Character Counts

Rarely one to mince words, my grandmother took one quick look at my mother's friend from next door and made her pronouncement in three clipped words - Drunken, trashy guttersnipe - and with that, she straightened her shoulders and shut the door behind her. My mother, woozy from an afternoon of drinking and card playing, wailed a protest and attempted to follow her but tripped on the carpet and fell heavily. Her icebox manhatten glass shattered on the edge of the stairs and when she pulled herself up, she stepped squarely into the broken glass, slashing her foot open in several places and embedding shards of glass between her toes. She began screaming and I ran for my room and locked the door. From my window, I watched my grandmother hesitate, look back, hesitate again, then stiffen her spine and climb into the Lincoln. She drove away quickly and didn't look back.

After several minutes, the screaming subsided and degenerated into a quarrel, loud and heated, over the need for medical attention, home first aid as opposed to to the ER. As neither was fit to drive - my mother disabled as she had stepped on her right foot and Betty whose polio had left her handicapped and crippled and able to walk only with the aid of metal canes - first aid won. When my daddy arrived home, he found my mother bleary eyed and mumbling, her injured foot wrapped in bloody towels, and no sign of Betty. He packed her into the old station wagon for the trip to the ER and my grandmother arrived to sit with me shortly afterward - both were grim faced and silent and I suspected that the worst was yet to come. Nana cleaned up the broken glass, scrubbed the carpet, washed the glasses and threw the empty liquor bottle (and two full ones) into the trash, then made me grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Eat, she told me and lit a Kent, striking a wooden match on the scarred kitchen table, a most unladylike gesture which seemed to surprise even her. It flared and I smelled sulphur and smoke in the stale air - a bad omen, I thought dismally, a sign of things to come when my daddy got home, I was sure. It occurred to me that I could probably outrun my grandmother, maybe even get as far as St. Luke's, a nearby Catholic church whose doors were almost never locked - a scene from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" flashed through my mind, Charles Laughton trying to escape a violent mob and pleading for Sanctuary! but I dismissed the idea. I had a sense that no priest in his right mind would actually dare stand up to my grandmother.

My daddy came home alone. It seemed that my mother's behavior at the ER had been on the erratic side and the doctors had thought it wise to keep her overnight for observation. She hadn't cared much for this decision, had fought it so adamantly that despite the alcohol in her system, she'd been sedated, so my daddy said. He had dark circles under his eyes, blood stains on his shirt and looked haggard and beaten up. Overiding his objections, Nana made coffee and more grilled cheese sandwiches, insisted that he eat, take a hot shower, and go to bed. She would stay overnight, she told him firmly, and would hear no argument - he was too tired to make one anyway and did as he was told. She and I cleaned up the kitchen for the second time, let the dogs out, and said goodnight. Not a word was said about the events of the afternoon, not then and not in the following days. My mother came home the next afternoon and for a time was sober, almost contrite. Weeks later, my daddy sat me down and talked to me about character, how it was formed, how it could be influenced by others, how important it was to maintain. It was, I thought, more of a frail and fraudulent attempt to clear my mother and convict Betty than a lesson in character but I knew better than to argue. More often than not, I was to learn, character comes with flaws.

Snap Beans

The Farmers Market was bustling with activity, vendors and shoppers thronged the crowded riverfront plaza, there were cries of fresh coffee, beignets, just baked biscuits. The stalls offered jars of preserves tied with bright ribbons,watermelons and tomatoes, baskets of corn, apples and peaches and crates of strawberries and blueberries all newly washed and shining in the early morning sun. The sights, sounds and smells took me back to memories of summers on the farm - shelling peas on the front veranda, peeling apples for baking, husking just picked corn and watching the latest litter of kittens at play while my daddy napped in the rocking chair.

Where is everyone? my mother asked, coming to the front door with an apron full of radishes.

Gone to pick blueberries at Uncle Dave's, my daddy said in sleepy voice. He opened his eyes cautiously and looked in the direction of the door. Why? Did you want to go?

My mother gave a harsh sounding laugh. When there's enough frost in hell to kill the snap beans, she said sharply and my daddy gave her a surprised look.

The phrase stuck with me - I was sure I'd heard it before and certainly not from my mother who was your basic When hell freezes over sort of person. My daddy was frowning as he shifted in the chair, suddenly restless and he abruptly got up and went inside, beckoning me to follow. We climbed the stairs to my Aunt Ola's room and he began thumbing through a bookcase, running his fingers over the spines and muttering frost and snap beans, snap beans and frost. It was something about a journey, I'm sure.

Whatever it was, he didn't find it and stood puzzling over the books for several minutes then shook his head in mild frustration, Well, he said finally, It'll come to me.

It was Mr. Christian, I said tentatively, from "Mutiny on the Bounty". He spun around with a delighted smile and swept me up in a hug.

That's right! he exclaimed, That's exactly right! How on earth did you remember?

I was absurdly pleased with myself for pleasing him and hugged his neck fiercely as he carried me downstairs.

You, he announced to my grandmother, have a very bright granddaughter! And you, he added with a "gotcha", sideways look at my mother, have been reading! Nana Ruby smiled tolerantly, as you might at a kindly and well meaning idiot but my mother turned and gave him a furious glare. Some people would do well to mind their own business, she advised curtly.

My daddy just laughed and my mother stiffened her spine and continued to chop radishes with zest, pointedly ignoring us both. Still, I had a feeling she was somehow pleased - there was a hint of color in her cheeks and the suggestion of an involuntary smile. It was a rare moment and even my grandmother looked sideways at her daughter in law and winked.

The Extraction

I didn't feel the first injection and there was barely a twinge with the second and third. The hygienist slipped the nitrous mask in place. Fifteen minutes later the offending tooth was history and I was on my way home. The young and good looking dentist had accomplished what for me was nothing less than a miracle - painlessly, deftly, quickly.

More importantly - I was breathing normally, hadn't broken any fingernails, had never had the first stirrings of an anxiety attack. The pain of healing was more uncomfortable than the extraction.

On my way home from work the following day, I stopped at the wine shop for a gift certificate for the friend who had so generously given his time and talent to install a window unit for me during the heat wave and a gift basket for the dentist. I struggled with the card, torn between a simple thank you and a message of sainthood.

Kindness is not as common as we would like in this sometimes sorry world and for those of us who are confronted with uncontrollable fear, whatever the source, finding compassion and understanding can be a long battle. I do not approve of my dental phobia, I despise it and am ashamed of it, but have never been able to conquer it. Reflexes and biology take over the moment I step into a dentist's office - my heart pounds like a sledge hammer, I can't breathe, I shake, I often dissolve into tears just from the anxiety and anticipation. Everything about it unravels me internally and makes me terrified. To survive a visit is a monumental achievement - to survive a visit without a melt down is life changing.

I don't know how to tell this to this young, good looking, dry humored and immensely kind doctor, don't know how to tell him what his patience and gentle nature have meant to me or how far he has brought me in just two quick visits. I don't know how to tell him that after a lifetime of terror and fear and pain, I trust him. Maybe I'll find a way in subsequent visits or just maybe, he already knows and is wise enough not to tell me.

Them & Us

I don't remember why the so called welfare mothers chose Sears & Roebuck for their protest but on a pleasant Saturday afternoon in September, just after school started, they gathered with signs and loud speakers and not a few rocks and stormed the unsuspecting Porter Square store. They were mostly young, black and with children in their arms or their bellies and made such a scene that the police - all white - were called to break them up but not before several windows had been broken and traffic hopelessly snarled. I watched from a hemmed in bus as the uniformed officers waded in and began dispersing them and when one very young and very pregnant girl refused to budge, she was given a sharp crack with a nightstick and forcibly dragged away, handcuffed, and put into one of the squad cars. A second was arrested when she threw a rock and struck an officer on the shoulder, a third carried off after she had passively laid down on the pavement and refused to move. It all happened so quickly that by the time the local news arrived, there was little left to film except the display windows being boarded up and the traffic being sorted out. Sears cried vandalism, the police cried public nuisance and resisting arrest, the women just cried. Until that day, civil disobedience had been little more to me than an overused phrase in a civics book - seeing it in action was something altogether different, horrifyingly real and frightening.

Rocks aside, I imagined my daddy would side with the women and was caught sadly off guard when he backed the police, telling me in no uncertain terms that welfare parasites deserved what they got, that they were too lazy to work and preferred to have babies in order to get more public assistance. Besides, my mother added with a nasty sneer, They're nothing but dope fiends and drunks and colored trash. God help us if this busing thing catches on, you'll have to be in school with them. The thought made her shudder and reach for another drink.

This introduction to my parents' theory of "them and us" came as a mild shock. My daddy had told me for as long as I could remember that there was no shame in poverty, he was proud of his background, deprived as it might have been, and grateful for the chance to rise above it. He had never taught me any outright or recognizable racism that I could recall and I had always assumed that unlike my mother - who had no earthly use for anyone who wasn't white and Protestant, conveniently forgetting that the entire country had immigrant roots, even on her own precious family tree - he didn't give much thought to skin color or country or origin. I hadn't reckoned with his business being in the heart of what had once been an upper class Cambridge neighborhood but which had fallen on hard times and was struggling to survive a fundamental change in character. Someone had to be held accountable and the easiest scapegoats were poor and black.

The next school day, I took a serious look at the only black student in my school, a young, withdrawn and frail looking boy the same age as I was who I'd known since the first grade. I'd never considered how much time he spent alone or that he wasn't involved in sports or music or any after school projects. Truth was, I'd never considered him at all and now was feeling a little ashamed of myself. I wish that I could say I spoke to him, he spoke back and we became friends, but I had no idea how to begin the conversation - I knew absolutely nothing about him except his name and that he had no friends at school. It must have been difficult being the only dark face in a sea of white and to this day I wish I'd approached him, talked to him, given him a chance. I believed my parents were wrong but wasn't prepared to put it to the test.

A Week in the Country

The surface of the lake was dark blue-black, smooth as glass, clear and not too cold. By mid-morning it would be swarming with swimmers, speed boats and water skiers, all city people looking for relief from the crowds and the

4th of July heat wave. My mother had found this place through a lodge friend, just an hour and a half from Boston but a world away - we were renting a small cabin with bunk beds and a hotplate, not the Ritz as she liked to say, but it was cooler than the city and cheap. My grandmother had taken one brief, scathing look and immediately left for a nearby resort hotel. Roughing it isn't my style anymore, she told us briskly, You can all come for dinner if you like. We watched the Lincoln pull away in a swirl of dust and gravel, bitterly jealous and quietly dreading the week to come. Go find something to do! my mother snapped at us impatiently, And take the damn dogs with you!

My daddy arrived that night, hot and tired but cheerful. He had brought our bicycles, a box of books and board games, a tiny, portable black and white television and several cardboard containers of fried chicken. We ate at the wooden picnic table in front of the cabin, swatting mosquitoes and feeding scraps to the dogs while my mother slept peacefully after a full day of drinking. On the second night, they began to argue and on the third morning, he had us pack our things and return to the city - my brothers were sent to friends' houses and I spent the remainder of the week at my grandmother's who had elected to come home after one night at the hotel. My mother stayed behind, watching us drive away with a look I wasn't sure of - rage or maybe relief - it was hard to tell.

Keeping to tradition, the almost vacation was consigned to the Things We Never Talk About List - there are many such lists in alcoholic households - and we all pretended it had never happened. Looking back, I'm amazed by the ease with which we slipped into the routine of denial, telling ourselves privately that this was simply how families operated, that we were no different than any other. As children, we were quick studies - learning not to ask questions and assuming that any fault lay with us was far safer than the mildest form of confrontation. Emotions were too unpredictable to be set free.

We had other weeks in the country. As we got older, it got easier to isolate ourselves and stay occupied. We developed skills like avoidance and appeasement, learned to ignore the outbreaks of moods and stay out of the way, enabling our way through the years and trying to stay under the radar. Most of the time it worked and when it didn't, we ran until it blew over, taking shelter where and with anyone we could find. My mother took to the country alone and there was peace - restless, superficial, and temporary, but still peace.

Sorry, Wrong Number

I didn't know whether to be amused or offended but feeling intrigued by the anonymous message on my cell phone - a lengthy, rambling and somewhat incoherent sounding accusation about my having made harassing telephone calls to man ( who's voice I'd never heard), about his wife ( who I didn't know) and a husband ( who I don't have), I thought I might return the call as considerably enough, he had left me his cell phone number in the event that I might want to discuss the situation with him personally. His threats to call the telephone company, the sheriff, the city police, the FBI and to make my life a living hell were made in a weary, resigned tone of voice, quite impassionate and calm. He sounded more tired than angry - curious for such call, I thought, and a little sad.

Secure in the knowledge that he had made a mistake, I called his cell phone, intending to set him straight. It went to voice mail and disappointed, I left my name and number, I suppose in hopes of an apology and the even more vain hope of some personal vindication - sad to say, even a mistaken accusation from a total stranger still triggers my defenses. I can't abide being blamed for something I didn't do, no matter how trivial or foolish it may be, it makes me feel mistreated and judged unfairly, which in turn makes me angry, which in turn makes me determined to get even. Remnants of childhood cling to me like lint - if I feel I've been wronged, forgiveness isn't in my nature.

There was no return telephone call from the sad voiced man with the suspect wife. Perhaps he hasn't listened to his messages or realizes he made a mistake and lacks the courage to correct it. Maybe he isn't the kind of man who thinks putting things right is important. I'll probably never know and while I tell myself is doesn't matter, that it was a wrong number and an insignificant accusation, I still feel the sting of injustice.

There are days when I allow the angry child in me to show her stubborn face and I despair of my own foolishness.

Behind the Walls

I feel incarcerated.

I had spent weeks looking forward to a long holiday weekend, of by passing the 5:30 wake up call, of organizing and cleaning the house, of a trip to the zoo, of getting out to see and photograph my musician friends - of a vacation. By no stretch of the imagination was an abscessed tooth on the itinerary and while there is no pain, the chipmunk look is not something I want to present to the public so here I stay, behind the walls, infuriated with myself and missing it all. This is time that will not come again and the loss of each passing hour grates on my nerves like chalk on a blackboard.

To fill the time, I attend to the small things that I've put off for months - bringing some order to the multiple boxes of random picture cd's, sorting through old negatives, pawing through the drawers of mismatched silverware - boring, mindless work while old movies play in the background and the animals sleep peacefully. I color my hair and iron my scrubs, throw a haphazard coat of paint on my neglected nails, look for a Stephen King to re-read. And finally, I sit at the computer and wonder if I can lessen my anger and restlessness by writing about it. This should be an opportunity, I tell myself and the screen, a time to work on accepting what I can't change. I feel like growling at the old AA wisdom simply because it's so annoyingly, persistently, and unfailingly right.

I want someone to blame - other than myself, it goes without saying - for this dismal state of affairs, yet no likely suspect steps forward. My teeth, my neglect (a glimmer of hope here when I remember that it was my mother who instilled me with my dental hygiene habits - but no, that won't work because I didn't have to choose to maintain them), my fault. It always comes from childhood, the nurse with the perfect teeth had told me with a sweet and understanding smile, All dental trauma, all fear. I think this is so, but, the small AA voice reminds me, that was a half century ago, it's time to move on.

And indeed it is. Incarcerated or not, there are still three days left to this long holiday weekend, the swelling is receding, the antibiotics have eased the pain. With any luck, I may be able to get my bridgework in long enough to make tonight's scheduled photo shoot.

Never underestimate what you can and can't change.

A Dream of Fear

Nothing sends me into a spiral of denial faster or more completely than a twinge-y tooth so predictably I tolerated the pain for just over two weeks before it became impossible. Finally, the night came when the pain woke me just after 2:30 in the morning and no amount of pain medication would calm it. I realized, with a suicidal sense of desperation, that I had no choice - I could look down and see my swollen cheek, feel its misshapen bulge of infection and knew that I would have to see the dentist.

When I was a little girl, I dreaded disappointing my daddy. The look in his eyes was far worse than any physical punishment or harsh words could ever bring about and as I reached for the telephone to make the appointment, I understood that I couldn't bear to see that same look in the eyes of my dentist, not again. He has done nothing but care for me and treat me for years with kindness and understanding and love and I have broken promise after promise after promise to do better. I couldn't take this this latest abscess to him, couldn't face those kind and worried eyes one more time. Reluctantly, I called a new dentist - on a Wednesday before a holiday weekend, no less, with little hope in my heart and already trying to figure out how I would make it through until the next week. To my surprise, he agreed to see me the following morning - terror and relief immediately began a raging and bloody battle in my mind, each competing for my attention, demanding they be heard and take center stage. I was too torn to be rational, in too much pain to resist or change my mind and so afraid that I was trembling at just the prospect of the visit. I slunk home to a handful of pain pills and a healthy dose of antibiotics then crawled into bed to sleep and cry and pray for forgiveness, strength and other miracles.

I slept badly, seeming to hear the ticking of a clock with every breath, counting down the seconds til the next morning. I dreamed of fear itself, incapacitating and terrible, dressed in white and holding me hostage, a syringe in one hand and a scythe in the other. One thought kept circling around me, the absolute certainty that I couldn't do this, would rather die than face it. Then the pain would flare, a vicious reminder that abscessed teeth don't heal on their own, that I was trapped and out of options. And finally, the inevitable - I had done this to myself and was paying the price. When morning came, I showered and dressed, gulped down more antibiotics and pain pills and brushed my teeth properly. Feeling more than a little schizophrenic and phobic, having trouble breathing already, I left for what I was sure would be the queen mother of all nightmares, still not convinced that I would actually be able to see it through but not able to locate an alternative exit. Concentrate on tomorrow, I kept telling myself,

Get past this. No one dies from a dentist visit. No one dies from fear.

In the waiting room, on the verge of an all out panic attack, I gripped the arms of the chair until my fingers went numb and when the nurse called my name I had trouble letting go. I forced myself to follow her to a treatment room, pushed back the almost overwhelming urge to scream. I thought I recognized the sound of a drill but it was hard to tell because of the roaring in my ears, the sound of my own heartbeat in in double time was deafening.

Fear is part and parcel of living, an intuitive and natural defense mechanism that alerts us to danger, makes us more aware of threats, keeps us careful and paying attention. Taken to the extreme, it becomes a phobia and a risk in itself but reality never ever lives up to fear's expectations. The xray confirmed that there was too much infection and inflammation to do an extraction this day - as if that wasn't obvious by the state of my face - and the procedure has been scheduled for next week. Having met the staff and the dentist, having talked with them and shared the fear, the worst is over. Fear will try again, of this I have no doubt, but it will lose - defeated by trust, kindness, and a gentle touch.

Lost in the Hardware Store

After being verbally beaten into submission by my distressed yardman, I finally agreed to water the crepe myrtle and azaleas. It was against my better judgement - death by neglect has always been my motto when it comes to green and growing things that need tending - but I'd given my word. And so I discovered that the water hose was missing a nozzle. On my way back to work, I dashed into the hardware store - upscale, airy, overpriced - and was approached by a young man who gave me a big smile and asked if he could help find anything.

I need a...... and to my surprise, the word evaporated in mid sentence. Sorry, I mumbled, I need a.... a thing....a whatchamacallit ......and while I was still trying to retrieve the elusive word and on the point of resorting to gestures, he gave me a thoughtful, straight faced frown and in a perfectly serious voice, asked, What color?

It was a good moment, a light, laugh out loud moment and I was grateful for it. The day was looking up and that same afternoon, after some 50 days of drought, a cluster of violent thunderstorms came crashing through the city like a killer wave, scattering tree limbs and flooding the streets in a matter of minutes, bringing relief from the scorching heat and moisture to the starved ground. I wondered if there might be a connection between my shiny new water nozzle and the sudden climate change - if so, I should have bought it weeks ago.

The following morning there was still thunder rumbling overhead but even at five am the air was oppressive and steamy hot. Our long hot summer seems far from over.

Don't underestimate the small things and unexpected moments.

Alfred Road

The rain washed away the chalk hopscotch game and drove us all indoors where we improvised a game of dodge ball in the gym. Teachers didn't like idle minds or bodies and it was either that or study hall. I would've been content to sit in the bleachers and read "The Bobbsey Twins" but they were having none of that. Most of us were picked up after school let out but my brothers and I walked home in the rain, a respectable difference apart so that no one would know we were together.

Alfred Road was just one of many side streets that dead ended at Spy Pond - the houses were two and three story walk up apartments, a solidly working class neighborhood, lower middle class, I suppose - not quite affluent enough to own a single family home but heads and shoulders above the nearby Cambridge border where broken down cars lined the curbs, laundry hung from second story windows and you could always smell something cooking. I had friends on Alfred Road though my mother looked down on them and liked to lecture me about what she called the other side of the track people, blue collar families with two working parents and no backyards. Immigrants and Catholics, she reminded me frequently, Not our sort of people. I wasn't exactly sure who our kind of people were, certainly not the kind who lived in the sprawling homes across Route Two with the manicured lawns and three car garages, not the wealthy families in Belmont or rich and historic Lexington, certainly not those who lived across the Cambridge line by the Dow Chemical Plant with it's smoky stench and barbed wire fences. We were somewhere in the middle, hovering uneasily between wealth and foodstamps, never quite sure where we belonged. From our block to Route Two was a community of single family dwellings, not pretentious or well off, but single family all the same with trees and sidewalks and paved driveways - a mile in any direction took you into unfamiliar terrain and radically different landscapes and lifestyles. My daddy seemed to cross these invisible lines effortlessly while my mother honored them with a passion - as if in one world she was at the head of the line and in the other, she feared being found out.

I learned and carried some of those feelings with me when I left home - a free floating kind of anxiety about not quite knowing where I belonged and not sure I deserved to stay once I got there. Sometimes I could beat it back but now and again it would rear its head with a nasty snipe or a subtle reminder that I was in over my head in a world I wasn't used to. I couldn't make the easy, name dropping small talk that was so popular, I'd never made a quickie trip to Dallas just to shop or sat at a place setting with more than three utensils. The only wine I knew was Lancer's Rose, I did my own house cleaning, and I preferred jeans and sweats from the second hand store to a designer scarf from Neiman's. It had never even occurred to me to match my shoes to my purse and I didn't own a single pair of white gloves, elbow length or otherwise.

On the other hand, I had very little in common with the girls I worked with - I was childless and intended to stay that way, I didn't cook or bake or follow sports, I made myself scarce whenever the conversation turned to killing animals for food or trophies, I admitted preferring cats to dogs. I winced at their grammar and lack of education and had no idea what life in a trailer park was like. Worst of all, I discovered I hated catfish and ditch bugs. All in all, I transitioned from one world to the other feeling out of place and a little lost in both - against my will, I began to comprehend pieces of my mother's life and how she must have felt at times - it wasn't reassuring and I disliked the thought of forgiveness in any form.

It could be that we all have a little Alfred Road in us. It could be it's what holds us back and makes us hesitate or what propels us toward the better and the finer things - it could be both. Or it could be that a little uncertainty and a touch of insecurity helps us measure our progress without losing our balance. Or maybe, Alfred Road is just one more two sided street. Some days you're on the even side, and some days you're on the odd.

A Hope of Heaven

I recently saw an ad for the latest Planet of the Apes movie and it made me think about the odd things that we don't think of as odd.

I was taught creationism and evolution in the same breath and never gave a second thought to the fact that the theories contradicted themselves. Heaven at the right hand of God and the prospect of nothingness except maybe becoming fish food, never posed a problem for me and now I find myself wondering why. One is faith and one is science, surely both can't be right, yet I never questioned either.

I stopped going to church as soon as I was in college and free of my raising, convinced then as I am now, that it takes more than hallelujahs and holy water to make a believer, more than walls and altars to make a church. There's too much organization and too little religion in organized religion - God may be busier than usual on Sundays but He isn't one to take the rest of the week off - His eye is on the sparrow and everywhere else as well and I suspect He never really sleeps despite the most demanding of schedules and a shortage of good help. Hell may be no more than an eternity - a concept in and of itself that I've never managed to fully latch onto - of sleepless nights and unanswered questions or a true pit of fire and brimstone and endless regret, I really have no idea. And that being said, at the very same moment I say a small prayer for strength or of gratitude, I can think of evolution, wondering if we came to be according to Darwin, then where did the primordial ooze come from. I hate these moments and loose ends and would much rather go back to the child who saw no conflict in a dual belief system. Philosophical conflict is far too complicated to contemplate for much beyond a few seconds - I am a woman who has trouble choosing what cookies to buy.

Now and again, usually at idle moments at stop lights, I look up and see the sky and have the dimmest kind of realization that it isn't really a ceiling but more than that I cannot do. Cosmic thoughts are like seeing shadows in the rain, for just a hundredth of an instant I can almost make them out, then they evaporate. There are things in the world - the world itself, for instance - that are too immense to comprehend. A tiny part of me can watch pictures taken from space and know that the earth is round but most of me can't make the connection.

In the end, God wins - I need a balance to the impossibility of life and the cruelty. I need a hope of heaven.

Burial At Sea

No one had the first idea where Willie Foot had found the mannequin.

One fine summer morning, he came limping down the driveway with a panama hat perched on his wild hair, two shades of blue that particular day, and the thing tucked under his arm. Oh, dear, I heard my grandmother say with an audible sigh, This isn't going to be a good news day. Willie stopped at the back door, tipped his hat to each of the dogs, then peered through the screen with a manic grin and with his free hand, offered Nana a handful of rocks. She accepted them and managed a small smile, then handed him a paper plate of biscuits with strawberry jam. He gently propped the mannequin against the woodbox - she was an unlikely combination of movable plastic parts with one arm chopped off at the elbow and what looked like a mop head of blondish dirty curls fastened on with a shoelace - and did a quick dance, his signature thank you. Go on with you now, my grandmother said, not unkindly, and he carefully folded the paper plate, put it into one torn jacket pocket and began two stepping away, leaving the mannequin behind. Willie! she called sharply, Take your friend! For a moment he looked surprised then he backtracked and bent down, snatched the mannequin by one ankle and disappeared around the corner and down the front path. Oh, dear, Nana said again.

Predictably, this was only the first of many appearances of the mannequin, who Sparrow was to nickname Marilyn

Monroe. Trudging out to bring in the wash later than very morning, Miss Mary was bewildered to find a pair of flannel long johns missing, she was sure she'd hung three sets - simultaneously, John Sullivan and his brother, drinking their morning coffee, noticed what they thought was an underwear clad body washed up against the breakwater. They rushed into the tide like madmen only to discover the mannequin and were heard cussing up a storm all the way to the canteen. Marilyn was undamaged and tossed disgustedly back into the water, where she was later hooked by an unsuspecting Uncle Shad who shrieked bloody murder before realizing what he'd snagged and sliced his line with an enviably colorful stream of profanity. The end came on a late night when Old Hat and Aunt Glad were finishing up a jug and Hattie, shotgun across her lap, saw a shadow moving along the fence line - Why, Sparrow was overheard to tell Cap the following day, She liked to take Willie's head clean off with one shot and that mannequin thing was blown to kingdom come! Willie had given a wail of terror then jumped into the ditch and run for his life, eluding Hattie with a unexpected detour down the wharf and a less than wise leap into the cold ocean - Cap and Sparrow had fished him out with a grappling hook, blue-ish and muttering, one hand gripping the remains of a panama hat, the other clutching a mop head of seaweed covered dirty blonde curls.

A few days later, when Old Hat made her weekly trip to the post office, Marilyn's pieces were discreetly collected, placed in one of Aunt Flo's picnic baskets, and left - hurriedly and under cover of darkness - at Willie's front door.

That fall, Uncle Shad wrote my grandmother about a slightly bizarre burial at sea where several island children and Willie had rowed into the outgoing tide and solemnly thrown the mannequin's remains into the waves while John Sullivan waited on shore with his accordion around his neck, playing a country-ish version of "I'll Fly Away".

Oh, dear, Nana said and laughed until she cried.

True Crime

The stone for the three story rock house had been quarried all the way from New England, it was said, and the stain glass windows had been custom made in North Carolina. The gardens which enclosed the the estate were tended daily. It was a house that didn't belong on the two lane dusty road any more than the sisters who lived in it, Miss Francine and Miss Genievive had traveled all the way from Quebec in search of a quiet countryside where they could live out their days and go unnoticed. The most repeated explanation was that they were running from some unspeakable family scandal although no one seemed able to support this in the slightest. They brought a full staff, two small terrier dogs, and a shiny black Mercedes with a convertible top that rarely left the grounds except on Sundays. Their only contact with the locals was when the chapel was erected, a small and minimalistic building of plain wood and white paint that seemed out of place next to the enormous three story house. After its completion, a bell was imported from Sweden and hung in the tower but it was never rung and the workmen who had built the chapel and installed the bell were equally as quiet about the goings on of the household. They had been given plans and blueprints and detailed instructions by way of an overseer of sorts and had never actually seen the sisters except as shadows passing by the misty gardens. Each day a hot lunch had been delivered on individual silver serving trays and they were paid cash wages at the end of every week - other than that, they knew nothing of the sisters but their names.

One late June morning, a Saturday, the shiny Mercedes rolled out of the gated drive and headed for the ferry dock in town where the Princess was due to arrive. Among her passengers was a young woman in a strapless, ankle length red dress, slit to the knee at each side, and a cream colored silk scarf wrapped around her dark hair - she descended the ramp as lightly as music, an armful of roses clasped against one bare shoulder, a straw bag dangling from the other. The morning sun caught and reflected off her jewelry sending crystal prisms around her. Once she reached the breakwater, she took the chauffeur's extended arm and allowed herself to be led to the Mercedes, entering with just a slight flash of nylon stocking'd calf and a brilliant smile before the car smoothly turned and rumbled away. Nana and I and Miss Clara, there to meet my cousin Elaine and her family, watched it drive off in silence - I remember thinking that I had just seen a movie star so close I might have touched her. Who was that? I asked my grandmother in a whisper, It's not polite to stare, child, she said shortly, And I have no idea.

But she did have an idea, in fact, pretty much everyone at the pier that morning had an idea, speculation about the so called "third sister" had been rampant for over a month. Young, beautiful, and recently discharged from a women's prison after a ten year incarceration, this perfect looking creature had tried to stab her only brother to death in what was called a homicidal rage - he was nineteen at the time and she just seventeen - after a four day binge of drugs and alcohol and no sleep, he had assaulted her with her a fire iron and in the following seconds, she had gone from writing unpublished poetry and boarding school to would be killer. Everyone meeting the boat that particular summer morning was there to catch a glimpse of this almost murderess and to see how she would be received by her family. The much talked about alleged scandal had been confirmed with the arrival of our only Quebec summer regulars, the Girards, an unpopular but wealthy family who moved into an entire wing of The Pines each June, bringing their own private domestic staff and generally making everyone who came into contact with them thoroughly miserable. The Girards themselves were above such tawdry matters as criminal trials but their servants were as happy to share - if not exaggerate, make up, and generously gossip - about the incident as they were about their employers' private lives. True crime made for a captive audience - Nothin' like a good scandal on the right side of the tracks to get people talkin' to each other, Miss Clara observed to my grandmother on the ride home, Folks just naturally like takin' sides.

Aside from her memorable entrance, the third sister melted into the landscape of the rock house like rain into dry earth. The curiosity and excitement died down by July and everyone picked up the ordinary threads of their ordinary lives and went about their business, once again proving the point that you can get used to anything, even the presence of an almost murderer in your midst.

Negative Space

On those days when I feel lost and adrift in negative space, I remind myself that there is still much to do. If you look around, you can always find someone with worse troubles than your own and often doing a better job of coping.

Sitting in an aftercare session one evening several years ago, contemplating divorce and worse, I listened to a woman tell of her daughter, her only child, living in an abandoned car in the dead of a a New England winter. From her kitchen window, she said, she could see the car, on the edge of her property, rusty, wrecked and half buried in snow drifts. Its passenger trudged through the snow each morning and night, a walking bundle of dirty rags, barely upright enough to go in search of her next fix but still refusing any offer of help. She's my child, the woman wept, how can I do this to her? One of the group suggested taking her food, another suggested blankets and warm clothes - But I'm killing her! the woman wailed helplessly. No! the counselor said in a sharp tone he rarely used, The cocaine is killing her!

These were not easy hours. We were all lost and adrift in negative space, searching for answers and forgiveness and understanding, trying to cope with incomprehensible guilt, pain and uncertainty. Most nights it seemed as if all we had to offer one another was bad coffee, bitter experience and kleenex - hope was in short supply and it was easy to lose sight of the fact that we were there to help and heal ourselves, not the suffering of the ones we were trying to love. There's a purpose to negative space, I've learned, to give your eyes a rest and help you focus on what's important, but then it was just blackness and emptiness, a cruel absence of light.

Members of our group came and went, some helped, some not. Some of the ones we loved found their way back, most did not. The girl who had lived in the abandoned car froze to death in a January blizzard and her mother, thin, pale and finally out of tears, sat silently with her loss and grief, unable to speak of it for months. There was nothing we could do except encourage her to keep coming and forgive herself - she did the first for an entire year and then began missing sessions and finally stopped coming altogether. Whether she found forgiveness or just gave up, we were never to know but we kept her in our thoughts.

In some situations, an absence of light can be a kindness and negative space a force for good. The trick is figuring out which is which.

To Be A Cat

Oh, to be a cat.

To spend a life sitting in windows and watching the squirrels at play. To sleep in a circle of sunlight, climb the Christmas tree once it's fully decorated, to have meals catered and a clean sandbox each morning. To be coaxed and sweet talked and spoiled, to be forgiven no matter how much mischief I might cause. To have a small dog to chase and torment and siblings to conspire against. To be admired, adored, and yet still fully armed. These are the thoughts I see in the eyes of my cats and hear when I imagine what their voices might sound like, these independent and elegant creatures, each one such an integral part of my life. The dogs beg for attention, strive to please, protect and serve. The cats simply take their lives and comforts for granted. Oh, to be a cat.

I began with just one in the early 70's, a tiny grey and white tiger called Tiffany, who soon grew to a substantial, placid, and sweet natured animal. One evening, sitting in the one chair we had at the time and working a cross stitch Christmas ornament, I got up and left for just a moment - hardly gone for a breath, it seemed - but it was time enough for my beautiful cat to swallow the needle and the attached thread. Out of our minds with guilt and panic, we rushed her to Angell Memorial where an xray confirmed our worst fears - improbable as it was, she had indeed swallowed needle and thread, both rested securely inside her while she appeared her usual serene self, if a bit puzzled by all the attention. There was more bad news to come - the needle, the young vet assured us, was not the problem since digestive acids would break it down in no time at all. The thread, however, might not dissipate, could in fact, tangle her insides and basically strangle something essential. We were to watch her closely at all times and bring her back at the first sign of distress - the surgery might not be needed, he took pains to tell us, but if it was, it was imperative that it be done at once.

It was a rocky and stressed out week. We watched her every move, sleeping and awake, stalked her to and from the litter box and hovered over every meal. If she coughed or sneezed, we jumped for the car keys and the night she made rabbit chasing noises in her sleep, we were halfway out the door before we realized she'd been dreaming.

After several days of nearly suffocating her with attention, we returned to Angell Memorial and a second exam and xray, after which the vet pronounced her thread free and healthy as a proverbial horse. He was not able to say the same for either of us and strongly recommended less worry and a good night's sleep.

I had never imagined this kind of attachment to a cat, didn't suspect it was the first step on the feline road of no return. I didn't know it then, but my life had subtly changed direction, slightly away from people and slightly toward animals. And I've never taken a single backward step.

Oh, to be a cat.

No Need to Whisper

Feeling like a wilted lettuce leaf, tired, tasteless and discolored around the edges, I tumbled into bed while it was still light. Summer in the south can be a grim season and there's no relief in sight. The heat is like an ocean wave, overpowering and relentless and for the 100th time I think of Nova Scotia in August - brilliant sun and blue ocean, green fields and salt water breezes along rocky coastlines - there's no place like a childhood home.

Uncle Len had added my playhouse onto the garage when I was about five. He had made a small table and two ladderback chairs, a cradle, and a tall, skinny bookcase for the inside. Nana had made curtains for the windows and helped me with furnishings - one scarred table lamp, a red checked oilskin tablecloth, several boxes of old magazines and paperbacks and an oddly put together collection of dishes and utensils. My daddy contributed a tinny, battery powered radio, a new spiral notebook and a glass jar of sharpened yellow pencils. Even my mother donated a set of blue plastic glasses she'd found on sale at McIntyre's and a small travel alarm clock with a broken ringer. On Ruthie's first visit, she brought a treasure - a dark blue, shiny satin pillow with red fringe and the words Home Sweet Home, Digby, N.S. emblazoned on the front - she had traded a scratchy old 45 of "A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation" for it, a considerable sacrifice for a little girl with a huge crush on Marty Robbins.

Here we held our afternoon teas, listened to the Red Sox games, entertained the Queen, cut and pasted magazine pictures into oversized scrapbooks. Nana would bring us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with cold milk and cookies, knocking politely on the door and announcing that lunch was being served. We drank pretend wine and imagined pretend cocktail parties with famous singing stars - Marty Robbins with Brenda Lee on his arm always the first to arrive and the last to leave - and we dressed the complacent dogs in Ruthie's doll clothes and then laughed ourselves silly. There was never any need to whisper or hide in the playhouse and there was nothing to fear there, it was a child's place, not much larger than a walk in closet, but secure. Uncle Len, who happened to be Ruthie's

grandfather, had worked to make it so.

Sadly, childhood doesn't last forever and one summer we outgrew the playhouse and the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Ruthie had developed a feverish crush on one of the Haynes boys and a new passion for playing Spin the Bottle replaced even Marty Robbins - my grandmother began keeping a closer eye on us both, not fully trusting the preteen years and the island boys, even the well mannered ones, to be a sensible combination. The playhouse was abandoned and turned dusty with disuse, finally becoming a refuge for mice and a nest of bees. One day, after a pack of cigarettes had gone mysteriously missing, Nana bought a shiny new padlock and locked it up.

It would, at the same time, please and upset me if after the house I had been raised in finally changed hands, a new little girl had discovered the playhouse and made it her own.

Cat Gathering

In advance of the arrival of the flooring installation crew, I had promised to gather the cats and safely secure them in what would be a workman free area of the house. The night before I had had a heart to heart to talk with each of the animals in turn, patiently explaining that the workmen might be noisy but would pose no threat, that cats at large and underfoot would slow the process and that temporary exile was the sanest solution for all involved. The plan was simple - well ahead of time I would close off the bedrooms then calmly capture each cat and deposit them on the other side of the door, countering any resistance with human skill, cunning and a strategically placed bowl of friskies. Being a life long cat lover and a realist, I gave the plan a one in ten chance of success - it went to hell in a handbasket with the first cat, who, overcome with curiosity and natural feline elusiveness, dodged my first capture attempt and alerted the other animals with a loud meow of protest. With their finely tuned radar on high, cats fled in all directions except toward the bedrooms - under couches, behind bookcases, into closets and cubby holes - you can't trust a cat to honor a promise, I realized too late and clearly my plan had serious flaws. The clock was ticking and a change of strategy was clearly indicated.

Nonchalantly, I began filling their usual food bowls with friskies. In one fell swoop, this snared me a tabby and the older tuxedo cat. I casually carried both to the bedroom, set them behind the door and closed it gently. So far, so good, I thought to myself. The short haired black one was regarding me with a look of suspicion from atop the refrigerator so I pretended to ignore him and began filling water dishes. This brought out the youngest, twining around my ankles and I reached down to pet him, then snatched him up. The cat on the refrigerator took several steps backward at this but again I ignored him. I strolled back into the kitchen, picked up a handful of mail and sorted through it, wiped down the counters, unplugged my cell and dropped it into my purse. He approached me cautiously, his yellow eyes wide and alert, his sleek body poised for flight - as soon as he turned his head toward the food bowl, I sprang into action. This left only the youngest tuxedo cat, the most social animal, the one who was most likely to feel the need to supervise the crew and inspect their work, the most risky to leave free. He was distracted by a knock on the door and took a flying leap off the arm of the couch where I miraculously caught him in mid air. Feeling well pleased with myself, I let the workers in, put the dogs in their kennels, and left for work. I refused to allow myself to think that the entire process might have to be repeated the following morning with smarter and more prepared animals. Cats do learn and adapt from experience and I wasn't so sure I would prevail a second time, as indeed I didn't, only managing to corral three out of five before running out of time. I gave the crew strict instructions, said a small prayer to keep away disaster, and unhappily left for work.

The gods of cats and flooring must have been watching - the new floor was in place by noon and both cats were peacefully sleeping in the den when I got home. The three who had been confined were no worse the wear for their time spent in lock up and all five actively explored the new floor thoroughly. As best I can tell, they seem to think it will do.

Short Timers

On a pure whim, I halfway signed onto a "singles over 50" website - the second half requires a relatively small financial investment which, although I can afford, I'm not inclined to make at this point - if a picture is worth a thousand words, the prospects are running in the dollar store category so far. Some would say it's a sad fact but the older and more set in my ways I become, the less I'm interested in coupling. I'm just not willing to do the work of navigating the perilous waters of blind dates and internet flirting and first face to face meetings.

Some lives are focused on goals and schedules and plans, carefully laid out checkpoints and timelines. Mine seems to have been focused on serendipity and accidental encounters - jobs and relationships and animals have presented themselves when I wasn't looking and I said yes or no on the spur of the moment. I pursued what intrigued me with little thought to the consequences and left the rest at the side of the road. One of the most valuable lessons I've learned is that there a hundred things worse, sadder, and more damaging than being alone. I don't feel cheated or left out or lost - if serendipity chooses to make an appearance, so be it, but I won't force her hand. We are all what Stephen King calls short timers in his novel, Insomnia (one of my favorites), and the clock is running too fast to waste time on what could, should, or might be. One of my favorite t shirts was given to me by my dear friend Tricia - it's philosophy is simple and direct - I don't wanna, I don't hafta, and I ain't gonna. Amen.

So, I say to myself, why in the world an "over 50 singles" site and the answer is a natural curiosity and the fact that sometimes serendipity knocks on the door so softly that it's hard to hear - I might not let her in but I wouldn't want her to think I wasn't home.

All things in their own time.

Weak Tea and Toast

Standard fare for anything that caused us to miss school but didn't require a doctor visit was weak tea and dry toast. Along with two aspirin and a day in bed, so my mother believed, would cure anything that ailed us. Doctors still made house calls in those days, arriving in three piece suits and carrying black satchel bags, stethoscopes carelessly hung around their necks like honor badges. There were times when the simple threat of of a visit was enough to initiate a rapid, almost miraculous recovery.

Of course it also meant a day of morning game shows and afternoon soap operas while waiting for my tipsy mother to cross the line into a full blown alcoholic haze - by supper time, when my daddy would take over, the tea was usually cold and the toast blackened - he would worriedly take our temperatures, fuss over the bed linens and then open a can of soup and brown an English muffin, maybe even soft boil and serve a mushed up egg. It was what my mother disapprovingly called "coddling" even when the culprit turned out to be a six week case of mononucleosis and I was briefly hospitalized, even when my youngest brother's belly ache and fever progressed to appendicitis and emergency surgery. Malingering was a favorite diagnosis in our house and caretaking a sick child interfered with her daily routine. Being sick is a past time with them, she complained to her friend Betty next door, You'd think I had nothing better to do than watch over them. Feeling particularly aggrieved at the callousness of this remark, the fact being that both my brothers were confined to bed with the mumps, an illness even the most creative child could scarcely manufacture plus ( and probably more relevant) ) the general feeling that I was next in line, I repeated it to my daddy. The results were predictable - a highly satisfying domestic explosion between my parents later that night - and more than that, I was given into the care of my grandmother the following day and spent my own miserable bout with the virus on a diet of ice cream and ginger ale and any television program I wanted. As outcomes went, I'd had worse.

In the long term, of course, nothing actually changed. By the following year when chicken pox struck all of us at the same time, the weak tea and toast therapy was invoked with a vengeance and television was outlawed for the duration - we were all too unhappy and too sick to complain at this outrage and spent a dismal week being slowly driven mad with itching, restless sleep and boredom - my mother was unaccountably cheerful, climbing the stairs and delivering our meals, fluffing pillows and predicting a return to health any day, all with a detached smile and a veiled satisfaction that made us wince. She likes this! I wailed to my daddy, She's happy we're sick! For a brief moment he looked stricken at this accusation then he recovered. Don't be silly, he said sternly but I had seen it in his eyes and I remember suspecting that just for a second he had almost believed me. Almost.

Color Blind

I sometimes wish that color blindness was a universal condition. It seems to me that in small and temporary doses it would do us a world of good.

Being green in a non-green world is scary. Other colors, the ones who can run and jump and play without fear of consequence, don't understand why you bruise so easily, why a fall or a twisted ankle could have drastic results or why the grown up colors are so protective of you. The hospital is not their second home and doctors are kindly old men who make house calls when your throat's sore, not expensive specialists in far away cities. Being green is different - you can't hide your color, can't change it, can't pretend it's not really green. It would help if there were someone else green to talk to, but you're a green girl, a one in a million genetic combination that mystifies the doctors, even the well meaning ones. At a young age, you already know that they would prefer to think that you're just dyed green and not a real color. Rather than listen and treat, they seem determined to wash out the dye and discover some other color, a blue or a lavender, some color they can understand and fix. Failing that, they issue dire warnings of future impairments and shortened life spans. They don't mean to be cruel or insensitive but they don't like feeling helpless anymore than you like being green. Check your tire pressure, fill up your tank and add a little oil to your defense mechanisms, green girl, it's going to be a long trip.

It's a little easier (and harder) when you go away to school - the university is filled with different colors and no one pays much attention to one more. You still have to be a little more careful than most but you begin to suspect that green may be a color of substance, a color that stands on its own and can make its own way. Green is tough and independent and defies the odds - much like crabgrass or an emerald - and there's a little of both in you. You find the strength you come from and draw on it, graduate, choose a career, and move on down the road. You spend too much time in hospitals and doctors offices but you're on the path to reconciliation with your color. Green you are and will always be, but there are worse and harsher colors.

You don't get to pick your color but you do choose how to wear it, whether wisely, with grace and determination or resentfully, with anger and self pity. The green girl I know - who has chosen grace and determination - still bruises from encounters with a hard edged world, is still more fragile than she would like and still spends too much time in hospitals and doctors offices. She's my cousin and her particular shade of green is congenital afibrinogenemia - hemophilia. To some, it's a color and a label, a lifestyle, a handicap. To me, it's what she overcomes in her search for self. She may be green but she wears the color well, reminding all that know and love her that she's a person first and green second.

We're not defined by our colors, only modified. We're defined by our willingness to see past them.

It's not easy being green

But green's the color of spring
And green can be cool and friendly-like
And green can be big like a mountain
Or important like a river
Or tall like a tree.

Kermit the Frog