Cabbage Salad

The circle of old fishermen outside the barber shop looked on while my brother, the youngest one, an eternal optimist and dreamer as it turned out, began laying out his smuggled fireworks. There being no 4th of July holiday in Canada, he had decided to improvise a celebration, yet being young and not always as clear headed as one might like, hadn't thought it all the way through. He had stolen a box of wooden kitchen matches and meant to put on a show in the square on a warm Saturday night when most of the village would be on hand - he had rockets and missiles and twizzlers, things that raced into the night sky and exploded in showers of brightly colored, hissing sparks. He lit screaming meemies that twitched and strutted on the dirt road while making an ear splitting whine before fizzling out. And it almost went off without a hitch. Boy's as dumb as dead grass, Sparrow commented dryly as the last rocket shot into the air and took an unexpected turn toward Miss Florrie's newly planted cabbage patch. She had been intending to water it for days but had been down and out with a summer cold for the past week and not gotten around to it. The rocket sputtered into the arid leaves and instantly caught fire - one stray spark with just enough life left in it landed on a single papery leaf. In a matter of seconds, the entire first row was in flames and threatening the whole yard beyond. Ayuh, Uncle Willie muttered, Best to call out the buckets. My brother burst into tears.

Being a tightly knit and mostly accustomed to solving their own problems community, the brigade was formed in short order and the fire contained. The first row of cabbage plants was a total loss, the second and third succumbed to water damage, but the fourth survived - a little singed and blackened around the edges but salvageable. Miss Florrie stood on her porch, heavy hearted and grim and trying not to show it. Accidents will happen, she finally said with a brave but shaky smile, And you ,young man, this with eyes sharply narrowed at my brother, are going to learn a thing or two about planting cabbages. Starting tomorrow. If I were you, I wouldn't be late.

My brother hung his head and sighed deeply, images of a carefree summer evaporated and were replaced by the promise of dusk to dawn gardening, but he was a good boy and knew when to cut his losses. Yes, ma'am, said dutifully and Miss Florrie relented, Come inside now, she told him, I have fresh corn muffins and new milk.

And so it was that my youngest brother and Miss Florrie became friends. They spent the next two weeks shoulder to shoulder in the cabbage patch, carefully and meticulously clearing the ruined ground, hoeing, and replanting. Each day at five, precisely when the factory whistle blew, they stretched their backs and put away their garden tools, pronounced it a good days work and shared muffins and milk on the veranda. My brother took his first steps toward growing up by learning a little about commitment, consequences, and accomplishment and between them they produced a remarkable and prolific crop of cabbage. It was, as my grandmother said, a particularly fine season for cole slaw, cabbage salad and gardeners of all ages.

Cows & Cheese & Hillbillies

Misery, Nana liked to quote, loves company.

We were on the road through Western Massachusetts and headed for New York. It was the height of foliage season and my grandmother was in a hurry - her only sister had been hospitalized with a heart attack and Nana was sure that without some assistance and care giving, the family would rapidly come apart at the seams. She had recruited my mother to make the trip with her and I was along for the ride but things weren't going smoothly and the two women were battling over gas prices, where to spend the night, how long they would have to stay, which exit to take, where to eat along the way. I curled up in the back seat of the Lincoln and tried to read and tune them out but soon enough - Nana had warned me about reading in a moving car, telling me it was sure to make me queasy - a wave of motion sickness struck and I settled for watching the leaves fly by and trying to sleep. I was regretting turning down her earlier offer of Dramamine but in the tradition of the women in my family was too stubborn to admit it.

Like the winding countryside road - my grandmother used the interstate highway system only when there was no other available route - the front seat argument waxed and waned, sharply speeding up on the long patches of clear and straight pavement, slowing and easing up on the bends and curves. They sniped about which radio station to listen to, how much to open a window, whether or not to check under the hood at the next gas stop. If there was nothing real to disagree upon, they seemed to invent something out of whole cloth.

We should've left earlier, my mother complained at one point, We'd practically be there by now.
If you'd been ready on time, my grandmother snapped back, we might very well just have.

I hate Vermont, my mother said as we passed a dairy herd peacefully grazing on the green hillside, Nothing but cows and cheese and hillbillies.
Judas Priest! Nana said, slamming her fist on the steering wheel, Can't you do anything except bitch?

My mother gave her a sullen look then turned her face away, a sulky child not getting her way. For her part, Nana stared straight ahead, her mouth in a tight, grim line. Aside from the static-y noise of the radio, there was cold silence for a considerable time. Obstinate to the end, neither woman would have dreamed of apologizing or admitting fault - blame assigned was blame to the bitter end.

In time, we passed into New York and reached the village of Fort Edward, a lower middle class community of primarily blue collar workers and look-a-like manufactured housing. Everything was sparse and painfully new looking, each little home sat on its own little lot but there were no trees or shrubs, no cracked sidewalks or flowered walkways. It was as if each neighborhood had been turned out as identically as the next and the sameness was sterile and almost depressing. Lunch was waiting - hamburgers and hot dogs from the obligatory backyard grill, potato salad and dill pickles served on paper plates to the gathered relatives sitting in lawn chairs and balancing tv trays on their laps. I was left with my cousins while my mother and grandmother drove to the hospital in Glens Falls. As I barely knew them, it was an awkward and uncomfortable few days and it was a relief when my grandmother returned to claim me. She had done her duty and satisfied her conscience - having arranged meals,
housekeeping, visiting nurses - and secure in the knowledge that her family was intact, was anxious to head home.

The drive home was long, tedious, filled with verbal sparring in between long silences. I wondered uselessly about the cause of the conflict between them - were they too alike or too opposite? Did they not know each other at all or know each other far too well? Was it just a bad match or unfulfilled expectations? The rage and resentments between them ran deep and no answers ever came. It was hard to tell who was the misery and who was the company.

Throwaways

November announces its arrival with dark skies and torrential rainfall. The small brown dog paws her way beneath the blankets and huddles against me for warmth, a gentle reminder that it's time to turn on the heating pad in her kennel and sort through her winter wardrobe of sweaters. She doesn't understand about the seasons and knows only that yesterday was sunny and warm and today is not. We did not celebrate her birthday this year as Halloween fell during the Great Tooth Debacle - I owe her a celebration.

I can't quite comprehend that she is seven now while the black dog is approaching thirteen. The time in between has passed like a quick rush of wind, hardly noticed but leaving its mark. A black muzzle has started to gray and there are now several false starts before she can make the jump to the bed. She has mellowed no more than a degree or two and slowed down even less - still the first at the door at the first noise, still loving the chase, still frantic and wild and hyper active - her spirit cannot be tamed. The little one has become a shade or two more timid but lost none of her sweetness or need to be loved. She still cowers at the slightest suggestion of a harsh word and can have her feelings hurt far too easily, running to me at the first sign of threat from the new kittens, an anxious eyed little creature incapable of raising the first paw in self defense. From first sight, how these little throwaways have taken my heart.

Perhaps it's my natural need to be needed or the part of all us that seeks love and acceptance, maybe it's being able to trust them with a secret or the comfort they bring or never having to justify myself - maybe it's just something in their small faces that pulls at my soul - but I sometimes wonder if I don't need them more than they need me.

A Room Full of Strangers

It was my brother's third arrest and a fierce battle was being waged over whether to bail him out again or allow him to spend the night in jail.

My mother was violently advocating for his release, alternately crying and cursing and breaking things while my daddy pondered whether or not there might be a lesson to a night in a cell. My grandmother sat in a corner chair, knitting placidly and making no comment. Vandalism! my mother screeched, No more than high spirits! My daddy frowned at her, Car theft is not just high spirits, Jan, he said sharply and she threw a half full beer can toward him with a renewed wail - it hit the wall behind him with a wet, metallic thud - I want him out tonight! she screamed. I was reminded of a scene from Alice In Wonderland, in the kitchen with the Cook and the Duchess and the Baby who turned into a pig. My mother turned to my grandmother and pleaded desperately - Nana ignored her, continuing to knit as if nothing at all was happening while my daddy paced the length of the living room, his pale, anxious face in an angry and rare scowl. Just be quiet for a minute, Jan, he snapped at her, Let me think. He turned to my grandmother and asked what she thought. Nana looked up at him, then at my sobbing mother, then returned to her knitting. I think, she said with a shrug of her shoulders, that he's where he belongs. This brought a fresh outburst from my mother and she collapsed into her chair with a high pitched whine of protest. Christ! my daddy exploded, out of patience and finally succumbing to a flash of temper, Enough dramatics! It's not helping!

I winced at this from a man who so rarely as much as raised his voice to make a point. He looked old and beaten, out of options and very angry. My hysterical mother, more than a little drunk and wild eyed with fury at being denied her way, continued to sob and beat her fists. Only my grandmother seemed to have any presence of mind, she methodically kept on knitting her way through this latest melodrama, content to let it play out on its own. I had no idea how she could remain so detached and untouched - I had seen her more emotional in a room full of strangers.

He's your grandson! my mother wailed.
He's a thug who got drunk from liquor he bought with a forged id, Nana replied mildly, Then stole a car and crashed it. And, she added, pausing to wrap up her needles and yarn and pack them into her carrying case, resisted arrest in the bargain. To my mind, it's time he learned something about accountability. I for one am washing my hands of this whole sorry mess and going home. Knitting in one hand and purse in the other, she slipped into her coat and boots, walked to the front door and opened it. Do what you want, she advised my slack jawed parents neutrally,
Good night. A rush of freezing air whisked in out of the dark night - it had begun to snow again I noticed - then the door closed and she was gone.

I left by the back door, not knowing or caring how things turned out, not bothering to say goodbye. I wasn't wanted or needed in this particular room full of strangers. I agreed with my grandmother and had nothing left to offer.

The Kindest Man I Know

Sitting in a hot tub in the middle of the night with a hot facecloth pressed as hard as I can stand on my mangled jaw. Waves of pain like white hot knives pulse from my tooth and and surrounding gum and I think I cannot bear one more single second of it. I could take all thirty of the controlled substance pain pills, hopefully drift off to sleep, slip beneath the water and hurt no more. During the fraction of a second when this seems like not just a good but a perfectly reasonable solution, a small black paw appears on the edge of the bathtub, followed by a small black body and an inquisitive meow. The black kitten's blue eyes, filled with curiosity, meet mine and through the haze of the last 36 hours of intolerable agony, I dimly remember that I am responsible for lives other than my own. Don't cry! a barely recognizable inner voice screams at me, It will only make it worse! Some part of me knows this is true but I cry anyway - pain, exhaustion, lack of sleep and depression have taken their toll. The kitten meows again, this time a little louder, a little more insistently. Lives other than your own, he seems to be reminding me, and I reluctantly crawl out of the hot water and stagger to the kitchen where five cats and two dogs are gathered, concerned and impatient to be fed.

It wasn't, I tell myself a couple of days later after nearly four hours of root canal, a genuine suicidal thought, just a passing impulse born of pain that for the merest blink of an eye seemed rational and a little tempting. But as I explained it to the dentist and watched his eyes - noting a sudden and quite serious reaction - I realized that it might have sounded like a warning or worse, a cry for help. It got me to thinking about chronic pain and the people who bear it, by choice or not, and how they survive it with minds intact and bodies still drawing breath. Free of responsibilities, I'm not sure it's something I would choose for myself.

In dental school, this angel of a man in a mask with the kindest eyes I have ever known tells me, They taught us to pay attention when a patient mentions suicide, even if it's just in passing.

Pain can make you a little nuts, I say through a welcome haze of nitrous and local anesthesia, It was just one moment. It wasn't real.

He says nothing to this, just watches and lets me drift away while the nitrous goes to work and the pain blessedly stops, but I can feel his hand on my shoulder as well as his gentleness and caring. He is the kindest man I know.

Trick or Treat and Four Letter Words

Here's the thing.

An upper abscessed tooth can be ( once you get past the pain and fever and inability to eat ) almost endearing. Your face swells like a chipmunk and people tend to smile and there-there-poor-baby you.

A lower abscessed tooth ( same caveats as above ) simply swells your jawline wickedly out of alignment and twists your face and mouth into an unnatural grimace. Your lips don't meet at the right places and people tend to step back and oh-my-god you.

I have had, for the last four days, the latter, spending my days and nights in ragged tears in a hot bath tub with steaming compresses pressed to my face, gulping antibiotics and uselessly hoping to die. But for the kindness of my dear friend Tricia who brought chocolate milk and pudding and soup, but for the lack of health insurance, I would've checked myself into the ER and prayed to be put into a chemical coma for the duration. I do not handle pain well. Not only that, I'm so mad at missing a photo shoot I could cry if crying weren't such a bad idea.

It's Halloween and I've run out of four letter words.

Night Sweats

My grandmother, straightlaced and a fiscal conservative down to her last penny, would often trail after us turning off lights. Got stock in Con Ed? she was fond of asking with an irked edge in her voice as if she could shame us into being more conscientious consumers with every flick of a lightswitch.

I thought of her this morning when I woke just after two am in total and too warm darkness - no night light glowed in the hall, no computer screen flickered, no streetlights shone through the blinds of the sun room. It took a moment or two to realize that the eerie sense of wrongness was due to the power being off again. I kicked off cats and covers and went to the front door - the air was heavy with rain and the wind was making a swishy sort of racket through the trees, limbs and leaves bending and swaying like exotic dancers, rustling and whispering among themselves. There was not a sign of light or life anywhere. The black dog stood with her head cocked, peering through the glass and listening intently. Guess that Con Ed stock has seen its day now, I told her, Let's go back to bed.

The sandman, however, had other ideas and had taken his leave by then. Even with all the animals gathered around me for comfort, I felt edgy - it didn't take long to begin seeing unfriendly shapes in the dark and start hearing noises I didn't much like. I got back up and began a round of candle lighting throughout the house, found a chocolate bar and an unfinished but still cold Coke, and curled up in the leather chair by the window with the tabby in my lap and both dogs watching anxiously from the bedroom. The other cats prowled watchfully, a little wary of this sudden and overwhelming silence, this shadowless and slightly troubled night. I thought I might try to read by the light of a candle, maybe coax a little sleep from the pages of a book, but then realized I'd have to search for something that wasn't a Stephen King novel, and I dismissed the idea - my imagination was already a step away from overdrive, no need to drive it into the paranormal or over the edge and into the macabre - I would let my favorite author be.

By six, the sky had begun to lighten ever so slightly, the rain had stopped, the wind died down. I heard a siren from very far away, then the echo of a train whistle. The tabby woke and nuzzled into my shoulder, the dogs began to pace to go outside and a feline chorus took up the call to breakfast. There was still no power but there was the beginning of light and another day.

Daytime Dreams - A Thimbleful of Used To Be

Psssst! The dog in my dream whispered to me from under the bed. I was mopping up a spreading patch of water on the hardwood floor between the twin beds and rearranging the snapshots on the mantel. John Davidson, looking as he had some fifty years ago was on the television on the stand in the corner, confessing to serial murder and negotiating his surrender to a plain clothes detective who spoke in Sean Connery's voice. Pssst! The dog, my first Schipperke, I realized, whispered again, his muzzle peeking out from the bottom edge of the comforter. Have you a thimble? he asked and stretched out a paw. I could hear the sounds of housecleaning from the downstairs, my second husband's idle whistling, and the playful noise of two kittens climbing the lace curtains on the windows. Water was running in the distance and a player piano in the hall was steadily churning out a bluesy rendition of "The Maple Leaf Rag." I was always partial to Scott Joplin, the Schipperke said with a grin and melted away like the cheshire cat in the looking glass world. It was about that time, just as I was discovering I had an apron pocket full of thimbles, that a small claw from the real world snagged my wrist and I began to wake up. One of the kittens hanging from the curtains meowed clearly to me, I understood it to say Those are all used to be thimbles, a dog in the real world then barked and I was awake.

Everything can be explained, I thought to myself - dreams are snatches of everyday life and memories, images and
overheard conversations, fragments of whatever happens to catch on the edges of consciousness, all tumbled together in no particular order. I had recently seen that John Davidson - now 70 and silver haired but still as fine a looking man as ever he was - was appearing in a nearby Texas town. I remembered seeing his picture in the ad and being surprised that he was still around. I had fallen asleep and neglected to turn off the latest "Law and Order" marathon, the night before on the drive home I had heard a story about a jazz musician, a piano player who had begun improvising on Joplin's rags. I had slept surrounded by a veritable covey of cats and the last screensaver image I remembered was Joshua, my first Schipperke. Only the thimbles remained unaccounted for and then I placed them - I had been looking for a needle and thread just a few days before and had thought to myself if only I had Nana's mending basket, so precisely organized and so neatly kept.

Nonsense or chaotic, vivid or nightmarish, sometimes I'd rather stay in the dream than return to the waking world.

The Good Fight

September, 1963

My friend Patrick - by virtue of an alphabetized seating chart, we had known each other since the 1st grade - heard the news of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and broke down in angry, futile tears. He was just 15, in his 2nd year of high school and the deaths of four innocent children were more than he could bear. Two months later, in the midst of changing classes, the school loudspeaker announced the assassination of John Kennedy and Patrick was stricken. The following week when school resumed, he was gone. He had raided his college fund, packed a bag, left a note for his parents and boarded a bus for Mississippi. While life went relentlessly on for those of us so easily lulled into mediocrity and apathy, Patrick had found a calling, the will to act on it, and a place to express it. He came of age in a series of small southern towns where a young black boy with an agenda was unwelcome and in constant jeopardy for his life. His northern upbringing and expectations branded him a trouble maker and an outside agitator - he was targeted, threatened, beaten and jailed - but he kept going. He wrote home irregularly but his mother brought each letter to the school where she read it at Friday assemblies, her voice tremulous but proud. We collected money, signed petitions, wrote articles in support for the school paper - then in 1964, three young civil rights workers went missing and the letters from Patrick stopped entirely. Mississippi's hate had spread and infected everyone it touched, even reaching deep into a Massachusetts school and taking its toll on naive, well meaning students and an innocent family. It was an evil, heartbreaking and shameful time.

While those who fought the good fight in Mississippi and Alabama died and disappeared, Boston mourned on one hand and on the other opposed school busing with a vengeance - there were riots and demonstrations and political speeches that blazed with the fires of racism and hatred, just as they do today. I imagine Patrick would not be overly surprised to hear a black president called a terrorist or have his birthright questioned, to see a proposal to repeal civil rights made self righteously and boldly, to see all that he fought against embraced and made mainstream acceptable. He lived in dangerous times and made dangerous choices and it cost him dearly.

For people like Patrick, those who go off to fight for the rights of the few and never return, those willing to sacrifice on a scale that most of us dare not even consider - I hope they find peace and some measure of justice even though the war is still not over. I hope there are enough of us left to make him proud.

We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Barack Obama

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Coming Home

When I get to where I'm going,
I'll be where I started from .....
All the people in between will be nothing but a dream,
I wonder is it ghosts I walk among - Sad Daddy

He came walking out of the mist, a tall figure in old clothes and barefoot, a fishing pole over one shoulder and a tin lunch bucket in the other. He was whistling an old, nearly forgotten Johnny Cash tune and at first, I was sure he was a ghost. This was confirmed when my grandmother, briskly sweeping off the back porch, paled and stopped in mid-stroke, one hand flying to her mouth in astonishment. Dear Lord, I heard her say, He's come back from the dead! The stranger approached down the gravel driveway and onto the grass while Nana, clutching her broom so tightly that her knuckles turned white, backed up steadily. When she hit the side of the house, she seemed to push harder, as if she could will herself though the walls. He hailed her with a cheerful shout, Don't have a coniption, Alice, I ain't dead! My grandmother shrieked, a high pitched, panicky sound as unfamiliar as anything I'd ever heard, then threw her broom to the ground and began to cry. The man in the old clothes reached her, dropped his fishing pole and lunch bucket and gave her a long hug, patting her back and whispering, letting her cry freely, a sight I could never have imagined in my wildest and most fanciful dreams. Nana? I asked, with a timid tug on her apron, Is he a ghost? They disentangled and he laughed outloud, she joined in and then through her tears and in a shaky voice she told me, No, hon, 'bout the last thing he is on God's green earth, the very last, is a ghost.

There was something about her voice or perhaps in her eyes that made me give up on my game of jacks and suddenly burst into tears - then in one quick, fluid motion, the stranger had knelt to my level and extended his hand. I'm Tag, he said gravely, I'm an old friend of your grandmother's and it's right nice to meet you. His blue eyes were kind, the hand he held out was thin wristed but tanned, and his voice was exactly the right blend of reassurance and sincerity. With his free hand, he produced a denim handkerchief from his back pocket and offered it to me.
And who are your friends? he asked and when I looked around, I saw that both the dogs had appeared and were looking up at him with interest and instant acceptance, heads cocked and tails wagging. I had no idea who this man was or where he had come from, but if he was good enough for the dogs and Nana, then he was good enough for me. I shook his hand and he grinned.

It had never occurred to me that my grandmother had ever been a young girl or might have had a life apart from her family and my grandfather - she was simply Nana, a force for stability, a protector of children, a storyteller and caregiver. She was always there to intervene, to arbitrate, to set ground rules and explain the mysteries of childhood, to mete out punishment as well as rewards, to be trusted with secrets, to wave trouble away with a tone of voice or a hug. For a moment on the back porch though, as Tag materialized out of the fog and walked toward her, I caught a glimpse of another time. Like a cloud passing in front of the sun, for just a second or two I was so close to clarity - a young, probably thin, dark haired girl in long skirts and button boots ( in case she might be tempted to show a flash of ankle ) with a puffy sleeved shirtwaist - laughing and falling in love on a clear summer afternoon. She'd have been carrying flowers and wearing hair ribbons and her brown eyes would've been full of sparkle. The image faded away almost as soon as it had formed, I barely had time to consider it.

Tag stayed the day, mostly sitting on the old whitewashed side porch with Nana, so close that their shoulders and hips were touching. I heard their low voices and laughter echo 'round the house until the sun went down, She's making a spectacle of herself and at her age, my mother wailed, God knows what people will say!

My daddy, perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, whistling "People Will Say We're in Love", appeared in the kitchen with an armload of linens. Stop it, Guy! my mother snapped at him. Damn fine writers, Rodgers and Hammerstein, he said mildly and gave me a wink.

The What If War

From the kingdoms of Fear to Unsure to Maybe I Can, all in The Land of Rut, I have fought the What If War for the last 50 years or so. I try to follow orders and never lead an attack, falling back on my frail confidence when against a wall but otherwise beating a sensible retreat. I never, ever visit the Isle of Confrontation, it is a savage, dark place inhabited by a loud and brutally honest race of street thugs. I prefer to spend my time in Complacency Cove with its gentle breezes and every day certainty - life may not be perfect there, but at least it's familiar and I know my place and what's expected of me - I do not leave these kingdoms willingly.

It is this combination of apprehension about the unknown, lack of confidence and misplaced loyalty that keep me in my place. Self doubt runs rampant in this war and disaster lurks around every corner - what if the car breaks down, what if fall and shatter a hip, what if my temper gets the best of me, what if this happens or that doesn't. The constant beating back of these thoughts wears me out and I get a headache thinking of all the things that might go wrong. It would be just as simple to concentrate on all the things that might go right, it's really all just a trick of the mind anyway, but human nature is a fragile and unpredictable beast and the darker side of possibility is powerful and seductive. Still, I remind myself, I have come this far and lived this long, still vertical and above ground, no small victories.

The war wages on perhaps in part because it is so much easier to think in terms of the negative rather than the positive. I could just as easily imagine "What if I win the lottery?" as opposed to "What if I lose my job?" - but I don't and likely wouldn't even if I played the lottery. The dark side of doom and gloom is more realistic than the view through rose colored glasses but real life is somewhere in between, in some dimly lit and hard to access demilitarized zone where there is a truce in place despite the threats from either side.

Life is a strange landscape, often shadowy and hard to navigate, randomly decorated with roadblocks and opportunities, littered with choices and dead ends.

Don't get lost, just make a new trail.
Brian Martin, "Ramblin' Life'

First Editions

He is in his late 70's, a short, chubby man with a badly bent back. He walks with a cane, taking small, shuffling steps and often having to over correct for his body's inclination to lean left. He has cancer, heart problems, pulmonary disease, is diabetic and arthritic - his body is failing him but his mind is sharp and he still never fails to arrive without a smile. And he brings me books, small gifts from an extensive collection that he is slowly but surely passing on to others. He reads everything, he tells me proudly, fiction and history, biographies and crime stories, but like me, he has a special love for horror - there is almost always a Stephen King in the recycled bag he carries - and he still has enough of a pension left to be able to get to Barnes & Noble when the latest King novel arrives. This day he brings me a slim, hardbound, first edition of an early work in mint condition and will not hear a word of protest about my accepting it.

Books have become his travel, his work, his escape, his family. Personal experience tells me that dedicated readers are often hard pressed to part with any book, favorite or not, but he gives freely, leaving them in hospital rooms and doctors offices, donating to the homeless shelters and halfway houses and soup kitchens. There is special magic in books, he tells me, they stir the imagination and wake up the senses, rouse our curiosity and polish our language. You're never too old or frail to learn or unlock your mind, he says with a smile, Books are the best possible companions. In fact, at my age, they're the only companions.

I hoped this wasn't true for this tidy little man. He settled himself in a chair, adjusted his glasses, and pulled the inevitable paperback from a back pocket, "The Taking" by Dean Koontz, something I had read just the week before.

There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book? ~Marina Tsvetaeva

Rocket Science

Our's is a long, narrow building with offices at each end and nothing in between. Signs proclaim the names and speciality of each doctor, each entrance is marked and there is a prominent display of which entrance is for which doctor. It is, I've always thought, a simple and straightforward method of mapping out the building - requiring no more than the ability to read and then, depending on where you are in the parking lot, make either a right or left turn. It's not a maze, it doesn't require an advanced degree in mathematics or logistics, there are no tricks - find your doctor's name on a sign, walk toward it. The number of people who can't or can't be bothered to navigate this two step process is stunning. Each day we are beset by them, coming into the office with grimy and tantrumy urchins in tow, demanding directions to the other doctor's office, and visibly angry at being told they must go back outside as their is no inside access.

Is this the childrens doctor? they demand despite the signs, despite the waiting room overflowing with geriatric patients, despite the cluttered array of walkers and wheelchairs in their paths.

He's at the other end of the building, we tell them and we point.

Which other end of the building? they persist. Which other end of the building? I repeat, trying to find some logic in the question, The one that isn't at this end! They gather their belongings and smeary children and parade out in a snit and I'm too frustrated and overworked to care. How many ends can one building have? It's a straight shot, point A to point B, no elevators, no levels or floors, no streets to cross, and it's marked.

Later, during a brief lull, I find myself considering breadcrumbs, a path of yellow bricks, perhaps a guide rope from one doctor's office to the other that would enable them to go hand-over-hand. We could paint neon footprints on the cement walkways, maybe provide a shuttle service.

Real estate agents are constantly showing the empty offices. I shudder to think what questions a third doctor's office might bring.

The Night Nobody Died

The night nobody died was in late October or early November - full dark had come early and the leaves had already turned. The furnace rumbled on and off sending warm air through the vents at regular intervals. My daddy had returned to work and my mother had left for a lodge meeting. The remnants of a cold macaroni and cheese supper were still on the kitchen table.

I have no clear memory of what started the argument between me and my younger brother but it escalated swiftly.
Words turned into shouting, shouting into threats, threats into pushing and pushing into violence that resulted in his shoving me down the cellar stairs. I reached for the handrail but missed and fell the length of the wooden steps, landing in a heat at the bottom, seeing a haze of blurry stars and tasting copper before the dark settled. When I came to, my hair was tacky and wet with blood, my lip was split, my eye swollen and each breath felt like a stab but miraculously, nothing seemed to be broken.

I found the 2x2 on my daddy's workbench and gingerly climbed the stairs. The living room was lit only by the flickering old black and white tv and my youngest brother was asleep in my mother's green chair, the dogs were curled up together on the sofa. The brother who had pushed me was sitting Indian style on the floor in front of the tv with a tin can of brownies and a carton of milk beside him. Bright, shimmery hate came without my calling it and I raised the 2x2 over my shoulder - when he sensed the danger, he turned and I swung with every ounce of my being, catching him squarely on the side of his face and sending him sprawling sideways. A spray of blood and saliva flew out of his mouth and I thought of a crab, scrabbling on the beach and wailing. I raised the 2x2 again, waiting for the right moment to deliver a second blow - that I would've delivered it and hoped for it to be lethal was not in the slightest doubt - when several things happened in a matter of instants - my youngest brother woke and began caterwauling, the dogs started to bark in a panicked and desperate way, and a key turned in the front door and my mother and daddy walked in.

He pushed me down the cellar stairs! I screamed at them both.
She fell! he bellowed back instantly although the words were a little mushy.
Psychopath! I screeched, Mental case!
Whore! he yelled, Bitch!

In the ER, I was told I had two broken ribs, a concussion, a lacerated scalp wound and a black eye. His jaw was broken in two places, he had lost three teeth and partial hearing in one ear. I remember fluorescent lights and the green tiles of the hospital floor, stitches and bandages and pain pills, my mother's furious, snarling face and my daddy's sad and worried one - then the cool, clean sheets of a hospital bed. I was sent to my grandmother's to recover and stayed until the following spring, coming home only on condition of constant adult supervision - Nana was adamant and would hear not the first word of protest or parental disagreement. My grandchildren are not going to kill each other while I'm alive to prevent it, she warned my mother and daddy, And make no mistake, I have money and friends in family court and I'll use both. It's sheer blind luck that nobody died!

When it was all over, the hate I had felt that night was to frighten me. Time, distance and estrangement dulled and finally blurred it but the sharp edges, the overwhelming intensity of it, stayed with me, and I know I could summon it back. It's still a frightening thought and probably always will be. Sometimes I think we only brush the surface of what we are truly capable of.

Peace Talks

All of six inches high and weighing maybe half a pound, the new kitten feints a charge on the small brown dog - it's a bluff, a show of bravado and he stops a safe distance away, looking tough and pleased with himself. A yelp of fear emanates from the dog and she immediately begins to tremble and climbs into my arms where she clings and buries her face in my neck. I comfort her and scold him while the black dog circles, menace in her low growl and anxiety in her eyes. The kitten, undeterred, makes a second pass, this time jumping over my outstretched legs then digging in with a ferocious hiss at the black dog, followed by a nasty and contemptuous spit. He then beats a hasty retreat to a corner of the couch and sits atop a pillow, again looking self satisfied and defiant. We have, I realize, an attitude problem here, one that will have to be corrected before he is turned into a late night snack. You came from the wild, I remind him sternly, meeting his steady blue eyed stare with what I mean to be utter seriousness, And back to the wild you can go. Of course, this is a meaningless exchange, a hollow threat, and I suspect we both know it. I am older, wiser, I outweigh him and have the power of reasoning on my side - yet somehow he still gains the upper hand - he pretends to ignore me and wanders off toward the food bowl, a tiny, strutting little creature that a strong wind would blow away and already feisty, cocky, and fiercely independent.
This will be a protracted battle and I am poorly armed.

I like to think that there is a little feral in all of us, just enough to make us strong and confident. I also like to think we'll outgrow the need for it once we become strong and confident but kittens don't always play by the rules.

Several days in there are signs of hope - the black dog has backed off a trifle although still succumbing to her instinct to chase, the small brown one appears a tiny bit less terrified. All the cats are eating together without bloodshed and an alliance of sorts has formed between the second new kitten and the first - the rules seem to be to chase each other through the house as madly, as fast, and as often as possible, flying around corners and under or over furniture as the terrain demands. If one actually catches the other, there is a brief ( and usually loud ) squabble before it all starts again. The adult cats take a non-combatant position, preferring to watch from a safe distance, taking no sides and wisely staying out of the fray.

Escalation of hostilities has ceased and peace talks are ongoing.

Flat Bellied Girls in Tight Tops

There's something flat out annoying about flat bellied girls in tight tops. Perhaps because I never was one - not even at the tender, innocent pre-breast and hipless age of 12 did I look like that - tall and willowy in snug jeans with a rock hard, exposed midriff and several strategically placed tattoos. They have nothing to hide and they do it with an irritating lack of self doubt whether on the dance floor or shopping or wandering the riverfront festivals with a child slung on one perfectly curved hip and another trailing behind. Did you just growl? a friend asks in the wake of one them strutting by in six inch heels and a smile, a miniature and to my mind, useless little purse hanging from one arm. Of course not! I snap - but I did.

This is, needless to say, nothing more than a developing case of anatomy-envy. I was born to a tall, slender father and a short, squat mother and genetics being genetics, it's my bad luck to favor my maternal side. The older I get, the more apparent it is. So I often growl and just as often deny it.

Physical resemblance aside, I also have - to my never ending dismay - her anger. Far as I have come, it's still there, always threatening to disrupt my life and make small molehills into hopeless mountains. I deny it, beat it back, offset it, refuse to give in to it but it sneers and snickers, bides its time, waits patiently until the right moment then explodes in furious emails or temper tantrums or words I regret the instant I say them and the few seconds of satisfaction have passed. It seems as if there's no good way to fight or manage this emotion - swallow it and it'll wreak havoc internally, express it and rue the consequences. It gnaws at me incessantly even when I'm not feeling it, skulking around the edges of a good day and hiding in the shadows of a great one. On bad days, it comes at me directly, full force and confident and the resulting headache leaves no doubt which side has won. It's a case of curious irony that all this effort to defeat anger should be ineffective and thereby produce more anger.

The battle against genetics is long lost, waged and decided in the womb.
The battle against taught behavior and learned reactions is still undecided.

Grrrrrrrr.

Letters from Alaska

Gold fever struck the dreamers and discontented like a sign from God. John and Harley Young watched in dismay as their daddy packed his things, kissed their mother goodbye and set off for Alaska, his eyes shining with expectation and promises to return a rich man.

He reached his destination in 1898, Nana told me, with nothing but the clothes on his back, a determination to dig until Doomsday and a yearning for the easy life that would follow. He was a rough and tumble young man then, hard drinking, hard fighting, ambitious and with a family to support. It was no Sunday picnic, he wrote in his rare letters home, the cold was unforgiving and the nights empty, but each day was a new start and the strike would come any day, he was sure of it. He prospected alone and optimistically for months and then years while John and Harley did odd jobs and their mother took in washing and worked in the factory. By the time they reached their teens, he had been gone over ten years - they could barely recall his face and their pretty young mother had given up and grown old and bitter. When they were sixteen and eighteen, John and Harley signed onto a whaler out of Newfoundland and set to sea, faithfully sending part of their wages home each month and promising to be home by spring. The letters from Alaska had stopped by then, Nana said, no one knew why or cared enough to find out. Whaling was profitable and the boys did well, returning as promised in the spring, filled out and muscled from the labor, grown to manhood after a single voyage and both bearing an uncanny resemblance to the man who had gone to search for gold. But not in their eyes, their mother told Nana, They look like him but they have my eyes.

It was, people predicted, only a matter of time before John and Harley were compelled to search for him. They traced the letters from Alaska to the Klondike, then to Skagway and then to Dawson City. Fearing the worst, they prowled the saloons and dance halls, the hastily built and shoddy hotels, the brothels. They spent an entire whaling season following rumors and sightings but it came to nothing - the man who had left them, for all his dreams of gold and an easy life, had been swallowed up in a wilderness. He was in all likelihood, dead and buried in some forgotten mine camp, perhaps had drowned in the great ocean or fallen prey to an unfriendly knife fight over a claim or a prostitute or a cache of gold dust. They returned to Newfoundland and then headed for New Bedford,
dispirited and discouraged, giving up not being in their nature, and still wanting answers. They wanted to know that he'd at least intended on coming back, Nana said, that he hadn't just deserted them. Good riddance is what I say!

The last letter from Alaska arrived years later, too late for their mother who went to her grave hating the man she had loved and blaming herself for his wanderlust. It had been carried all over the Yukon by a gold miner who had made a deathbed promise to deliver it in person come hell or high water. It told of a mining accident and a man too injured to recover, a man who contracted pneumonia and eventually died in a makeshift Dawson City hospital. He wrote asking forgiveness, sending his love to his sons, trying to explain. He hadn't found much gold but he included a good sized leather pouch of shiny nuggets, worth a small but measurable fortune and he hoped it would make their lives a little easier as it hadn't his. Instead, John and Harley Young fought bitterly over the nuggets, John wanting to throw them into the ocean, Harley wanting to put them to some use. They eventually divided them equally and went their separate ways.

And that, Nana finished, is why dreamers are dangerous. The Young boys haven't spoken a word to each other in the last ten years and no good came of the gold. Mind me, child, there's all kinds of fevers and they're all the devil's work. They won't bring you a thing but sickness and heartache.

I fell asleep and dreamed of snow mountains and wild rivers, letters from Alaska, gold fever. My grandmother, for all her practical wisdom, common sense and good intentions, may have been right about fevers - but I was sure she was wrong about dreamers.

Speak Slowly, Use Small Words

Memo to payroll:

In the event that you have failed to notice, the payroll situation has become untenable.

At the end of each of the last three consecutive payroll periods, my check has been late. Perhaps you are unaware that this leads to my having to beg food and borrow money, actions which are not healthy for my pride or self respect. At no time did anyone in payroll think this important enough to notify me beforehand or apologize afterward.

As I have no reason whatsoever to imagine that this will be corrected for the next payroll period, I am advising you of the following: Should my next check fail to be deposited on time, I expect it to be hand delivered on the day it is due. If it is not, then I will turn in my notice in favor of a payroll department that demonstrates a modicum of respect for its employees.

Once could happen to anyone. Twice takes a little work. Three times indicates either willful blindness or complete and utter incompetence. It makes little difference to me whether this is born of carelessness or if you are simply not up to the task, however, being paid on time is not an unreasonable demand and it takes minimal effort to make a quick telephone call if a problem arises.

Please note that I have not included the incidence of a vacation day not being paid. I realize that while the initial error was not yours, the fact remains that I made three separate telephone calls to you before you returned my call. I did not hear one single word from you following that and despite your latest assurances to my employer that this had been corrected, the vacation day remains unpaid. This failure to demonstrate the most basic courtesy and communication suggests a depth of indifference that I find impressive albeit wholly unprofessional. Therefore, I expect this situation to be rectified without any further attempt to evade responsibility or shift blame.

Be advised that I will continue to document your actions and responses - or the lack thereof - until this is resolved.

Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief

Each week I walk into the restaurant there are new faces - in the kitchen, behind the bar, serving guests or cleaning tables. Conversely, old faces who's names I have actually learned, disappear at the drop of a hat. Turnover is quick and constant in the industry and people come and go like shooting stars, here one minute and gone the next. You can miss them entirely if you're not paying attention.

I have a tendency to find work and stay put, sometimes past the point when it is healthy and rewarding to do so, misplaced loyalty, I suppose. I've learned that the perfect workplace is a theory for all us ordinary folks, something to imagine and hope for but not to be attained. I suspect that this is due to all workplaces being primarily made up of people with all their flaws and defects as well as their good points. Ambition not being an integral part of my make up, I've always been content to find work that I can do well in an atmosphere that I enjoy, keep the bills paid and be able to sleep late now and then, maybe have dinner out once or twice a month, even buy a pair of earrings without sacrificing a meal. It's distinctly possible that when I had that kind of freedom and security, I didn't appreciate it.

I find people who knew their goal from childhood - doctor, lawyer, Indian chief - and pursued it with unwavering focus and single minded energy, to be interesting as well as - from my point of view - wildly successful. I see them often in the restaurant, the doctors who people rave about, the lawyers who make partner at 40, the heads of utility companies, the real estate barons and former oil men, even the writers and Hollywood actors with their instantly recognizable names and faces. I remember wanting to be a nurse, a teacher, a veterinarian, a pilot, a farmer, a counselor, a tap dancer, all in passing stages that faded when the newest fancy came along. I played with the idea of becoming a librarian, joining the Peace Corps, even thought for awhile that it might be fun to be a journalist, but nothing called to my soul, not with the absolute passion I hoped for or the certainty that it was meant to be. So like the majority of the great and struggling unwashed, I meandered from job to job and state to state - married and meandered some more - with no set course, no clear plan. Another marriage, another divorce, and finally to within spitting distance of the Medicare years, still a little aimless and searching - the only constants in all these years being every book I ever read, a few pieces of good jewelry and a houseful of cats.

There are worse endings.

The very substance of the ambitious is but the shadow a a dream. William Shakespeare

Natural Law

Natural law tells me that by now the number of cats sharing my life should be diminishing - I have lost four in this year alone, determined to let attrition take its course - and yet, without my seeking them out, they find me be at it the duck pond or on my front doorstep in the arms of a pretty blonde who's mother knew I wouldn't be able to say no. The word "Sucker" must be emblazoned on my forehead for all the world to see. In the past month, the feline count has gone from five to four to five to four to five. It makes me dizzy.

This latest, a tiny, six week old, all black ( my greatest weakness) and yet to be named little boy has already made his mark. At the approach of one of the other cats, he mounts what would be, save for his stature, an impressive display of hissing, spitting, growling, and the comical sideways walk kittens favor when perceiving a threat. He has already taken several swipes at the black dog and made more than one advance toward the small brown one - the former met with a combination of hostility and bewilderment, the latter with abject terror. No pushover, this little one, his tough stuff attitude has already gained him a grudging respect. The smaller they are, I often think, the more they have to prove. The week ahead will be a handful as territory is redefined, dominance challenged, tempers soothed and patience tested.

After scolding one's cat, one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word.
And has filed it for reference. - Charlotte Gray