direction to take.
If there is a grand design of living, it is not for us to know. So I choose my patterns, one third movie magic and two thirds reality, and I live somewhere between them.
The wind picked up and the rains came. Thunder shook in the air and lightning streaked across the night sky in long, jagged flashes - the weather station advised yet another tornado watch - and I watched from the window as the trees twisted and turned like saplings. The air was heavy and hot, filled with the storm and the expectation of a long and dark night with no moon or stars visible. Even the clouds seemed to dissolve and dissipate into blackness.
Not surprisingly, the lights flickered and then went out completely and the entire block turned dark. I watched as little patches of illumination began to appear in neighboring windows, candles were being lit up and down the street to fight off the lack of light. People appeared on their front porches, calling to each other and making jokes about the outage, a generator started up across the street, the dogs began barking at the unfamiliar voices carrying so clearly on the night air. Rain splashed violently on the pavement and the gutters filled in no time creating twin rivers that rushed rapidly down the sides of the street - the sound was loud and almost rocky, like a waterfall and I suspected we would be flooded by midnight if not before. The sounds of limbs cracking and breaking continued through the night as did the rain and the animals all gathered in the bed with me, their differences forgotten for the duration of the storm.
Morning dawned with bird songs and a clear sky but the ground was saturated and the aftermath of the storm was everywhere with fallen tree limbs and sagging hedges. The rose bushes next door were decimated, their petals flung every which way and down the street, a neighbor's vegetable garden had taken a beating - his young tomato plants lay on the ground in puddles of water alongside peppers and a row of cornstalks. The trees hung low and were misty with humidity and leftover rain while fog hovered over the park. The storm had come, wreaked its small share of havoc and then gone in the night, in a day or two it would be all but forgotten. Flooded streets would dry up under the blazing southern sun, gardens would be repaired, limbs cut and hauled away for firewood. It was, after all, just a small summer storm, passing quickly and hardly enough to register on anyone's daily radar, although while it was happening it was hard not to imagine the worst. We can't give up over a patch of bad weather.
My first thought upon waking this morning was, How odd, it's snowed inside. Still mostly asleep, I had some trouble putting it together but soon realized that the snow was the stuffing from the comforter and that it was everywhere. I raised up and looked around and saw the black dog at the end of the bed, covered with bits of white and I'm positive she was grinning from ear to ear. I threw back the covers and a fluffy hailstorm of white flew into the air - it was on the pillows and the rug and the floor, in my hair and on the cats and the small brown dog. In a matter of seconds I discovered the edge of the comforter chewed open and spilling it's contents like a dandelion in a strong breeze. The black dog, destructive but not stupid, eased herself off the bed and trotted to the den and the safety of underneath the coffee table. I thought, I could kill her and no one would ever know, an impractical but recurring idea that appealed to me at that moment.
I walked to the kitchen with the small brown dog, sneezing and shaking off stuffing, at my heels. From beneath the shelter of the coffee table, the black dog gave me a wary look but came when called albeit slowly and crawling on her belly apologetically. I did not buy this act and scolded her severely before setting them both outside and they flew to the door in haze of white, leaving a trail of stuffing like breadcrumbs across the carpet and floor. The cats began their morning demands for breakfast and with a sigh I collected their dishes, rinsed out the stuffing, and fed them. Every movement seemed to set off another minor snowstorm of fluff and it had penetrated to each room, everywhere I looked was misted with it. I spent hours cleaning it up - it seemed to have reserves and no sooner did I vacuum it all up then another layer would appear in the very same place. I was awash in feathers and the harder I worked the angrier I became.
I had hoped she was over this stage in her development and that her 8th year might bring some mellowness but clearly I have been premature. I'm reminded that it took my first Schipperke 16 years and a stroke before he calmed down. People ask why I tolerate it and I have no easy or reasonable answer aside from the fact that I still love her. She will lay beside me at night, head on the pillow, and look at me with her brown eyes and I forgive her anything. Love makes us all idiots.
She staggered through the door of the bar, weighed down with packages and brown paper bags and towing a shopping basket filled with bruised, grimy vegetables. She wore a ragged bandana across her forehead but stray strands of hair fell over her eyes and she swiped at them impatiently with dirt streaked hands. Her shoes didn't quite match and she wore only one torn sock. A backpack hung over one shoulder and as she made her way toward the restrooms it snagged on a chair and jerked her back. She cursed and slapped at the offending piece of furniture as if it had intentionally tripped her then scanned the room for other obstacles, her eyes wild and slightly mad. The regulars didn't pay much attention.
The bar was lined with a row of graveyard shift workers - some in scrubs from the local hospital, some in black tie from the casino. They drank steadily and silently and the young bartender refilled their glasses with bored indifference and no effort to begin a conversation. These were tired men and women, wanting an hour or so in a dim bar before heading home to try and sleep while the rest of the city was rising and starting another day. They did not swap stories or tell jokes or compare notes or even flirt - in the daylight, a bar is just a bar, not a gathering place or a lively club. These people did not want to laugh or dance or listen to music - the sun was coming up and they would be going home to drawn shades and blacked out windows. The worlds of day and night people are vastly different and they seldom cross paths.
The woman with the backpack fell somewhere in between. She emerged from the restroom and as she passed me I realized that she was far younger than I had first thought, in her 40's at the most. Soap and water had helped but she still reeked of the street and the customers at the bar did not make room for her although there were empty stools. She shuffled to a table for two and the bartender brought her coffee with a small mug of milk and several packets of sugar. She drank quickly and left a crumpled dollar bill on the table before leaving, jamming the extra sugar packets into one of the paper bags. She didn't speak and no one at the bar looked up as she left although she struggled with the heavy door and gave it a good cursing as it closed behind her. I paid for my morning Coke and left for the motel, worn out after a night of blues and not enough sleep. The streets of the small and very poor Arkansas town were deserted but there still seemed to be music in the air, leftover echoes of guitars and the voices of legendary bluesmen. The backpack woman was in the doorway of one of the music stores, propped up against the splintery wooden door and singing to herself, an old Buddy Guy song that I recognized from the night before. She had emptied a sugar packet into one hand and with the other was pinching little bits of it and dropping them on her tongue. She seemed content among the litter and shadows and when a dozen or so pigeons joined her, she produced a cellophane bag of sunflower seeds from another pocket and threw them on the sidewalk. More pigeons arrived almost immediately and soon there so many that she seemed lost among them, a huddled figure in a doorway eating sugar and feeding birds. She cackled at them and they cooed back like old friends meeting after a long parting.
Contentment in life is often a matter of expectations.
The pastel calico cat calmly sitting on the hood of my car glared at me when I suggested she move. She flicked her tail and began to wash one paw in defiance, pretending to ignore me and when I moved closer she stood with her back arched, hissing softly and daring me to reach for her. I suspect she is related to one of my own on account of her distinctive coloring and heart shaped face, and it's clear she sees the car as her territory - her paw prints are on it each morning - nonetheless, one of us had to give in and establish some ground rules. Reasoning with her wasn't working so I got in and turned the key and she promptly turned her back. This, I decided, was no common cat.
Slipping the car into reverse, I began to slowly back out of the driveway, certain that the motion would force her off but instead she crouched down and began swiping at the windshield. I stopped and started suddenly and she yowled but refused to move. Having no intention of losing a battle to a neighborhood cat, I got out and approached her, warning her off and threatening her with severe consequences. She stood her ground with a menacing growl. You're leaving me no choice, I told her with reluctance, Get off the damn car! She sat back down and commenced to licking another paw, unconcerned and indifferent but watching me all the while. Hearing my voice, the black dog suddenly appeared at the window and went into a spasm of barking and the cat whirled at the sound - seizing the moment, I snatched her up and tossed her unceremoniously to the ground where she landed with a satisfying thump and an ear splitting cat scream of indignity. And stay off! I told her triumphantly. Victorious and more than a little smug, feelings I would have cause to regret later in the day, I drove off.
She was back at lunch, curled up and asleep on the front steps, between me and the front door. She opened her eyes as I came up the walk but made no move to leave. Her tail switched and I could hear the low hum of a growl. I decided to change tactics and spoke to her in a reassuring voice, as you would to a stubborn and fearful child. The low hum went up an octave but still she made no move. I knelt on the walk in front of her and explained the situation but she was unimpressed and continued to watch me with her narrowed green eyes, an expression of hostility clear all the way to her whiskers. I could go in the back door, I reckoned, or try and step over and around her, but I had a suspicion that giving in to this cat would establish a poor precedent in our relationship - if I allowed her to gain the upper hand, I sensed she would keep it. I nudged her with my foot and she swatted at me, the growl now louder and more definite. I reached a hand out and she hissed without giving an inch.
To be clear, I will not even pretend (even though it would be my word against their's) that I have never been outwitted by a cat, however, to be outwitted by a cat who shares my bed and board is one thing - to be outwitted by a trespassing cat with an attitude is quite another. I broke off a branch of the crepe mrytle and ran the leaves across the steps and the she immediately gave chase. As she passed me I gave her a quick flick on her hindquarters and mounted the steps - she gave me an injured look with a hint of malice and then plunked herself down on the concrete walk and attacked the branch mercilessly. I slipped inside when she wasn't looking.
Twenty minutes later, I left again and I admit, thought about using the back door and decided against it. It is, after all, my house and the cat was the intruder. The steps and the yard appeared to be all clear so I gathered my keys and purse and headed for the car, daring to hope that she had moved on to the next neighbor and might not return. I soon discovered that this was not to be - for on her back on the passenger seat, enthusiastically shredding the day's mail, was the cat. Speechless with surprise, I pulled open the car door and grabbed her by the scuff of her neck and hauled her out - too stunned to struggle for an all too brief moment she hung there, suspended in mid air, then regained her composure and began to defend herself, claws flying, her entire body flexing and writhing at impossible angles, flailing at me and making sounds that would've awakened the dead. Using the only weapon I had, I said a short prayer that she wouldn't leap back into the car, and dropped her. She turned in mid air and landed on all four feet, undamaged but enraged and - I suspected and hoped - a little humiliated. She shook off grass and dirt and with a look that clearly suggested she had not yet begun to fight, stalked off across the street and disappeared over a fence. Feeling foolish but vindicated, I watched her go, knowing that I would encounter her again and wondering which one of us would win the next time.
For reasons I've forgotten, my grandfather was buried in a cemetery far out of town. Each Memorial Day, my grandmother made the trip to put flowers on his grave and would often take me for company.
It was a long trip for a child, 30 or 40 miles west of Boston and Nana was usually silent. She would take extra care with her makeup and change clothes several times before we left and always insisted that I dress up. We drove through the Massachusetts countryside, west of the city, on the backroads, never using the turnpike. By that time of year the grass was green, the trees were in bloom, and there was the smell of flowers in the air. The radio in the old Lincoln played softly, some classical station that she found soothing, but still she drove tensely, as if she were late and trying to make up time. When I pointed out that the cemetery people weren't likely to be going anywhere or notice if we were late, she snapped at me and warned me to watch my mouth or she'd wash it out with soap. Knowing this to be no idle threat, I stayed quiet for the rest of the drive, concentrating on the scenery and the passing cars, making up games in my head to occupy myself.
The cemetery itself was spread over several acres, all well tended and maintained. High iron gates and contant security kept out the teenagers and vandals and grave desecraters and a handful of bent and old men in khaki uniforms patrolled the land, watering, weeding, spending their time among the uncomplaining dead. They were all gentle spoken and kind, as if accustomed to the grief and heartache of the mourners and the newly dead. They dug graves respectfully and carefully and stood a far distance off to allow families privacy and a time to say goodbye. Nana knew them all by name as she had been making this annual pilgrimage for years. They tipped their caps as she manoeuvered the Lincoln threw the narrow, winding pathways to the gravesite. Watch where you walk, she reminded me twice although I knew to do that and she knew I knew. She made her way up a slight incline, carrying a pot of flowers, garden gloves and a small handheld rake and knelt at the grave. She didn't cry or speak, just brushed away the old flowers and dirt, replaced them, manicured around the stone and then sat there for several minutes, head down and eyes closed. Are you praying, Nana? I asked hesitantly and she shook her head, No, hon, she answered patiently, Just thinking and remembering.
The way home always included lunch at Longfellow's Wayside Inn, where in later years I was to be married in the small chapel on a bright April day, but that was for much later. Nana just liked the old fashioned furniture and the colonial feel to the place and we always stopped to look at the grist mill before leaving. We drove home leisurely and another year's obligation had been fulfilled.
If life were fair, I thought to myself as I looked through the camera lens, this chair would not be empty. There would be a very tall man, with straight blonde hair and a mustache, sitting and relaxing with a glass of wine in his hand, smiling at his daughter on this the night of her college graduation celebration. He would be too proud to be contained and would be loud and vocal and possibly get a little tipsy. And he would be entitled.
Friends and family were gathered on this warm May night to give gifts and praise and share in the beautiful young woman's accomplishments - summa cum laude, to no one's surprise - and her first real steps into the world after college. The house was alive with bright conversations, hugs as people came and went, congratulations and laughter. Old stories were repeated and old jokes retold, glasses of wine were poured and the table was piled with food and flowers. Her sisters and mother looked on, proud and easily willing to concede her center stage. Just before the gifts were opened, I found myself alone on the back deck, looking through the lens of my camera at an empty chair amid a colorful array of plants and flowers silhouetted against the night sky. Though the night was a happy one, I found myself thinking back to a time when the girls were just children, a time when their lives were unchanged by loss, a time when their daddy was alive and well, vital and strong, a force to be reckoned with if ever there was one. I thought of how much of him was in each of them, especially the youngest with her fiery, quick temper and independent streak. She had been a strong willed child, defiant at times and stubborn, loyal to a fault,
and bright as a new penny. She looks the least like him with her dark hair but her smile reminds me of him, her dry humor could be his, and his determination and curiosity are clearly in her genes. She is already a force to be reckoned with.
The image of the empty chair stayed with me, I felt a familiar ache in my heart, then I let it go and rejoined the party inside. There are nights for sadness and nights for celebration and this night was for a daughter making her way in the world. Her daddy might not have been at her side, but I could feel his presence all around me and I knew he was watching.
My optimism was put to the test when our new nurse assistant arrived for her second interview in painted on black denim jeans and a too small for her white fitted tee shirt. I immediately gave myself a mental slap on the wrist for judging her by her appearance. She's young with a nice smile and a lot of positive energy and those are the things that matter.
Appearances, as we all know, can be deceiving and I have a regretful tendency to make snap decisions on first impressions and instincts. I'm inclined to like or dislike people instantly and whole heartedly and rarely find cause to reverse a first decision. I suspect it may be some kind of emotional chemistry at work, churning and mixing and coming to a conclusion based on feelings rather than facts. I trust my instincts almost without reservation - gut feelings seem to be the truest and most trustworthy - my senses tell me things about my surroundings that I can't quite articulate but I do put faith in. Our new nurse assistant may be exactly what we've been searching for and I truly hope she is, but I can't help but being wary.
The new bus boy started at 4 and was fired at 7 with a police escort out of the restaurant. He had found an opportunity when the bartender's back was turned to help himself to a Crown and Coke and not only were there eye witnesses, there was video. His response to questioning was a simple "Yeah, whatever..." and his newfound career was over. I couldn't make any sense of this - he was a good looking, clean cut young man with a ready smile and a willingness to work. Again, so much for judging by appearances.
You just never can tell when calm water hides a storm. Unlike stories with two sides, people are multisided and you have to look closely to see what is true and what lies beneath.
He scurries and scuttles like a pretentious, overweight gerbil propelled by his own sense of self importance. The dinner guests are taken aback by his arrogance and manner, put off by the very knowledge that got him his job and they retreat, almost into hostility and dismissiveness. He senses this in a vague, distracted way but doesn't understand it. None of the servers live up to his expectations and he continually bitches at and about them, unable to see his part in these small dramas, feeling put upon and unappreciated, laughed at and martyred.
He knows more about wine - it's history and heritage, every detail of every vineyard and every varietal, all the sources and growing conditions - than anyone I've ever known and he speaks it's language vividly and with a sort of reverence for it's very existence yet he puts people off and he is sent away like a nuisance. His eager help and advice are scorned and he is treated with impatience, as an interruption or a little child dying to join the adult conversation but destined to remain on the outside edge. His feelings are hurt by this rejection and he gives in to sullen and sarcastic remarks about the guests and moans of "poor me". No one tries to help or encourage him, his prior put downs are remembered and still fresh. He sulks alone and ignored, his melodrama playing out to an annoyed and indifferent audience. He speaks the language of wine fluently but is unable to connect to the language of people and oversteps the line without even seeing it. When the guests turn their backs to him he persists until finally forced to quickstep away with military precision and an insincere smile.
The language of wine is joyous, pretentious, overdone and sometimes just plain silly. Wines are described in terms of emotions and images of " a muscular acrobat in a tuxedo, gliding across the dance floor" or "a tart wake up palette call" or " reminiscent of being young and climbing your first apple tree". Wine labels speak of the bouquet, the finish, the velvety texture, the buttery qualities, the gentle spicy whisper of tannins and old oak barrels and just the barest suggestion of flowers. This is not the language of everyday life or run of the mill folks, this is elegant and elevating, this is black tie and tails in a world of denim and cotton. If you do not belong, you will be identified and shunned, labeled and exposed.
Perhaps this is what he fears. Serving the wealthy is not always enough if what you really want is a place at their table.
Dread can be a powerful enemy but it's been my experience that most things are not half as bad - or as good - as I anticipate. Worry is interest paid on a debt that isn't due, my daddy liked to say.
Most of us spend far too much time worrying the sore teeth in our daily lives. We dwell and linger, force feeding anxiety until it takes over and losing sleep over things we can't change or predict and outcomes we can't alter. We live in a world where it's far easier to dread than have faith, far easier to worry than trust. We get gray before our time and then look back in confusion, hard pressed to see what all the fuss was about. And we laugh at ourselves, with relief and a feeling of having come through intact once again, but we seldom remember for the next time.
No matter how many doors I go through, I always hesitate at a new one, as if not knowing what's on the other side puts me in some kind of foolish peril. I rarely see the potential adventure, only the improbable danger - no matter how often I'm proven wrong, the feelings re-surface and I'm forced to start all over again. It's wearying and silly, this fear of the unknown, and I can't help but think I'm old enough to know better and have lived long enough to not have to whistle in the dark to keep imaginary demons away. My imagination, while usually an ally, can also be a force for evil, undermining my confidence and keeping me a step behind. Cafeteria lines make me quake with fear that I'll trip and drop a tray. Not knowing the answer is more than enough to keep me from asking the question. I stay when I should go because it's the easier thing. When in doubt, I wear navy blue and I try never to make waves. I try to become one with the wallpaper in hopes of not being noticed, avoid scenes like the plague, and rarely say no. Should I even suspect a confrontation, I run in the oppposite direction. I favor old and comfortable in place of new and exciting and
I hardly ever return things that don't fit. I don't like to cause trouble. I rarely drink but when I do I stick to white wine and like it to be sweet, served with water crackers and mild cheeses, nothing with a tendency to bite back. Our latest shipment included a cheese called St. Pat, a semi sweet, organic, nettle wrapped cheese from California. I tasted it with a glass of Chardonnay in hand in the event that I needed to wash it down hastily and the creamy texture melted nicely leaving a salty and slightly sweet aftertaste on my tongue.
Go where you have not gone before. Try even if you think you can't. Step through the door as if you own the place. Finish the race whether you win or lose. Do not fear the nettles.
The Swift Boys - Jonah, Noah, and Ned - were each born precisely one year apart but looked alike enough to be identical twins plus one. They shared the same temperment, all fire and competitiveness, a willingness to stand for what they believed, and a stubborn streak that at least in the early years, made their daddy despair and their mother give up hope. Nell often told people that they were bound to put her into an early grave with their obstinance and Marshall wore out more switches than there were trees on his farm with his efforts at discipline. The boys paid little mind, took their switchings and went on to the next disaster. They disrupted daily life, made mischief by setting the stock loose, laying waste to Nell's carefully put up preserves, tormenting the little girls at lessons, smoking behind the barn and cutting the lines to Marshall's lobster traps. They became a trio of terror in the town square - at their approach, villagers darted away and the one or two stores closed their doors. The boys hooted and hollered their way through childhood and in their teens discovered whiskey, fast cars and faster girls. This is not how I wanted to be a grandmother! Nell wailed to Nana over afternoon coffee and raspberry tarts, I should've drowned them at birth! Nana tsk'd sympathetically and added a little more brandy to the coffee. Now, now, she told Nell encouragingly, they're just young and high spirited, they'll soon get over it.
Shotgun weddings were not unheard of and Noah's was planned for one July weekend. The unwilling groom and the reluctant bride were wed quietly by the pastor of the Baptist church and moved into an extra room at the farm until a suitable place could be found. Nell recovered from her minor breakdown and took to her new daughter in law with little or no effort - the girl was naturally outgoing and willing to make the best of a bad situation, she helped with chores and turned out to be a passable cook - and after some time passed, even Noah began to appreciate her presence. The baby, a little girl, was born some months later by which time Marshall had finished and furnished a small cottage in back of the farmhouse and the couple moved in over one summer weekend. Jonah and Ned both helped in the process, more than a little bewildered by their brother's unexpected change of heart and their new status as uncles. Maggie was what Nana called a fetching child, full of smiles and giggles, well behaved from the first, and easily capturing the hearts of her parents and grandparents. Noah took to parenting and responsibility with an ease that his family found stunning - he joined his daddy's lobster crew and worked long, hard hours to learn and provide for his wife and daughter. He came home each night, lean and tall and tanned, and there he stayed while Jonah and Ned drank and caroused their way from island to mainland and back again, seldom spending the night at the farm and becoming more and more distant from their family.
The day that the hay wagon overturned and crushed Marshall's spine beyond repair, Nell was feeding the chickens and watching Maggie play in the yard. She heard nothing and Marshall lay in the field under a wagon wheel for several hours. When it was near dark and he hadn't returned, Nell went in search of him, not suspecting that anything might be wrong until she saw the team of half harnessed horses grazing around the wagon. Her husband lay unconscious at their feet, pinned beneath the wheel, his hands outstretched and bloody. Her screams were heard clear to the village and spooked the horses, alerting Noah who was cutting wood just beyond the pasture and came running but too late. Marshall died before they could pull him free.
Tragedy brings people together and grief can often bind them and so it was with the Swift boys. Their shared loss healed old wounds and divisions, gave them a new outlook on what mattered and how to spend a life without waste. They buried their daddy and comforted their mother, accepting the new burdens with determination and pride. They became the sons their daddy had always hoped for and their mother had mourned. They became men.
How is work?
Friends routinely ask this and I'm never quite sure how to answer. It's frantic, demanding, unrelentingly stressful and always in crisis mode. Do they want to know this? I doubt it, so I generally just reply that it's busy and let it go at that. I'm reminded of our restaurant kitchen which I fear - a dozen or so people running about like headless chickens, yelling and singing and cursing while they balance plates of food and sling pots and pans in a rushed metallic clatter. I enter at my own peril, dodging servers and delivery people, ducking under an outstretched arm or a butcher knife. It's like a firedrill of perpetual, panicky motion with the clock ticking away and counting down, the pressure is intense and though I'm positive there's some underlying organization, I can't see it. I search for and find my cheese knives or ramikins or garlic bread and then make a dash for the swinging door, hoping not to encounter a speeding dishwasher or busboy with an armload of glassware. It's a minefield, our kitchen, and I'm lucky to escape with my life. This is how work is - a four hour fire drill with no respite or down time and a clock ticking away with unnerving precision and a deadly time limit. We break for lunch and then do it all over again.
At the end of the day, I'm physically used up and exhausted and emotionally stretched to my very last nerve. I leave with insurance codes ricocheting through my head, breathing hard and worrying that I've forgotten something while trying to make the transition from medical practice to restaurant with care and feeding of animals in between. A few aspirin and hours later, I finally finish for the day and collapse in my own living room, mentally taking inventory of the things that need to be done at home, trying to re-organize and plan my time out, still hearing a clock ticking away the seconds and minutes and hours, unforgiving and dictating with an iron will.
I'm not sure when life turned into a race or when I realized that time is the most precious gift we receive. Despite my best efforts, the clock never stops, never runs down, never gives up. Sixty seconds can be a lifetime or a fraction of an instant depending on what we're waiting for but the one sure thing is that we never get back a single minute so it's best to use what we have wisely. I'm reminded of this daily by the elderly patients I see - these are people born in the 1920's and 1930's - they come on walkers and in wheelchairs, frail and ill, suffering the effects of cancer and heart disease, chronic and painful illnesses that sap their strength and steal their minds and memories. Some are dependent on family for transport and they have not reconciled the loss of their independence. They hear the clock too but many are waiting impatiently for their time to end. They move slowly, shuffling in bed slippers and they have weathered, parchment faces and sad eyes. Those that still speak often wonder outloud why God has not taken them or eased their pain and we have no answers. Their lives are more effort than they have left and their will to live has become too much to maintain. For them, the clock can't tick fast enough.
Be kind, it is said, Everyone you meet is fighting their own battles. I believe in this and I try to live it but some of us are fighting battles of our own making and they're only in our minds. The unsettling people we live and work with can make us crazy and bring homicidal urges to the surface - it's a good time to remember that we can have the same effect on others.
Everyone has their own personal comfort zone and certain things that are necessary to be effective. One of mine is space - I don't like it invaded or altered. My desk is my area and I don't welcome intruders no matter how helpful they may be trying to be - it makes me feel out of control and chaotic, feelings I fight against on a daily basis, probably to an unhealthy level. To be effective, I have to have things arranged and in order and constant. I compartmentalize, keeping what I need readily accessible and storing what I don't need in a separate place. Such things must not overlap or interfere with one another or I lose my grip and become scattered, random, haphazard
and unraveled. Not everyone shares my feelings - some of us are at our personal best amid litter and piles of paper, disorganization and clutter, untroubled by disorder or disarray, they see any flat surface as a horizontal filing cabinet. My dear friend Henry keeps his office this way and once out of sheer frustration and to make a point, we roped it off with yellow crime scene tape - he simply stepped over it.
I now work with someone who is loud, twangy, walks like Chester in "Gunsmoke" and sounds like Goofy but she is well meaning and basically sweet natured although a trifle dim. My patience with her is tested with every conversation we have, she wearies me with insignificant ramblings and sets my nerves on edge with interruptions and trivial chattering. I want to shake her and scream Can you not see I'm busy?, instead my voice becomes brittle and abrupt, ripe with impatience and frustration. I speak slowly to her as if to a child and I'm ashamed of my tone but too stressed to change it. Her battles are being fought on a different plane of reality and like a poorly hung picture, no matter how often it's straightened, it will stay off center until it's hung properly.
Be kind, it is said, everyone you meet is fighting their own battles.
Some of us are sadly unarmed.
Aaron and Eugene's antique shop was tucked away in a corner on a cobblestone side street in the newly renovated and trendy Portsmouth Harbor Marketplace. There was no sign as the two owners had never been able to agree on a name - Aaron wanted to call it "Antiquities and Elegance" while Eugene stubbornly insisted on "Ethereal Antiques". Neither was willing to budge on the matter so it remained a nameless little shop and since neither believed in the value of advertising, it depended on word of mouth and random chance for its business, which Aaron referred to as "clients" and Eugene would only call "carriage trade".
The two little old men had been partnered - in life and in business - for over 40 years and they were as different as night and day. They had met in an English boarding school, both products of wealth and distinguished families, one from California and one from Connecticut and they were as unlikely soulmates as you would ever find. They shared a common background and both were ill at ease and confused about their sexual identities but apart from that, they quarreled incessantly about everything from the very beginning. Aaron wanted curtains in their tiny dorm room, Eugene refused with a vengeance. Eugene studied business and Aaron, committed to his studies of art, called him a vile capitalist. Aaron favored the grace and privilege of water polo while Eugene ridiculed the sport and devoted himself to the success of the rugby team. Aaron was revolted by red meat and Eugene scorned what he referred to as rabbit food. And so it went all through school and the years that followed. Both graduated with high honors and returned to the States, drawn together and pushed apart. They met again, quite by chance, in New York City - Aaron attending an art auction and Eugene in town for an investment seminar - had drinks at the Oak Room and dinner at "21" and managed to agree on the fact that they ought to be together despite their differences. Both were summarily disowned by their respective families but they united and stood together against the odds, disagreeing only about whether they should stay at the Sherry Netherland or the Waldorf Astoria.
In due time, they discovered a mutual love of travel (Aaron dreamed of returning to the Continent while Eugene wanted to explore all the states), of cats ( they fought fiercely over whether long haired or short haired was preferable ), of music ( Eugene was pro-jazz while Aaron proclaimed that no music worth listening to had been written since the 18th
century), of wine ( Eugene preferred domestic from California and Aaron dismissed anything not made in Europe as flatly plebian) and of children ( in the words of W.C. Fields, "As long as they were properly cooked."). They shared a dislike of politicians, organized religion, the collected works of Shakespeare, recreational drug use, sales taxes, the French Revolution, the practice of slavery, bar codes, sailing ships of any kind, promiscuity at any age, poetry and those who wrote it, and the invention of shrink wrap plastic.
And so they spent their lives together until they decided to retire. After much hot debate, they sold the nameless little antique shop to a couple from Vermont who added wind chimes and Danish modern and proudly christened the shop "Tres Chic". It was, both Aaron and Eugene agreed at once and in unison, an unforgivably trite and clownish name for the shop, an insult to their years of hard work, and they were so astonished by their mutual attitude that they were both speechless for a time. Then they walked off, arm in arm, bickering about where to have lunch and whose turn it was to treat.
We love who we love despite our differences.
Aside from the crepe myrtle, I have no idea what grows in front of my house. Be it wisteria or weeds, it's all a nuisance, threatening to overtake my front steps and suffocate the air conditioning unit. So from time to time I take my Walmart garden shears and do battle.
I cut like a mad woman on a thrill kill spree, attacking the greenery with a savagery and feeling the daily stress and frustration pour out. It's pattern-less and random destruction. Leaves and branches and vines with a life of their own pile up at my feet - a window is exposed, then another and another. I clear through to the a/c unit, chopping and hacking, each cut is a satisfaction. When I'm done and the steps and walkway clear, I'm exhausted, hot, patchy with dirt and bleeding here and there (the greenery is often inclined to fight for its own survival), but well pleased. I was not born with this animosity toward Mother Nature, the feeling developed following my 2nd divorce as I sought an outlet to channel my anger and a safe method to vent. A friend suggested smashing lightbulbs against concrete but I wanted an enemy, someone or something substantial that I could seek out and destroy without causing real harm. Greenery presented the perfect target, garden shears presented the perfect weapon although if I thought I could've managed one, a chain saw would've been my first choice.
My emotions tend to follow an inward path to my gut where they bide their time, layer upon layer, scheming and planning how to make mischief or take their revenge. A nasty, little hurt feeling befriends a flash of temper, they marry and have a houseful of petty resentments, all of which grow until there is no room left in the inn. A spark of loneliness gets together with a leftover slice of self pity, a dull piece of anger runs into a mouthy piece of sarcasm and they gossip and breed until they explode and spill out like a box of toothpicks aimed at the nearest target.
Pinpricks have managed to turn themselves into gaping wounds, and all because I wasn't paying attention. So let others plant their flower beds and trim their yards with roses and pansies. Let others seed, water, mulch, fertilize and lose sleep over the lawns next door or whether the tomato plants will survive. For my part, I will continue to wage war on the vegetation. We all must tend our gardens as we see fit.
Social fever and small talk syndrome are relatively unknown disorders. Few if any study either, grant money is hard to come by, and the interest in such minor afflictions is minimal. I am a victim of both.
Signs are easily recognizable - genetic shyness, hating to be the center of attention in any situation (i.e a birthday), inability to carry on small, insignificant conversations, fear of crowds (even of people you know and like), avoidance of parties (even for people you know and love), an overall wish to find a small space to hide in and/or disappear, a tendency to arrive late and leave early and an oft seen and heard streak of sarcasm. It's not uncommon for victims to be misdiagnosed as unfriendly, cold, distant, or even rude. We are better with paper than people, more comfortable with a handful of friends than a roomful. We don't perform or make scenes or try to stand out. We are quiet and inconsequential people, ordinary to a fault and want no part of any limelight. People who know me well enough realize that it's the main reason I carry a camera - my comfort zone in a social setting is behind the lens - it provides a small but sturdy barrier which frees me and protects me against too much social interaction and it is mostly respected. With camera in hand, I am usually allowed the space I need - people tend to notice it and not me.
No drug or therapy or miracle cure has yet been found for these foolish, quirky flaws. I weave around them by putting on a happy face and a smile and doing the best I can, hoping that no one will notice, hoping that the genuineness of the hugs and smiles I get will relieve my anxiety. It doesn't happen often but I'm grateful for each time I make it through.
I was nailed and I knew it.
I'd been doing nearly 60 in a 45 zone, late getting back to work and frantic at the thought. By the time I saw the two motorcycle cops on either side of the road, it was way too late for anything except to pull over and pray for mercy. The flashing blue lights were, I realized with a sinking feeling, for me. It was my first speeding ticket and I was shattered.
Casually leaning on the driver's side door, the uniformed officer first introduced himself and smiled. I handed over my license and registration before he could even ask, stunned at this turn of events and completely ashamed of my own carelessness. Looking over his sunglasses, he scolded me, made me promise to be more careful and never do it again, then wrote me out the ticket. He was courteous, professional, and friendly and still made me feel like a 5 year old with her hand caught in the cookie jar. It started me thinking in a couple of different directions.
First, I wondered how often we do the right thing out of fear of being caught as opposed to the right thing being the thing to do. Where's the harm in running a red light at a deserted intersection at 3am and who will notice if you slip into the handicapped space for a quick trip to the grocery store or don't give back the extra change the cashier gave you by mistake. It's easy to ignore the telephone and then claim you weren't home or mail that check a little late and blame the post office. Little white lies are harmless in the grand scheme of things and small temptations are everywhere you look. I think most of us avoid them out of basic decency and habit but I'm not altogether sure.
Second, I was raised with the belief that policemen are friends and protectors, a notion I held onto until the 60's and 70's, didn't give much thought to in the 80's and totally discarded in the 90's in light of police corruption and scandal all over the country. Despite the brutality and appalling behavior of some police in some cities, I now think that most are still the friends from my childhood and there to keep me safe - even if they're hiding on a motorcycle with a radar gun.
Sometimes, it's best to own up and just pay the fine.
Next month there is to be a wedding, the daughter of one of my dearest friends, and I will attend with a mixture of awe, confusion, pride and wonder. I was in the hospital waiting room the night she was born and it hardly seems possible that she can be this close to being a bride
We sat, four of us, smoking, stitching, talking in snatches and waiting. It was a huge event, this first born child, and we were anxious and impatient. A child was about to come into the world, lives were about to be changed forever though of that, we had only the dimmest sense. The baby showers were over, the endless conversations over names were finished, the social circle was about to be enlarged and dear friends were about to become parents - the world as we knew it, was in evolution. There was no way to look down the road and see the various changes ahead, even if we could have, we wouldn't have - we had no real concept of the enormity of what was happening or the plan that was in place and would unfold.
She was a beautiful infant and grew first into a precious toddler, then an outgoing little girl, then a bright and popular teenager, then a poised, polite, classically pretty young woman with a ready smile and a generous heart.
She takes after her mother - girly with a love of fashion and shopping, very traditional and aware of southern etiquette, and a taste for the good things in life. She is social and comfortable to be around and has grown into her upbringing with common sense, a touch of satire, a belief in goodness, and a love of family - all the things that will one day make her a good mother. I've watched her struggle with loss beyond words, with pain and the innate unfairness of life, with sisterly quarrels and boyfriends and everyday life, with going off to college and learning to drive. She's made all the transitions and made them smoothly and has become an adult in the blink of an eye and I still can't comprehend how she could've grown so quickly.
I have wishes for her - joy, to make her marriage all that she hopes for, trials to keep her strong, hardships to insure that she avoids complacency, children so that she can pass on the love she has learned, no struggle too hard to overcome, tears when needed and laughter every day to keep her balance. These are the things I will think of as her godfather walks her down the aisle to the man she is marrying, but I will always miss the little girl she used to be. It's nice that the sparkle and mischief in her eyes in her eyes is still there to remind me.
The hardest part of learning new things at my age is breaking old habits and finding memory space to install new ones.
Take typing - looking at the keyboard is second nature to me and I'm finding it next to impossible to remember to return my hands to the starting position. Each day I spent a half hour practicing and it seems that I make no progress. I watch as the words are close to their correct spelling but close only counts in horseshoes and I tend to make the same errors over and over - f's for d's is the most common followed by mixing up the shift and caps keys, followed by trying not to see the tab key as the arch enemy of the keyboard. I watch in awe as friends type with lightning speed, error-less and looking over their shoulder or talking on the 'phone at the same time and again I regret refusing that high school typing class in favor of conversational French. Repetition, they tell me with encouraging smiles, repetition, practice, patience. It will come.
I can't imagine what possible use I thought Conversational French would ever do me but at the time it was romantic and collegiate and only six of us were chosen for the class. English was disallowed from day one - our teacher believed that to learn we had to be emeshed - and he spoke with a liquid fluency and ease that we all envied and tried desperately to emulate. Now I can't remember a single sentence except Dancez avec moi, ma petite chou, a phrase that simply doesn't offer itself up in routine conversations, although it is marginally helpful to be able to comprehend a customer who asks for a bottle of Chateau Neuf du Pape 1957.
To be intentionally chosen is perhaps all the motivation it takes to make a poor choice, especially if you are young and foolish and have no concept of consequences. Wine and small cabbages aside, the typing class was a far more practical alternative.
She is a fragile child.
It took her mother years and countless procedures and tests to conceive. There were miscarriages and fruitless efforts that took their toll and when at last she came into this world, she was a blessing beyond words. She has been protected, indulged, and loved since before she was born and now she is almost a young woman - tall and slender as a blade of grass, model-beautiful and graceful, a dancer, a determined student, her mother's hearts delight. There is still a childlike quality about her, an innocent, shy vulnerability - her feelings are out on front for anyone to see and are hurt easily. She has never heard a severe word from her parents and she is growing up in a harsh world that I fear will try and harm her. The sheer unfamiliarity of a raised voice or an angry look can bring tears. It can be an unkind world for the fragile people with nothing but goodness and trust for armor. Reality has a way of being cruel to them, trespassing on their upbringing and intruding into their view of things with a bitter force. This beautiful child, so doe-like and gentle, is at risk from all that surrounds her so her mother comforts and shields her, all the while wondering if she is doing right.
Children are not the only fragile people though - as I was driving home from work tonight, I heard screaming and barely avoided running down the man who streaked in front of me, crazed and cursing and howling like an animal.
I stopped at the corner drugstore and as I was leaving, he was being escorted out by a petite but firm cashier with an angry look and a can of mace. A police cruiser met him as he ran toward the intersection and though he resisted and fought like a madman, he was subdued, and still howling, was handcuffed and unceremoniously thrown into the back of the police car. Whether high on drugs on simply out of his mind, he was damaged and fragile though it was, at first glance, not something I recognized. His frailty was hidden beneath madness and fear.
We often try to disguise our fragile side. Arrogance hides insecurity, sarcasm masks uncertainty, coldness is a shield against shyness and schizophrenia a retreat. It might be better if we could all wear "Handle With Care" labels.
Darrell and Jeanmarie had been married a little over twelve years when their daughter was born. Jeanmarie gave birth in their small bedroom one late August night and the midwives attending raved about the precious little child with her daddy's bright blue eyes and her mother's golden hair. She arrived with a minimum of fuss, Jeanmarie was up and about the very next day, as proud a mother as the island had ever seen. They named her Miranda Gail and had no idea that she had been born with what was called the gift of second sight, an eerie ability to foresee the future and make predictions with uncanny accuracy. In exchange, she was also deaf and when she was five, her parents took her to Halifax to see a specialist who determined the hearing loss was irreversible but that being a bright, alert and curious child, she would have no difficulty learning sign language and would lead a relatively normal life. Though shattered by the news, Darrell and Jeanmarie gave it their all - they both learned to sign and spent hours with their child, teaching and being taught, patiently coaxing her to learn to speak and communicate. They even taught other children so that Miranda would not feel alone or isolated and after a few years, her deafness was nothing special and no one gave it much thought. She was included in island life as routinely as any child, got into the same mischief and learned the same games, made friends easily and grew into a pretty, gentle, and sweet natured little girl. She did have an amazing talent for finding things that were lost - a misplaced piece of jewelry or a pair of her mother's glasses and Jeanmarie fell into the habit of asking her daughter where a certain something was without really thinking about it - Miranda would close her eyes for a second or two and then lead her mother straight to whatever had been lost - and soon neighbors began dropping by for help with things they had lost but no one paid much mind, assuming that the child simply paid more attention than the adults and had a better memory. Until the evening that the little Russell boy didn't come home for supper, it was nothing special.
Rusty Russell had been playing with friends on the ballfield in back of the church. When dark came and he wasn't back, his mother sighed and sent his brothers out to look for him but although they looked for well over an hour they found no trace. He had been there and then was gone and as the islanders were prone to do, they gathered and organized and and put out an alarm - a missing child was not uncommon and though everyone was sure he had just wandered off and was fine, there was no sense in taking chances. They called his name, went over every inch of the ballfield and the church, went in groups in the woods, called on everyone, but Rusty was nowhere to be found. Miranda, sitting on her front steps and watching all this activity, closed her eyes and frowned then stood and tugged at her mother's arm, pointing toward the woods and urgently motioning Jeanmarie to follow her. Her mother reluctantly took her hand and let herself be guided into the woods and over the hills, through the back pastures to an abandoned farmhouse where Miranda led her to a boarded up well and an unconscious child at the bottom. Bloody and bruised from the fall, Rusty was pulled out, revived and brought home to his much relieved parents who like Jeanmarie, never thought to ask how Miranda had known about the well. Darrell, hearing the story much later that night, did wonder though and after church on Sunday he sat with Miranda in the bed of his old pickup and signed gently, Honey, how did you know where Rusty was? The little girl shrugged her shoulders and looked away. Honey, were you playing by the old well? he persisted but she only shook her head and climbed into his lap, laying her head on his shoulder. Miranda, he signed firmly, how did you know where he was? His daughter hesitated, then touched her eyes with one small hand and pointed toward the back pastures.
There were more curious events ahead - Jeanmarie was about to hang out the wash on a clear, sunny day and Miranda pointed to the sky and shook her head. By noon, the island was fogged in. Lost things continued to be found - keys, Darrell's pocket watch, a pair of work boots. Miranda predicted unexpected company, pregnancies and two miscarriages, the explosion that cost the factory foreman his leg, who would win baseball games, the very day the seal colony took up residence in one of the coves. The islanders began dropping by to seek her advice and by her teens, word of her gift had spread to the mainland and people began writing for help. Being a well brought up young woman, she always answered as best she could and always tried to help, feeling a responsibility to all who asked. When she was in her early 20's, she married Rusty Russell and spent the remainder of her life raising her own children - none born with her gift but all able to hear - and that was more than enough.
At first glance, you might not know you were looking at an upscale, professional, New York fashion photographer.
He is tall and thin as a matchstick with shiny, perfectly straight 60's hair that flows halfway down his back. He wears a plain, faded tee shirt, bleached out jeans frayed at the cuffs and knees, and Nikes that have seen far better and younger days. Cameras are hung around his neck and over both shoulders and he pulls a worn out suitcase filled with additional lenses, a laptop, and a change of clothes. He smiles shyly and when he speaks it's in broken English with a heavy German accent and while he often has to search for the right word or phrase, he has no trouble being understood. He speaks with his hands and his eyes and the images he captures. Despite his appearance, when you watch him work, it's like watching a magician and you see his gift at once.
The morning is sunny and a little cool for this time of year and he begins immediately. The young, would-be models are anywhere from 6 to 16, self conscious and tightly wound, for many this is their first photo shoot and they are nervous, anxious, and intimidated. They have been dressed and styled and made up, firmly separated from their curious and sometimes interfering parents, many have been awake since dawn and are hungry and fluttery and uncertain. They are coaxed and encouraged, complimented and cajoled, supported and scolded. They are children in a brisk and demanding adult world and they keep their eyes on the ground and their smiles hidden. They feel the pressure of performing and some dig in with a sudden change of heart, tears well up and they want only to go home and back to their playground. Others posture and preen with a self centered pride and confidence, unwilling to take direction or accept instruction. Still others are just having fun. It becomes a circus, an assembly line, organized chaos. And then they reach the young man with long hair and bluejeans and everything changes.
He works quickly and effortlessly, moving with a fast paced grace and agility but always speaking to them with kindness and charm, making small adjustments here and there, changing a pose when needed, checking the light, smiling, and at the last minute, gently adjusting a stray strand of hair from a blushing cheek. Under his spell, they come alive, forgetting their fears and awkwardness, forgetting the camera. Their laughter is genuine, their smiles natural and easy. They have made an unexpected friend and some have even fallen in love. They run for the next wardrobe change and makeup session, enchanted and eager to continue, they could do this all day.
All it takes is a little kindness, a little bravery, a little magic.
At 2am, there's an odd collection of people at the local 7-11.
A police car is parked prominently at the door, the officer lounges by the ice machine, one hand resting casually on his holster, the other holding a styrofoam coffee cup. I suspect he is more watchful than he appears and he nods to me as I enter. The cashier is making change for a sleepy-eyed teenager in ragged jeans and a black Hard Rock Cafe tee shirt and there are several young women gathered around the coffee machine, all in the telltale uniforms of casino workers - it's impossible to tell if they're coming from or going to work - they chatter like crows on a power line, laughing and bright eyed and loud. A much younger woman comes in with an infant sleeping on her shoulder, a truckdriver with "Mac" monogramed on his navy shirt stumbles through for a newspaper and a cold can of Coke, three young black men try to come through the door all at once, good naturedly pushing and shoving each other and speaking a language I don't recognize. At the beer case, a disheveled and confused looking old man struggles with a 12 pack of Bud Light, unable to coordinate the sliding doors and stay upright at the same time. He trips and falls on his way to the cashier and the 12 pack of beer hits the floor and cracks open sending a dozen beer cans rolling in all directions - the casino women help him to his feet and collect his beer with encouraging words and sympathetic smiles. He mumbles his thanks and leaves, clutching his paper bag of beer and weaving slightly. A professional looking man in a three piece suit enters, carrying a briefcase and checking his watch - he strides to the magazine section, snatches a street map and returns to the counter, tossing a $5 down for a .99 map and doesn't wait for change - like the white rabbit, he is late for a very important date and it shows. A couple approaches, holding hands, and he holds the door for her with a low bow and a flourish - she enters like a queen and curtseys to him, then they rejoin hands and head for the Icee machine, in love and thirsty. A woman in flowing pantaloons with a bejeweled navel emerges from the restroom adjusting her veils and muttering - an enormous brass safety pin holds her shoulder shawl in place and she walks with dignity and quick, sharp steps. She receives no curious looks, no one even appears to notice her as she flings open the door and climbs into a scarred up, old VW bug.
I pay for my cigarettes as a half dozen helmeted, black clad bikers pull up in a roar. The one who holds the door open for me is tattooed wrist to shoulder with a gold stud in one ear and his silverish hair tied back in a pony tail. When I thank him, he gives me a crooked grin and tells me Anything for a lady, ma'am, and gives me a wink. I smile in spite of myself.
It's 2am at the 7-11 and the world is full of night people and unexpectedness.
When we was in junior high school and riding the bus regularly, the parochial school kids rode along with us, all neatly pressed in white shirts, plaid skirts or pants and blue blazers. They carried backpacks with the St. Joseph's emblem and brown bag lunches and we called them cookies, as if they'd all been cut out and baked from the same mold. They were prim and remarkably well behaved, quiet kids and the chaos of the busrides never seemed to touch them. They were protected and insulated by their uniformity, all cut from the same cloth, all predictable and plain vanilla. We saw them as easy targets, clustered together in their little groups and always standing out. We were not especially nice to them, feeling, I suppose, an ill defined sense of resentment at their togetherness and group sameness. There was safety in numbers in those uneasy school days, safety and a sense of belonging and I think on some level, we realized that and envied it. In many ways, it was an us and them world. Still they were given little slack - teased about their uniforms and catechism, the high school kids would steal their lunches or bus money, and in winter they would be victimized by snowballs. They never fought back, never lashed out, never retaliated and their pacifism only encouraged more abuse. Unlike so many of us, they had learned to turn the other cheek and to their credit, they practiced what they had learned against a never ending stream of bullying and merciless taunting.
By high school, we had all grown up a little and although we all still rode the same bus to school, the atmosphere had calmed. There was still a distinct separation between those who wore uniforms and those who didn't but the teasing had been passed to the next generation and we had no time for such childish games. They went their way and we went our's, riding the same bus each day but not interacting, neither side willing to make a move toward the other. I wonder now what we all missed by this stubborness and pride, what friendships might have formed but didn't, what common interests we might have discovered but didn't.
There's comfort and security in conformity yet it can also breed suspicion and alienation. We should learn to appreciate the former and overcome the latter in all things. A pride of lions may not have much use for a family of tigers, but they're all still cats even if divided by nature or society or competition. Unlike we humans, lions and tigers and bears don't divide themselves along lines of differences or prejudice - lucky them.
The back door was open to the morning sun and the warm salt air was sweet. Nana had given me a quarter to fill the woodbox and I was carrying armfuls of wood and carefully stacking them while she hung the morning's wash and the dogs ran about the yard. My mother stood in the kitchen smoking and drinking coffee at the sink - my brothers were fishing off the breakwater, I could hear them yelling back and forth to the incoming and outgoing boats - and the day was filled with promise and sunshine. Nana had taught me to wear work gloves to avoid splinters and how to carry the thicker, heavier pieces first, then the kindling so that the smaller, lighter pieces could be brought to the stove first. She would lay the kindling atop the old newspapers then carefully strike a wooden kitchen match and the fire would catch instantly. Once it was burning steady and bright, she would add several pieces of the heavier pieces and in no time the entire kitchen was filled with a welcoming wamth. Fire, she reminded me each morning, is to be handled with care, respected, and never to be trifled with. It's dangerous to be careless, even with just the kindling.
The woodshed itself was the size of a garage and filled to nearly overflowing with neat stacks of wood. The scent of it was magic to me, a clean, sharp smell like a forest or a cedar chest. Inside we played jacks or dominoes and even a few forbidden games of Spin the Bottle. The cat from next door had her kittens there, owls nested in the eaves, and sometimes we would see a wild fox dart through on a hunt for mice. I kept treasures there - a diary,
stolen cigarettes, shells from the beach and dried flowers, letters from home, Jersey Milk chocolate bars and thick rectangles of sticky, sweet McIntosh toffee wrapped in red plaid paper with bright gold trimming, so rich and sugary that it was all but forbidden. It was kindling of another kind - the small secret things of growing up and experimenting with defiance and disobedience. Adults never came to the woodshed and it became a private place, a children's place, a hideway, a fort, and a refuge. I spent rainy afternoons just inside the door, making circles in the sawdust and reading while I watched for the fog to come in. The lighthouse on Peter's Island would gradually disappear into the mist, one small piece at a time, and the steady sound of the foghorn would blow all afternoon and into the evening. Westport vanished and sometimes I couldn't even see the house or the flagpole. Sound changed and became muted and non-directional as if it were coming through layers, walking its way through the weather with a slow, measured pace. Nana would open the back door and call me in and the kitchen would be ripe with the smell of homemade pies and fresh coffee.
The next morning would dawn clear and bright with no trace of the fog except for the dampness on the kindling I carried. Would that people could self correct with so little effort.
My brothers and I were in grade school when my mother decided it was time for us to learn to swim. The swimming pool at the YWCA was bright blue with chlorine and gave off a fierce scent of chemicals that made my eyes tear and my throat itch. The pool room was cold and wet and hollow with noise, the sounds of voices and splashing water bounced back and forth on the walls and hurt my ears. My mother handed us over to an instructor and walked away.
It was a new experience and though I felt mildly wary, I don't remember being afraid. We entered the pool as directed and followed instructions - both my brothers took to it immediately but I hung back, not ready to join the fray and not completely trusting of them or the teacher. After that first lesson, they were both practically swimming like eels and jeering at me for swimming like a stone. The instructor assured me that it was perfectly safe but I began to feel shut in and trapped in a waterstorm of screaming children and blue water with no ground beneath my feet. I fought the water and when he let me go to try a stroke on my own, I panicked and went under, breathing water and choking, flailing and seeing my brief life flash before my eyes. There was no dignity in drowning in the YWCA pool but for a few seconds I was sure that would be my destiny. He brought me up gasping and desperate for air, coughing up chemicals and shaking with shame, my eyes burning and my throat raw. The second time was worse since I now knew he would let go and I tried to avoid the water but it flooded into my nose and mouth and I went down in a swirl of airless terror, blinded and unable to breathe. The third time I didn't fight, sinking calmly and holding my breath until I reached the bottom of the pool, then exploding with fear at the water above me and my inability to reach it. I went deaf and became only dimly aware of where I was, then he pulled me to the surface and into the fluorescent lighting and wet air resounding with my brothers laughing and taunting. Enough for the first time, he finally said and let me climb out and run for the safety of the dressing room.
There were several more excruciating swimming lessons, different instructors worked with me and tried a variety of methods, there were more group sessions and even one on one private ones in a quiet, empty pool but in the end nothing worked and I was sorrowfully deemed unteachable. My mother was humiliated and furious and my brothers had ammunition that would last them years. I was simply grateful it was over.
There were other attempts over the years - dear friends and husbands would shine with confidence but fail and shake their heads, my daddy would try and give up with a smile and a philosophic hug, but I never learned to swim and after a time I accepted it as a limitation and not a defect. There's a world of difference between the water above and the water below.
When young, we were cheap drunks.
A last minute party was thrown together at someone's apartment, almost always a walk up, and we gathered to eat snack food and drink cheap sangria and solve the problems of the world with the arrogance of youth and the certainty that we could do a better job. We hung banners from the windows, protested against ROTC on campus and the war, smoked joints and woke the following day with headaches and regrets. We worked for peace, for candidates we believed in, and we dismissed the older generation with ease. We had slogans and protest songs and were part of a greater good that our parents didn't understand. We sat in and we marched, wore tattered jeans and feathers, we were about change and creating a better, safer, more free society. We scorned marriage in favor of open committment, celebrated sex, promised not to judge ourselves or each other. We worked but only at jobs we saw as worthy and apart from the establishment. Our heroes were folk singers, our values humane and our lives uncomplicated. We reveled in the disappointment of our elders at our lost causes and our youth. We favored communal living and universal health care, sought a more equitable playing field, vowed to never surrender our idealism or compromise our ethics, situational though they were. And we never learned much from our mistakes or defeats except to try harder - there was too much we didn't know or refused to accept. We spent weekend mornings with the old veterans at work in their Victory Gardens, pulling weeds, picking vegetables and listening to stories of France and the invasion at Normandy. We gave spare change when asked, donated what little we could afford to the homeless, traveled by bus or subway and took vows of integrity and sincerity to music and friends. Though we didn't know it, we were like each prior generation, we felt brave and misunderstood and driven to want to make a difference.
We were cheap drunks, quick to criticize and fight injustice as we saw it, tolerant to an extravagant excess, poor and mostly happy. Life had many surprises and changes waiting down the roads we would travel and looking back would become a luxury. Cheap sangria gave way to good scotch, idealism grew and matured into realism, marriage beckoned and divorce followed, our liberalism made a long, slow right turn and then we were grown and living in the world we had vowed to change but which had changed us. Some of us stayed on the path of conviction and some wearied and sold out, some took the experimental drugs a few levels higher and drifted away into addiction, some died and were mourned, some succeeded and some failed. The ordinary-ness of life was too much for some and too little for others.
And now we are older and wiser and still fighting the battles we've discovered in ourselves.
