Spicer's Mill

Spicer's Mill - a tiny nook and cranny village in the shadow of the the Green Mountains in Vermont - was near deserted on the day I passed through. It was a Sunday in late September, leaves were already well turned to red and gold, and the air was clean and crisp. The shops along Main Street were shuttered but their display windows were filled with color and light - come Monday you would be able to buy a working spinning wheel, a handmade quilt, ribboned boxes of maple sugar candy or tins of syrup, an original painting or sketched notecards, beaded bags, wind chimes, scented sachets or hand crafted copper jewelry. You'd be able to take a carriage ride along the river in a covered buggy or hear a barbershop quartet by the Town Hall just after supper or drive to the edge of the village and see the stone mill and the water mill grinding away - best of all, there was an old fashioned soda shoppe with a candy striped canopy and a genuine soda fountain with an antique bookstore right next door. It was like falling into a time tunnel and waking up fifty years in the past and it made me remember how often I'd wondered if I hadn't been born into the wrong circumstances and in the wrong century.

I spent the night at a bed and breakfast, slept in an old four poster bed with a lace coverlet, woke to a perfect fall day with sunshine streaming through the sheer curtains and was back on the road by eight. I could've chosen the interstate but kept to the back roads instead, wanting to hold onto the sense of the past as long as I could. I passed dairy farms and green valleys, herds of grazing cows and sunlit pastures, crop fields and roadside produce stands selling tomatoes and pumpkins. Life in the country is hard, uncomplicated, serenely routine.

The Portsmouth skyline came into view just before dark and by eight I was home. The little log cabin atop the mountain was dark and quiet with wisps of smoke coming from the chimney. There would be no confrontation this night, I thought gratefully - and it was too soon to think about tomorrow - I quieted the dogs, added logs to the fire and curled up in the guest room, still thinking about Spicer's Mill and already planning my next temporary escape.

Geography was never my best subject, probably why it took me so long to catch on to the basics - a change of scenery may change the view but it's never an answer. It turns out that Spicer's Mill and other places like it were just different views of the same sunset.

I still can't name all the states on a map and although it's a different time zone, it's still the same sunset - I just see it through different eyes.

Seeding the Clouds

My daddy had a theory that all people can change for the better and the good. He kept to this belief despite all the evidence to the contrary and all the disappointments he encountered - hard times never discouraged him - it was one of his great strengths as well as one of his great weaknesses. Sometimes, he would say in his soft, serious voice, You just have to seed the clouds. There would be a sparkle in his blues eyes and his handsome face would crinkle into a smile. He was in his mid-forties, worn down some but not beaten by a troublesome marriage, not willing to give up his optimism or natural good humor. Not as much of him as I'd liked was passed to me - I am, in many ways, more like my mother - I have her dark side, a touch of her temper and impatience, and all her doubts about my fellow creatures. My daddy gave me the gentler things but oftentimes they pale in comparison and are overshadowed by my flaws.

Growing up I was torn between my emotions for him - I loved him and tried hard to trust him, but there were too often sides to be taken and he wasn't always on mine. Other times we conspired and kept secrets. He was, I finally decided, situational - trying to arbitrate the fastest path to peace without much regard for the truth - there was always more than enough blame to go around and he wanted to bypass it and get to a place where there was calm. He would try to seed the clouds with reason but it was at the expense of fairness and usually ended up badly.

My mother and I were each desperate to win, to be right, to be righteous, but she could make his life far more miserable than could I - a fact we all knew well. She was tragically jealous of her children, of being excluded and unwelcomed and not in control - she hated defiance in all forms and would not tolerate having her authority challenged or questioned. She seeded her own clouds with a slow but steady burning anger, openly or covertly raging against her family and trying to turn us against each other.

We're all rainmakers now and then - expect clear skies and sunshine but always be prepared to run for cover if it starts to pour. You never know who's been seeding the clouds.

Sweetness & Light

While I appreciate and admire it in others, it's no secret that when they passed out sweetness and light, I took a step sideways. There are days when I feel I met my quota twenty years ago and for the most part, am now niceness-depleted.

So when the elderly woman with the sneer stormed into the waiting room and snarled at me that I hadn't called her to remind her of her appointment, I was defensive. It could be, I suggested as mildly as I could but hearing the edge of sarcasm in my voice anyway, that it's because your appointment isn't until next week. She gave me a look of utter disbelief then threw the sign in clipboard at me. I never saw the like! she snapped, I'm going to find a doctor who is actually in the office more than he's out! None of you have the first idea of what you're doing! I could have let her go, should have let her go, and I almost did but at the last moment I couldn't resist the urge to wish her a nice day - in my best drop dead tone. As she stalked out, I remembered my last conversation with her - she'd been hostile and rude and I'd almost run out of patience and tact then - the airborne clipboard sealed the deal for me and I crossed out her name on the next week's schedule and neatly wrote in DO NOT

REAPPOINT - SHE THROWS THINGS.

It's precisely this kind of encounter that has led to my current state of mind.

Contrary to popular opinion, it's not just as easy to be nice, especially to idiots or manner-less, sneering old women or insurance companies with attitudes. Rumor has it that I was once overheard to ask, What, are you from the f**king stone age, after finally losing my temper with an insurance rep I'd been unsuccessfully trying to reason with for a half hour - I honestly don't recall that exact

incident but I have to admit that it sounds like me, driven to distraction by a lethal combination of stupidity, stubbornness and a failure to speak English.

There was even a time when I believed that profanity was the last resort of a limited mind - better to call someone a jaundiced secretion of a bilious toad's eye (Fawlty Towers) rather than the more common and overused son of a bitch - but linguistic creativity is overrated in today's society. If you have to translate the profanity for the offending fool, it loses effect.

"In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer".

Mark Twain

My kind of guy, that Mark Twain.

Aches & Pains, Aspercreme & Mondays

Half awake in the early morning darkness, the first thing I'm completely aware of is a sharp, stabbing pain at the base of my neck, just above my right shoulder. I move cautiously and it gets worse, a crick of the vilest sort has settled in during the night. My grandmother would say that I'd "slept wrong", an odd turn of phrase she often used to diagnose morning after complaints. I knew it would vanish in a day or so but that it was also going to make the current day grim, impairing motion and forcing me to pay attention and accommodate it. I cursed as venomously as I can at this early hour, then spend extra time in the shower letting hot water pound at the pain, and finally massage in a generous dose of Asperceme. By the time I'm dressed and ready to leave, it's eased off some - I'm not going to have my usual take for granted flexibility but it's not going to be the initial agony either.

I don't have my mother or grandmother's arthritis or my daddy's labored lungs. My knees still work normally if sometimes a bit stiffly, my back is strong, I can get down and back up again with only the occasional need for something to pull on. The routine aches and pains of getting older have been kind to me, visiting rarely and never staying overlong. I wonder at this good fortune and why I deserve it, am grateful for it, and frequently pray it endures. Mind over matter, Nana used to tell her swollen hands and feet and her bent back and then grimly go about her work, wincing and cursing but never surrendering. Well, I tell myself, It's a Monday.

I never noticed the flat tire at all, just got into the old Cruiser and went my merry way. After a mile or so I realized that the noise level was off the scale - I thought at first the muffler had fallen off and it was then I pulled over and discovered the two stunningly large gashes in the rear tire, each the size of my fist. Luckily, I was only a block from a familiar service station and twenty minutes later I was on my way again with a promise to be back that evening for a new tire. It's a Monday, I told myself again, These things happen.

The patient schedule was full and overbooked in some places but I was optimistic about the work day. We were prepared and ready to go, all the paperwork done, the cash drawers balanced. I could never have imagined that our youngest nurse would double over in pain with her first xray, be in the ER by nine and scheduled for surgery a half hour later with a ruptured appendix. All the organization in the world wasn't enough to compensate for her unexpected absence and by mid morning we were all running around like headless chickens - except of course, the doctor, who calmly and cheerfully flitted from patient to patient like a pollenizing bee in blue scrubs, happily unmindful of the stress and chaos taking place to make his day go smoothly. Great morning, girls! he called as he headed for his mid day nap and we broke for lunch. Not wanting to tempt fate by daring to wonder what else might go wrong, we gave a collective sigh, then locked up and took a half hour's respite.

Mondays are first born bullies, needing to strut, show off, flex their muscles and willing to kick you when you're down. I'm pretty sure the other days of the week feel guilty about being related to them - any self respecting weekday would.

The Moment is Now

The first weekends of fall slip away quickly and without much fanfare. Soon we'll be leaving work in the dark and missing the summer. The moment there's the first chill in the air, we'll forget how miserably hot and humid the summer was, how we complained and thought it would never end, how we yearned for autumn. We are, at times, discontented creatures with abridged memories. For myself, staying in the moment is hard - I prefer the soft haze of imagination to the sharp corners of reality and although there's absolutely no good reason for it, I can already feel the familiar, free floating autumn melancholy tugging at me.

When we used to go to the State Fair regularly, this was a time of carmel apples and cotton candy, of neon lights and coarse voiced carnies. We would spend an entire evening strolling the grounds, stopping at every booth and watching the parade of fair goers on the midway. It was romantic in a moonlight and sawdust in your veins kind of way, provided you didn't mind the stable smells and the crowds and the noise. But at some point, the fair changed and became dirty and overpriced and almost exploitative and we stopped attending - we grew out of the romance and magic and began to see what lay behind it. Later I was to wonder did the fair actually change or did we but it seemed a useless question by then, too sad to dwell on and too far in the past to remember.

I routinely remind and promise myself to stay in the day, to live just one day at a time and stop trying to go back or push ahead. It's a survival strategy that works for the most part despite all the things that work against it - my age, the unsolicited long term planning advice I hear, the uncertain, unknown future, and the almost here autumn.

We're all on our way to somewhere else, I suppose, and this time of the year reminds me of what an impermanent and unpredictable world we all share. It's not wise to stay too long at the fair. The moment is now and you're right on time.

Tame Tigers

A tiger don't change its stripes, my grandmother said darkly and jammed a helpless clothespin onto the line, No more'n people change their god given natures. My mother sighed audibly.

They had been hissing and spitting at each other like stray cats since dawn - it had started with who had let the fire die and escalated rapidly to why the woodbox wasn't filled then - now it seemed to be about who was in charge of assigning chores and keeping children in their proper places. There was an icy cold tension in the air between them,a false kind of courtesy that gave me fear knots in my belly and I knew an explosion was inevitable. Neither of these two steel-willed, stubborn women was likely to give an inch or admit to being wrong - both could've argued with a fencepost all night, as my daddy liked to say, and never lost a step. It might well have gone on for hours or days but for the arrival of Miss Hilda, who came marching down the gravel driveway in her riding boots, her walking stick sharply thwacking against her thigh with ever step. Alice! she shouted to my grandmother, There's been an accident! Nana dropped the wet sheets and turned. Who? she shouted back and Miss Hilda, now nearly at the end of the drive said more quietly, It's The Woman From Away, it's Katie Rose Albright.

My mother was already coming out the back door, car keys in hand, and all three women piled into the Lincoln and drove rapidly up the drive, turned toward the mainland and disappeared in a cloud of dust. The factory whistle blew a sudden, long, piercing blast - then began repeating it every few seconds - the signal for alarm, possibly even disaster.

Katie Rose - who had been an island resident for some fifteen years since her marriage to Bill but who had not had the foresight to be "island born", was still considered as being "from away", a status she was to hold until her husband's death some years later. But on this day, she was a woman in need of help and the village united without a second thought. It was an old wringer washing machine, exactly like the one Nana used every washday, that took her hand and nearly took her life - she'd snagged her ring and before she could stop the feed, the wringers had drawn in her hand and crushed it. Katie Rose may have been "from away" but she was also a woman of resource and great bravery - according to Sparrow, who had been the first to reach her - when she realized she couldn't free herself, she hacked off her hand at the wrist and then staggered to the telephone, managing to get a call in to Elsie and packing her butchered wrist before passing out cold on the linoleum floor.

Reckon I could live to be a hunnerd, Sparrow said later, Ain't never gonna understand how that women didn't damn sure bleed to death where she lay. But Katie Rose survived, learning to live one handed and earning the respect of every living soul on the island, even while still being known as The Woman From Away.

My mother and grandmother resumed their feud the evening of the accident and I dreamed of deadly washing machines and tame tigers.

Rush Hour

The harbor was bright with sun and sailboats as I made the drive home. It was late September, just a few steps away from fall and it had been a long and wearying day. Traffic snarled at the bridge and I looked toward the skyline, imagining what it would be like to live in one of the glistening towers, far above the fray - a modern, open spaced apartment with a patio and a fireplace and a crisply uniformed doorman. I'd go dancing at night and shop at the newly opened Saks, have fresh bagels and orange juice for breakfast, carry a perfectly groomed toy dog to the Commons for a daily walk and always wear high heels and a suede jacket with just the exact amount of fringe to suggest a wild side.

None of it would ever happen, nor did I really want it, but it was a pleasant enough distraction for the city's rush hour and it helped pass the time.

I was working for the telephone company at the time - handling U.S. Government accounts, not subject to being in a union, newly married. We had moved from a two room, roach infested apartment to a two bedroom 4th floor walk up with windows that looked out onto the street. We had actual furniture - second hand when we were feeling ritzy, cinder blocks when we weren't. There were just the two of us and a grey striped cat called Tiffany who liked to sit on the window sills and coo at the pigeons. We'd given up on dogs by then and were more than content with a single cat - we spoiled her shamelessly and loved her silly.

It was a down and out neighborhood populated with students from Northeastern, hungry musicians and starving artists. There was a war on in those days and protests and police marches were common in our part of the city.

The boy I had married hawked copies of The Boston Phoenix, a then almost underground newspaper, on the streets and shops, regularly being moved on by the police. We traveled mainly by subway and bus, except for our weekly trudge to the laundromat and an occasional foray to the suburbs to visit a regular grocery store for provisions. I don't think I ever appreciated the simplicity or the freedom of that life until it was gone. We first moved to a small apartment in Somerville, living over a dentist's office close to Tufts and able to walk pretty much anywhere, then to a two story duplex in Norwood where we had to drive everywhere. By then, we were five, having added a tabby called Sassafrass and my first tuxedo cat, called Amanda. We were on the path of upward mobility and there was no turning back.

Sometimes, usually at night, I missed the city and its noise and its lights. There were no more harbors to sit by,

no skyscrapers to dream about, and no more sailboats to watch. We were growing up and away.

All In Your Mind

Whenever we complained about feeling ill, my mother would shrug and say, It's all in your mind. Don't think about it and it'll go away. We didn't like being accused of malingering - especially because there were times when it was undeniably true - but we were still children and being believed mattered. Besides, we were to learn, just because it's in your mind, doesn't make it less real, just less apparent.

My mind is a jumble most of the time, a junk drawer I never get around to cleaning out. I do the odd rearranging when I get frustrated at not being able to find something but mostly I only open it when I've exhausted all the other possibilities. Here I keep all the old grievances, the memories of what might have been, the dreams and ambitions I gave up and still trip over every now and then - the sidewalk cracks I stepped on with a vengeance, the beer cans hidden under the floorboards, the words I wish I'd never said and those I wish I had - the ABC's of denial, all crammed up and tangled together.

Still and all, I may be healthier and more organized than I think. Taking my friend Henry home last night was a challenge as he is wheelchair bound and his left side is useless. A ramp was in place from the driveway to the front porch landing but then, confronted by no space to navigate a wheel stair and three unramped steps, I was at a loss for our next move. His wife opened the front door and immediately began a stream of profanity and abuse, very loud and startlingly obscene, so much so that I wondered the neighbors didn't call the police. Like a madwoman, she shrieked and cursed, heaping one accusation after another on her semi-paralyzed husband, demanding that he cooperate and have some concern for her. This is why I won't take you out, you selfish, f**king cripple! she wailed. I watched and listened to all this in dazed silence until he was finally inside and the door slammed with a final curse.

I may be scattered and still searching, hung up on the past and uncertain of the future, but at least I'm not

certifiable. I drove home replaying this sick scene in my mind and thinking about how what's all in your mind can be so real and so damaging. After some thirty years of marriage, how one human being could treat another this way mystifies me - I shudder to think about what goes on with the two of them locked in that little house together but what must go on in the trainwreck of her mind scares me more.

Leave A Light

Lucy had a profound fear of the dark.

Each night her daddy attempted to comfort her and reason her out of it and each night she would tremble and cry until he left a lantern burning. He would gently ask her what she was afraid of but she could never say - she saw faces of monsters everywhere, in the clouds, in the water, and especially outside her window at night in the scratchy tree branches. She'll grow out of it, her stepmother said dryly but Claude wasn't so sure. He was careful to leave her bedroom door open slightly and covered her window with dark cloth but shutting out the moonlight only made things worse. By the time she was ten, she'd begun sleepwalking and her daddy took to spending his nights in a rocking chair outside her room - several nights a week he would intercept her and carefully guide her back to her bed. She turned twelve and things were no better - Charlotte's patience ran out and with a handful of nasty words to Claude, she packed her things and left. Child needs a doctor not a jailer, she complained bitterly to my mother, And I need a man not a nursemaid.

Lucy's sleepwalking abruptly stopped with Charlotte's departure, a fact Claude took particular notice of although he said nothing, but her nightmares continued. One summer doctor suggested a variety of sleep medications, Rowena volunteered her herb cures, Aunt Vi suggested a dog. Only this last made any sense to Claude and when Uncle Shad's hound produced a litter of puppies, he took Lucy to pick one out for her very own, a rough coated, short legged and long bodied mix of God knew what - Lucy immediately christened him Daniel, he was about to enter a den of lions, she explained to Claude - and the two became inseparable. With Daniel sleeping by her side, Lucy's nightmares faded and eventually stopped completely and her fear of the dark, although with her for the rest of her life, diminished considerably.

To demean or dismiss a fear in another is to strengthen it. It must be dismantled and dissected, piece by piece, until it's proved false or harmless. It's a slow, up and down process but sometimes a hand to hold, a warm body at your side, a light left burning or a dog called Daniel can help you find the way through.

Jellybeans

After four years and five different medical software programs, we are in training for yet another new system, this one light years beyond anything we even knew existed and state of the art in sophisticated technology, designed to be completely paperless. After a morning of training, we were feeling trapped in a landscape we didn't recognize, listening to a dialect of computer-ese we didn't speak, cast adift in a sea of jargon that made no sense.

Several hours in, someone asked a question and our perky training rep gave us a sweet, patient smile. Well, she said cheerfully, If that happens, you just check your D Jellybeans.

Jellybeans? As in bunnies and Easter eggs?

I heard the words but couldn't quite make any sense of them - what possible connection did any of this have to Easter candy? When I looked up, I saw four other faces all with the same dazed expression that I was sure was on my face. I looked back over my notes - hieroglyphics I was reasonably sure I would never be able to translate or remember once training was ended - but found no reference to jellybeans. I listened to the rep explain further,

peered at the screen but found no enlightenment. Wait, I muttered, What the hell is a D Jellybean? Another sweet, patient smile and then a complicated, incomprehensible answer that seemed to have something to do with olives and intra-office communications. I found myself in the middle of a flashback - an early September day in the college bookstore where I worked, a student coming in and saying that he was looking for a mouse. Highly offended, I had indignantly told him that we did not harbor rodents and suggested that he try Food Services - where, it was rumored - mice ran wild and were plentiful. (True story, but I digress...)

We are a small office - one doctor, two nurses, two receptionists. We are accustomed to communicating verbally or in writing and the concept that the doctor would actually check his laptop to find out where he was supposed to go next rather than come to the front and ask was ludicrous.

At the end of the day, we were tired, discouraged, doubtful, and dizzied by the avalanche of information to be digested. We went our separate ways, foggily re-thinking our career choices but trying our best to be resolute and optimistic.

I was happier when mice had four feet tail and tails, jellybeans were candy, and change was what you got from a vending machine.

Warning: May Be Habit Forming

The road to my mother's is dirt, narrow, and an obstacle course of teeth jarring ruts - you take your life in your hands if you exceed 5 mph and God help you both if you meet a vehicle coming the opposite way. The leaves are turning and from a distance the woods appear to be on fire - the air is crisp and a little harsh but the lake is placid and deeply blue. A family of wild ducks passes by the dock and their chatter echoes in the otherwise silent afternoon.

The house, a summer vacation cottage with some improvements really, is a nasty little place with small rooms and a large outside deck. We enter through the kitchen and I cringe at the grime on the countertops - a thin film of it seems to cover everything and it smells and feels of grease. The living room, which thankfully opens onto the deck, is musty with the faint smells of urine, dirty laundry, and old newspaper - the coffee table shines with fresh polish but for some odd reason, this is the only item my mother has ever chosen to clean and the rest of the room is shabby and overlaid with dust and dirt. Despite the chill in the air, my parents are sitting on the outside deck beyond the smudged and fingerprint smeared sliding glass doors, my daddy reading and my mother knitting and drinking sherry. Having spotted the ducks, the dogs run happily through the house to the deck and down the stairs to the edge of the water - the alarmed ducks protest and rapidly swim away and while the dogs follow them on land, neither is brave enough to set a paw in the cold water and both eventually return to the deck, panting and out of breath. They anxiously greet my parents then both drift inside and lie side by side by the fire.

We spend a quiet if somewhat distant from each other afternoon, talking of nothing - at length and in great detail. After so many years of practice, it comes almost easily except for the invisible undercurrent of tension that I feel.

I am not comfortable in this cottage with its pretty lake view, it makes me feel like I want a long, hot shower and the prospect of eating a supper prepared in its kitchen makes me vaguely ill. I finally plead a sick headache and no appetite and am able to escape, hugging my daddy briefly and bypassing my mother. I do agree to dinner at a restaurant halfway between our respective homes the next weekend - it's against my better judgement and I'm pretty sure I'll regret it, but my husband glares at me when I hesitate and not wanting to fight on a second front, I say yes. My daddy gives me a small, sad smile for this - it just makes me feel more guilty - in my heart, I think he will never stop trying to make things right between my mother and me. It's a habit he can't seem to break, a hope he refuses to let go of until her final dying days and then it becomes a cause.

I don't know why I don't give in, it would comfort him to have us reconcile and even a deathbed formality would

preserve appearances and make things easier for everyone in these last days. But I refuse to provide this one last illusion. The old habit of hate and the new one of self preservation outlast and overcome the ones of guilt and shame and the need to please. My mother's death comes and goes and the part of me that isn't relieved celebrates quietly. Ironic that a man who has spent his life comforting the grieving does not understand when it's time to take a step back and let people be.

The chief difficulty with habits is they're habit forming.

One More Cat in the Carnival

I open my eyes at a few minutes to six - remember it's Saturday and hoping the animals haven't noticed that I'm awake, turn over and burrow back under the covers. Sometimes without the alarm clock going off, they don't realize the time but this morning that isn't the case and in a matter of seconds I'm crawled over, pounced upon and barked fully awake. I get up, let the dogs out, feed them all and crawl back into bed. The next time I open my eyes it's noon.

The cat who lives in the garage is sitting in a circle of sunlight on the back deck. She's a pretty thing, I realize, a soft shade of gray with muted undermarkings and black rings on her tail. She runs when I open the back door but then hears the telltale sound of friskies and slowly reappears, making her way to the bowl with slow, light steps and keeping an eye on me all the while. I talk to her while she eats but don't attempt to get any nearer. She regards me with those big yellow eyes, watching and appraising, calm but vigilant. The sounds of the camera's shutter don't seem to distract her and her look turns slightly more relaxed - she stretches, strolls toward another patch of sunlight and settles in to groom her face and paws. The next time I look out the window, she's sleeping peacefully on a bed of pinestraw, half in sun and half in shade, tail twitching randomly to the sounds of birds and squirrels in the trees overhead. Don't even think it, a small voice whispers in my head, she would never fit in and you know it.

The fact that I'm even allowing the thought is unnerving and I give myself a severe scolding before resolutely turning away. This will not do, I say outloud, This will definitely not do. And then a variation, I will not do this, I will definitely not do this. No way, no how.

Sadly, I have been known to disregard my own advice.

Happily, the cat isn't likely to know this.

I have, of course, been at this particular crossroad a number of times but I was younger then and the years didn't seem to have an end. One more cat in the carnival would hardly be noticed, I told myself, small sacrifice to save a life - when it comes to homeless cats, I do have a gift for overcoming my own objections and good sense. The one saving grace is that the cat will have something to say on the subject and she shows no signs of wanting to make a lifestyle change.

I pray for a mild winter, a strong will, and enough friskies to get us all through.

Dark Songs

We don't always know it, but we mostly get to choose between being happy or sad, clear or confused, up or down.

It's just that sad, confused and down tend to be easier.

My friend, Brian, an incredibly gifted songwriter, has come out with a new cd and it's filled with dark songs and heartbreak - lyrics about loneliness and being abandoned, lost love and nights that never end. I listen and feel myself being pulled downward. Sometimes you have to write from where you are, he tells me, Put it all out there and see where it leads. I love him dearly but I put this particular cd aside in favor of something lighter and happier - something with less insight into the human condition and more emphasis on the positive - something raucous and bluesy and escapist.

We're led down wrong roads and into dark songs all the time but we choose to stay or turn around. Whenever I retrace my steps, I almost always discover I could've gone a different way or had a different mindset. I like to put the blame on circumstance - don't we all - but I'm blessed with free will and self determination and when push comes to shove, it finally falls on my own shoulders. I find that gratitude is the best defense - I make a list of all the things in my life I'm grateful for and tack it on the wall, read it every morning and remind myself to say thank you, even for the dark songs.

Shed a little light in the dark corners and blow away the cobwebs. A little dust can't hurt you and a sad song is just a sad song.

The Doctor-Less Summer of 1955

I was seven the doctor-less summer of 1955 when Alfie Moreau died.

He was putting the final coat of paint on the church steeple at the time when, according to Rowena who was passing in her buckboard, he suddenly grabbed his chest, staggered, and fell backward - some 70 feet to the ground where he landed on the brick border of Lydia's newly planted flower bed. He broke his back, both legs, fractured his skull and demolished the pansies.

Prob'ly his heart give out, Rowena reported to my grandmother, Most likely dead 'fore he hit the ground.

Nana scowled. Ol' Alf, she muttered, Never did have the sense God gave a goat.

That's so, Rowena agreed, Reckon he didn't have no business painting a steeple or any other damn thing at 82.

Reckon if'n we'd had us a doctor it'd made a difference, Nana asked.

Rowena shook her head, Not likely, she said sadly, Not from 70 feet up.

The youngest Miller boy took sick with colic that same summer, there was an outbreak of croup in late August and at one point half the island was confined with a nasty summer flu, but Alfie's death remained the most talked about. People told stories about the first three times he had tried to ride the old plowhorse - two broken legs and a dislocated collarbone. The time he'd been daydreaming in right field when one of the Sullivan boys connected and the speeding softball had caught ol' Alf square in the face - shattered his cheekbone and nearly cost him an eye. The time he'd picked a fight with Bill Albright over the price of bootleg whiskey - three broken ribs and a shattered knee. The only time he'd gone hunting - and shot off two toes. By the time he'd reached 30, the general opinion was that he was indestructible.

There were other stories of Alfie, less adventurous and more kind - he volunteered for everything, showing up unannounced with a paintbrush or a wagon full of firewood or a load of lumber. He had a nose for trouble and a radar-like sense for those in need. He often worked from dawn to dusk - would pull vegetables, feed livestock, fill in on the ferry, drive the mail car, wash windows, never take a thing in return.

Thought it would take a full on freight train to stop ol' Alf, Uncle Shad remarked at the funeral.

God rest his soul, James said kindly, So did we all.

How like Alfie Moreau to die doing for others, Lydia added with a rueful glance at the ruined flower bed and the randomly coated gold bricks, I imagine I can always replant it.

And she did, but with wildflowers and climbing ivy and a small plaque that read Alfie's Garden. She rebuilt the border using only the gold bricks. Alfie had been the only casualty of the doctor-less summer of 1955 and he had earned a remembrance.

Roadblocks & Rules

We are all, so the old saying goes, works in progress. Some of us have progressed further and faster and others have been set aside for a time, but the real joy is that none of us are finished. Life, as AA proclaims, is a journey, not a destination. And it's true. You can get there from here.

But.....I hear myself say, All those roadblocks.....

Drive around! I hear myself answer, There's always another way!

I never had much use for Norman Vincent Peale, thought he was preachy and held too high an opinion of himself and his theories. I like to discover things for myself, as if it were my own idea, but the world is full of wisdom there for the taking. Listen and learn, as Nana used to say, Odds are you ain't near as smart as you think. She was, as usual, right in her assessment. She had a way of being curiously jaded and new penny optimistic at the same time, wavering between the two like a dandelion in the wind, never seeing the conflict. Even as a child, I seemed to be the one step forward, two steps back kind - a little forward progress, a little backsliding. In the end, you come out where you're supposed to be despite the roadblocks.

Within the context of free will, I'm partial to the theory or predestination, the concept that there's a plan in place put together by forces far older and wiser than we can imagine. One way or another, I think we more or less adhere to it although not consciously. I like to think that when it's right, it happens - be it falling in love or finding a job or buying a house. Not that we're denied choices or the right to change our minds or make mistakes - it's just that I find comfort in the idea of some cosmic blueprint at work, a guiding force that watches over us but attaches no conditions and pulls no strings. It doesn't interfere or judge, doesn't keep score and never says I told you so.

I think my grandmother thought the same way, that we live within a framework of something powerful and maybe even all-seeing, that we work, live and play within it but are still free to change direction as we please. The roadblocks we encounter are there for a reason - and there are rules for getting around them.

Rule One: Real: You'll need a map and possibly an alternative approach.

Rule Two: Imaginary: If your mind built it, your mind can dismantle it.

Rule Three: Man Made: If man assembled it, man can take it apart in less time.

If life were easy, we'd all be good at it, I think to myself.

Move On, Charlie

It can't be easy being a celebrity but somehow it makes me feel a little better that a well known face doesn't exempt you from life's ordinary ups and downs or protect you from your own stupidity. Truth is, I'm world weary of Charlie Sheen, Michelle Bachman, Brittany Spears and Rick Perry and I don't give a damn if Michael Douglas still smokes. For all the public faces that want to tell me what's in my best interests, get over it and get on with it, folks - the ship's going down and you're arranging deck chairs. If you can't feed your family on $400K a year, then there's something wrong with your eating habits - it's time we gave up on the idea that America is a classless society. I'm thinking I may vote a write in ballot - Warren Buffet for President, at the very least we'd get tax reform and maybe a touch of civility in politics.

I love my president. He's elegant and educated, well mannered and honest. I believe he's dedicated and sincere and willing to fight for fairness and peace but he's caught in a den of thieves and fools, surrounded by those who seek his political if not actual destruction. He's an idealist still, too much of a gentleman to fight on their terms and I fear he will not get a second chance to turn things around - the opposition is too committed to the rich and the corrupt, too busy lining their own pockets and insuring their personal places of power. Class warfare may not be a phrase they like - unless it works in their benefit - but it's securely in place in this country and will not be evicted or changed. When politicians can't pass a bill for disaster relief funding for those in the most dire need, it's time to Move On, Charlie - we've forgotten the basics in favor of getting re-elected.

I don't know what they have to say,

It makes no difference anyway,

Whatever it is, I'm against it!

No matter what it is,

Or who commenced it,

I'm against it!

Your proposition may be good,

But let's have one thing understood,

Whatever it is, I'm against it!

And even when you've changed it,

Or condensed it,

I'm against it!

The Marx Brothers

"Horsefeathers"

Used to be, I could tell the difference between politics and a Marx Brothers movie.

Tinker to Evers to Chance

There are moments when the elements unite, the gods smile, and the skies clear to make room for moonlight -they don't happen often and they don't last long but like Tinker to Evers to Chance, they're perfect - exquisitely timed, flawlessly executed and beautifully synchronized. These moments don't send invitations and there won't be time to freshen up - your only choice is to go with them or pass them by. Take the time to think them through and they'll be gone.

It might be a perfect photograph, the sight of someone getting off a plane, the first breath from a brand new child. You could be standing at an altar or running from one. It might be those final seconds when you realize you have a problem and are ready to accept help, a parachute jump, a leap of faith, a chord so sweet it wrings you out and leaves you dazed. It could be an unexpected kiss, the look in the eyes of a dying friend or the joy of being trusted. It could be a secret revealed or a life saving outreached hand. It might be a dance or a small kindness or a sudden memory. It could the very second you let go of the pain or choose to forgive or have a tiny flash of inspired insight into your own inner self. Don't anticipate, don't plan or scheme, don't prepare or imagine what you will say - when you least expect it, ready or not, the time and moment will choose you.

Part of the magic of living is in the unknown, in the mysteries we find in ourselves and other people. There is sorrow to be uncovered, love to be found and lost, celebration to be had and joy to be shared. We find friends in unlikely places, commonality in struggle, and strength in numbers. And through it all, whether keeping to a strict agenda or simply drifting, there are these moments of perfection. Ironically, not all are happy - roses wouldn't grow without rain. Without the forced double play, the homerun would be meaningless.

Patience and timing and luck.

Tinker to Evers to Chance.

Prim, Proper & Perfect

I was in college when my cousin Gaye arrived in Boston to attend secretarial school. We were lukewarm friends, only related due to the fact that her daddy and mine had fought in the war together and become fast friends - she was terribly proper, nylons and low heeled pumps while I was worn out jeans and battered Nikes. She wanted all the traditional things, a pretty home, a picture perfect family, motherhood and all the amenities. We spent a fair amount of time together for two people with so little in common and my daddy often expressed his surprise that we got along at all. You come from such different worlds, he would say, How do you tolerate each other?

I had no answer for this. Gaye didn't own a pair of jeans - it wasn't ladylike - just the thought of crooked seams in her stockings was enough to undo her and she would go absolutely nowhere without perfect hair and makeup. She liked everything coordinated - shoes, gloves, purse, hat - and I was doing well if my earrings matched. She never cursed or lost her temper, never did anything that wasn't planned, liked only quiet music, and never raised her voice. She smiled a great deal and liked to quote from the Bible in moments in rare moments of stress or anger. I preferred to curse like a sailor and throw things. I thought she was prim and ridiculously fastidious. She thought I was wild and uncivilized and both of us thought the other would come to a disappointing and bad end.

She was, she freely admitted, husband hunting - preferably an intellectual sort of man with the potential for wealth and an appreciation for the finer things in life, one willing to support her while she produced and raised children. She was methodical about the process, attending social events and dances and teas, meeting and evaluating potential suitors with practiced ease. Some she encouraged, others she discarded, but by the end of her last year, she returned home empty handed, having found no one with the proper qualifications. I've exhausted the pool of available men, she told me, There's simply no one acceptable. I wished her better luck at home, watched her board a plane and sighed with relief.

She did marry, did produce and raise a brood of children, did find her pretty house and picture perfect family and lives to this day happily and contented with her junior league sort of life. She writes once a year, at Christmas, a lengthy and detailed synopsis of the year's accomplishments and achievements. The letters are cheerfully breezy and chatty and superficial - there are details of trips and adventures and career choices and grandchildren, all enthusiastically punctuated and underlined - the random happy face is sometimes used in place of a period and I can't shake off the feeling that this is the kind of a letter a Stepford wife might write - prim, proper, husband approved and perfect.

In comparison, my life has been disorderly and chaotic, filled with ups and downs and foolish drama, a series of mistakes and good choices, of learning and moving on, an on going battle against tradition, soft spoken geniality and accommodation. I may have had precious little stability but she's had precious little passion.

Who is to say which was the wiser choice?

No Joy in the Flower Beds

When it comes to doing yardwork, I would - as my friend Michael so colorfully says - rather be in hell with a broken back, so I was delighted when the man who cuts the grass suggested someone who would come and clean things up.

Patrick arrived on a suffocatingly humid afternoon, along with Mollie, an eight year old lab and therapy dog with stunningly good manners. After no more than an hour's work, Mollie was peacefully sleeping in the shade by the front steps while Patrick, shirtless and looking as if he'd just stepped out from a swimming pool, cut and hauled limbs, packed lawn and leaf bags to overflowing, trimmed the crepe myrtle, watered and mulched the flower beds. It was 106 and sweat poured from his shoulders and back and arms, even accumulated on his eye lashes. I could barely breathe in the heat but he was unstoppable and by the time he was done, the yard had been transformed and a brush pile of green debris four feet tall and thirty feet long had been neatly arranged and laid out next to the curb. Even Mollie seemed pleased at the results - from the drivers side of the pickup she looked out and gave an approving woof.

It's probably an extravagance on my part to pay people to do this kind of work for me when I'm completely capable of doing it myself - but no amount of antidepressant or antiperspirant can seduce me into outside manual labor in these temperatures. I know it's against a long southern tradition but flower beds bring me no joy. So I thank the good Lord for the roofers, the trash men, the mail carriers, the painters and carpenters and all the undervalued yardmen who for mere coin of the realm will dehydrate and sweat themselves into oblivion to make my life easier.

The Cat Who Lives in the Garage

The kittens that were born under the house last spring have all grown and gone their separate ways but their mother, rather than return from wherever she came, has - regrettably - taken up residence in the garage. It's not the Ritz, not even a loving home, but it's dry and reasonably safe and since her occupancy, the mouse population is down considerably. Although it was against every rational instinct I had, compassion finally won out and each evening I leave her a dish of food and a bowl of fresh water.

She's just an ordinary gray and black striped cat, four white paws and big eyes, one of a dozen or so that roam the neighborhood and scavenge for survival in between breeding. She's shy, cautious, but not overtly unfriendly and she hasn't much fear of the dogs. I doubt she was born homeless - when I open the double doors, she gives me a brief and surprised look then moves gracefully into the shadows, but not more than a few feet away - she may sense that I present no threat but life has taught her to be wary. I wonder if she was left behind or just turned out, if she had a name or was ever loved. She's agile and looks to be healthy, free of any scars or injuries, a victim of being unwanted rather than outright abuse or neglect. It takes a cold and soulless heart to mistreat an animal and if it were up to me, no one who does it would live to do it a second time.

The small brown dog knows she's there and each time I let her out she races for the garage, eases between the double doors and starts searching. The cat watches from the work bench, silently assessing the threat, then deciding the danger is minimal, meows to give away her position. The little dog looks up, sees her, and begins to wiggle from nose to tail, anxiously whining and whimpering to be acknowledged, frantic to make a new friend and not understanding why the trespassing feline isn't equally as willing. The cat, true to her nature, pretends not to notice.

When I came back to the south for the last time, I came alone except for my black cat and we lived in a friend's garage while waiting for the house in New England to sell and for my husband and other animals to join us. The floors were rough, cold concrete - we slept together on a lumpy cot and lived out of cardboard boxes and suitcases,

eating at a different fast food restaurant each night and waiting for time to pass. It felt - although it wasn't - like poverty.

The cat who lives in the garage has not sacrificed her dignity or independence and as we live in a reasonably mild climate, chances are that she will survive and live to breed again. Some things are inevitable but I still damn the cruelty and stupidity that brought her to me.