Never, No More

I miss my friend, Lora. If she had been able to hold on for one more summer, weather just one more winter, she would have celebrated her 104^th birthday this April. I would be making plans now to visit her (she liked to plan things ahead so she had something to look forward to). I’d bring a cupcake with a candle stuck in the frosting and a wrapped roll of toilet paper as a present—a joke gift we’d perpetuated since her 100^th birthday when she declared that from then on she wanted only practical gifts.

I’d be packing my winter woolies, as April in the Northeast Kingdom follows its own calendar and there still would be traces of snow. Lora would be waiting at the door when I arrived, a huge smile creasing her face, her arms ready for a fierce hug. We’d begin talking the moment we set each other free and we would not stop until I left a week later.

The back deck would be frosted in the early mornings. Sunlight streaming over the mountains would turn the breath of the neighboring farm’s great workhorses to gold streamers as they pranced in the field. Smoke would be rising from chimneys in town, the first houses just visible across the silvered meadow grasses.

Lora and I would sit at the breakfast table eating oatmeal laced with maple syrup and strawberries put by from last year’s harvest, or eggs fried in butter, or doughnuts she’d made herself, and plan our day to the very last minute, then change those plans as we went along, depending on what struck our fancy. Often we’d set off for one place only to be distracted by something else—an unexpected tag sale, a sudden yen for something to eat, a quickened memory of some other place that would detour us from our original destination.

When we returned in the late afternoon, Lora would retire to her bedroom for a nap and I would take a walk, letting the fresh air soak into my very bones. I wouldn’t remember until I was there, walking the tree-studded hillsides or wandering the dirt roads, how much I missed Vermont and how glad I was to be back where towering spruce trees scratched the underbellies of the clouds and green hillsides rolled up the very flanks of the mountains.

This year there will be no Lora, no hugs, or all-encompassing conversations, no new adventures to savor on the long ride back home. I will pack my winter woolies all the same, and head north come spring. I will visit the places where I knew Lora best—the old farmhouse in Greensboro, the house overlooking the lake in Glover, the little condo in Newport, and the house in Barton where I last saw her. I will get lost on the back roads, laugh at remembered stories and bid farewell, finally, to the friend who used to live in the Northeast Kingdom but now resides only in my memory, and my heart.

On My Walk Today

The sun was shining, the temperature rose past freezing and on into the 40s, a breeze flickered among the oak leaves and pine needles, setting them dancing, and a chickadee sang its happy little two-note spring song. All thoughts of cottage cleaning fled. Here's what I saw on my walk today.

Oak leaves basking in the February sunshine...

Sunbathing trees...

Geese that stayed all winter on the ice-free pond...

and noontime shadows dancing along the fence.

Tomorrow and the next day will be rainy so the fridge will get cleaned. Meanwhile, I'm full of sunshine and dancing shadows and the call of wild geese.

Since You Asked...

My friend Judith, at her blog Touch2Touch, offered a challenge she herself accepted from one of her blogging friends. I've done memes from time to time and have enjoyed in turn learning tidbits about others I might not have suspected. Here are my answers to questions selected from the two sets she posted. 

1. What was your favorite pastime when you were young?
Reading. No matter that the weather spoiled outdoor plans or a playmate disappointed; a good book always saved the day.  

2. What do you do for play now?
I still read (when I'm not out of doors gardening or hiking about).

3. If you could make one change to your life, right now, and have it stick, what would it be?
I'd restore the keen eyesight I had as a child.

4. What is your most memorable meal?
Fish & Chips eaten while sitting on a bench overlooking the Avon River.

5. What do you miss most about being a kid?
My uncomplicated sense of time. The days spun out before me as unending.

6. If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?
Don't put too much emphasis on what other people think of you. 


My mother grew up with the dictum, What will people think? guiding her every moment. That question has colored my life in not-so-pretty colors; I'm ready now to follow with   questions of my own: Who cares and why? Once those are answered, I can decide whether to let it matter or not.

7. You find a $50 bill but you have to spend it right now—what do you buy?
Food for the local food pantry.

8) What is your favorite movie adaptation of a book? Least favorite?
The Horse Whisperer was brought to life by Robert Redford. On the other hand, Gone With the Wind was far superior between book covers.

9) Where is your favorite place to write?
I have two. The first is in my tiny office space, sitting in front of my computer. The second is ensconced on the swing in my screened tent during the warm months. I type much faster than I write but when I'm out of doors I don't mind slowing down and writing by hand.

10) What was your favorite toy as a child?
I had a lap-sized chalkboard framed in wood. It's smooth gray surface held anything I cared to draw, and the swipe of a rag undid it all. I loved the impermanence of it; mistake or masterpiece suffered the same fate. Nowadays I have a Zen Board that works much the same way. Whatever I draw on it disappears in time. It's a life lesson I need to remember over and over.

11) What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
My children. They are marvelous people and though I can't claim that they are wonderful because of me, I can claim that they are here because of me. Having them was worth every bit of anxiety, pain, worry and frustration because loving (and being loved by) them outweighs every negative.

*Bonus* 12) What are the top five things on your bucket list?
1. Spend lots more time with my grandchildren
2. Learn to swim
3. Publish a book of poetry
4. Revisit Europe
5. Take classes in etymology, book binding, drawing, and any other subject that takes my fancy.

What about you?

Borrowing Posting Energy

There's a stunning poem posted at Talk At the Table, and a challenge to share your own table stories. I've been neglecting my blog; I've been buried in the past, resurrecting long-gone family members. I am sticking with the that theme and presenting a resurrected poem. There IS a table in it...

Message in the Bottle

Here is the table I set for dinner,

There is the glass you empty and fill.

There is the chair where I sit and I watch

As you knock your own to the floor.

There is the bottle that stands between us;

There is the hand that empties the glass.

There is the message that pours out like liquid.

Drowning the slam of the door.

Bringing the Past Up to Date

General James Longstreet

Family stories tell of an illustrious general who, during the Civil War, made a decision that was considered an enormous mistake that eventually cost the South their hopes for victory. He was exonerated years later, when time and investigation showed his "mistake" was really a sane and sensible course of action. Yesterday, after years of searching, of writing and asking and Googling, of reading hundreds upon hundreds of Ancestry.com entries, I discovered my relationship with this soldier. I am third cousin on my father's side, 5 times removed, from General James Longstreet who fought with General Lee at Gettysburgh.

There were clues all along, but not enough of them. There was "The General's" parade sword that we kids brandished at invisible enemies on rainy days. There was Charlie Longstreet's childhood silver fork and spoon that I called mine and wouldn't let anyone else use. There was the elegant silver serving tray with the Longstreet initials elegantly intertwined. There was a lock of "Grandpa Longstreet's" hair in a small, yellowing envelope (that turned out to be Charlie's, not the General's), there was a handwritten but incomplete genealogy in my mother's precise handwriting and a faded, crumpled obituary from a 1918 newspaper stating that Ella Longstreet Ebert, my father's grandmother, was a descendent of the family of General James Longstreet. Charlie was my stumbling block. The General's lineage is public property but finding his connection to Charlie was a mystery I was having trouble solving.

My great-grandmother Ella's obituary

For the past several years, I've filled out search forms, exchanged fruitless letters with the Mormon Family History Library in Utah, and checked out old newspapers on Fultonhistory.com. It was an unexpected message from a woman in Kansas whose grandmother was friends with my grandmother that put me on the right track. She helped me track down Charles' parents and from there the names began to fall into place. My great-grandmother Ella's father was cousin to the General; their grandfathers were brothers.

There are still several dozen of those little wiggling Ancestry.com leaves that indicate hints to investigate but the connection that has eluded me for so long is in writing now. I can salute the General across the years - pleased to claim kinship, Sir.

Everyday Worship

It’s the small things, isn’t it?

The delicate, embroidered daisies

on the sash-ends of her Sunday yellow dress,

the honest dirt under his fingernails,

the small pink whorl of a baby’s ear.

What of the worm tunneling the soil,

the flight of the barn swallow,

the draining green in autumn

that shows a leaf’s true color?

There should be reverence for the buttercup,

the flash of sunlight on the rippling pond,

the call of the whippoorwill in the pulsing dark.

Whether man made the Sunday gods

to blame or revere matters little,

for even without the whole living, breathing mass

of us to notice them, the little things

would fill the empty spaces.

My Own Angel of Mercy

When I was a small child and fell ill with a cold, my mother would ensconce me in her big bed, pile the pillows behind me so I could breathe more easily and bring my meals to me there on a large tray. The tray was placed on a bed table painted a cheery green. It had cunning little folding legs and a raised edge to keep dishes from sliding off. The whole affair was placed over my lap which was spread first with a bath towel to catch spills. Always there was a poached egg and freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast, a bowl of homemade chicken soup for lunch. As she went about her household chores, she would stop by my bed to rest a cool hand on my hot forehead. In the evening, she would spread Vicks VapoRub on a flannel cloth and place it on my chest. A bit of Vasoline was rubbed under my nose to ease the sting of too much blowing. I would be tucked back into my own freshly made bed and kissed goodnight. It was almost worth getting sick just to enjoy the fuss.

Now when I get sick I must take care of myself. I must make my own soup, freshen my own bed, squeeze my own orange juice. To this end, I keep a supply of chicken stock in the freezer made from boiling the carcass after a meal of roast chicken. I line-dry my sheets, even in winter, so when they are spread on the bed they smell of fresh air and sunshine. I keep my charming orange painted orange juice squeezer at hand; a quick slice with the knife, a quick press of the handle, and voila! freshly squeezed juice. The bed table is long gone but I still have the large tray Mama used when I was young.

Yesterday I hauled my sick self out of tangled bed sheets, warmed some broth, peeled and sliced carrots, put my coat and boots on for the trek to the garage freezer for the remaining garden peas, cooked some noodles and made my own soup. I cut and squeezed two fresh oranges, made toast from the last of the homemade bread, remade the bed with sweet smelling sheets, piled the pillows high, and climbed back under the covers. There was no one to fuss, no one to wait on me except me, but I swear, as I drifted off to sleep in a waft of Vicks VapoRub, that I felt a cool hand on my forehead and a feathery light kiss on my cheek.

The Truth Will Out

Working on the Senior Citizen History Project (here) has necessitated sorting through hundreds of old family photographs to find just the right ones to illustrate each page of text. This is not a job for the faint of heart (or the short of time). Every photo elicits memories within memories. For instance:

This was taken shortly after I was brought home from the hospital. That's my three year old brother FP in the foreground, the one with his arm across his forehead in, "Jeez, do we have to keep her?" mode.

Not only had my mother been away for two weeks, she came home carrying a squalling, wet, no-fun-at-all baby sister. Poor FP. Things did not get better as I got older. I was a selfish, prying, demanding little kid, wanting whatever FP was playing with at the moment. "Give it to Nin-nin," was my battle cry.

"I'll give it to Nin-nin," my mother would say through gritted teeth, her hands itching to deposit me in a room by myself until I shaped up. (Apparently my Memere had no qualms about administering swift justice. When she caught me biting her precious FP's ear in order to wrest a toy from him, she chased me around her house with a leather clothes whip!)

When he was four, FP was offered a deal too good to pass up. The chicken feed man who supplied my father's chicken farm with sacks of grain offered to buy me for a dollar.

CF man: "That's a cute little sister you have there."

FP: "Nah." (No way was I cute!)

CF man: "She'd just about fit into one of these empty sacks, don't you think?"

FP: "Yeah." His eyes must have lit up at the thought.

This conversation was overheard by my father who, though a bit taken aback, stayed quiet to see what would develop.

CF man: "I'll give you a dollar for her."

FP: "Okay."

The chicken man reached in the back of his pickup truck for an empty burlap sack. Then he reached into his wallet for a dollar bill. FP must have had a change of heart as he took the bill. Perhaps he realized that I was about to be hauled off in a sack and that might not necessarily be a good thing. He began to cry. My mother came out to see what he was howling about.

"FPC!" she exclaimed, using all three of his names as my father explained. "You give that man his money back right now! You can't sell your sister!" At which point my brother forfeited the dollar and was marched into the house for a half hour in the punishment chair (another memory offshoot for another time).

That was the official version that was handed down with other family lore. My brother now claims he remembers another ending. He says the chicken feed man offered him $10 and the only reason he started to cry was because he thought for that amount of money he might have to go along to help take care of me.

Happy Little Snow Song

Snow is falling, falling down

beyond the windowpane.

The playful wind swirls flakes around

and drops them down again.

They cling, they drift, they fill the air,

like many feathered wings,

and when the earth is still like this

I hear the snowflakes sing.

Beginning at the Beginning

At the beginning...

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream? Edgar Allen Poe

I have recently signed on at the local Senior Center to work with middle grade students on a history project - my history!

Sponsored by a health initiative and overseen by a youth program coordinator and a teacher from the local middle school, the project pairs a willing senior citizen with an inquisitive student. Together we will talk about the past, sort through hundreds of old photos and artifacts, ask and answer a myriad of questions and finally produce a written and pictorial scrapbook of the senior's life. All this in 9 weeks!

Last week we had an informational meeting and met the students through a lively interview process much like speed-dating. The students spent five or six minutes hopping from table to table, interviewing each participating senior. Finally they met in a huddle and then fanned out, grinning, each one choosing an adult they felt they'd enjoy working with. My young person is a very friendly, very lively 13 year old girl with long dark hair and a smile that flashes like sunshine on water.

We agreed that the best place to start was with the timeline that begins with my birth date and ends with the present day. I've done my part this week by sorting through the dozens of photo albums and endless photo storage boxes for pictures that represent the highlights of my life - babyhood, childhood playmates, first day of school, high school graduation, college days, marriage, children, etc. I will have to repeat the college days three times as I dutifully went off for a year immediately after high school, interrupted my studies to marry and raise a family, build a log cabin and homestead in northern Vermont, travel to Europe, and move house five times. I finally returned to school for a bachelor's degree in creative arts and then a masters degree in writing when in my fifties.

When I told my children about this project one of my daughter's queried, "Are you old enough to do that?"

That made me chuckle. The ad recruiting seniors specified 60+. That's me all right, though some days I feel more + than not. At any rate, I think it will be fun to look over my life in the company of a teenager. She is already aghast that I didn't have a TV in my house until I was older than she is now, that I spent most of my time alone and out of doors in the neighboring woods and fields ("With wild animals and bugs and everything?") and wouldn't care if I never went shopping again ("I've never met anyone who didn't like shopping!").

Tomorrow we will go through my first batch of photos. I will talk, she will take notes, and we'll walk the nostalgia path together, me with my head in the past and she with hers in the future. Where we meet in the present will become a special place for both of us. I'll fill you all in as we progress...

At 3 years old

Waiting For the Magic to Hit

I know

If I wait long enough,

Sit quietly long enough,

Listen long enough,

Some small miracle

Will present itself.

Perhaps the sun will dance

In silver slippers on the water,

Or the wind will become visible,

Bullying the snow ahead of it.

I might see the silver flash

Of a hunting ermine,

Or hear the voice of an icicle

Weeping at its own demise.

I can breathe the world in

Through nose and eye and ear

Breathe it out again through the pen.

Silence and language meet

In the mind of a poet.

Counting Days, Counting Flowers

The woods at Barholomew's Cobble where Floyd and I often walked...

I read a wonderful story at this site about a decades-ago friendship between two young girls and a 40 year old man that asked the question - could that kind of friendship even be possible in today's world? The answer, of course, and sadly, is no. But it put me in mind of my own childhood and a wonderful man, single, in his forties, caretaker at several city-people-owned houses in our rural community who took the time to befriend and teach a solitary little girl about the wonder of the natural world and the power of words.

Floyd was an old friend. Together we'd walked many a woodland trail and winding road. It was Floyd who taught me in my childhood the names of the trees and plants that bordered the roadside and populated the forests. He taught me how to shoot a rifle one morning and make a strawberry shortcake that afternoon. He awakened in me an interest in poetry, for often while we walked he would recite from memory long verses by some of his favorite authors. We kept in touch even as I graduated from high school, went off to college, married, and traveled to far places. He was one of the first people I looked up when I returned to live in my childhood hometown.

Years passed but we still found time to walk together. Then one spring, Floyd fell ill. I visited him as he lay in a hospital bed, unable to move his legs at all. There would be no more walks for us, I realized. Floyd looked at me, stalwart and not a bit sorry for himself. "I have no feeling in my legs," he said. "I imagine I'll go from here to the graveyard but maybe you'll keep me company here for a while."

Always before, Floyd had been the giver, I the receiver. Over the next few weeks that changed. Now it was my turn to give. Every day I found an hour or two to spend at his bedside. I brought him bits of news from around town, read letters from his friends and articles from the newspaper. I even published one about our friendship. That made him smile. "Maybe you'll write another about our time now?" he asked. And each week he grew a little quieter, his breathing a little more labored.

I began to count the time he stayed there by the flowers that were in bloom. When he first entered the hospital, violets were just poking their shy heads from beneath dark green foliage. He couldn't have flowers in his room because he was asthmatic, but I could tell him what was blossoming. We marked the weeks by color - paper white hyacinths, sunny yellow daffodils, buttercups and purple swamp iris and apple blossoms that blushed pink and white.

As the flowers multiplied and thrived, Floyd seemed to shrink. The light in his eyes dimmed and his strength left him until he was unable to do more than lift his hands. I remembered how strong he'd been, how those hands had wielded axe and hammer and saw. I remembered their gentleness when he doctored small animals and children with bumps and scrapes. When the June roses began to bud, Floyd's conditioned worsened. I left word with the floor nurses to call me whenever he was awake and wanted company. Then I would pull my chair close to his bed and hold his hand, letting the companionship we'd established years ago enfold us.

By the last week of June, when daisies dotted the green meadows like summer snowflakes, Floyd was hooked to an oxygen tube. When I touched his hand, his eyes would flutter open and focus and a look of recognition would light his face. Then his eyes would close again. The room was filled with his raspy breathing. One day I brought a book of his favorite verses with me. We could no longer converse but the nurse assured me he could still hear me so I read on through the afternoon, telling the sagas he'd so often recited to me as we walked the sunlit woods. On the last day of June, the day the first orange lilies lifted their shining faces to the sun, Floyd took his last walk with me, a walk of the mind and heart.

That was twenty years ago. Today I am going on a hike/write with a local naturalist as we've done for several years. Floyd will walk with us unseen but not unheard. 

Awake In the Night

The moon at midnight was a distant, radiant orb, dusting the landscape with silver sparkles. There is only a vague familiarity to the known world on such nights. I'd been asleep but the moonlight shining through my window woke me. The night sky was irresistible. I pulled on boots and a coat, tugged a hat over my head and stepped outside. The air was cold but not biting. The yard and woods spread out before me in the ghostly light. Not a sound broke the stillness, not a breath of wind moved a tree branch or the tall, dead grasses as meadow's edge. Everything was at once unrecognizable and eerily familiar. In one's imagination, almost anything could be creeping stealthily through the dark. In reality, most unidentifiable lumps are ordinary bushes.

As my eyes adjusted and I woke up a little more, the night became a magical place. Everything was painted with silver - the small drifts of leaves at the edge of the yard, the ropes of my swing, the roofline of the house next door. I walked on the moonpath, amazed that I could cast a shadow in the middle of the night. There were night noises in the woods, scurryings and chufflings and the distant bark of a dog. Only when the voices of a pack of hunting coyotes carried across the far meadow did I turn for home. I would have liked to see the moonlight trace runnels of liquid silver along their fur but I did not want them to see me.

Back in bed I snuggled under the down comforter, still seeing in my mind's eye the play of moonlight on the still pond waters and gaunt tree trunks. In the distance the coyotes yapped. I fell asleep, safe and warm in body while my dream self floated up to the stars and the sunlit moon.

Whining About the Weather

No snow yet...

After two months of mild weather following a surprise October blizzard, we're seeing temperatures in the single digits with even colder wind chills. The poor plants! No blanket of snow protects their frozen toes. I've heaped hay around the bases of the rose bushes but the forsythia bush, confused by the mild weather into blossoming again, has had its little yellow blossoms turned to tattered flags of ice.

Even the sky looks cold. This morning the horizon is pale yellow above the mountain and icy blue beyond that. Trees are silhouetted against the burgeoning light, their shivering branches clattering out an SOS in the bitter wind. Small birds fight for places at the seed feeder and woodpeckers have reduced the suet in its wire cage to a small raggedy lump.

The cold is not expected to last beyond Friday when once again temperatures will bounce into the high 30s and lower 40s. Not a snowflake is in sight for at least the next ten days. I much prefer winter to be winter, with deep, plant-protecting snow. I don't mind the cold when I can go out and play in it.

Playmate from last year.

My Answer

My friend J asked two questions about miracles at the end of today's post. Here's my answer


We all experience big moments that thrill us to the very marrow—births, weddings, reunions, reconciliations. It's the little moments however, the ordinary, ho-hum, didn’t-see-them-because-we-weren’t-looking miracles that make up our days. Here are a few of my favorites:


*Silence, broken by bird song or a child's laughter.

*Being kissed by a kitten. Or a child, a sweetheart, an old friend, a puppy (or a sunbeam).

*Finding money in my pocket unexpectedly.

*The first glimpse of a harvest moon hanging above the horizon like a glowing Japanese lantern, or walking along a silver moonpath on a snowbound night.

*Getting all green lights.

*Hearing a voice warm with love on the other end of the telephone line.

*Climbing between sheets that have been hung on a line to dry. It’s like falling asleep out of doors in the sun and wind. In fact, crawling into bed when I’m exhausted is such a marvelous moment that I try to stay awake long enough to relish its comfort.

*Opening a new book. Reading an old favorite. Making my own books. There’s an immense satisfaction that comes from making things from scratch.

*Feeling the weight of my grandchildren as they fall asleep against me. There is nothing more endearing than the faith of a child and nothing more rewarding than knowing you are trusted completely.

*Wearing my favorite sweater. The sleeves are stretched, the shoulders have been stitched and re-stitched and the color is faded from countless washings, but it is still the first thing I reach for when I’m chilly or in need of comfort.

*Facing a blank piece of paper. What better way to illustrate unlimited potential?

*Being the recipient AND the perpetrator of small kindnesses.

*Hugs.

*Dawn…not such a little moment, perhaps, seeing as it banishes night and gives us a new day every single time, but so often we miss it in our hurry to be doing instead of being. I want to be in that first blush of light when the morning is fresh and the world holds its breath. I want to be kissed awake by that first sunbeam.  

What are yours?