Living With Grace

It's hard to put the feel of my friend Jean's house into words.  It's the warmest and most welcoming place I know, overflowing with faith and kindness, art and music.  Her grief, still raw, carries on the scented air like potpourri.  David is gone but still everywhere and it comforts me to be here.  His widow lives with grace. 

She smiles.  She makes tea.  She talks about missing him each and every day.  I think, as I have thought many times before, that if ever there had been two people destined for each other, true and eternal soulmates, it was these two.  I suspect she's integrated her grief until it's become a part of her being and a part of me envies that part of her.  I can't think of anyone I've loved that much - no husband or lover has ever left a hole in my soul - although some of my animals have taken some of me with them.

I don't stay long since she's been ill recently and looks tired but we do make tentative plans for a music evening the following week. 

The night comes and the cozy little house rings with music and laughter - two guitars, a banjo, and of course Jean's accordion - the harmonies are sweet and the smile on her face is sweeter.  There are sad songs and silly songs and country songs.  We eat fried chicken and dirty rice and drink sweet tea in between.

Music softens the grief and sharpens the memories.

Long Nights

After yet another cold, gray sky'd all day rain.
I think one more sleepless night might push me over the edge so a little after eleven I swallow a sleeping pill and say a small prayer.  By midnight I've counted the same sheep a hundred times over.  I've tried to clear my mind of the swirling, angry thoughts.  I've tried to force my body to relax and let go, to give in to the exhaustion.  By one, I'm sensing a repeat of last night - not quite four hours sleep and not together - by two, I'm in tears of sheer frustration and by three, I push the covers aside and give up.

The house is cold.  I slip into long underwear, jeans and a sweatshirt and curl up on the couch under a blanket.
After several minutes I get back up to put the space heater and the tv on then prop myself up against a pillow. I'm tired beyond words, angry, and just flat out miserable.  And in some of the ugliest, most prolonged, weather I've ever seen, it's still raining.  Being up is almost as bad as being in bed - I can't get comfortable or warm - I'm short tempered with the animals when they want to share my space, I toss, turn, twist.  With the blanket over me I can feel the cold sweat on the back of my neck.  Without it, I'm cold down to my bones.

Seven o'clock eventually comes.  Outside the rain is still coming down hard and steady and mercilessly. I feed the animals, make up the bed, change litter boxes.  I've lost track of the rain days but I'd be willing to guess it's somewhere around 17 or 18 of the last 22.  I do remember two days last week when it was in the 70's and the sun was actually out.  I remember feeling better.

I've never felt emotionally affected by weather before, never so fiercely hated the rain or treasured the sun.
Just looking out the window is dismal as hell.  On the rare occasions that I've forced myself out from behind the walls of this little house, I've seen and heard the same thing from friends.  We are depressed, worn down, 
sick, weary.  The smallest thing makes us flare up.  And still the rains come, day after day after dark day. 

I lean back and close my eyes.  The central heat chuffs along and the space heater hums softly.  Rain pounds on the roof, the deck, the driveway.  I can hear it running in the gutters and washing over the saturated dead ground.  There's no let up.

On Sunday, I say to hell with it, run the thermostat up to 80, light the fireplace and put on both space heaters.
By late afternoon I'm in several layers, under a blanket, and catnapping.  At midnight, I turn down the heat and shut everything off except the bedroom heater, crawl into bed and sleep if not like a stone, at least like a good sized pebble.  It's just coming on light when I wake and by seven, the sun is actually shining and the house is tolerably comfortable.  I have no idea what's changed except for the weather and I almost don't care.

After a few days of sunshine I begin to feel my spirits lift despite the still chilly nights and mornings.  I still can't shake the urge to stay in at night and on weekends, can't manage to revive any interest in taking pictures or listening to music.  It worries me but only distantly - it would take a cartload of bricks to break through my denial system - but finally after a long conversation with a friend, I listen to myself and the following day I drag myself to the doctor and pour it all out, the cold, the depression, the loss of interest, the insomnia, the night sweats and even what scares me the most to admit, the unexplained weight loss, 40 pounds in a year and a half.

He listens, asks questions, takes notes, examines me and orders tests.  Everything comes back normal and I'm torn between being relieved and annoyed.  I ask to go back on antidepressants and he agrees.  We decide to give the medication a little time and then reevaluate, he gives me a fierce hug and sends me on my way.

That night I lie in bed listening to the steady ticking of the small alarm clock, the quiet breathing of the dogs,
a truck gearing up on the interstate.  My mind churns and tumbles like a blender, practically cremating my thoughts until they all run together.  Sleep isn't even in the neighborhood and in time I stop waiting for it, getting up and trudging into the sun room and onto the love seat, catnapping to an old Montgomery Clift movie and thinking about time and age and the uncertain future.

The older I get, the longer the nights seem to be.















  

Eight Feet of Snow in Ithaca

The man from Ithaca steps on stage and opens with a sweet love song and a smile.  His shirt needs pressing, his jeans are slightly tattered and his hair hasn't seen a comb this day.  Eight feet of snow in Ithaca, he tells us with a grin, but he's made it.  We are very glad to have him.  His songs and stories make us all smile.

The one that stays with me - and I suspect many in the audience - is a ballad about his grandfather, a Navy Seabee who helped build the runways on Tinian Island.  There's a heartbreaking simplicity to the song, an almost painful authenticity.  The lyrics send shivers up and down my spine, they are sad and powerful, grim because they're so true.  The applause is lengthy.  A man who will dig out from eight feet of snow in Ithaca to travel to Louisiana to sing his songs and tell his stories is worth listening to.

In the pre-snow blower days of my growing up in New England, winter often meant waking to the raspy sound of a snow shovel - scrape, heave, scrape, heave - my daddy, so bundled up he could barely move, would be out and at it sometimes as early as 5am.  There were times - rare but memorable - when the drifts were so high he was forced to climb out a window and clear the weight of the snow from the storm door before he could even begin.  My brothers and I were usually charged with making a path from the back door to accommodate the dogs who took a dim view of it all.  We were fortunate to live on a primary roadway - Lake Street was a straight shot from Massachusetts Avenue all the way to Route 2 - we got early attention from the plows and could almost always hear the sand and salt trucks rumbling behind them.  Friends and neighbors on secondary streets and side roads weren't near as lucky, often times it was noon before the snow was cleared, but we all had to deal with the tragic and infuriating habit of the snow plows not lifting their blades as they passed the newly shoveled driveways.

Once the shoveling was done and the plows and trucks had moved on, there was an eerie stillness to those work-less, school-less mornings.  Gray skies or blue, the world was silenced and insulated and stuck.  Like the aftermath of a bomb, I sometimes thought, when I imagined the sound was sucked away and not even a breath of wind dared to stir.  

No More To Be Done

You can't find peace, Virginia Woolf wrote, by avoiding life.

On a warm spring afternoon in March, my friend Hutch connected a hose to the exhaust pipe of his old pick up truck and fed the other end into the front seat.  I don't like to think about what he was thinking or how long it took him to die. I don't like to think about the fact that he was 51 years old and couldn't see a way through.  I don't like to think about how terribly sad it's making me feel.  Most of all, I don't like to think how close I am to understanding why anyone would do such a hateful, needless thing.

I haven't felt it often but there have been times - all recent - that I find myself wondering what the point is, as if there isn't anything more to be accomplished, as if there's no particular reason to try.  All the things I've worked and sacrificed and struggled for are done and the truth is that from here on in, it isn't likely that life is going to get any easier or any better.  It's not a bad thing, of course, I have a roof over my head, my little ones are happy and well and I have most of my health.  I can still work and write and take pictures, I haven't run out of money - yet - the little car still starts every morning and more often than not, I manage to fight off the future and its dread.  I still have friends that I treasure and music I haven't heard.  It ought to be enough but at night when I can't sleep and my mind strays to the dark and uncertain places and dredges up every fear I have and every disaster that might happen, then I wonder.

I'm far too encumbered to commit suicide, this I know as surely as I know anything, but the thoughts come anyway and they're wrapped in shame and guilt that I would even allow this mindset.  Life is precious, I tell myself, life is short.  And so it is.  But it's also finite.  After a certain point, what more is there to be done?

Hutch's obituary is tragically short - it gives the day of his birth and the day of his death and tells the city where he lived when he died.  There is nothing else, as if nothing in between even mattered or made the smallest difference and when we gather to mourn him, I realize that all any of us have is bits and pieces. 
There were two marriages but the details are sketchy.  There was a daughter, estranged for most of her life.
He was a landscaper, a handyman, a builder of rock gardens.  He favored old country music and played the guitar right handed.  He loved dogs, smoked like a chimney, occasionally drank more than he should've and danced with his eyes closed.   He had a brilliant and infectious smile.  It's not much to know about a friend.

How much we hide from those who care.

Road of No Return

The kitten, now a grown up little lady of 14 months, scales the back of the couch, reaches the top and flings herself on the unsuspecting small brown dog.  There's a wail of terror just before chaos breaks out - cats flee wildly, the little dachshund immediately alerts - and the small brown dog leaps all a tremble into my lap, her eyes wide with fright, her ears laid back in fear.  She isn't harmed but her timid nature has her shaking like a leaf and I can feel her heart pounding.  I hold her tightly, speaking softly and stroking her while the little dachshund looks on worriedly but it still takes several minutes before she's calm and willing to crawl back into her nest of pillows.  She curls ups, nose to tail, still wary, still listening, her eyes darting for signs of a second assault.  It takes a full half hour before she's sure enough to sleep again.

Not for the first time do I find myself wondering where it all went wrong and how I lost control.  I keep going back to marrying a dog person.

Once you got used to the idea, a houseful of cats was mostly manageable.  One led to two and two led to three and so forth and so on.  There was always a perfectly good reason to say yes to a new kitten.  I hadn't had dogs since being a kid - far more trouble and responsibility - but husband number two was clever enough to understand that while I could turn down a dog I hadn't seen, discovering one on my doorstep was quite another matter.  Not that I didn't come to love each and every one but the fact is that they turned my life more upside down then the husband did.  I had every intention of seeing them through their lives and then returning to a houseful of cats - worry-free, independent, self-sufficient cats - but it was too late and I'd been compromised. It was a road of no return.

People frequently ask if they all get along and I always say More or less.  It's as good an answer as any.

For Hutch

I find it difficult to write about a friend's suicide.

A relatively young man, a musician, husband, father and child of God.  Found himself in the darkest of all places and saw no way out.  Life is so precious, so short.  We all need more time in the light.

Water Everywhere

The rain has an endless quality to it.  There's a sense that it may never end and after six days it's all anyone can talk about.

Flash flood watches are issued, streets are closed, stranded motorists are rescued and put on the news.  The park down the street is underwater, some sections of the city are impassable.  Sirens can be heard night and day - police, fire, emergency vehicles - all rushing from one disaster to the next.  The weather channel puts together a slide show of high water pictures, everything from flooded out intersections to bayous overflowing their banks to collapsed roads.  There's water everywhere.  Everywhere.  The ground is so saturated it bubbles up under my feet.  It's like walking on wet sponges.  Ark jokes are popping up on social media sites and rumor is that the city ran out of "High Water" signs.

It's depressing, wearying, hard to take and for some, a little hopeless.  There's been no sunshine in over a week.  Lost in the wet and the dark, the light at the end of the tunnel flickers and then goes out.  It's no longer just good sleeping weather.  We reach our limits without the light and my insomnia kicks into high gear, my mood darkens, worry and stress take hold.  All the things I manage to not think about when the sun is shining gather forces and seep into my soul.  I'm feeling cold again and hating the very sound of the rain.  On the seventh morning, I feel like a damp mop left to dry in a cold wash bucket.  A hot shower and a change of clothes helps - only a little - and then I realize I hear birds singing.  With my heart in my throat I check the forecast - 66 with a 20% chance of rain, 70 and sun tomorrow - then four more days of rain.   

I try my best to focus on the bird songs.

Happenchance

Ain't no sense lookin' back and wishin' you'd done different,  Sparrow told my grandmother with a slightly sorrowful grin, it's all happenchance anyways.

You talk too much, you old fool, Nana scolded, Now shut up and take the damn medicine.

It don't agree with me, Alice! he protested.

Not half as much as I'll disagree with you if'n you don't! she warned.

Sparrow sighed heavily, stuck the handful of pills in his mouth and washed them down with water.  Even I knew he didn't look well - his skin was grayish and cold looking, his hands shook even when still - the medicine clouded his mind, made him short tempered and forgetful and as my grandmother liked to remind him, ungrateful.  She navigated his old wooden wheelchair into the sunlight, covered his lap with an afghan, slid a pillow behind his head.  His old tomcat watched from the railing - soon Sparrow's lap would become more than he could resist and he would jump with a casual, agile leap into it - Nana would disapprove and fuss but not chase him off.  If it was a good afternoon, both might soon nod off.  If not, the new, fresh faced young resident doctor and his magic morphine were not far off.  Ol' Man Death wasn't on the veranda that summer afternoon, although I sensed his presence.  Watching from a distance, I thought, watching and waiting, in no particular hurry.  Other business to be tended to before he headed our way.  Other stops to make.  Might be he'd be distracted all summer long.

I didn't say any of these things, a course, just inched a little closer to my grandmother.  I could hear her knitting needles clacking steadily, just as if nothing in the world could be wrong or out of place.

Nana, I whispered, Is he gon' die?

Before she could answer, there was a rumble from Sparrow's wheelchair and a small meow of protest from the cat.

Not today, missy!  the old man snapped and gave a harsh laugh.

I jumped so fiercely I tumbled over backwards and slammed my elbow into the door post, giving a howl of pain and feeling my heart miss a beat.  Nana didn't laugh but I could see she wanted to.  Sparrow breathed a little raggedly, coughed, then settled back down, one blue-veined old hand resting lightly on the cat's back.  A thin trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth and my grandmother set her knitting down, reached for her handkerchief and gently wiped it away.

It's all happenchance, he muttered, Ever' thing between gettin' borned and dyin', just happenchance.  Man cain't even die in his own time.  What in the name of all that's holy is the point.

Fetch me a glass of sugar water and a straw, Nana told me briskly, Damn fool's tryin' to talk hisself into his grave.

Sparrow balked, growling that whiskey'd do a damn sight more good than her blasted sugar water but Nana ignored him.

Reckon you kin drink it, she told him flatly, Or I kin pour it down your gullet.

She'd mixed a packet of white powder into it and he drank, not willingly, but he drank.  It wasn't too long before his watery old eyes closed and his chin fell to his chest.  He slept, more or less peacefully, and after giving my elbow a cursory look, Nana pronounced me unhurt and returned to her knitting.  The boats came in,
unloaded their catches, washed down their decks and moored in the calm water.  Several of the fishermen stopped by the old house, visited briefly, and then began the walk home.  The sun set over Brier Island and turned the clouds pink and blue and amber and glorious.  And Sparrow didn't die that afternoon.

The Marmalade Tree

At one time another, every island child had gone searching for the marmalade tree.  

It was, I suppose, as close to a rite of passage as any of us were likely to get and the adults smiled tolerantly at these small journeys, remembering their own experiences perhaps or just unwilling to spoil the game.  To believe in the marmalade tree was a given - it was said to grow out of sheer rock  although no one knew where - and to bloom alone but year 'round.  Part of the mystery was that it could be found only by moonlight and only by children.  Part of the magic was that if you found it, you couldn't tell where.  It was said that when someone did find it, the wind took over and pulled it up roots and all, replanting it as easily as falling off a log.  'Course since no one ever told, we never really knew.

It didn't promise fame or riches or eternal youth.  You didn't get three wishes or even your heart's desire.  It didn't make you wise beyond your years or grant magic powers.  It was nothing special really, just a tree that grew out of rock with leaves that smelled like mint but were the color of fire all year 'round.

So why look at all?  my eminently reasonable cousin Gilda wanted to know, Who cares about a silly old tree?

Gilda, a distant cousin on her first visit to the island, wasn't fitting in and had already very nearly worn out her welcome with my grandmother.  She wore pinafores and hair ribbons and shiny Mary Janes, disliked dogs, and found the smell of fish distinctly lower class.

Ain't nothin' says you got to go along, Nana remarked a little testily.

My mother says "ain't" isn't a proper word, Gilda replied primly and my jaw dropped and hung open while Nana's eyes flashed warning signs.  Sass was never, ever a wise response to my grandmother and even I knew better than to correct my elders.

And I'd like apple juice, please, Grandmother Alice, my cousin added, delicately pushing aside her glass of orange juice, Citrus doesn't agree with me.

I heard tell, Nana said with a sweetish smile but a cold tone, that people in hell want ice water.  She leaned back in her chair and regarded Gilda the way I'd once seen Uncle Shad double down on a snake in the cow barn. I'd crossed the road running for all I was worth and was halfway across the strawberry field when I'd heard the shotgun blast but Ruthie'd said there weren't enough left to pick up and throw away.  

Reckon it took two days to catch all them cows, Shad had said with a kind of satisfied resignation, But I ain't seen no more snakes.

At the moment Gilda asked for apple juice, I was kind of glad Nana was unarmed.

Full moon tonight, she said to Ruthie and I without so much as a sideways glance at my sulking cousin. Reckon I kin make you a care package to take along.

What's a care package?  Gilda asked immediately.

Flashlights, Nana said thoughtfully but clearly just thinking out loud and not in answer to the question, Matches and sandwiches, walkie talkies if'n I can put my hands on 'em, an extra sweater for each, bandaids and iodine mebbe.

Couple bottles of pop?  Ruthie asked with a hopeful grin.

I 'spect so, Nana agreed, I reckon I could hunt up a spare church key.

What's a church key?  Gilda wanted to know.

We left right after supper when the sun was just beginning to go down and the sky over Westport looked like a huge pastel paint spill.  At the last minute, my grandmother had slipped her antique gold watch off her wrist and into my pocket with a reminder that marmalade tree or no marmalade tree, we were expected home by midnight.

By the lord Harry, she warned, If'n I have to send out a search party, you'll neither sit for a week! 

Knowing my grandmother didn't make idle threats, Ruthie and I nodded a little anxiously, gave our word to be careful, kissed her powdery cheek and set off down the old dirt road.  We could see Gilda watching from the sunporch, a small and defiant little figure framed against the windows, but she didn't acknowledge us, didn't even return our wave.  In another few steps, the glare on the windows turned into a flashy reflection of the sunset and Ruthie and I took hands and began to run - past the canteen, past John Sullivan's boat dock, past the ferry slip and the breakwater where the road ended - and somewhere after we left the path to make our own trail, Gilda was forgotten.  We walked, we climbed, we scrambled over rocks and downed fences, past the ancient logging paths and the whiskey stills and the abandoned fishing shacks, through the shadowy woods to the other side.  I remember the moonlight shimmering on the water and the sound of the tide, the warm night air as it whistled so softly through the trees.  I remember the random caches of driftwood and kelp at the tideline and hearing the owls calling.  I remember the stars and the night birds and how peaceful it all was.

We were home by midnight, tired and well satisfied with the journey, content to have the marmalade tree keep its secrets.














   

Winter Berries

A small flash of color catches my eye as I close the front door and start down the steps - a cluster or bright red winter berries on the other side of the railing - just barely visible in the early morning sun.  A good sign, I think to myself, a promise of spring and warmth and better days.  It's time I got back to my life.

First there was shingles - with me since the first week in December and with me still - then the on-again, off-again intestinal bug.  Then the cold that settled under and in and all through this old house and the new ductwork that didn't warm things up.  It's been, as Nana might say, a long case of the miseries.  And for the first time, I couldn't find the strength to fight through it.  Didn't see the point.  I shut down my writing and let my camera gather dust.  Everything I had went into trying to sleep and keep warm while I let myself worry about the taxes, the bank loan, the need for the kitten to see a vet, my less than set in cement job, the bills, the much needed repairs to the fence, the overdue oil change.  I gathered these things to me like a squirrel collects nuts - greedily, tightly, selfishly - as if without them, total despair might triumph. I spent the better part of two and a half months shut down and shut up, feeling the inequity of age and life bearing down on me and not noticing that the berries were there the whole time.  Survivors, these little berries, not giving an inch to the nights of freezing cold, the sleet, the rain that washed away so much topsoil, the icy winds that bent and battered the shrubs.  They gave up their own only to feed the mockingbirds and the cedar waxwings.  

Nature is full of sacrifice and hardship, each season bringing its own special rewards but also its own demands.

I remember many a New England blizzard where the snow was endless and we listened for the heavy tree limbs to suddenly snap like gunfire and crash down upon the roof or the power lines or an innocently parked car.

I remember southern summers so hot and humid that every breath had to be fought for.

And I remember the autumns and springs in between, full of gentle warmth and sweet breezes, coming and going so quickly there was barely time to appreciate them.  They were made of dreams.

And the winter berries bloom through it all, undeterred by time or temperature or season.  A reminder not to give up or nature's stubborn streak, you never can tell.

The Weight of Family

The old pump organ was sitting primly in the thrift store window, surrounded by second hand clothes and silverware and shelves of colored glass bottles and vases.  It gave me a start and then unleashed a flood of memories.

My grandmother Ruby slept in a small, narrow cot in the front room of the farm.  The cot and the pump organ that sat by the window overlooking the apple trees and the vegetable garden were the only two things I could remember about the room.  My daddy played it often, letting me sit on his lap and showing me the basics of the old Baptist hymns while he adjusted the knobs and pumped the pedals steadily.  I remember the breathless wheezing of the old thing, the smooth, dark wood, the yellowed old keys.  It took concentration and effort to play and I never got the hang of it but my daddy had never seemed to mind.  I learned my chords and that was enough.  A soft breeze would sometimes stir the sheer curtains on the windows as Ruby puttered around in her nightclothes with her hair unbraided and though she never said so, I thought she might've liked the music.

Mostly I remember her in a house dress and apron with her hair braided and wound around her head.  She was a small woman, a sensible, ungenerous and disapproving woman - truth to tell - always spare in her speech and slow to smile.  She disliked idleness or decoration and her work was never done.  Everything I remember about her is hazy, dreamlike almost, but she was always in motion.  She believed in consequences and precious little sympathy.  Her life was not easy or certain and I suppose she expected her reward to come in heaven.  I can't remember hearing her laugh - there was too much sin in the word to rejoice - and for the life of me, I can't think of a single time she hugged or kissed one of her children or grandchildren.  She worked and when she was finished, she worked some more.  All I can remember her ever teaching me was how to shell peas.

The cold weight of family can crush you.

News of her death came with a telephone call and over my mother's protests - loud, mocking and unkind - he packed a bag and jumped on a plane.  He never talked about it.

We are what we come from, I suppose, what we are shown and taught.  We carry on as if there's no other way.

I wish I'd known Ruby and that side of my family better.  

And I still think about that old pump organ.

Too Much Trouble

The grayed out skies and cold rain seemed to fit me like a glove.  I could feel a black mood settle over and around me, gnawing at  my edges.  It was cold and not just cold but cold like sweat.  The pile of blankets did no good - the back of my neck was unpleasantly damp and chilly - and even the room seemed to be cave-like. Time passed in uncomfortable segments of just-below-the-surface sleep with nasty dreams.  I felt pointless. I pulled on more clothes, rammed the thermostat to 75 then 80, moved to the living room with the portable heater and dug out more blankets.  All it got me was damp hair and a headache.  The little dachshund lay by my side, restless and concerned and watching me closely.

The rain stopped sometime during the night.  I smoked, took a long, hot shower, smoked some more, let the dogs out and in, watched for the sky to lighten, slept and woke, slept and woke.  By seven, it was almost light and finally warm enough to move around but everything was too much trouble.

My cigarettes are within easy reach but it's too much trouble.

The kitten asleep on my chest is movable but it's too much trouble.

The thought of showering and dressing is far too much trouble.

It's all, I realize dully, too much trouble.  I feel weighted down, gray, lost.  Gradually I begin to understand that I've somehow slipped into a dark place.  I haven't heard a human voice in three days and am feeling faintly sick.  The aloneness is crushing but I haven't the energy or inclination to move.  The whole house has a sick room feel to it and it's worked its way into my soul.
  
I think of depression as a small place, airless, dark and suffocatingly quiet.  It sucks the life out of you, steals the need for people and conversation away, and it's always disagreeably cold.  Nothing seems worth the effort.
You're dimly aware of being hungry, dimly aware that a shampoo and shower and change of clothes might make a difference, dimly aware that aspirin might ease the headache.  But everything you reach for is too far away - easier and quicker to close your eyes and burrow into darkness - you suspect that all the good is gone. Troubled thoughts swirl behind your eyes, a lifetime of shelved and put off worry, fear and despair join forces and when you open your eyes you're surrounded.  Even if you wanted to, there's no place to break through.

There might be a moment when you think about asking for help.  But in the time it takes to think about it, it's gone.  No one wants to admit to these feelings.


And then the sun breaks through and as it does, my spirits rise and I find my voice again.

The Old Caldwell Place

My first thought was that an alien had dropped by for breakfast.

My grandmother was in a fuzzy pink housecoat and matching slippers with her silver hair in tight pink spoolies under a glittery hair net and no make up.  She was drinking coffee and scanning the tiny island paper that arrived monthly, grumbling to herself as she dug into her pocket for her cigarettes and saccharine.  The kitchen was sunny and warm and smelled slightly of Airwick.  Nana smelled of cold cream and smoke. I took my seat across from her and she pushed a new package of pull-apart cinnamon rolls toward me along with a plate of softened butter.  My mother would not be happy to see me spread butter over the already sweetly iced rolls but for Nana it was an old habit and she loved the combination of melting icing and butter - like potato skins with butter and sugar only better - and she'd passed it on to me years ago.

Hmmph, she muttered and gave the little newspaper a stern, two handed rattle as if it had spoken out of turn,
The old Caldwell Place burned again.

She peered over the top of the paper and gave me a narrow-eyed glance as if she thought I might argue.

When?  I asked neutrally and after a quick pause, she shrugged but didn't answer.

Nana had never thought much of the old Caldwell Place - or any of the Caldwells, for that matter - Ethan and Emily's uncared for old homestead had not been on the island but rather just a few miles past the ferry slip on the way to the mainland.  It was a sorry looking old place, a little on the spooky side, some said, neglected and in need of every kind of repair with a perpetual brood of unruly and ragtag children running loose day and night.  A pair of rusted out old cars bordered what once might have been a driveway but what was now barely a path.  A pile of discarded tires sat under a tree.  There were random piles of hubcabs, rain rotted stacks of ruined lumber, coffee cans, abandonded machine parts.  The whole thing looked like a badly drawn and crookedly hung picture.  We'd passed it with every trip to and from the mainland.

I declare I don't know why the province just doesn't just condemn it and carry it all away, my grandmother said nastily, I shudder to think what the inside must be like.

Ruthie flashed me a wicked grin at that - we both could've told Nana exactly what it was like on the inside - and I jabbed her smartly in the ribs.

Something to add, girls? my eagle-eyed grandmother inquired sweetly with a glance in the Lincoln's rearview mirror.

Oh, no, ma'am, Ruthie said quickly.

Nothing at all, I added, probably too loud and Ruthie pinched me.  We both had to work hard to stifle the giggles and then my mother half turned in her seat and gave us a warning glare.  We immediately straightened up and began flying right.

It had been on a dare, of course.  One of the Sullivan boys had called us chickens, said we were "good girls" and "scaredy cats" and would never have the nerve to break the rules.  Ruthie said we'd be skinned alive if we were caught but it was my own brothers who turned us.

Ain't takin' no sissy girls, they'd announced and Ruthie and I were all in.

We pedaled the length of the island, crossed the ferry on the pretense of buying Jersey Milk bars at East Ferry, then pedaled round the hairpin turn and straight up the mainland.  It was a glorious summer day, windy and warm and smelling of salt.  Gulls shrieked behind us and the hayfields were hazy bright.  Even in the early afternoon sun, the old Caldwell place looked abandoned and forgotten - slightly treacherous, I thought - but we walked our bikes in bravely, past the scrap heaps of second hand bricks and several wheelbarrows full of pop bottles.  An avalanche of children spilled out the front door, a pack of dogs descended on us from the shadows.  Ethan, harnessing up an old and decrepit looking mule, barely glanced at us but Emily, one baby on her hip and another strapped to her back, swung the precariously hung screen door open wide, smiling at us despite the missing and broken teeth.  Her hair, widely streaked with gray, hung in a long coiled braid well past the middle of her back.  She was pale and hunched over, barefoot and wearing a ragged shift dress.  I thought I'd never seen a more tired looking woman, exhaustion came off her in waves and still she managed something that was a little like a welcoming look.

It was dark inside and there wasn't much furniture.  You could see daylight through some of the floorboards and in patches on the roof.  There were no interior doors, only blankets hung over the openings and kept in place with nails.  Some swayed lightly in a breeze we didn't feel.  Two oil lamps burned a sickly yellowish from the rack and ruin mantle.  The windows were covered in plastic sheeting, ash buckets sat unemptied by the fireplace, one side wall was almost completely exposed down to the beams with baby clothes hung randomly on the protruding nails.  It was impossible to take in, impossible to understand that people lived here, ate and slept and found the strength to face another day here.  Emily laid out slices of bread with butter and sugar and I thought of Nana's bright red and white kitchen, the linoleum she was always planning to replace, the little wooden gadget Uncle Len had designed for the hot water faucet that always ran scalding, the steady hum of the refrigerator and the lights that needed only the touch of a finger on a wall switch, the pantry with its overflowing stock of canned goods and cookie jars.  Each spring, Aunt Vi and Aunt Pearl came to clean and air and make the house ready for our summer visit - the woodshed was filled, the grass cut, the linens changed - and when we arrived, the dining room table would be set with a bubbling pot of fish chowder waiting on the stove and fresh flowers on the counters.  One of the village boys would have washed the windows until they shone and there'd be a fresh coat of paint on the flagpole.  Water would've been run through the pipes and the well tested.  Every glass and plate in every cabinet would have sparkled.

Here in the dull and disturbing poverty of the Old Caldwell Place, I began to feel ashamed.  I thought Ruthie might have felt it too and we didn't wait on the boys, just eased out, mounted our bikes, and rode for East Ferry as fast as we could.  We didn't talk about what we'd seen - or how it had made us feel - and by the time we passed it again and Nana had mentioned about the province coming and condemning it ......well, a considerable amount of summer had passed.  We let ourselves think we'd exaggerated or made it all up. It was easier than remembering, we thought, the bad stuff always is.

Ethan and Emily had long since moved on for a warmer climate when the first fire broke out that November, Ruthie wrote me.  She sent me a tiny photo from the paper, a grainy black and white of the the remains of the foundation and the chimney, three quarters buried in snow and looking unbearably sad.

The second fire, some ten years later, claimed what little was left.

They let it burn, my grandmother mused, Guess sometimes that's all you can do.
















 

Chicken Soup & Saltines

A glance at the calendar by my desk reminds me I'm in the 7th week of shingles.  I feel like a survivor.  That's when the intestinal bug arrives and lays me low for three very long days and nights - first there are chills and then sweats - I can tell I'm running fever and sleep is impossible.  I spend three miserable, wretched nights listening to a hard and steady rain and knowing I'd have to feel better to die.  I can't get the house warm enough, I can't sleep and don't dare try to eat or drink, every room looks like a small cyclone has come through and I don't care.  I begin to wonder how much more of what's left of my battered, old immune system can take.

On the fourth day when the weather finally clears - and warms considerably - I start to think I might live. Although my hands are shaking badly, my insides are trembling and I feel as fragile as spun glass, I leave my little sunroom nest and make a bowl of chicken soup, saltines, and room temperature ginger ale.  The dogs, both of whom have been constant companions and my only source of comfort, trail after me protectively.  They haven't left my side in three days and when I fill the bathtub and sink in, both sit quietly at attention beside the tub, watching and waiting patiently.

On the fifth day, I feel well enough to go back to work but my mid afternoon I'm regretting it.  My head is pounding, I ache from head to toe and once again I'm freezing even though it's over 60 degrees.  I tend the work dogs one last time and then come home to crawl shivering and shaking beneath several layers of blankets and listen to my teeth chatter.  I resolve not to come out til spring.

Most of the wretchedness passes by the following morning but I still feel far more delicate than I'd like.  A hot shower and a couple of aspirin help and I pull on as many layers as I can and reluctantly leave for work.  

I hate being sick.  Not just because it means being sick, but because it means being alone and in misery and feeling whiny and dreadfully sorry for myself. I dislike envying my friends who have husbands or partners or children to pick up some of the slack - it makes me feel petty - and I've never been able to reach out for help and inconvenience others - it makes me feel helpless and obligated - but there are times when I do look back and wonder exactly how awful it would've been to stay married.

Take a breath, I tell myself.  Let's not get carried away,

Second Hand Skates

“You can do this, “ my daddy told me as he laced up my second hand skates,  wound the muffler around my neck and pulled up my mittens,  “I’m going to show you how.”

It had snowed fiercely the day before and he and my uncles had been up with the sun to clear the frozen pond so we could ice skate.   Nana had tramped through the snowdrifts a half dozen times to bring hot coffee and sweet rolls but still it was bitterly cold and the wind made the trees tremble and shake  their snow-laden limbs.   By the time my daddy had half dragged and half carried me out onto the skittery ice, I was convinced I would never be warm again.

“I can’t!” I wailed miserably.

 “You haven’t tried yet!” he laughed, “How do you know?”

I knew because, despite the double thermal socks, my ankles had suddenly turned to mush, my balance was gone and  I had a new and profound understanding of gravity.  I knew because for the first time I could remember, I was doubting him.   Skate! I thought dismally, why, I couldn’t even stand!

My uncles circled around me - a wayward flock of useless, chattering crows - and my daddy propped me up with his hands tucked under my arms.  Uncle Bill took one mittened hand, Uncle Ernie took the other, and they slowly began to pull me.   Uncle Dave, surprisingly graceful for such a clunky, clumsy and nearsighted old farmer, spun like a dancer.

“Jist try her with one foot!” he called encouragingly, “One foot then the other!  Ya gotta slide!”

“Don’t let go!” I hollered, panicked at the thought of trying to navigate even a single step on those narrow blades, terrified that one or both of my uncles would desert me.  But they did let go.  I stood for a second, alone on the ice, pinwheeling my arms madly and then as I lost my footing and began falling backwards, a pair of arms caught me and I heard my daddy’s voice.

“Whoa!” I heard him say, “I’ve got you!”

He patiently set me on my feet again, allowing me to clutch at his shoulders while he re-wound my muffler and hitched up my mittens.   The uncles, except for Dave - still pirouetting and showing off in the center of the pond -  gathered around us.  

“Well, I dunno,” Uncle Ernie said doubtfully, “Maybe she ain’t old enough.”

“Maybe you’d just rather watch?” Uncle Bill said kindly, “You could stay with the aunts.”

“Reckon we could try again next year,” Uncle Byron - by far my favorite and best known - shrugged, “She tried and that’s good enough.”

My daddy rocked back on the heels of his skates,  his blue eyes meeting mine steadily but with a gentle smile.  The wind kicked up a little, stirring the surrounding drifts and sending small flurries through the frigid air.  I could see his breath and the snowflakes on his eye lashes.

“It’s up to you, darlin’,” he winked at me. “Either way is fine with me.”

 Maybe it was my stubborn streak - no doubt inherited from my mother’s side of the family - or maybe it was that I’d have rather taken a beating than disappoint my daddy but something made push my fear and shame aside and struggle back up.  

“It’s all about balance,” my daddy told me reassuringly, “Just get used to the way it feels.”

“Don’t let go!”  I cried as I wavered and swayed on the blades.

“Never!” he promised and gave me the gentlest of pushes.

The first time I almost didn’t fall. 

The second time I stayed on my skates for several  precious seconds before I almost didn’t fall.

The third time I managed almost a minute before my ankles gave out and I went down in a heap.

The fourth time I stayed up halfway round the frozen pond.

The fifth time I was skating  and crash landing into a snowdrift.

“Time to teach you how to stop!”  my Uncle Dave shouted and everyone laughed.   Uncle Byron brought me a mug of hot chocolate and a hug, Uncle Ernie and Uncle Bill cheered from the sidelines, and my daddy gave me that prideful, pleased  Told you so  look that I’d been trying so hard for.  It was a look that chased away the cold and the chilblains and made me forget about not being able to feel my fingers or toes.

 When it started to snow again, big, fluffy flakes that obscured the sky and swirled around us like Nana’s see-through curtains, we took off our skates and trudged back to the old farmhouse.  I walked in the footsteps my uncles made, my scuffed, white skates hanging over one shoulder.   In the mud room, we shed our winter coats and boots  and scarves and carefully hung everything up on the wooden pegs.  My daddy took particular care with my skates, drying the blades with an old towel and gently wiping off the white leather before hanging them on a peg away from all the others even though there were empty hooks all around.

 

“Your Aunt Ivy could skate like the wind,” he told me with a familiar sad smile, “As light on her feet as a leaf in the wind….graceful like….oh, I don’t know, a swan maybe…..or something in flight. Something very free.”   The sad smile turned very serious and I knew he was remembering his sister, the last born girl and the first of the ten children to die.  I had a clear memory  of a late night phone call and his dropping everything to pack and jump on a plane the following morning  -  there had been an accident and the other driver had been drunk  -  and my Aunt Ivy, at just 44, had been killed.  It had been one of the only times I could remember seeing  my gentle natured,  peace loving daddy angry.

Among the winter wear and baskets of new potatoes and corn, hanging in the midst of farm tools and seed sacks and the scarred old machine Uncle Byron still used to separate the milk and cream, high above the rows of muddy work boots, the milking pails and the empty old wooden crate where so many barn cats had raised so many kittens,  here hung my second hand skates.  The blades glinted and the white leather shone in the shadowy light and I found myself hoping that my Aunt Ivy approved.

A Little Royalty

Nana came downstairs, resplendent in a gold evening gown and matching slippers and carrying a tiny gold and completely impractical evening bag.  She looked all the world like Glinda, the Good Witch of the South and it wouldn't have surprised me if a flock of singing munchins had suddenly materialized on the stairs.

My daddy, equally elegant in white tie and tails and looking - well, there was no other word for it except dashing - made an extravagant bow and offered her his arm.  She smiled, pulled on her immaculate elbow length white gloves and slipped her arm through his.

Your carriage awaits, madam, he said.

And indeed it did.  I had seen it for myself, a long and sleek black limousine sitting imperiously in the driveway, complete with a uniformed chauffeur standing at attention.

Oh, Good Lord,Guy, my grandmother protested, The Lincoln would've done just fine!

For a Worthy Grand Matron? my daddy exclaimed as he draped her mink stole over her shoulders, Oh, I think not.

I didn't know much about the Eastern Star or the Masons except that my parents and grandparents were heavily involved and that Worthy Grand Matron was a Big Deal.  I'd once stumbled across a small ritual book - and gotten a serious slap for it - but it was written in hieroglyphics and odd symbols and didn't interest me.

Not for your eyes! my mother had snapped before snatching it from me and delivering a healthy backhand which had nearly rocked me off my feet, Learn to mind your own business!

I remembered about that forbidden little book as I watched my daddy escort my grandmother to the waiting limousine - it was a little like watching royalty - and wondered if there might not be a copy of it tucked inside that silly little gold evening bag along with her Kent 100's.  Having learned a little more about fraternal societies since finding the little book, I'd come to accept that secrecy was simply a fundamental part of their being and I'd had to give up the romantic notion that I lived in and was being raised by a nest of spies.

The limousine eased out of the driveway and drove away smoothly and I went back to making grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup in the Worthy Grand Matron's immaculate kitchen.

Stirring the Pot

In my dreams, I imagine a laid back, quiet Sunday morning with all the cats and dogs behaving well, no muss, no fuss.

In reality, everything is quiet except for the kitten who is racing around from room to room, trilling as she goes, looking to stir up trouble.

She's no longer a kitten, of course, but she's undersized and the smallest of the bunch with, apparently, the most to prove.  While the others are sedate and content to sleep, eat and sleep some more, she is a mini whirlwind of activity, a pot-stirrer on the prowl.  I watch as the tabby comes cautiously into the kitchen, moving slowly and looking for any sign of an ambush.  The kitten, perched on the edge of the countertop,
silently launches herself but the tabby senses danger and is off and running just as the kitten hits the floor. 
The attack fails.  Next I watch her slink and creep her way toward the long haired black cat curled up and sleeping at the end of the couch.  Just as she hunches down and prepares to pounce, he opens his eyes and hisses a warning.  The second attack fails.  The tuxedo cat then strolls lazily into the kitchen, stretches her full length and falls down on her back, a habit she's had since her own kitten days.  She rolls around, twisting and turning her body like a pretzel and pretending not to see the kitten covertly approaching.   There's a trill and a full fledged answering meow and the game is on in a tangle of black and white and gray.  The tuxedo cat breaks free first and darts out of the room with the kitten in hot pursuit but in a few seconds the kitten has reversed her course and comes flying past me with the tuxedo cat close on her heels.  When the dogs decide to join in the chase - they separate the cats and then double team the kitten in an enthusiastic game of tug of war - the whole thing begins to feel like an old vaudeville routine.

I break up the unlikely menage a trois and shoo the kitten away before they can snatch her again.  She gives me a resentful look - I think she actually likes these attempted threesomes -  and then strolls indifferently off.

The house settles down and I go back to my dreams.

When I wake again, the small brown dog is asleep on a pillow above my head.  The little dachshund and the kitten are are curled up together at my side.  One black cat is asleep in the cat bed, the other is snoozing at my feet.  The tabby is sleeping amid all the baskets atop the refrigerator and the tuxedo cat is curled up in the little dachshund's kennel.  

You can't mold reality to suit you.  But sometimes you can bend it just a little.

No Cause for Alarm

It's like an explosion - one minute the shepherd mix is curled quietly and calmly in a chair by the window, peacefully watching the world go by.  In the next, he goes off like a rocket being launched - there's an ear splitting howl, then he bolts for the front hall, hits the unlocked front like a storm trooper and is outside and in a frenzy before we can even react.  By the time we reach him, he's worked his head and shoulders through the bars of the side fence and is desperately trying to force his body to follow, all the while barking frantically and shaking like a leaf in a windstorm.  He is, in a word, unhinged,

On the other side of the fence, I see what has set him off - a shambling old man, bent and bundled up against the cold, walking an unremarkable three legged cur dog.  It's not the devil himself, not even a lesser demon or an unfrocked angel.  It's not even the apocalypse.  It's just a ragged old man and his dog, minding their own business and walking innocently down a public street. 

There's a certain lack of consistency to the shepherd so what set him off this time is a mystery.  The house sits on a corner lot with a bus stop in front and a rehab hospital across the street so foot traffic is plentiful.  The dog hates anything with wheels - motorcycles, bicycles, wheelchairs - but with pedestrians he's totally arbitrary and unpredictable, charging the same person one day and ignoring him the next.  Dog walkers, however, cause an instant and shockingly violent melt down each and every time and we dare not think about what might happen if he were to actually get though the fence.

It takes several minutes to distract him and we do have to play a brief game of keep away to block him from charging the fence again but eventually we manage to get him back in the house and calmed down.  We then discover a window pane he has knocked out - it's the second one in as many weeks - the pane itself is intact this time so a little duct tape puts things to rights and the dog watches the process with interest.  If you didn't know him, you'd see a curious but innocent onlooker.

It makes for an interesting workplace.