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.

 

 

The Two Dark Blue Plastic Shallow Bowls from Boonton

(Note:  BoontonWare/Melmac...plastic dishes, popular in the 60’s and 70’s)

The bowls have been with me since 1973.  I know the date because they belonged to Aunt Marion, and that was the year she died.  Now, plastic would never be indicative of the fancy, and somewhat glamorous life she’d led. 

Aunt Marion worked on Madison Avenue in the media department of an advertising agency and that was plenty fancy to us.

Aunt Marion was the kind of woman who had a dressing table, with a mirror above, and an upholstered oval bench to sit upon, where an enraptured seven year old could lift the delicate bottles and sniff slowly, pick up powder puffs and make believe she was a stylish woman, who went “to business” and dressed up every day in fine dresses and gloves, stockings and heels. Aunt Marion wore a black Persian Lamb coat in the winter.  It had a brown mink collar and a silken lining of turquoise and pink stripes.   It appeared to weigh her down, it was so heavy; when she shrugged out of its warm cocoon, you caught a whiff of her expensive perfume seeping out, ever so lightly.  My sister and I fought over who got to carry it into the bedroom to place on the bed when she visited.  It was very heavy, but there would be the silk scarf, pushed gently into the sleeve, the striped silk lining smooth and scented with her perfume.  

Later on, she remained glamourous but slightly bent. She would laugh and say that her Persian lamb coat was too heavy.  But her arthritis got very bad.  Dishes were harder to pick up, and more likely to be dropped and broken.  Uncle Harry, fifteen years older than she, tried to help out in the kitchen, but that never went well. 

One Christmas, I gave her a small set of Boonton Ware: two each of dinner plates, lunch plates, cereal bowls and soup bowls.  Maybe there were cups as well. They were colorful and fun (red, school bus yellow, dark blue, white); meant to amuse, rather than serve as a reminder of the difficulty they were both adjusting to, in their lives. 

Six months later my sisters and I traveled to Queens, meeting at the small attached house of Marion and Harry. They had lived in the upstairs apartment for many years, having converted the living space downstairs for rental income.  The house was sold.  There wasn’t much to empty out.  Harry had been moved to a nursing home, where he seemed to thrive, unaware of where his sweet Marion was or had been, entertaining the other residents with tap dances and old vaudeville routines.

We ended up in the kitchen, not wanting to spend time in the small living room, where our glamorous Aunt had succumbed to pneumonia while lying on her French provincial pink sofa.  We divvied up assorted items, mostly boxing it to give away. It was decided I should take the bright plastic ware.  The plastic ware traveled back to New Jersey with me; my kids used the bowls regularly.  When the “great divide” happened in the mid 80’s, I left most everything behind.  But some things had been packed, and two dark blue shallow bowls were all that remained of the plastic ware.

Many times I moved, maybe six times since then, and still those bowls rest in each cabinet in each kitchen.  They match nothing, but I have ritual uses for them.  Like morning oatmeal when I need to rush for work; the plastic cools it down fast, making it easier to eat; yogurt with strawberries on the deck. 

The Aunt Marion memories are not always strongly present, but a hint of her lovely smile flits across my thoughts when I reach for them.  I don’t need to look at the photo of her standing on the boardwalk dressed in a clinging white dress and an outrageous hat.  Or see her tenderly holding one of us as babies, in her bold print dress and large brimmed straw hat with a massive flower on one side, her eyes tender.  She was beauty and grace and she softened our lives.