Junk Yard

Brown Bag in Burlington Vermont

Methodist Church, Shady NY

View from Fashion Avenue, Kingston, NY

Does it Bring You Joy?

What are the things you save? Over years, decades?  A current trend, Kon Mari, amasses believers who wish to “declutter”. The simple directive that will resolve your organizational chaos may be contained in the answer to the zen question you must say out loud as you hold each “thing” in your hand and ask...
“Does it bring me joy?”

“If you answer yes, you keep the item. If you hesitate or say no, you donate it or throw it out. It’s simple, it’s brilliant, and it’s something that's completely intuitive. You can spend a lot of time justifying how something might at some point be useful to you and therefore decide to keep it, but whether something brings you joy is an emotional question and one that can be answered almost instantly: If you feel joy or if you don’t feel joy: there's no need to make it more complicated than that.” Nataly Kogan, Living Happier blog

But...wait!  Is it that simple?

So what if I’ve saved that grass skirt, shoved in a plastic bag, nestled next to the 1980’s metallic silver rayon dickie (did I really ever wear that), at the bottom of the plastic bin, I think as I begin my journey into Kon Mari?

Does it bring me joy? Kind of, it does. And those darn doilies (someone spent so much time making them, how can I put them in the bag to Good Will?) or even that slinky, silky peach colored 1930’s negligee with matching tap pants, trimmed with fine lace and so slinky the seams would surely burst in abject disbelief were I to attempt to put one arm or leg in it. 

But that grass skirt, that green papery, rustle-y skirt, brought me joy that night of the “Once in Blue Moon Luau” event.  I’d conceived and planned and thrown myself and everyone around me into a tizzy  about the fundraiser for month and weeks and the days leading up to it. I close my eyes and still see the four Hula dancers who arrived in a green Subaru from Newburgh. Who ducked into the bathrooms to change clothes, coming out with skimpy tops and bare midriffs and flowered headbands and tropical flowered sarongs, with grass skirts over them.  I see the Polynesian food spread out and fragrant on the long tables under the tent. Remember how I’d had to talk David from the Little Bear into making the food for the event.  “We are Chinese, I don’t know Polynesian, don’t do Polynesian.”  He’d seemed insulted by my request. “But your food is all so good!  What about just the spare ribs, then some rice – just make the fried rice, and some other dish.  Can’t you just go heavy on the sweet ‘n sour sauce and call it Polynesian?  Please?”  I was secretly smitten with David, his handsome smooth features and sexy smile, his warm handshake.  He was always crisp in a pale blue or yellow oxford button down shirt, lean in his slacks,  a slight clean citrus scent as he greeted his customers with a smile and a “right this way please”.  We’d seen him countless Friday nights with our appetites craving the succulent shrimp dishes, the spicy sauces, the perfect, crisp vegetables that were unfailingly scrumptious every single time. David, who greeted and seated and said good bye when we left, was in contrast to our favorite waiter, who I called Humphrey Bogart, due to his pencil thin size and ever present slight scowl and brief nods.  David had given in to my begging about the catering job, with a hint of a small smile in his eyes. “Okay, okay,  I’ll do it, but only for you; don’t tell anybody, ruin my reputation.  Phht – Polynesian.” Our group, who’d worked so hard to pull off the event had eaten fried rice and spareribs for endless days afterwards, there was so much left over. 

That simple, dark green papery skirt that I’d worn over my Van Gogh Starry Night rayon slinky dress,  recalled the Tiki huts we constructed, the large plywood board with two cut-outs atop the sailor and the hula girl images Richard and I had painted for guests to have their photos taken. We had a Tiki bar, with a blue drink concoction that Julia invented, a Tattoo hut (removable of course), colorful leis for ecery guest, and the Beach Boys music blaring before and after the Hula girls Dance segment and leading us in a hula line dance. 

A hazy memory of me creeps forward, me swinging like a monkey around the poles of the tent at the end of the night when our cleanup crew was wrung out and sprawled in the folding chairs. That following Monday at the office, when young Hallsworth told me that he kept playing back in his mind how damn tired he was  at the end of that night and how had I gained more energy at the end of the evening, frenziedly dancing to the Beach boys “Surfin Safari” and “Surfin’ USA?”

Was it a success? Hell, no.  Turned out that the Blue Moon brought a heavy downpour a half hour before the event, then became a steady, soft rain that made the colored lights glow like traffic lights on a rainy avenue, but also made it a bit spongy underfoot.  By the time it turned to a gentle Irish mist, it was probably too late for guests to step out for the night. The hordes did not break down the freshly bushwhacked trail to that enchanting space by the Tannery Brook. The lights glowed, the people dribbled in, and all who came said it was breathtaking, exquisite, amazing what we’d created with the space. One of our board members said “I wish more people could see this.”  Yeah, me too.  But we lost money and the grass skirt got stashed away.

And David, that dear, sweet man, collapsed in the office of his daughter’s elementary school one afternoon the following year and was pronounced dead.  He was forty seven. Does that grass skirt bring me joy?  Oh yes.  

Writing on the Wall

I have a friend who writes on her bedroom wall. Her bedroom for this winter is the smallest in her house, used sometimes as her creative space, and so chosen for winter sleeping, because it costs less to heat. 

She says when she is getting tired reading, before she turns out the lights, when she is already in that noddy, sleepy state, when the head begins to drop, then snaps up wakeful and surprised, she says that the thoughts and poems and words she has written there carefully, in her small neat hand, in pencil, resemble lines like cracks in a sidewalk, or marbling in a tile floor.  Or ancient words on the walls of a cave.  She likes the look of it.

She knows she can tell me these things, but would not tell others.  “People would think I’ve lost it!”

I nod as we walk.  I am intrigued by her sincere revelation.  I think it is a brave, and only very slightly, screwy thing to do. I know her as a kind, patient, gentle soul who reflects deeply on matters at hand and human interactions.  She processes slowly, she has told me.  She likes to watch movies at least twice, and re-reads books for the same reasons.  “I get something new out of it the second time, something I missed when I first saw it or watched it.” She’s careful, thrifty, compassionate.  Introverted, her quiet presence can erupt in a loud laugh, head thrown back, at a funny story or a random one-liner.  I can make her laugh and I like to do it, like the see the zaniness that lies beneath the surface of the quietness.

My friend is not a person given to mindless neglect of property or possessions.  This nocturnal activity seems at odds with the person who lines her trunk, so as not to get it dirty, has a small rug on top of her car mat for the same reason.  She is meticulous and detail oriented; likes to make plans, but has been known to badger herself into spontaneity when an opportunity knocks.   Yet I think about the freedom that one would need to possess to write on their bedroom wall late at night, by lamplight.  It is freedom itself, to feel that freedom.

Ides of March

It was a breezy, cool-ish June afternoon in 2012, with a bonfire crackling in the side yard and smoke blowing every which way. I arrived at June and Dean’s for the memorial gathering and spotted Janice and her brother Wesley and lovely Linda, and the older woman Aila who used to volunteer to work on the archives donated from Alf the town historian, when we all worked together at the Guild.

June’s small fluffy dog Snickers, acquired not too long ago from the spca, romped around the woodsy yard, with obvious grand pride in his newly acquired digs. Dean went inside and came back out with a tribute tray of Dana's favorite beverages: a pitcher of Margaritas, and a bottle of Prosecco...we chose our favorites.  We toasted solemnly and clinked glasses.  Lovely Linda told of the last time she and I and Dana had gone to the Mexican restaurant for dinner and imbibed Margaritas, and upon leaving, I’d had to help both of them to the small red car, because of their respective dizziness and balance issues.  She made it sound festive and funny and there were a few chuckles around the fire.

June mentioned she'd put some sacrificial type offerings in the fire earlier (I hadn’t thought of that).  Then Janice reached for her purse and came out with a tiny Swiss flag on a toothpick, along with a picture of she and Dana, at the Matterhorn. She tossed both into the fire, not saying anything else about it.  She had traveled with Dana to Switzerland two years before, when Dana was still hiking and making her annual trek to Zermatt, a pilgrimage she’d continued for at least twenty years after her husband Malcolm died many years before. 

Other friends arrived: Rowena and Tom, Lawrence, Darlene, and an unknown gent with dark glasses, though it seemed way too late in the day for dark glasses and we were in the woods, so to speak.  And Ardith. Although it was cool enough for us all to don gloves and stand with arms folded over our collective chests, Ardith somehow was comfortable with no jacket at all, and her black curly wet hair – ah, youth. 

We stood (or alternately kept moving in circles) around the bonfire with our drinks, trying to avoid ingesting the smoke, and seeming to pair off a bit to tell “Dana” stories.  I think the talk around the fire was a bit fractured. I talked with Rowena, Tom talked with Dean, Ardith and Aila sat and talked, a paradim pairing of the youngest and the oldest present; June gave Wesley a tour of her garden,  Lawrence talked with….? Was it my imagination or were there some women studiously not talking with each other?  (This is only in retrospect).

Rowena shared with me what had gone on with Dana on the last day.  She had gone to see her and the doctor was there and gave her the report (she’d been put on a list of approved people to talk with) Dana had a perforated bowel; Rowena says casually, in that frank, intense way she has, well, she did have diverticulitis, but it also could have been the chemo, and the doctor told Dana he could perform the necessary surgery, or he could “make her comfortable.”  It was her choice.  Dana said “no surgery”, knowing what the surgery involved and that it would change nothing about her cancer, but give her additional complications.  Rowena said Dana was very clear about her choice.  After that, things went pretty quickly.  Rowena had other things to say, trite stuff, old stuff, about the Guild and Dana’s choices, and her not agreeing, but I didn’t really listen, and sort of drifted away, looking for another conversation.

We all went inside to eat and folks clustered in twos and threes in the warm, cluttered rooms, sharing their individual stories about Dana.  Then, Darlene called everyone’s attention, and she read much of the obituary that had appeared in the Woodstock Times about Dana. Lawrence said nothing, but I knew she had written the piece. Dana’s close friends Suzannah, Shirley, and Barbara were not there, and I wondered why not. I felt that it was particularly hard for Linda and of course Ardith, both of whom  were very constant and present supporters for Dana in the past year, Linda going with her to her chemo treatments, Ardith taking care of Dana’s cherished cats, with those Greek names I never could remember.  

I felt when I came home, that so much was unsaid, but maybe that is just the nature of it all.  Everyone has much to say, but it is hard and bittersweet to say it, or maybe we just want to keep the memories to ourselves. We knew different parts of Dana. That's how it is with people. She had such a broad spectrum of friends, and over a goodly period of time. It seemed a bit ironic, for she was not an overtly expressive or emotional person, but yet one knew where her devotions lay. She was a loyal friend, a very loyal friend, but sometimes one did not know why. Even in her last weeks alive, there was no real connecting in a very personal way, for me, anyway.  She seemed unable to ever get very personal except if there were too many vodkas or Margaritas. 

When June and Janice and Arlene and I saw her last on her birthday, the Ides of March, we had gathered at the Thompson House, a hospice.  We popped the champagne, we had bowls of M&M’s, her favorites, and we sang Happy Birthday.  Darlene told a great story from the old days  when she’d worked with Dana at the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, which involved a famous scheduled guest conductor, a missing limo and a pair of white gloves, and Dana added a few points that she felt Arlene missed, but mostly she just smiled and nodded at the remembrance, the telling of the story.  Dana loved a good story.  She lay back in her bed, propped against the wall, wearing her Cubs hat, with the word Cubs spelled out in hieroglyphics. The Cubs, Egyptian history, Switzerland, and her little red car with the license plate ALPS, those were Dana's favorite things. Happy Birthday Dana!                                      

Irony and the DEP

Life is strung with beads of irony, for us to adorn ourselves like so many embellishments.  Some of the beads are shiny, glossy, and replete with a positive glow.  Some appear dull, unpolished, misshapen, not pleasing, with their uncanny ability to be undecipherable. Ergo, some we will display and share, some we will bury or ignore.

I would call my encounter yesterday with the DEP policeman a fine example of irony.  After I was issued the summons for trespassing, and a date when I would have to appear in court, I called the encounter maddening, irritating, insulting, and downright stupid.  And oh yeah, why must DEP cops wear dark glasses?  Is it intimidation?  Arrogance?  It’s not about the glare of the sun on a bright day, I can tell  you that.   

I was full of Sunday morning sunshine and good intent as I drove over to the reservoir, just six miles from my home.  Driving slowly across the weir, reduced to one lane for several months, I enjoyed the sparkle of the reservoir’s water, the blurred surround of mountains that loomed soft and hazy.  Seeing the water so low, and the exposed bluestone and flat concrete pieces here and there reminded me of the NY Times article Watery Graves NY Times 2002 I’d just read, when the reservoir was so low, one could view stone building foundations and drinking wells.  All belonging to the “dozen bucolic hamlets” that were submerged there in 1913.  Hundreds of houses, thousands of people, plus stores, schools, post offices, churches, cemeteries and bodies displaced.

Recently I’ve delved heavily into the history of the reservoir; specifically, the displaced people who had built their homes there, raised families and farmed there, and then were forced to leave their homelands so that New York City could improve their water supply.  As an offshoot of genealogy research into my partner’s family, I’d unearthed more and more details, read through more and more tales of that time in Ulster County.  I found myself poring over census records until 1am, dragging myself to work the next day. Last year it was my own family history that I researched until the early morning  hours.  It is etched in my being, this needing to know, this curiosity about past lives and ancestors, and the footsteps taken in so many lives that led us to be where we are today.  Some say don’t live in the past.  I don’t think I live there, but I sure like to visit.  And I like fitting the puzzle pieces together.  But my ancestors, Irish immigrants, were easier to trace in a way; they landed in Manhattan and mostly stayed there, some branching to Brooklyn or Queens at some point.  And the streets in Manhattan had names long before streets or roads existed, per se, in Ulster County. I found addresses like “back road”, or “the corners”.  But the majority enumerated" didn’t even have that.

JR’s family, as it turns out, has lived in Ulster County for several generations.  They farmed, they quarried, they lived off the land.  I became addicted to the discovery – where did they come from, and how had they ended up in West Hurley?  Glenford?   It didn’t take long to realize that they had all been among the families that were displaced when the Ashokan Reservoir, the “last of the homemade dams”, was constructed.Which leads me back to the Ashokan Reservoir yesterday morning.  There is a certain Great Great Grandfather and his wife Sarah that I can find no death record for; also, one of their sons, Phillip.  It became a matter of principle that I find Phillip especially, for more than one reason.  I’d parked in the circular drive that is provided for folks who generally do their exercise thing across the reservoir on the macadam walkway.  In warmer weather, you can be inundated with fellow walkers and joggers, cyclists, roller bladers, and gaggles of angry geese, on occasion.  But no dogs allowed.  The walk is marked every ¼ mile as you go.  The view is spectacular, but it’s boring just walking along between two fences, in my opinion.  I like the woods.

Anyway, I walked down through the woods where I like to go, passing the No Trespassing signs and notices about how they are protecting the environment as I went. I was just going to get some better shots of the res from where the old boats are laying, chained up to trees for the winter.  Maybe score some driftwood, just enjoy the quiet.  My camera crapped out on me, as I lined up the perfect shot (to replace one I’d taken from the same spot last month that had been blurry).  I sat down on an overturned row boat and decided to channel Abram and Sarah and maybe Phillip; maybe they would tell me where to find their graves? 

The water has slight movement in a reservoir, did you now that?  From where I sat, across the ground littered with bluestone chunks and smooth rocks, I watched the tiny wave ripples gently moving back and forth.  I stared at the mountains and the houses high up on the hills over in Shokan.  They would not have been there in the late 1800’s.  I spoke to Sarah, believing in some sort of Mana y Mana...where are you?  How can I find you?  Where is Phillip? 

I got cold and turned to head back which is when I spotted the DEP SUV cruising by.  I ditched my smooth driftwood (no sense adding theft to trespassing I thought, chuckling) behind a tree and kept on walking back up through the woods.  The blond, crew-cutted, sun-glassed, polite officer (who looked like a sixteen year old) got out of his car and walked over to greet me.  “Afternoon Ma’am, nice day for a walk”, was the way it started.  I found it amusing that a geezer like me could possibly be in trouble for something as innocent as walking in the woods on a sunny day.  I even told him I was taking a photo of the place where my partner’s ancestors had once lived.  He was unimpressed.  “Do you have a recreational permit?”  I do not.  The conversation escalated to seeing my driver’s license and being told to wait while he went into his car to write out a summons.  I do believe the idling of his vehicle for 10 or 15 minutes was far more damaging to the environment than my walk in the woods.  I have a court date in March.  I have an option of applying online for a recreational permit.

So my latest bead of irony entails being forbidden to walk on the very grounds that were called home to the ancestors I’m looking for.  And so far, no luck in finding Phillip. 

Ashokan Reservoir December

Big Joe

Big Joe used to hoard office supplies.  He was a retired cop and had never worked in an office, but he had an affinity for office supplies; mostly paper, but pens and markers too, though to a lesser degree.  He hoarded in secret, putting the supplies, still in their Staples bags with the receipts, down in the basement of his three bedroom ranch.  There could be found several bags bulging with: reams of copy paper, packages of loose leaf paper, steno pads, legal pads, yellow lined and white lined; packages of Sharpies, Bic pens and highlighters.  These items seemed to be the repeat purchases; he wasn’t too big on binder clips, staples or tape. 

I know because my sister, his wife, started referring to the basement as the office supply store.  When I visited she would ask if I needed ‘anything’, with a sideways motion of her head and her mouth stretched in that direction, towards the basement door.  Never one to pass up some paper, I’d say sure and we’d go down after Big Joe had gone to bed, and I’d “shop”.  Her grown kids did the same, always surreptitiously, occasionally calling ahead to ask her to check the inventory. The goods were always removed when Big Joe wasn’t around or they were hidden in other bags upon leaving.  Diaper bags were roomy receptacles for office supplies. 

Big Joe never commented on the decreasing piles.  In fact he never once concurred that he had even put the bags down there.  Prior to the basement stash, he had been putting the bags in the small spare room that had belonged to his older son.  That was when my sister, his wife, seeing that a buildup wash happening, began to give the stuff away.  He never asked where the bags of supplies were going, but had changed course and started depositing them in the basement.  It was never discussed, never pointed out.  It was all very secret and covert.  

There were other bags that he left here and there – the plastic type of grocery bags.  They would have receipts or some other odds and ends of paper – just stuff he never went through to throw out, but would accumulate.  My sister, the opposite of an accumulator, has the reputation of throwing the current day’s newspaper out before the end of the day if she knows she won’t have time to read it.  So she had taken to throwing the plastic bags of paper scraps out when Big Joe wasn’t around to see. Sometimes brown paper bags too. 

It was that one time that she noticed him in and out of Young Joe’s old bedroom, up and down the basement stairs; each several times. It was not his personality to wander.  Mostly, he drifted from bed to table to car, completing his errands, then back to couch, table, bed.  My sister finally asked him what he was looking for?  “Oh, just a bag” Big Joe said.  Humph, she thought, just a bag?  Days passed and the hunt continued.  Big Joe seemed to be getting pretty worked up.  My sister began to worry about the bags she’d been throwing out (which of course she would never, could never, tell him, or admit to doing).  Some days later Big Joe asked her if she’d thrown out a certain brown bag in recent weeks.  Of course not was her answer.  It was then that he sheepishly admitted that he’d been saving some money in a paper bag, just throwing bills in with the intention of counting it up and banking it when he had the time.  “How much was in there?” my sister asked tentatively.  About two thousand, Big Joe replied. 

In later years, Big Joe began hoarding Vodka, in addition to the office supplies.  This was a true mystery, as Big Joe was a Bourbon drinker all the way, though in fact he drank less and less as the years went on.  My sister started showing up with a bottle of Vodka when she visited, or slipping a bottle of Vodka in with the paper supplies when I was in the basement choosing my papers.  No one asked Big Joe why. 

When he died, he wasn’t remembered for his office supply hoarding; that remained his secret.   I remember him for his sudden outbursts of laughter, which brightened and illuminated his face.  He wasn’t known for being a talker, but he sure loved a good laugh.

Until Next Year

Mid October sees windows snap their mouths shut

against the chill air
Bird chatter is hushed in a churchlike whisper
Wind chimes, like an admonished child,
are seen but not heard
Socks urgently rush, duty bound, from drawers,
plates clatter with cold from the cabinets
the oatmeal box marches confidently to the forefront

Without struggle
the house adapts this quietude
then quickly switches to the clatter of logs
dropping to the basement floor
furnace rock and rumble
The dehumidifier nods to duty well done
Until next year

Woodstock Relaxation

Ah – if even part of every day could be as peaceful and relaxed as this morning.  Who would believe that a visit to the dentist could start out my mellow experience?  But, yes, even the smileScan or whatever the three dimensional rotating x-ray thingee is called that orbits around your head. One needs to remove all metal; off go the studs, the small hoops, the thin chain, the hair clippie.  Then one steps forward and is instructed to bite the stick, get positioned, swallow, put tongue to roof of mouth and then the gizmo pans around your head, whilst one is lucky enough to be staring out at a small pond at the edge of the wooded lot.  Very Woody Allen in Sleeper; I feel a taste of what it might be like to cavort through the woods in a space suit.

Dr Fred is the calmest man ever. He inspires meditation or whatever it is that gets him to that place.  He is slow, methodical, so, so patient.  He advises, explains, shows, helps to make decisions.   So, no crown work done today, but he elected to do two, not four crowns, and there was talk of pin-drop of my gums and one implant and drilling of the bone, (he says the bone structure looks pretty good, which is the only time in recent years that those two words could possibly have been applied to me in the dentist chair) and even the mention of drilling a titanium rod through my gum did not un-do me. 

Following that, I took a trip to the natural foods market where one is surrounded by glorious smells, including natural candles, fresh coffee, scones.  I purchased a New York Times to ground me, some yogurt and granola, bulk style, like the old days, a tiny tin of perfume crème – gardenia vanilla.  I drove to a parking lot, sat in the sunny car with coffee and scone and paper, then took my camera and walked, looking for photos. 

My foot felt good, the right hip protested sharply a few times then seemed to begrudgingly settle into the walk.  As I turned at the end of the winding road to walk back, a man with longish, thick white hair called over from a porch where he sat “where’s your dog?”  I knew him, but it took a few minutes for me  to realize he didn’t know or remember me, or maybe he did remember my dog who died ten years ago.  He did say short, and Jessie certainly was that.  

Something was not right and though we chatted across the grass for a short while, he was not the same dashing flirt I knew him as ten or fifteen years ago.  Something missing; our conversation had a slight electrical short or outage.  We’d become two elders of our town, seeing each other rarely, one perhaps remembering more than the other.  There is no catching up with what has transpired in those years.  We used to cross paths every day in the retail world.  He’d once introduced his mother to me when she was visiting.  He’d always called me “Hey Beautiful”.  None of this was part of his desultory conversation today.  His movements are slower, as are we all.  We said good-byes.  He said “call me when you get rich” as he turned to walk into this house.   

I walked on, a bit sad but grateful that I can still walk down such a lane and have that chat. As I crossed over to the main road, a car pulled up, seemed to be in a hurry.  The electric window whizzed halfway down, the man asked “Hey, can you tell us where the music concert was?”  “It was in Bethel, about an hour and a half southeast of here”, I replied, proud that I did not give in to a nasty habit that some of us locals, tired of the endless question in the summertime, were prone to do – make something up and send them driving around town.  “No, the woman next to him said – the rock concert.”  “The one forty years ago” the man almost snarled, as though my brain  were malfunctioning.  I didn’t correct him to say it was almost fifty years ago, but said “Yes, it took place in Bethel, and hour and a half from here.”  “Then why did they called it the Woodstock festival” he asked, completely cynical about my response.  “Well, it got that name because that’s how the promotion started...”  I didn’t get to finish.  He yelled “yeah thanks”, zipped up the window and sped off, apparently in search of more reliable information.  I should have made something up –it would have been much more rewarding.

Driving up over the mountain, Van Morrison came on the radio to sing “Going down to ole Woodstock”. 

Woodstock calms me.  Not on a weekend.  And especially not on a summer weekend.  But yes, on a Thursday morning in the afterglow of most August visitors.

August Light

Wave Hill, the Palisades, NJ

 

Pink evening pond

Monet Summer Pond

Monday Morning Shadows

Slipping Away

August slips away

Not slowly like a gentle morning mist

But rapidly

Too rapidly

Like a flock of birds startled by a car door slamming

 

I grasp for it

A desperate clinging spider

in panic

To protect its web

 

Mourning is just scant weeks away

I recoil at the sight of

Errant orange and red leaves

Displayed brilliantly on lush summer green grass

 

I listen attentively to crickets in the blackening night

Is their song getting fainter

Are their numbers dwindling?

 

The bull frogs wane in number

As the strategizing heron grows plump

Their deep throated honking

No longer cacophonic

Sporadic instead

 

Soon the nights will be stilled again

 

Mourning is just scant weeks away

August slips from my grasp

 

I Cane Stand It

I was rude to the young woman in CVS.  Besides being in CVS, which always creeps me out because it used to be a the supermarket in the small hamlet when I first moved up here, where town folks met and chatted, and went late at night for ice cream and cookies when they got the “munchies” and would wear their dark glasses which I thought to be hilarious, but so cool and mysterious in a way, and some old folks used to hang out on the bench up near the checkout counters in the summertime to escape the heat and feel loved and not lonely and part of the community, while keeping a close eye on the cashiers, especially the one with the steel grey hair pulled painfully into a bun, who wore the thirteen or eighteen or twenty five slim silver bangles on her arm, and then it closed and the stalwart folks picketed the imminent arrival of CVS into their small franchise-free town but it wasn’t enough, and then tons of us vowed to never, ever enter through the CVS portal, and for quite a while the parking lot was conspicuously and satisfyingly sparse to empty, though of course we couldn’t stop the unknowing tourists from going there, but after a year or two, more cars, even familiar cars, ones we knew, and then seeing people we knew dashing across the street, a bit sheepish because they’d heard this or that was on sale, and oh well, we can’t boycott it forever, can we?
But I’d not succumbed and still feel traitorous when I’m there, except my pharmacy across the street had no canes and I had to get one, doctor’s orders, but the idea of it was so repugnant to me, so old and doddering and yes, demeaning, that I yanked the bronze leopard printed one from the rack and held it gingerly away from me, all the while thinking, pretending that I was buying it for a friend, and then I could deal with it somehow. 

And then at the checkout, the smiling young woman in the purple shirt said “Let me cut that tag off for you”, making the assumption that I needed to use it immediately, like how could I be standing up at the counter on  my own?  And I snarled at her “No! Leave it on.” I wanted to add something about having to make sure the person I was buying it for liked it, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell the lie.

So, she just pleasantly said “Ok, you can take it off when you get home.” I took my receipt, curling my lip as I walked out.

 

David Bowie Sat Here

Rosa is like a small bird, flitting with purpose from painting to poetry, gardening to Qi Gong. Though flitting might be misleading, implying an inherent non-stick-to-it-tiveness.  And Rosa is nothing if not tenacious.  Bird-like she is, but she may well be considered to be a hummingbird, the cheetah of the bird kingdom.

I was happy to visit her last weekend in her new cottage created for her by her granddaughter’s husband, and attached to their house. It has the same warm charm that her last place had, and in fact seems quite similar, having a lot to do with the wicker couch and chair, the small paintings leaning everywhere against the walls, the back of the couch, even on the stove, where the ever present kettle awaits, ready for tea.  The plan had been for me to pick her up and bring her back to  my house, but she seemed not to want to do that (had she forgotten the plan?) when I got there, saying she had tea ready and had made cookies for the occasion.  If you knew her, you would understand that I proceeded to settle in for tea. 

I met Rosa twenty three years ago.  She arrived in the doorway of my little shoppe not long after I’d moved to this little corner of the world.  She’d seen my small ad in the newspaper about the poetry group I was forming:  Women Only Poetry Group, 3^rd Thursday of each month.  8pm. $2.00 Tea served. “I never wrote poetry, but I have journals I keep.  Maybe I could read from them?  I like what you’re doing here.”  And so it began.  Rosa began to read from her journals; they were well received by our small group and we enjoyed hearing about her early life, her escapades, her organic farm, her goats that she was so fond of.  

Encouraged, she began to write poetry. We published a chapbook the following year as Evening Circle Poets.  Our circle usually numbered five women and all looked forward to that night of poetry, tea, crumpets and a growing friendship.  Over the years, the circle had indeed been broken, but we all continued to write.  Rosa, for her part, would publish three of her own books, poetry, then essays. We didn’t see each other as often, my job taking me out of the very town I had been drawn to by some strange but real force.  But whenever Rosa called me I knew it was to extend a personal invitation to a reading of her new book or an art show that she was in. “Hi Fern, I finished a new book and I’m having a reading, can you come?"  Inevitably, when the intimate audience was seated and she was introduced, she would begin her reading by acknowledging me saying “Fern is the reason I am here today.  If it hadn’t been for her poetry group, I never would have started writing.” How gracious. Of course, my providing the platform for her was inconsequential. Her tireless determination propelled her to continue on her own.  Along the way, Rosa participated in a weekly drumming class for ten years, worked in an art gallery, planted her own garden each year and took up Qi Gong, which she continues to do.  She told me on Sunday that if I took up Qi Gong, I’d be good for another twenty years.  “Look at me.  I only started when I was seventy.”   Rosa is ninety two. 

We had a typical girl chat, catching up on families, friends and what (or whom) aggravates us most.  She brought up politics and her concern for Obama “I’ve been watching his hair, it’s going all grey!”  “Who do you think will run?”  What do you think of Hillary?”  There is always a blend of the good memories as well; her raising her granddaughter when she was in her fifties, going to England, having a lover.  Further back, how she raised goats and chickens on her organic farm with her then husband.  Studying at the Arts Students League in her heyday, working as a nude model for extra money.  Dating whomever she wanted.  “I never thought about religion or race, I wasn’t raised that way.  I didn’t care if the  guy was black or red, if he was sweet, I went out with him.” Spunk, yes, she embodies spunk.  And I can get her to giggle like a girl.

She is so pleased with her new place (except for the free range chickens that strut around the yard and plop in her pansies), and so grateful for the hard work that her grandson in-law has done. “He recycles everything you know” she told me.  We walked in to see her bedroom, and then the bathroom. 

“Wow!” I said “that’s quite a sink!”  A modern white cabinet base, with drawers that open out and a fantastic, mermaid turquoise slab top, with a square sink perched on top of it.  Rosa started to laugh, saying “you know Bill’s been doing some work at David Bowie’s house, and they were throwing this sink out, so he brought it home. “Wow!”  I repeat “I have David Bowie’s sink” she says giggling, then turns to point at the commode and says “and the toilet is from David Bowie’s house too.  I keep thinking I need to put a sign up over it, like how could I say it?  David Bowie sat here!”

 

Graffiti Walk, Knoxville, Tennessee

 

I Discovered Myself in Mt. Tremper

Sad to say I was already past the half century mark. 
Why does it take so long?
It took me awhile, and yes, it continues.
It broadens, goes deeper, changes course,
erupts in moral zits from time to time
But it gets a little clearer.
Like the windex of age is starting to do its job
On the life experience windshield.

Life, kids, work, hard-scrapple times propelled me in unplanned and indeterminate directions

Learning, loving, always learning, learning from children, from the love for them
That hidden capacity that lies unbidden until the tiny fist, the fist that you brought into the world,
curls tightly around your finger
Till that first gummy smile indelibly assures that you will fight for them
Work to assure their place in life; struggle to implant the values necessary
for their growth and emotional safety.
And I caused pain along the way to those little souls
By wrong choices, naïveté, an ignorance about people and capabilities, or lack thereof
And, at times, an unrealized need for flattery
Unrealistic promises of unrealistic dreams.

I learned that there are people who will walk through your life, your house, your body, your soul,

with intentions of their own that have nothing to do
with what you want, what you need, what you agreed upon.
and you won’t recognize them right away for what they are, who they are, what they’re after
where they’ve been in their mental meanderings. 

And you’ll take detours, ride with the bumps, sometimes crash and burn
Sometimes hang on for your life and take the thrill of the ride
Sometimes hang on till the weather clears for take-off
But you’ll figure it out, read between the lines
Look inward
Get back on your path
Then you’ll rise up and carry on

"Pasted Pages" Series

Here are some random "Pasted Pages".  I don't tend to think of them as collages; rather a spontaneous cutting and pasting session where I get to use lots of scraps of papers that I just can't seem to throw out.  They are all the same size:  7.5 x 9.5 approx.

Mountain Man

This is  Home #7 in the Neighbors Essays series.  The series chronicles a memorable neighbor from each home that I've lived in) 

I rented a small log cabin, and began life on my own.  My children remained temporarily with their father until the courts and lawyers could figure out our snaggled mess. I missed them desperately and wrestled daily with the scary newness of living by myself. The cabin was small and dark, shaded by towering pine trees, and one of only three houses (one boarded up for the winter) on a dead end street that went downhill and ended at a pond. It was termed a “winter” rental, as the owners lived there in the summer, moved out on Labor Day.  I would be there until Memorial Day when the owner would return and I’d need a place to live again.  My life felt ruled by holidays. My belongings stayed in storage; I had my clothes.

It came fully furnished; I felt like I’d just dropped into a stranger’s house and elected to live there, which is what I did.  The two bedroom walls did not go all the way to the ceilings, allowing for circulation of air in the summer.  The living room was large, and carpeted in ugly gold shag; the couch was brown plaid. There was a fireplace which I was not to use, and a large deer head mounted high on the wall.  I named him Walter and hung a wreath on him at Christmas.  The bathroom was delightful, wood paneled and cozy with a big footed tub.  A tiny kitchen, and an even tinier added on room in the back both had slanted floors so that it felt like you were falling into the rooms. It was either enchantingly unique or the eeriest place ever. I had both reactions from friends.

It was a long, lean winter.  I was awakened one night by a noise right outside my window. 

The spotlight had gone on and shone brightly in the window as well.  A raccoon, pure white in color, was sitting on a tree stump, enjoying the remains of my spaghetti dinner from the overturned garbage can.  He was gracefully eating the strands with human like fingers, and completely ignored my frantic banging on the window.  My neighbor’s lights were all on.  He seemed to never go to sleep. I went back to bed, pulling the covers over my head.

In the cabin on my right lived a man named Greg. I called him Mountain Man. He was a smallish man, not as tall as I, with a trim build and longish brown curly hair. He told me he was a Vietnam vet, and didn’t work anymore. He heated his log cabin with a wood stove, which he often asked me in to see, but I never took him up on the invitation. He said the temperature inside his house was seventy five to eighty degrees in the wintertime.  With no curtains on his windows, and the sweltering temperatures he had to endure (while I layered on more and more sweaters and sox) he habitually walked around his house in his jockey shorts. In the brutal months of January and February, he could be seen shirtless chopping wood in the backyard. I was unable to start a measly fire and had to conserve oil, in order to pay the bill, so I could be found wrapping myself in blankets to survive the winter. On several occasions, in between laying out boxes of poison, and replacing them when they were empty, I called to ask Greg to come over and empty my mouse traps, which he did, each time resetting them, saying he didn’t mind at all.  One time, as he was leaving, he handed me something wrapped in a tissue. It was fragrant. “Do you smoke” he asked?  (I’d been smoking for years I thought to myself, but I’d never wrapped my Virginia Slims in tissues)

One particularly frigid winter morning, a “friend” of mine was attempting to make a quiet exit, but soon discovered his Camaro couldn’t make it up the hill to the main road. It was a sheet of ice.  Greg saw him struggling and came out to help, then called to the garbage men to help, seeing them about to turn down from the main road. My friend came in to get me; I was needed to sit in the trunk and provide some weight to keep from skidding, while they pushed the car backwards up the hill. Jumping out of the warm bed, I quickly threw on a long parka and scarf and boots, but was wearing nothing underneath the coat.  I sat in the trunk feeling naked and trashy with three men pushing the car up the hill and my friend chuckling at my discomfort.  After we got his car back on the main road and he took off, I picked my way back down to the cabin, keeping to the snowy sides, instead of the ice.  I stopped to thank Mountain Man as he stood in the middle of the icy road, grateful for the woolen scarf that I had wrapped around my face, so he couldn’t read my embarrassment.