Apple Picking Days

If, at the end of summer, you were young and strong, could spare a few weeks away from home and were in need of cash money, you signed up to pick apples in New England.  It was hard work but the air was clean, the leaves were turning, the ocean wasn't that far away and the money was good.   The orchards of Londonderry and Exeter and Lee welcomed the young Canadians with open arms.

Apple picking was a six day a week, dawn to dusk affair but on Sundays, the young men piled into borrowed, dusty pick up trucks and drove to my parents' where they gathered on the deck.  They drank astonishing quantities of cold beer and consumed fried chicken and potato salad and told tales.  The ones that were homesick called home, all were grateful for a day off and my mother was pleased to have them.  In return for the day's hospitality, they would help out my daddy with small projects around the house, cut and stack wood, rake leaves.  Often one would bring a guitar and music floated out over the lake well after dark.  These were good days with laughter and conversation, days that felt like going home.  It always made me melancholy to see them end - it was like leaving the island all over again - and it didn't comfort me to know that there would be another summer, there was too much cold and winter in between.
  
Often, if not always, I felt divided as a child, torn between the life I lived in the summer and the one I lived the rest of the year, never quite sure to which I belonged.  Much like my two families - my mother's on the one hand and my daddy's on the other - I wavered and changed sides, searching for a balance that was always just out of reach.  During the long winters I would yearn for the island and feel guilty, during the too short summers
I would remember I had another life and feel guilty.  It was one metaphor after another - the conflict between the seasons, the war between my parents, the never to be reconciled differences between the families, the
distance that separated the country and city life.  Belonging seemed to be a continuing tug of war.

Eventually I managed a mostly tolerable compromise - I settled and stayed in the States but left my heart in Canada.  It's still there to this very day even though the rest if me isn't.

A Clean Break

It's deja vu all over again.

A recent breakup has a friend on a roller coaster, streaking to the sky one minute, high on optimism and determination and a fresh start - then free falling with rage and bitterness and recriminations the next.  I read  her posts and while a part of my heart aches for her, another part wants to shake her senseless until she's forced to let loose, forced to see that she's doing most of this to herself.  An image of dead, dry branches and green twigs reinforced with resin comes into my mind - one makes for a splintery but clean break, the other is sticky, incredibly strong and resistant.  One you step over and move on, the other will entangle and engage you until you slice through it and shear it off.  So much easier said than done, I remind myself, remembering that it took me years to get free.  

Though it may not be readily apparent to those close to us, each of us has a personal limit to what we're willing to tolerate and what we're willing to live without - we need only to work out which is which - also easier said than done.

“Some people live in cages with bars built from their own fears and doubts. Some people live in cages with bars built from other people's fears and doubts; their parents, their friends, their brothers and sisters, their families. Some people live in cages with bars built from the choices others made for them, the circumstances other people imposed upon them. And some people break free.”  ~ C Joybell C.

T'aint easy, McGee, as the old tv show liked to say, but it's worth it.  

Lock Up Your Daughters

Aside from fire and flood and the random hurricane, there wasn't much that unsettled the island folk - they simply circled the wagons and trudged through whatever adversity befell them, taking eventual victory for granted.  It was never supposed to be an easy life, they reminded each other, God was on their side but had no intention of letting them slide.  Everyone knew that you got to the next life through charity, good deeds,
faith, and most especially, hard work.

Well, almost everyone.  Scallopers didn't have a chance in hell.

For an honest, industrious, early to bed and early to rise, usually law abiding fisherman, the arrival of the scallop fleet signaled eight long weeks of troubled waters.  Hide the whiskey and lock up your daughters was the general rule if not the battle cry - the dredging muddied the passage, the boats took up valuable space at the breakwaters and the scallop crews were a hard drinking, hard fighting, hard cussing lot with big tempers and big appetites.  They cleaned up on Saturday nights with after shave and shiny boots and hit the town square like gunslingers looking for a new sheriff and ready to make a name for themselves.  The only rule seemed to be that there were no rules - they were loud, had no respect for property or virtue, and prided themselves on being hard drunk.  They didn't stand in line for anyone and though most all had wives and children in Port Wade or Church Point, their loyalties appeared to be defined by geography.  One frivolous, foolish night with a scalloper often meant ruination for a curious and restless island girl - more than one found herself alone and in dire (if predictable) straits at summer's end - but when it happened to a tired, overburdened, taken for granted and vaguely restless married woman, well, things had simply gone too far.

The wife of the lighthouse keeper was in her forties and ran a small take out canteen at the other end of the island.  She'd never strayed before, never did again, but on one starry summer night after a fierce fight with her husband and feeling unappreciated and old before her time, she'd put on a low cut blouse and a short skirt and had come to the dance, a small flask tucked into her purse for courage.  She woke the next morning, on the floor of the canteen with an empty flask and a powerful headache, cursing her own foolishness and wondering what in the world had gotten into her and what she would tell her husband.  She had no idea a makeshift posse was forming with the lighthouse keeper in the lead nor that the life of a scallop fisherman was about to take a drastic turn.  She dressed and crept home, hoping against hope that she wouldn't be seen but her husband, waiting quietly in the kitchen and drinking coffee with his old shotgun laying on his lap, was expecting her.  It only took one shot - she died before she reached the back door.  The lighthouse keeper drove to The Point and joined the gang of men he'd hastily organized to avenge her honor but the scallop boats had sailed before dawn and there wasn't a trace of them.  By then the Mounties had been called and the entire island knew the sordid story.

The lighthouse keeper surrendered, the scalloper was never caught, and the dead woman was buried with only the minister and his wife standing sadly standing at the grave.  

Island folk have long memories and it was several years before the scallop fleet returned to the waters off St. Mary's Bay.  They fished, they minded their own business, and each time they left, Miss Clara would find fresh flowers on the grave of the lighthouse keeper's wife.

The House at Lost Dog Lane and Shut Eye Road

It was a Sunday and dawn had not yet broken on what would be a serene and pastel summer day. In what seemed to be a matter of minutes, the house at Lost Dog Lane and Shut Eye Road was first engulfed then devoured by the flames.  By the time the volunteer fire brigade arrived - summoned out of their warm beds by the wild shrieking of the factory whistle at just past 4 am - there was little left save smoke and ashes,  a few scattered and charred cinderblocks and the sad remains of a foundation.  It was all they were able to do to contain the damage and prevent it from spreading to the surrounding woods and it was several minutes before anyone noticed the small terrier-like dog who emerged from the trees, his coat blackened and his muzzle sooty, dragging a little girl's doll and whining anxiously.  

Sweet standin' Jesus!  Jacob Sullivan suddenly yelled and abandoned the body he was dragging out of the still smoldering debris, John, look!  It's Shadow!

John Sullivan peered into the slowly brightening dark and dropped his shovel.  Shadow!  Come here, boy!

The dog  came, still holding the baby doll in his teeth, whining softly and shivering.  He dropped it at John's feet then began a frantic dance, repeatedly barking and running toward the woods, nipping and tugging at John's boots.  Jacob and his brother exchanged a quick glance then with Shadow leading, they both ran for the trees while Uncle Willie and Uncle Shad continued to count bodies - all in all, there were nine dead - only the two little girls that Shadow had saved survived.  They were found together, in their nightclothes, scratched and bruised, covered with dirt and unconscious, but alive.  In was only when Jacob and John carried them to the relative safety of the fire scene and laid them in the back of Uncle Shad's wagon that anyone realized Shadow had stayed behind in the woods.  The Sullivan brothers went back for him, whistling and calling his name - they searched until it was light, until the last of the bodies had been pulled from the ashes and laid out in the early morning sun to await the hearses from the mainland.  They searched the following day and the day after that but there was no trace of a dog, not alive and not dead.  John and Jacob began to consider the possibility that the stress of the fire and rescue had caused some kind of mutual hallucination - no one else could remember seeing Shadow and they were both a little fuzzy on the details - but the fact remained that two little girls were resting and recovering at Rowena's and the Sullivan brothers were not prone to flights of imagination.  If Shadow hadn't led the way, how had they been found, John and Jacob both wondered but only to themselves.

By unanimous decision, the village decided on one unifying funeral, the thought of nine separate services was too overwhelming to bear, even the minister agreed.  Clean up of the fire scene would begin the day after the burials, a final act to cleanse the ground and repair the damage as much as was possible.  A dozen or so volunteers, including John and Jacob Sullivan, arrived with shovels and axes, Uncle Willie and Uncle Shad drove  in wagons to haul away the debris, the island women brought box lunches and gallon jars of iced coffee and the men worked in shifts, wanting to finish this sad duty as quickly as possible.

They began at first light, shoveling and raking, tearing down the remaining support beams and gathering the remnants of what had been a home.  It was tragic work, done silently and respectfully.  No one complained or joked in the light hearted way people sometimes do to alleviate sorrow or distance themselves from a very bad situation.  It was coming on sunset when John and Jacob Sullivan lifted the scarred but intact claw footed bathtub out of the ruins and discovered Shadow - his small emaciated body, scorched and singed in places, his muzzle blackened, one ear nearly severed and his front legs crushed.

Aw, hell and damnation, Jacob swore and his voice carried clearly in the clear afternoon air, Put the sumbitch down, John, and look here.

John Sullivan knelt and looked, his face frowning and puzzled as he reached one gloved hand out.  How'd the poor little bastard get under here, Jacob?  How come he ain't....you know....decayed?  It's been a week.

Maybe he ain't dead, Jacob said tentatively and his brother glared.

Look at'im!  John snapped, 'Course he's........

And at that moment, Shadow's eyes fluttered open and he whined, soft, low, and pitiful.  Both brothers cursed  and stumbled backwards in shock - John lost his balance, Jacob pinwheeled against him and fell.  For a second, neither spoke then both scrabbled on their hands and knees toward the wrecked animal, scooping him up as gently as they could and carrying him away from the burnt out ruins.  Rowena, packing up lunch baskets and loading them into the wagons, dropped everything and immediately slipped out of her jacket and wrapped Shadow in it.  Get me home, John, she said urgently, I've got work to do.

Children and animals, Rowena had been heard to say, share the gift of innocence and natural resiliency.  Why, I can't recollect one didn't take to love and a little kindness when they was needing healing.

It was a long healing season for the two little girls who had survived the fire, longer still for the small dog who had saved their lives but all three were mended.  The house at Lost Dog Lane and Shut Eye Road was returned to the wild and eventually nature reclaimed it.  The trees grew and the wild grass thrived.  No one ever thought to ask John or Jacob Sullivan how it was that Shadow had come to be buried after he had escaped the fire and led them to his children.  

Some things are just meant to be a wonderment.

Undercover

There's nothing finer than a cozy bed on a chilly morning.

Under the cover of two quilts and a fleece blanket, with four cats and all three dogs jockeying for position, I search for the will to rise and shine.  It's October, not quite all the way light, and the only thing I'm clear about is not wanting to leave this warm and secure nest.  Let daylight burn, I mumble and burrow a little deeper.  My grandmother would be appalled by this attitude, I think dimly, and while I can almost hear her disapproving voice, I find I can shut it out if I try hard enough.  I loved her dearly but we never did agree about mornings and on days like this, I can't help but think that all roads lead back to childhood.

As a child with one parent an alcoholic and the other overworked and mostly absent, I suffered from an excess of freedom or - depending on your point of view, I suppose - a fair amount of neglect.  There were no sleep overs at our house, no birthday parties, no study groups or supper guests or after school visits from friends.  We knew, I think by some natural instinct granted to children, that such things were for other kids - it was wiser and safer not to test the boundaries, smarter to follow the rules and keep family business in the family.

Solitary and self reliant children become solitary and self reliant adults with a shy streak a mile wide.  We have trouble with small talk and crowds, we're slow to trust and are often perceived as being distant, unfriendly, even anti-social.  We're not big on holidays and absolutely detest being the center of attention.  We don't like asking for help, don't like admitting we can't do it all.  Confrontation scares the daylights out of us.  We live with a constant fear of being unmasked, of failing or not meeting expectations, realistic or otherwise.  We keep to ourselves more often than not, need more approval than is good for us, and don't suffer fools at all.

On the bright side, we're curious, loyal to a fault, usually fairly well read and imaginative, often artistic.  We know the difference between lonely and alone and don't believe in regrets.  We've reconciled our demons as much as they will allow and learned to live with the ones that remain.  If not outright blissful - and really, who is - we're content and at peace.  These are some of the things I used to think about in my tiny, second floor room, on chilly October mornings when I would burrow deeper under cover in a second hand cot and search for the will to rise and shine.

Had I'd the will or the words to explain this to my grandmother, I'm pretty sure she'd have given me a few extra undercover minutes.

'Course she might also have booted me into next week.

Soulmates

A wedding invitation received yesterday is very nearly enough to restore my faith in love and marriage and the  starry eyed notion that everyone has a soulmate.  I can't remember seeing two people closer or more committed or more dedicated to one another - they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle - and I was moved to tears by the prospect of seeing them marry.  

It was the second such invitation in less than a month and it makes me remember that there's something about weddings.....I think I like the idea if not the actuality, the romance if not the reality.... there's work involved in partnerships and only play in romance, kind of like the difference between poetry and prose.  But these two upcoming weddings will, I think, have the best of both.  If soulmates there be, they have found each other.

My soulmates all seem to have four feet and tails.  They don't bring much romance to the relationship but they love unconditionally and always soothe my troubled soul.  They take up less room in the bed, don't leave towels on the bathroom floor or expect me to cook, and never, ever wander or pick a fight.  They sense my emotions and bring comfort, comedy, or company as needed and while I don't admit it to everyone, I haven't the least doubt that they understand, reason, and feel - very much as I do.  I talk to them without the slightest sense of self consciousness and if one day one were to answer back, I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't give it a second thought.  I've been more than halfway expecting it my whole life.  A silly and uneducated notion, some say, a fantasy.  We believe what we believe because we need to or because it pleases us to do so.  Well, perhaps.  But, I remind myself, just because I can't prove that my animals have minds and hearts and souls and will all go to heaven in their own good time - doesn't mean that anyone can prove they don't.

Soulmates are for this life and, if you believe, for the one to follow.  So I will go to these weddings with a happy heart.  I'll celebrate whatever forces brought these friends together and trust in whatever powers will keep them together.  And then I'll come home to my own loves....'cause nothing says soulmates can't have four feet and tails.

The Search for Shiloh, Part Two

So Ruthie and I stood there at the edge of the Westport Woods about to leave the bright sunshine and cross over into the dark.  The air was heavy with the smell of lichen and moss and the ground itself seemed to rustle, beckon almost.

 A rabbit (ogre), I told Ruthie.

Maybe a fox (fire breathing dragon), she told me.

Surely nothing that could do us any harm, we agreed, and together we took the first steps into the forest.  We were on a search for Shiloh, the old man who was supposed to live in a cave and keep the woods and the animals safe.  A few feet in, with the sun just flickering through the tops of the trees, we were seeing him everywhere and nowhere.  Every shadow seemed to take form and every tree appeared alive.  We imagined hidden yellow eyes following us from behind the dark boulders, watching and waiting and I think we were both beginning to regret all those Saturdays with Uncle Bernie's stories of mayhem and madness and blood.  With shaky voices, we repeated the spell Glenda had taught us and sprinkled more of Rowena's magic herbs on the damp ground.

We mean you no harm!  Ruthie suddenly shouted and squeezed my hand in a death grip.

We're only eight!  I hollered, as if it were a magic age.

 But the woods didn't answer.

A few feet further on, there really were yellow eyes - an owl sitting on a high branch glared at us and hooted in alarm.  The leaves beneath our feet moved and a turtle emerged, crossing our path with slow, even turtle steps.  Something howled in the distance, a lonely and forbidding wail and then just for a moment we saw a shape that might've been a man - it stood tall and unwavering in the small clearing ahead of us with another shape that might've been a deer at its side.  Both were gone in an instant, magically and silently melting into the trees and underbrush.  Ruthie seemed frozen in place and I could hear my heart frantically pounding, roaring in my ears like the ocean.

Wasn't real, she muttered.

Was so, I whispered back.

Under different circumstances we might've argued til the cows came home but this day it didn't seem to matter much who was right.  Still hand in hand and moving very slowly and deliberately, we backed up, one careful step a a time.  The forest began to feel as if it were closing in on itself and imagining that our escape route might be cut off, we instinctively dropped hands, spun around, broke and ran for the light as if the devil himself was at our heels.  By the time we reached the ferry, it had all begun to slip away and we were starting to feel foolish, beginning to suspect that our imaginations had outrun us.  In the way that children have of making decisions without words, we decided to keep this particular misadventure to ourselves and when Cap lifted us into the wheelhouse for the crossing and gave us a suspicious look, we pretended not to notice.

We were back on our own island in no time, skittering off the scow like water bugs and running for home.

Boot Hill

I'm rudely awakened from my nap on the couch by the sounds of a dogfight in progress. The black dog has cornered the small brown one in the hall, has gotten her on her back and pinned to the wall and it sounds as if the world is ending.  I haul her off and send her packing into the next room with a healthy smack and a violent curse - the small brown dog leaps into my arms, shivering and crying, and in the corner of my eye, I see the little daschund peeking out uncertainly from under the bed.  There is no sign of anything that could've been even the slightest provocation but I know the black dog and understand that she doesn't need to be provoked. She watches me comfort and reassure the little ones with no remorse in those dark eyes and I'm sure the only thing she regrets is being caught.

Don't even think about it!  I tell her sharply - very sharply - when she drops to her belly and commences the low crawl toward us.  She looks contrite and confused but her eyes give her away and I'm not buying.  One of these days that temper of your's is going to earn you a one way trip to Boot Hill, I say, Are you trying for a lethal injection?   Her expression turns pleading and seriously soulful and I can feel my anger evaporating.  The small brown dog has stopped shaking and is curled up on a pillow beside me and the little daschund has perked back up - he sits bright eyed and alert on my other side, ready to forgive and forget.  I don't want to, but I relent.

Oh, all right, I tell the black dog at last, But you'd better mind your manners.  She settles for this and comes closer, circles once or twice and then arranges herself at my feet, her head resting on her paws but her eyes watching me, evaluating me.  Discipline has never been my strong suit with her and I'm convinced she knows it, but, I tell myself, nobody got hurt (this time! a tiny voice insists and I push the thought away roughly) and no real harm was done.  There's no sense in punishing her further since I'm sure in her mind she thinks it was justified and anyway, it's already history.  I've dealt with her aggression and jealousy and unpredictable temper for twelve years now - it's a little late to expect or demand an attitudinal correction.  She is what she is and while I don't like her all that much, I do love her dearly.  She's backyard bred, curse the concept and the idiot who thought it was a a quick way to easy money.

The rest of the evening passes uneventfully with the two little ones sleeping at my side, neatly tucked in between a couple of the cats.  The black dog sleeps as well but restlessly, she stirs at every small noise and keeps a watchful eye on us all.





 

The Night Run

It was just after two in the morning when I passed the bus.

Every inside light seemed to be on and the interior was eerily yellowish.  I could clearly see the empty seats and the colors of the advertisements as it rumbled by me, swaying slightly from side to side, and for no reason that I could think of, I felt a sudden shiver down my spine.  There was not another vehicle in sight and most of the grand old houses in this part of town were dark and sleeping but I could see the destination header above the windshield distinctly - "Night Run", I read and felt a sure and certain chill.  A goose walking over my grave, my grandmother would've said.  I had a sudden and unnerving notion that things aboard the bus were wickedly wrong, that if it were to stop, a dozen dead and decaying bodies would tumble out, that the driver would be a  ghastly ghoul with cemetery dirt clinging to his boots.

I wondered about the route of the "Night Run" as I watched it disappearing in the rear view mirror, chugging a little drunkenly down the deserted street toward downtown.  I even had a second or two of curiosity so intense that I contemplated following, just because I'd never known a bus to run so late and so empty.  Would it return to the station or dim that brightly illuminated interior and drive through the graveyard?  And would it pick up more passengers?  Did even the dead have some destination?  A leftover whiff of exhaust brought me back to reality with its stench of diesel fuel (and death?) and I cursed my runaway imagination.  I was on a quiet city street at two in the morning, on my way home from a bar, hot and tired, and the city bus was just a city bus. Except that I was sure it wasn't.  

The chief trouble with my imagination is that it doesn't come with a kill switch.  The "Night Run" had been out of sight for several seconds before I realized that I was still in my idling car, sitting in the middle of the street with my foot firmly on the brake.

That's it, then, I said outloud, No more horror movies for you.

I was only a few minutes from home and just a few hours from daylight, but it was more than enough time to summon up another handful of apparitions.  I drove slowly, paying attention to the shadowy side streets and taking care not to get caught in the spaces between the street lamps.  Who knew what might be lurking in the dark, what might be waiting, what might've missed the bus.  I had visions of rotting corpses staggering down the sidewalk, of monsters behind the wrought iron fences and vampires slinking through the dark.  I drove a little faster, thinking that there would be safety if I could reach the intersection at St. Mark's where there would be light and open space and the nearness of a church.  Of course, I knew that there really were no demons or walking dead but if there were, they'd retreat.  

I crossed the intersection and drove the rest of the way in the clear, forcing the image of the bus with its unnatural, jaundiced light, its empty, abandoned seats and its unseen passengers out of my mind.  Wherever the "Night Run" had originated, whatever its destination was, and whoever was riding on it, were questions for another night and someone else's imagination.












 

Wheel of Fortune

The beginning of autumn.

The rain is over and there's a welcome coolness in the air.  The deck is littered and slick with wet, fallen leaves and the trees are still bent downward, glistening with left over moisture, shivering ever so slightly in the early evening breeze.  Everyone I know is ready for a change of season, ready to put the steamy summer behind them and move on.  Fall beckons like a dogeared old novel - I remember how much I loved it but can't quite recall the ending and I'm anxious to start re-reading.  I have a soft spot for British-written fiction, epic tales of families recounted over decades and told in different voices from alternating viewpoints.  One in particular, "Wheel of Fortune" by Susan Howatch is high on my list of favorites and I re-read yearly - for it's elegant dialogue, it's vivid character portrayals, it's plot and sub plots - but mostly because it reminds me how complex we are and how we filter our feelings and actions through our own experiences.  We make our own heroes and villains and build our own dramas - what you see may be exactly what I see, and yet not.  We interpret and translate according to our own inner selves and we write our own stories.  Your tragedy may be my celebration.  Your heartbreak may be my salvation.  One man's trash, so they say, is another man's treasure.  You hear an innocent question, I hear a veiled criticism.  You see a smile, I see a setup.  Don't grow up, I read somewhere, It's a trap.

This is the thing that most fascinates me about human behavior and the workings of our sometimes fractured minds.  I have come to expect a hidden agenda in the mechanism and I often find myself looking for a tell, a clue of some kind, as if kindness comes with a catch or a well intentioned remark has some concealed meaning.  A holdover of childhood, I tell myself, a remembrance from a failed or betrayed marrriage, a gift from a suspicious and distrusting mind.  Sometimes people are exactly what appear to be, no more and no less and certainly not behind the scenes plotters and anarchists.

And yet.  

It runs like a river, this search for what I imagine to be truth.  When I see others on the same journey, others with the same telltale expression, I think how glad I am to have gotten past all that suspicious nonsense and arrived at a place of confidence and certainty and acceptance and how sad for those who have not.

And yet.

It may be a battle that will never be fully won or lost, only a continuing fight and opportunity to live and learn.
I hear hoofbeats and make myself think horse.   But as unlikely as it may be, it could be a zebra.  Or in some cases, even a unicorn.

And yet.

Horses, zebras or unicorns. Susan Howatch's novel suggests that we're all prisoners on the wheel, destinies preset and spinning through life without any real choices.  Maybe so, but I prefer to think we all see things through the filters we design for ourselves.  The real trick is seeing through our own illusions.

Taking Sides

When a friend of mine recently tripped and fell headfirst into a hole he had dug for himself, I was unpleasantly surprised at the number of people who threw dirt instead of lowering a rope.  They may not have cast the first stone, but they wasted no time in firing back.

When it comes to words, we are the most fragile of creatures.  We hold onto the hurtful things people throw as if they were gold and share them as if they were immutable wisdom.  We recruit others with them, pass them along to gain allies, inflict them and then sit back and say See, I told you so.  And in this rush to take sides and assign blame, we end up at the edge of the hole ourselves.  It makes me think of a playground fight complete with name calling and bloody noses and spontaneous cruelty - by the time it's over, it isn't about what it was about anymore - it becomes a matter of who won or lost and who could yell the loudest and punch the hardest.  Why on earth do we so often choose right over happy?  Right has its own self righteous charm, I suppose, a fleeting sense of vindication or self satisfaction, but happy is healthier, longer lasting and easier on the nerves.

Sometimes taking sides is necessary, even essential, but it's worth remembering that what you do to someone else today, might very well be done to you tomorrow.  Who will defend you?  And who will simply add fuel to the fire?
   
It's easy to judge others behind their back, to desert them when their need is the most desperate and claim self defense.

It's hard to stay a course when you're under attack.

But wars have started with less so if you're filled with fire, just remember that fire spreads and will burn everything in its path.  It won't care who threw the first stone or who was right.  It'll just burn it all down.  So here's a lesson:


Now and again I get distracted at mealtime and turn my back on the dogs.  This inevitably leads to a nasty confrontation and I'm forced to haul one dog ( always the Schipperke) off one of the smaller ones.  She's very serious about food and gives no quarter if she thinks she's being cheated - having an aggressive nature to begin with, she requires special handling and it's wise to approach her with caution - but these food disputes are deadly serious and sometimes it takes great force.  This time when she pinned the little daschund down with much snarling and bared teeth, I was nearby and able to grab her collar and yank her away.  She spun around and attempted to sink her teeth into my wrist but I anticipated her and counter attacked with a twist and shout movement that sent her spiraling across the kitchen floor.

Now, if I'd been the little daschund (shaken but not harmed), I'd have given her a little space and a little time to calm down.  I'd have been angry and resentful and sulky.  I might even have made a scene and said something nasty and spiteful.  Instead, he dusted himself off and trotted right over to her, tail wagging a mile a minute, his small body confident and forgiving.  It took him all of ten seconds or so to forget that she'd gone for his throat and tried to make a meal of him - all of fifteen for her to forget my intervention.

In their nothing personal world, you turn the other cheek and move on down the line.

In mine, you write about it on Facebook.

In their world, they're sleeping side by side in a matter of minutes.

In mine, you're not even speaking.

In their world, forgive and forget comes naturally.  Small wonder I usually prefer their world to mine.

 

Chill and Pill

After three days of sleepless and sick, I wake just about 4:30 and for the life of me can't slip back into that hour and a half of peaceful dreaming still left to me.  My mind, I realize dimly, is fully engaged with worry about - of all things - debt.  Where it has come from I don't know but suddenly I discover I'm unable to turn it off and I start mentally reviewing the contents of the closets, the drawers, the jewelry boxes, making fuzzy edged lists of things I might be able to sell.  After a half hour, I give in and get reluctantly up to face the day. But the thoughts continue to race - needlework Christmas tree ornaments, I think, some camera equipment, a hand made crocheted tablecloth, unused table linens, the brand new dog kennels that didn't work, masses of costume jewelry, artwork that has no meaning except to me, shoes and clothes I haven't worn for decades.  It's time, I resolve, to clean house, give up my foolish and profitless packrat ways and concentrate on paying the Visa bill.

Here is a bitter truth: there's nothing here I can take with me.  And as it stands, there won't be enough to enough to send me.

I tell myself this is just the aftermath of cabin fever and a cold, of bad dreams born of worry and an ever present fear of mortality that sometimes I suspect might be just around the corner.  I'm dwelling on the dark side and the dread, and this is not how my mind usually works.  It's delayed grief for the recent loss of a beloved cat, it's the upcoming end of the year taxes, it's the increased price of my antidepressants.  And there, THERE, in that flash of a moment of unexpected insight - I remember I haven't taken one in days. The thought is nearly paralyzing in its intensity and it takes several seconds for me to reach enough awareness to curse my own carelessness.  

Of course, there is still a grain of truth is all this negativity and it would be an excellent idea to clean house and let loose of some of these dusty old possessions that really are no more than possessions and do little more than take up space.  But I will do it judiciously and thoughtfully, not out of panic and despair and dread and a lack of medication.

First the pill.  Then the chill. 
First, reinforce and repair the neglected brain chemistry.  Then clean the closets.

Insufficient Funds

Knowing that the new and upscale mesh playpen wouldn't hold the little daschund, I decided to put the black dog in it, thinking that she would enjoy the extra space and the airiness of it (not to mention hoping that it might distract her from what the day before had been a dime sized hotspot on her side and now was roughly the size of my palm).  Apparently, I don't think quite enough like a dog because she hated it instantly and instead of one dog crying and pawing, I now had two.  In the meantime, though I looked high and low, I couldn't find my office keys and finally fled the house without them to escape the dogs' distress.  I ducked through the pouring rain and got to the office only to discover that neither the doctor nor the nurses were there - a half hour later they still weren't there and the prospect of getting a late start on a Monday morning was unnerving me.  Pawing through my purse for the 3rd time in search of the keys, I was startled to discover my last paycheck, the one I'd have sworn I'd deposited ten days prior - my last nerve unraveled when I thought of the bills I had already mailed, out there in the world and being callously labeled "Insufficient funds" due to my own carelessness.

In the meantime, the nurses finally arrived and we all stumbled into the office only to find that the xray processor - older than dirt and far less reliable even though it had been serviced the Friday before - had developed an appetite for xray film.  The doctor, running late and in one of his bear moods, was decidedly less than thrilled at this unhappy turn of events.   Put all together, as I attempted to explain to him the following morning as he filled syringes and lectured me on neglecting my health, coming down with a head cold hadn't even been on my radar.  Don't care, he muttered and jabbed the first syringe into my hip, You know better. A second jab and a semi gentle cuff to the back of my head.  Go home and get better.

I spent the day on the couch with a box of Puffs, a bag of Hall's, and old black and white John Garfield movies playing, sleeping in between the bouts of coughing, sneezing and sniffling, feeling as my second husband used to say,  like I'd have to get better to die.  Waiting  for the medicines to kick in, I drank enough water to sink a medium sized ship and marinated in resentment over lost time.  John Garfield went from handsome, struggling, young musician to sleazy villain to desperate but ill fated hero - bringing his dark good looks and brooding intensity to each role - so that the day wasn't entirely wasted.  My efforts to sleep were pretty much rendered useless by bouts of coughing and an inability to breathe and I found myself again thinking how ironic it is that all the best medicine and research can't cure a common cold.  We may get to Mars, may perfect cloning, may solve the enigma of creation - and yet we are undone by a simple respiratory infection.

Today it's Lauren Bacall and with a little luck, tomorrow it will be back to the real world.








 

Gang Girls

Elizabeth Garcia - Liz to her rough and tumble friends with their leather jackets and biker boots - pretty much ruled junior high school.  She smoked like a chimney, wore gold hoop earrings, covered her pockmarked face with layers of makeup and traveled in a pack.  She was a gang girl with a quick temper and a colorful vocabulary, the first predatory female I'd ever known - tall, massive and powerfully built, tatooed and terrifying.  She had no use for classes or teachers and she flaunted discipline, defied authority and dared anyone to get in her way.

Her one weakness was sports - softball, wrestling, and field hockey.  Fiercely competitive and with a rock hard determination to win, she overshadowed her teammates, verbally battering us to perform, daring us to lose.  We played out of fear as much as anything else, reveling at each win and dreading the aftermath of the few and far between losses.  Disappointing a coach or a school or even a parent was one thing - disappointing Liz could get you a black eye and that was when she was feeling charitable.  What I remember most clearly, is how she looked in her gym wear - the dark green pullovers and bloomers were designed for athletics, meant to be sexless and functional and proper - and while they hung loosely on the rest of us, Liz filled her's so tightly that we worried she might one day rip her seams and just bust out.

I only faced her once, in a practice softball game where I had the bad luck to be on the opposing side.  I came to the plate and she was on the mound, a hugely muscled and imposing figure with the sunlight at her back, her hair tucked up under a cap but her earrings glinting.  Before stepping up I'd had a sudden and startling revelation - if by some miracle, I was to get a hit, she was sure to mow me over before I got to first.  On the other hand, if I didn't, it was equally likely that she'd hunt me down and deliver an equal punishment for not trying hard enough.   The catcher settled in behind me, Liz went into her windup and I had an overpowering urge to shut my eyes and pray.  Her first pitch whistled by me, her second was low but so close I almost felt it graze my knees.  On the third, I swung and missed and on the fourth, having nothing to lose, I connected and felt a shockwave from my fingertips to my shoulders.  The ball soared up and away and I ran for all I was worth, only dimly aware of Liz calmly and competently taking a few backward steps, shading her eyes with one meaty hand and extending her glove with the other.  The ball dropped in with a thud and the umpire signaled me out - out I may have been, but I was intact.  Several feet away, Liz removed her cap and wiped her forehead, then with barely a glance my way, resumed her pitching stance.  For the briefest second, I thought she might have nodded to me, just the faintest sign of approval, and I sighed with relief although later I decided I'd imagined it.

Seems to me it's always about the doing not the trying.

Glad She Was Here

Every time I get to this place, I pray that God will spare me.  

Here are two things I believe in:  It's neither moral, justifiable or kind to extend a life just because we know how or because we can.  Second, a beloved animal will tell you when it's time.  This morning as I fed the cats, I saw it in her eyes and knew.  My precious Mischief, sweet and timid and never a moment's trouble in all her fourteen years, let me know it was time to to go.  She's been in poor health for several months, her coat had become ragged and she was far too thin.  Selfishly, I had kept her with me, setting aside some quiet time each day just for her and stroking her until she fell asleep with her head nestled on my shoulder.  It calmed and quieted her for a time but I knew it was just delaying the inevitable.  So I called my vet to let her know we'd be coming and left work early, wrapped her in a blanket and made the last, long drive.  I knew it was right, knew it was time, knew I had to let her go.  None of my knowing helped in the least.

We laid her on the blanket and closed the exam room door to shut out the noise.  She didn't protest, didn't struggle, just folded herself into my arms while the vet gave her a sedative, speaking gently and lovingly to her all the while.  We had been here many times before, she and I.  After some small time passed, my sweet cat grew sleepy and laid her head down while I stroked her fur and comforted her.  Shortly after that, the vet returned and administered a final injection.  Together and in silence, we watched her drift away and take her final breath, peacefully and I think, perhaps, a little gratefully.  I imagined her crossing The Rainbow Bridge, happy, healthy, fat and sassy once more.

Every time I get to this place, I pray that God will spare me.  Instead, He gives me the strength to let her go and reminds me not to be sad that she's gone, but glad that she was here.

Don't Fence Me In

It should've been a small change, a matter of assembling a playpen for the little daschund to ( I so hoped ) accommodate his hatred of the wire kennel.  But once it was together, it was apparent that I'd not given quite enough thought to the issue of space and that some rearranging would be called for.  I looked around ruefully, wondering what magic ( other than a new house ) I would have to pull off to make it all work and it was well into the very early hours of the next day before I finished.  The end product is less than ideal but I think it might be workable - the dog's cooperation is, as yet, undetermined.

I've always been troubled by the sight of animals in cages and I dislike confining my dogs - it reassures me no end that the two older ones have adapted so well, they come in from outside each morning and each noon and go directly to the kennels (the black dog has even learned how to open her's) and jump right in, waiting patiently for a "Good Dog!" and a biscuit.  I'd hoped that the little daschund would see this and follow suit but it was not to be - he scurries for the bedroom and darts beneath the bed or refuses to come in at all when he knows I'm leaving - so that twice a day, five days a week, my heart hurts and I feel like a cold hearted and evil executioner.  The new enclosure is a topless series of plastic panels that hook together and give him more space than he could possibly need - I've added a new, plush dogbed and a water bowl and his favorite pillow. Hope springs eternal.

Too Clever by Half

Of my great grandmother, I can only say that unlike the rest of us, she was tall and on the slender side.  Her hair was entirely grey and when unplaited and uncoiled, it hung past her waist.  She wore silver spectacles and like all the women in our family, sensible shoes.

She was a Morrell, pronounced MORR -ill, accent on the first sylable, a plain and well established Nova Scotian name.  Morrells went back centuries in history and it was a perfectly adequate and honorable name until my Aunt Helen married my Uncle Edgecomb and without so much as a by-your-leave, altered the pronunciation to 
Morr -ELL, accent on the second sylable.  The women in the family went wild, incensed at the idea that their name wasn't good enough for the prissy and prim Beacon Hill headmistress.  For all her tea party manners and lacquered pink pearl nails, she was, they collectively agreed, an uppity, fortune hunting old maid with illusions of grandeur.  She'd clearly bewitched my uncle, tricked him into marriage with feminine wiles.

Too clever by half, my girl, my great grandmother said accusingly at their initial meeting.  Helen stretched out one pale, delicate, perfectly manicured hand.

How terribly kind of you to have me, she said brightly.

My great grandmother glared at her and quite deliberately shifted a wad of chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other then spat contemptuously.  Before Helen's appalled eyes, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and the poor headmistress flinched and paled noticeably.

Ain't done much work with those hands, have you, my girl, Nanny said flatly.

I beg your pardon! Helen exclaimed but her eyes seemed a bit dazed and she withdrew her hand as if struck.

No need, my great grandmother snapped back uncharitably and gave me an exasperated roll of her eyes, Too clever by half, she repeated with a raspy cackle.

Poor Helen - she was almost always referred to as such after that fateful day - stood wide eyed and silent, her pride injured and her insufferable superiority badly dented.  Nothing had prepared her for this lower class assault on her dignity and status and words, usually her most reliable weapon, had dramatically failed her. She gave my Uncle Eddie - who, it appeared was doing his utmost not to smile - a desperate, pleading look but he simply took her elbow and steered her firmly toward the sun porch.

Come along, old girl, I heard him say cheerfully, It's not as bad as all that.

Cream or lemon, Helen, dear?  My grandmother inquired sweetly as he deposited her into a chair.  Lemon, I think, she added when there was no answer, Definitely lemon.

From upstairs there came an undeniably satisfied cackle of laughter and Poor Helen - for the first time in her life she assured us later - promptly fainted dead away.

Calgon..... Take Me Away

If only it were so simple.

Rod Stewart was crooning a classic version of "Our Love Is Here To Stay".  I filled the bathtub, lit the candles and turned out the lights.  Calgon, I thought, Take me away, and slipping into water up to my chin, closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, nothing more.

It was serene.
It was soothing.
It was idyllic.

And it lasted for about 60 seconds.

I never heard the slow creak of the door opening, there was no warning meow - but I did sense a presence and when I opened my eyes, there on the edge of the bathtub was the young tuxedo cat.

Go 'way, I muttered, You'll fall in.

She paid no attention to me but reached out one paw and took a gentle swipe at the bubbles.  This was followed by a delicate and quite ladylike sneeze, which was then followed by the telltale click-clack of small dog paws on the tile floor.  I had an immediate premonition of disaster but by the time I reacted, the little daschund had already arrived and nudged the young cat - already in a precarious position - a paw's length further toward the water.  There was a half second in which I might've saved her and myself if I hadn't been so surprised, but then it was gone.  There was a violent splash and a blood chilling yowl - the water abruptly became a whirling hot tub of flailing cat and claws - the now terrified dog yelped and dove into a corner and with a magnificently impossible and impressive display of agility and panicky persistence, the cat made her escape in a flurry of spray, soap bubbles and blood.  My blood, naturally - her hind feet had found the necessary purchase on my left calf.

The Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble .....Rod Stewart sang hoarsely.

It took me the better part of an hour to locate and towel dry the cat, calm the dog, and mop the bathroom floor.
Whatever great mind wrote about courage in the face of adversity has never spent a night in my house.

Jumping Ship

I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness as I read about the dissolution of a very long and very intense  friendship.  It seems to be happening right before my eyes, playing out in venomous Facebook postings with words that aren't likely to be forgiven or forgotten.  It's one nasty cauldron of hurt feelings and betrayal, of blame and resentment, of shockingly vicious personal attacks.  Whatever the original cause or justification soon won't matter - it's all going to be lost in the whirlwind and damaged beyond repair.  The real issues are already clouded over and buried in a sea of misdirection.

Most of us are too smart to declare for one side or the other, at least publicly, but private postings are another matter and the consensus is simple, straightforward and unanimous - there's a madman on the loose, emotionally broken, delusional, spiraling out of control and possibly drinking again, not to mention determinedly on the fast track to self destruction.   Those who cared enough to look beyond the wild rantings and offer help, despite the risk, were shunned, threatened with violence, mercilessly cursed and condemned.  They jumped ship in self defense and to their credit, kept the encounters to themselves until recently.  

Through all this, something was nagging at the corners of my mind.  I had a fuzzy but strong sense of having heard the lines, or something very much like them, before - often and loudly - but I'm out of practice and it took a few days before I recognized the once familiar dialogue of an alcoholic melt down.  All the signs were there from the rage and mindless lashing out to the self pity to the defiance-laced denial and the mental chaos to the incredibly focused (and successful ) effort to drive everyone away.  Meanwhile, the postings against him began to show a pattern - bitterly I-told-you-so, vindictive, malicious, sarcastic, even triumphant and a little celebratory - and I was more than a little surprised to see how quickly and collectively the line between love and hate could be crossed.  I thought of sending him a message then realized the futility of such a gesture - You don't argue with or expect reason from a whiskey bottle, I remembered a counselor telling me, Anything you say, no matter what you say, will be used against you.  Hang back for now.

So I do but it drains me and the worry makes me sick at heart.

Once a dam has been breached and the flood waters pour out, anything in the water's path will be overtaken and swept under.  There's nothing to be done but wait and see and pray that the water's not as poisoned as its source.

Spell Check

I'm the first to admit that I'm a spelling/grammar snob but lately I've begun to feel a little like William Holden correcting Judy Holiday in "Born Yesterday".  In just one day, I've seen the following on a social networking site:  

Bare with me.

(This or that) shouldn't be aloud.

People effected by ( whatever )

It's to much to think about.

Your the man.

Literacy, it seems, is fast becoming an outdated custom, gone the way of the dinosaurs.  Have we really gotten that stupid or lazy or careless?  I don't judge by color or dress or religion or even political leanings but I confess - if you can't spell or punctuate (and are out of elementary school), I'm not going to take you seriously.

Language is an art and shouldn't be abused.  Words have meanings and aren't meant to be interchangeable.

Go jump in a lake is not the same as Go jump into a lake.

Helping your Uncle Jack off the horse is not the same as Helping your uncle jack off the horse.

Spell check.
Dictionary.
Your choice.