HOPE

Expecting to be settled as I aged and relaxed into retirement, I have been, instead, shuttling from one place to another, boxing up my belongings, depositing them in a storage unit, and moving three times in the past two years. I am temporarily occupying a 150-year-old farmhouse, that, in an odd twist, was once inhabited by a distant ancestor of whom I knew nothing until moving here and delving into the house’s history. The house is furnished so my personal bits remain in storage until I can find a more permanent home. It is a place where I can rest and recoup. I have fallen in love with the solitude, though I am not altogether alone.  

A mourning dove, sleek and slender with a long, narrow tail and feathers that appear painted on has built a rather tall, messy nest just under the roof line of the side porch. Untidy bits of twig, twine, and feathers droop over the edge of the capital that tops a supporting pillar. The bird squashes herself into the nest, her tail protruding from one side while her head ducks at an uncomfortable angle opposite. She watches me with one dark liquid eye as I climb the steps, broom in hand, to sweep the porch floor. Occasionally she flies to the rooftop of the small shed at the edge of the property or sits on a branch of the apple tree in the front yard. Most often I see her perched on the telephone wire that runs past the front of the house where she converses with friends who also cling to the wires and speak in low, plaintive tones. 

 There are other birds in the yard—robins, catbirds, cardinals, wrens, and a variety of finches—some of which will soon fly south as the days shorten and cool down. Blue jays and crows make most of the noise in the mornings now, the dove adding her mournful coo to the sunrise salute. They scatter when I open the door to the front porch to see and feel what the day is like. Mornings are cooler than they were a month ago, though on sunny days the daytime hours between ten a.m. and three in the afternoon are pleasantly warm. Crickets still chirp in the grass and the rabbits, so shy in the daytime, hop out from the underbrush as I take my evening walk. 

There are numerous shade trees about the house, but I need walk just down the road to find open meadows that roll their green carpets to the edge of the woods. Deer feed there, and I know there are raccoons and most likely foxes about. There are bears, too, though I haven’t seen one, just a large pile of scat under an apple tree in a nearby orchard. I have no garden space of my own, so I’ve purchased a share in a local farm. Every week I choose from bins piled high with beets and carrots, spinach and chard and kale, sweet corn and tomatoes, filling a basket with produce and a canning jar with flowers I cut myself from their vast gardens. I am content to live in this quiet poem of a life for a while, teaching myself anew about patience, perseverance, and hope.

Ponderings

 

I came into this world naked and helpless, bearing the genetic structure composed of elements that stretch back to the origin of our species. I'm a chaotically organized crapshoot of characteristics from my ancestors that got molded and modified by nature and nurture. Depending on the capacity of my brain and my physical structure (which, by the way, I did not choose any more than I chose the geographical location of my birth), I learned how to identify and navigate my surroundings. I am no more nor less important than any living thing around me. I am naturally different as well as simultaneously the same. And my purpose is simply to perpetuate life itself. I make up the rest as I go along. Life on this planet may be just one way in an unending number of ways to exist. Thinking these things helps to keep me sane in a seemingly insane world.

 Dinner Disasters

 

Dinnertime is usually pretty tame at our house. One of us cooks, all of us eat, and we take turns cleaning up. Occasionally a magnificent effort will produce ooohs of appreciation but on the whole, mealtime is pleasant and uneventful. There are times, however, when things get out of hand and dinner gets (literally) turned upside down. Take Saturday night, for example. My sister, Jeanne, came for supper. She brought a roasted chicken and some fresh fruit for a compote. While I scrubbed and wedged some potatoes, she spread a rich crumble over the fruit and the two dishes went into the oven to bake.

 

Daughter Cassie was setting the table on the porch and I was in the yard when, from the kitchen, we heard a screech followed by a great crash and clattering, and then dead silence. Then came the moan. Uh oh.

 

Cassie and I stood in the kitchen doorway surveying the wreckage. Jeanne was toe deep in fruit slices and potato wedges. Purple juice splattered the floor, the cupboards, the refrigerator, the walls. The three of us looked at each other, horrified.  “I was pulling the oven rack out,” explained Jeanne, “when whoosh! Both pans came flying out of the oven like greased pigs. It was as if they planned it. You know, one dish said to the other, ‘When she opens that door, make a break for it.’ ”

 

This was greeted with more silence. Then one of us giggled. Giggles led to guffaws and finally we were all hooting as we tried to salvage what we could of the food. “You scoop,” said Jeanne, handing me a spatula “and I’ll spoon.” 

 

As an afterthought she said, “I hope your floor is clean.” 

 

“It will be when we’re done,” I told her.

 

This was not the first time I had to scrape dinner off the floor. We spent the next hour picking grit off the potatoes and telling tales of other dinner disasters. “Remember the porch-chops?” Cassie asked, recalling the time I turned a whole pan of pork chops upside down on the porch floor. “The dogs sure loved that dinner.”

 

That reminded me of another pork chop peccadillo. There were ten hungry guests gathered around the table, sniffing appreciatively at the spicy aroma of pork chop pizziole. We heard the oven door open. There was a scraping sound, a grunt, and a tremendous, squishy thud. Investigation showed us what had become of dinner. Pork chops, tomato sauce and cheese lay in a puddle on the floor. Sauce slid down the walls and some of the cheese hung from a doorknob. “Ah,” remarked one of the guests, sizing up the situation. “Pork Chops Linoleum!”