Spring Soak

The high-mounded, extraordinary froth of bubbles created by the Jacuzzi pulsing into the bubble bath was just how she liked it.  She sunk, hidden under the white froth. It was quiet enough on an early Saturday afternoon to hear the tiny hiss and pop as the bubbles subsided after the Jacuzzi turned off.

She stared at the painting that hung at the end of the large tub; her favorite, always.  When she’d brought her old friend up here last summer, who’d been visiting from Florida and had never seen the house before, she’d commented, “that’s my favorite”.  Open mouthed, her friend had turned to her saying “and that’s why you hang it up here behind a plant where no one can see it?”  Defensively she’d said lightly – well, the plant wasn’t that big when I hung it in here.  The plant in question, an over productive, root bound spider plant, heavy with fifty or more ‘babies’ hung far down into the tub and now, as she watched, was buried in bubbles as well. 
She remembered well the inspiration for “Winter Walk”, and how it felt so deeply personal she never wanted anyone to critique it, or, god forbid, say nothing about it.  People could be unwittingly cruel in their attempts to say something, anything, about art.  If it wasn’t Monet’s water lilies, or Van Gogh’s sunflowers, or some ghastly seascape (god, she hated seascapes) or a pop art poster or any other recognizable art, they usually chose to go one of three ways: “you did that?’” It’s...interesting” or “wow” (her friends did that) or, the worst – look at it, then look away and talk about something else (her sister did that).

She painted Winter Walk in 1995. So very long ago.  The brief snowfall in the morning of that late winter was over by early afternoon, the sun breaking through in spectacular glory, almost apologizing for the unexpected snow drop, just when everyone was shedding their down coats and heavy boots. When the sun came out, it seemed possible to believe that spring would arrive very soon and not disappoint them again. She’d wandered down a familiar lane, free of cars, fresh, snowsoft and still. She’d turned up a smaller, private road, drawn by the evergreens with their snow coverings like lace shawls, the promise of spring in the faint earthy smell of the woods, mantles of snow clumped in misshapen circles amongst the brown leaf ground cover. 

The sky was breaking blue, the yellow sun peeking out, the short and curvy road glistened black amongst it all.   It made her smile now to think of it, though her afternoon bubble bath was more therapeutic than lazy.  She thought of how pain changes lives and attitudes, how injuries and setbacks in your forties and fifties accomplish little more than strengthen your resolve to excel and succeed and accomplish as soon as the pain is gone.  She thought about these other pains that come about with age and the gene pool and lifestyle choices and old habits and bad habits.  And the surprise when the pains stay with you and you long for a day to be painless, you wonder at the future, the goals not yet achieved, the limitations that might lie ahead.  Yet she was grateful for the Jacuzzi, the painting, even the all –encompassing spider plant; grateful for the lazy Saturday afternoon, grateful for the memories. 

Carol

Editor's note:  This is the 6th in the Neighbors Essays series, chronologizing essays about neighbors at each home I lived in, and how I remember them.

Home #6                                                 Carol

Ann and John continued to visit for awhile after we moved to our new home, but gradually the relationship dissolved; no longer neighbors, and their teens now young adults forming their own relationships, starting their own families, we lost our common thread. The new house had woods in the back and on each side.  The front yard was deep and wide and fronted on a fairly busy road.  On the left side, separated by a lot of woods, lived the Sanders.  I never met Mrs. Sanders in the fourteen years I lived there, but Ed appeared at my door a few months after we moved in, with an offering of venison, in a carefully wrapped paper package, blood smeared across one side.  “This is the best part of the deer” he said proudly “very tender, just fry it up lightly in oil and you’ll have yourself a real treat”.  His eyes were small and completely disappeared when he smiled.  He had a weather beaten face, but a kind smile.  I thanked him profusely and put the package in the freezer.  Some time later, I cooked it up for the dogs, handling the frozen meat with wary, New York City hands.   Who eats deer meat, I wondered.

During most of hunting season, when you drove past their house, you could spot a deer stretched out in the doorway of the Sanders’ garage, draining its blood into buckets on the floor below. Behind the garage, in the deep back part of his property, Ed had chicken coops and a rooster that crowed all day intermittently, sometimes every hour.   

After seven years, the property that lay between us, sold to a young couple who built a house there.  They had a small boy and lots of energy for the big, modern house.  The first Christmas after they moved in, three year old Michael showed up at our door at 8am, as we were unwrapping.  He stood there in his footed pajamas, his hooded jacked unzipped. “Can I come in? Mommy and Daddy are still sleeping”. How had he gotten out?  Did he know it was Christmas?  We fed him some cereal, gave him the small gift we had for him and then walked him back home, knocking loudly to wake his parents up. 

Across the street lived a pleasant family with three teenagers (if a family with three teenagers can ever qualify for pleasant). The father was a musician who taught music at a local high school, and drove into the city one night a week to play clarinet in a jazz group. Jay was short, dark, bearded and broody.  He was bearded and wore black all the time.  He wore a beret and a purse crossed over his shoulder.  He seemed exotic and out of place in the rural town we lived in. His loud, battered Volvo started up in the morning with loud bangs and sputtering and great clouds of billowing smoke.

His wife Carol was fair and red headed and pleasingly plump with a contained bustiness, the sort that shook when she laughed and you imagined she would be relieved at night when she took off her bra.  She had a warm, winning smile and a neighborly cheeriness about her, though she and I talked rarely, living on opposite sides of a busy road as we did. We nodded and waved a lot. Occasionally we arrived at our mailboxes at the same time and exchanged hellos and how are you doings?

One beautiful day, as I arrived at the edge of the road to get my mail, Carol called over hello.  We chatted across the street about the daffodils and the weeping willow for a few minutes, and then, as the cars whizzed by between us, she called out “Jay left us. He said he was tired of being a father and having so much responsibility. He wants to concentrate on his music career now.”

I didn’t know what to say.  Was I envious of him and his newfound freedom or relieved for her ( he seemed so morose and dark)?

Much later, I wondered what she thought when our own household split like a house of cards and family treasures could be found heaped curbside, placed there by an angry man, free for the taking.