In Honor of This Day

The house is warmed by the small wood stove in the kitchen

New potatoes simmer in stock with leeks and carrots 

fresh from friends' gardens, the last offerings of the harvest

The day started with fresh snow in the yard

that quickly melted when the temperature rose just a little

Then dripped from one metal roof to the next with a steady rhythm

I can hear our tenant Evelyn's television through the living room wall that

separates us 

There is something comforting about knowing that an eighty five year old woman is there with a blanket on her lap and her black cat named Sassy at her feet

I bet she has a pot of something on her stove too

Molly shuffles in the room above me, curled up on the futon watching movies she's watched dozens of times, sometimes laughing out loud in her deep throaty laugh

She appears now and then to forage through the refrigerator for crunchy things and sips of something, often taking the time to make a cup of tea in the pot that no longer whistles

I like that she pours one for me too and never forgets the drip of honey that I like

Tim spent the morning stacking wood in the basement then putters about

scratching his head about what to do next, there's the sound of the bend of the tape measure

and the drawer with the tools and extra screws and nails slides open and shut

then the back door opened and closed as he heads to his shop for bigger tools

It's these days, marked by nothing special that I savor.

Unremarkable days that steady my heart long enough to fill it.

This Age

This Age

A few months ago I bought Molly and I an all night ride pass at the Tunbridge World's Fair. The fair is a highly anticipated local event filled with all kinds of folks meandering shoulder to shoulder through the fairway chock-a-block with classic slam dunk games and spinning wheels a buck a shot for over sized stuffed bears and dogs, tractor pulls and agricultural wonders.

Molly has been relentless in her efforts to make me feel guilty about never taking her to Disney World as a kid (despite the fact that I funded her high school band trip there where she displayed her trombone finesse simultaneously with her amazing marching skills for all the world to see). To add insult to her injury I called her from Disney when I chaperoned a field trip of high school seniors a few years ago from Providence to tell her what a great time I was having. Sometimes, not TRYING to be an ass, I'd call her from the poolside where, each morning, I swam laps at the Liki Tiki Resort (the actual name of the place where we were staying!)  I really did miss her because I knew how much fun we would have had together.

So on a night with intermittent chilly rain at the start of a Vermont fall as we moved through the crowd with arcade lights flashing, children squealing and tugging their parents one way or another, and the smells of Blooming Onions, grilled sausages, and manure held close in a fairground that we sloshed through in our rubber garden boots, ankle deep in mud, people sliding all around us, car tires spinning at the entrance and exits, we were simply enjoying the opportunity to be there together. The place was pulsating with anticipation, ours included.

We wandered through Agricultural Hall, excited to see the mother pig with her piglets, some snuggled together, some squashed beneath her. Lambs were settled in for the night in their stalls, gentle bleating sounds and sweet hay smells. We oohed and aahed over the vegetable sculptures made by local children, and leaned in close over the fence posts to see who the photographers were that won the blue ribbons.

Molly didn't seem to mind that I was the oldest person on the rides that night at the fair. To her, there was nothing awkward about being 23 years old and standing in line holding her mom's hand while we waited our turn for the rides. And I really do love the rush of the fast rides, even if we had to wait a half hour to get on them.

We watched each ride before we decided which ones would be best. The bumper cars were not an option, too many people in that line, but we climbed, without hesitation onto the spinning rides, locked in with steel harnesses, that pushed us together at every turn, despite holding on tight. I have this strange laughing reaction to fear. The laugh comes from way down deep inside me and pushes out in odd girlish sounds, squeals more like it. Molly's response was similar, but her laugh was deeper. By the time I got off each ride my face and belly muscles hurt. We both had tangled hair and wild eyes and were looking for the next ride. I admit I did need a little break after the one that spins and turns and pushed our backs against the wall before the floor drops out. I couldn't seem to open my eyes. But I loved the feel of the moving night air, the sound of the jingling piped in fair music that seemed to flow with the rise and fall of the ride and yes, Molly was still holding my hand at the end of it.

Becoming Art

First there’s color, then form.

I like being a passenger, pressing my face to the glass, craning my neck until it hurts and I lose the landscape that I pass through. It becomes an abstraction, no line defined between sky and earth.

Each blade of grass changes with reflected light and green is no longer green. Blue has a language of its own. Yellow tiptoes in.

I squint to find the reds which usually translate as crimson, accentuated with purple, that I am certain, in the moment, no one else can see. Of course there are flowers on that hillside but we are always moving so fast.

Water is baffling, the textures shift with every movement of the air. I want to say, “Stand still while I paint you!” But it is relentless in its determination to gnaw at the shore and shift the stones that shush against each other.

I open the shutter, drag the speed of the exposure, and close my eyes as if the click! will do anything other than capture the contours of a single moment when the light of the day hangs around long enough for me to thank it.

This Place

At Home

Funny to look around this big gray house and see these collections of things found and gathered over time. These things that are our lives.

Some, randomly placed, and others, in an order that changes each time the light comes through the window and whispers, “No, not there…”

 I am always trying to remember where things go.

Each time I walk into a room it’s as if I had never been there before.

I am surprised by what catches my eye; Red glass, orange throw, the contrast of what is soft and the surfaces that I can run my fingers along smoothly, or tattered rattan, wood

Already gathering dust

However fine.

The books that I can’t let go, the order, vague; Poetry, religion, all things real, biography, text books that my daughters and I hoped to return to, eventually. Every now and then a gingko leaf falls from the pages of a poetry book and I look for the page that it stained as if some clue is held there about where I came from or where I should go.

It’s all reference for times and places we moved through. The photographs are stacked with stories, the most important ones prominent, the others in a plastic bin in our attic, waiting for their chance to be a part of the conversation or to be just a collection of frames that I slide pictures in and out of, surprised by what was behind the most recent one. Sometimes they  serve to hold the new picture closer to the glass that is crusted with years of dust and fingerprints.

It pleases me to say that each thing in this house has a story. The moves have been so frequent that we could only hold on to what was important. It’s all important we agree as we continue to unpack the boxes that have been used so many times that their labels have nothing to do with their contents. The holes on each side are so soft that the edges of them curl inside my fingers.