With the Window Open

I spent the night with the window open.

When I was a child, this was no oddity - there was no air-conditioning to take the damp from the air, chill it down, raise up goose flesh, hum through the hours.

I lived by the sea. At night, the breeze would freshen, blow in from the water to touch the land, gentle, hesitant, just stirring the curtains framing my window with a sigh. Sometimes a fog would creep up, although it was more usual for morning light to be softened with that grey cloak.

I spent the night with the window open.

I would listen to the small sounds of the late hours, listen to the rustle of fabric as the sheer panels across the black expanse of glass would flutter restlessly, like a lady's gown as she shifted on her feet a little, waiting for her partner to claim this dance.

Sometimes, the wind was bold. It would whistle through the screen, a jaunty tune meant to coax a curious child outside, out of the safety of the quiet house and into the uncertainty of the dew speckled lawn, down to the shore where waves reached with hungry darkness for their earthen mistress.

I spent the night with the window open.

On rare occasions, the air would crackle, alive, as a storm rolled in. Then the screen would vibrate, hum, the wind shrieking through its tiny openings, a beansidh wailing outside the walls, reaching supple fingers down the house chimneys, sending the mice scurrying for the safety of their corners in the attics. It made eddies in the empty spaces of my room, tugged at my nightgown and my hair before sliding under my door, down the hall, around corners, seeking out other playmates.

I would draw open the curtains and stand, staring out beyond the field that rolled down to the water, black silk puddling to the horizon. Moon or no moon, I knew she was there, Mother Oshun. Sometimes I could hear her, murmuring her song, the cresting waves her eternal chorus. I would stand and breathe in her scent - brine, damp, weed, sand, stone - for an hour or more, still and serene. I would breathe in the storm, undaunted by the chill, the edge in the air.

I spent the night with the window open.

I recall evenings when I had to dive back into my bed, roll onto my side, feign sleep, when adult feet would hurry to my room. A voice, sometimes my grandmother, sometimes the nanny (babysitter, nanny, companion - she was the daughter of our grandmother's housekeeper, hired to ride herd on us over the summer) voicing hushed dismay at the open window, at the cold, muttering about the mad child who would sleep with the window open despite asthma, despite dire predictions she'd catch her death because she let in the mad wind and threw off her covers to sleep exposed to his touch.

They would ask me why. Why? Wasn't I cold? Didn't I shiver? Didn't I mind the creeping damp? Didn't my lungs grow heavy? I never had an answer - I knew why I wanted the wind in my room, the air moving, stirring about, brushing stray strands of hair from my face with gentle fingers. I knew why I wanted Mother Oshun to have a way to croon to me in my sleep, or (as often) my wakefulness. I knew that I was waiting for something. Only - I could not give voice to this knowing, because there were no words to shape it, no way to define it to human ken.

I spent the night with the window open.

I am far from the shore, now. If there is anything of the sea in the fitful breezes that find their way through the one small window of my bedroom, I cannot detect it. There is no rushing hush of wave on sand, no sea-borne damp to speckle my skin with salt.

Still. Still...

I spent the night with the window open, and in rolled the songs of night creatures that do not love the shore, an ebb and flow of a different sort. In the stillness, they sang the nightly chorus - a country dance rather than seafaring reel, a more earthy note to the tune. I could smell trees, earth, leaf and loam. It is a different perfume to fill my nostrils with its richness, but speaking equally to the wild in me. I longed to go out into the yard, beyond the house and to the woods, where shadows and shades twined through the trees, tangling strands in the branches and weaving the trunks together, making of the many a whole entity, a living, breathing place that welcomes those who tread the path lightly, surely, knowingly.

Before I slept I stood as in my youth, at the window, staring out into the night, seeking that same indefinable something that calls me out if the confines of civilized life, away from squared corners, protecting (smothering) walls, binding cloth and human strictures and into something primal, deeper than words can say. One day...one day...I will answer.

For now...I spend the night with the window open and take in measured doses what my spirit craves in its fullness.

Still (Horse) Crazy, After All These Years

When I was a kid, I was horse mad. It's the rare girl who isn't horse mad, actually - it seems we're hard wired to love the beasts on sight, even when they bite, kick, throw us, or step on our feet and lean. We love them despite the smell and the copious amounts of fecal matter we have to shovel up when they leave it lying around, and despite them blowing snot on us, farting shamelessly, and the insane amount of hay, grain, and water we have to give them to keep body and soul together...not to mention the apples, carrots, bread, sugar cubes, and corn husks and cobs they crave for snacks. Hmm...maybe it's nature's way of getting us ready for guys. I kid, I kid! Mostly...

Some girls never grow out of their horse crazy phase. I'm one of those. I love them with a madness that is immeasurable, and one of the things I miss most from my not-fat-not-always-broke days is riding. I learned English but switched to Western when I discovered the joys of the trail ride - I was always tall (topping out at five foot, ten inches), and riding for miles with my knees in my teeth wasn't much fun. I liked the free and easy feel of Western riding, the more substantial saddle, the feeling of security that I had when I could drop my heels down and feel myself rooted in that saddle. Jumping in a western saddle was right out, but my cousin C was the jumper, the better horsewoman all around, not me. I was terrified of real jumping, never going much higher than the cavaletties (sp??) that my instructor insisted I try on a regular basis. I just like riding along at an amble, communing with nature and the horse and generally achieving a sort of equine-enhanced Zen state.

The two worst almost-falls I ever had were on trail rides, and I came out of both incidents better off than the horse did. That was thanks to my English training, when it was really important to know how to come out of a saddle - those stirrups are short, one's balance is all off-kilter, and it's all so...insecure. I was glad enough for the training, though, because I could turn a bad fall into a controlled dismount even when the horse was suddenly subject to a gravity-well and untied shoelaces, or fairies, or whatever made them jump, stumble, and fall.

I miss all of that, even the shovelling of shit and the occasional buck, rear, shy, or fall. I miss the smell of horse, leather, saddle soap, barn, and sweat. I miss the creak of the leather, the sigh and snort of the animal, and the slow, gentle sough of my legs being rubbed raw because I wore absolutely the wrong pants for a trail ride. Oops.

I've been told I can ride, even now, because horses can carry a lot of weight...but honestly? I can just see the horses rolling their eyes and trying to fake a limp when they see me come walking into the stable. I can't make some poor critter haul my fifty-acre...umm...make that forty-eight acre...ass around a ring, let alone on a trail. I'll wait. It's one of the...ahem...carrots I am holding out to myself to continue losing weight.

What made me think of all this? Several things, actually, a kind of serendipity or synchronicity, if you will - I just finished reading a book about a woman who runs away from her husband to live on a horse farm, where she trains for Dressage (among other adventures), an article in National Geographic from a month or so ago, about Mustangs and the BLM's herd management techniques, and the horse trailer I followed for a few miles last night that had the bumper-sticker reading "My horse is smarter than you honor student" on the rear door.

I watched as little girls craned their necks to see the horses in the trailer, straining to catch a glimpse as they rode in the back seat of their parent's cars, following with their eyes for as long as they could before they had to turn back around or were out of sight. I actually slowed down so I wouldn't block one girl's view, a gesture of Universal Sisterhood in All Things Equine.

I just remembered one of life's great cruelties - I loved horses but was an adequate rider at best. Big Brother was indifferent to the animals, and he could have ridden for the Olympics, he was that good. Sigh. Life can be so unfair.

Horsin' Around - some horsey links to feed the madness:

Unwanted Horse Coalition - they do good work.

The Pinto Horse Association - because I learned to ride on the orneriest Pinto on the planet, and I loved her.

Horse Types of the World - an invaluable site if you can't tell a Paint from a Palomino. I have used this site extensively while researching for stories. If I ever make a million, I'll thank them with presidential portraits in green, but for now, a link on my blog will have to do.

An finally, a link to the online version of the National Geographic story about Mustangs. I admit, I got a bit weepy when I read the anecdote that began the article...sniff...

To Dance With Life

I was an awkward, shy, frightened, uncertain, insecure child. I didn't know about normalcy, had no idea that the oddly dichotomous life of privilege and poverty wasn't the same life everybody lived.

In my early teens, I was sent to boarding school - it probably saved my life, if not my sanity. Honestly, I don't think anything would save the sanity, and I don't know that I've missed it. Others may wish I had a fuller measure of the stuff, but I'm fine with my crazy. It's comfortable, like the worn-to-my feet pair of pink flamingo slippers that live in my closet and come out when I want a laugh and have cold feet.

At the boarding school, I met and lived with kids who had a better grasp on normalcy. I thought them strange, curious creatures worth study if not emulation.

They wanted to have dances, just like other kids in other schools. There weren't many of us at the school, so it was slim pickings for partners. I'd never been to a dance, didn't know what they entailed. Except for one, I didn't go to any at the boarding school - I had the distinct impression I wasn't wanted at them, and only went to the one because I was desperately lonely and searching for...something.

I sat in the darkest corner of the building where the dance was held - the main class building, called The Hex because it was hexagonal (original, weren't we?) - and watched. I didn't know this kind of dancing, and I wished I did. I thought maybe I would be better liked if I knew how to move like the other kids moved. One boy took pity on me and asked if I would like to...and I tried...but in the end, I just drank some punch and left.

I didn't know that kind of dancing.

Later, I realized that I knew a different sort of dancing, one that doesn't belong in a building with electricity, rock music, low lights, the miasma of teen hormones, teen angst.

I know the dance of sea and shore.

I know the dance of mountain and sky.

I know the dance of tree and wind.

The rhythms of star and sky, sun and moon, the music of river and stone, the thrumming beat of the Earth's heart.

These are not dances that can be danced within doors - they need the flickering, uncertain light of fire, the shadows outside the circle of flame, the night sky and its diamond chip stars.

I never did learn how to dance properly...but I can still, when no one is watching, dance with life.

The Aftermath of Angst (Following up on "I Promise...")

See? I told you I'd post about it...because I know you were holding your breath, just waiting. Hey, nothing's wrong with my ego - it's the rest of me that's nuts!
~~~~~

As for that pivotal night, something good came of it. The other relief houseparent had realized the oversight that afternoon and (on her own time, with her own money) bought some strawberries just for me. Beautiful, crimson, perfect, she was careful to choose the very best ones. She didn't say anything about them, hoping that the forgetful woman would at least make a minimal effort. Vain hope, that.

When I stormed off into the woods, Heidi followed me. Yes, that was her name, the thoughtful one, Heidi. She'll never read this, and if she does, well - she should be known for her kindness. She waited a few minutes (she knew where I'd go before I did) and then she followed me, carrying that pint of strawberries, through the woods and to my destination - another teacher's lodging. I won't use his name only because I named my son for him some eighteen years later, and I won't post my son's real name online.

In his room, I cried out the bitter disappointment over this and every other broken promise - promises of being a family, of having normalcy, of love and safety. I didn't know it, but I was also sobbing for the broken promise that the adults in my life would protect me from human evils.

Heidi waited a few minutes outside the other teacher's room before knocking. He let her in with some relief - dear man that he was, he wasn't in any way prepared for a hysterical teenager babbling about rice cakes but torn by some deeper, unspoken thing.

Heidi held me and let me have my cry, told me how sorry she was that the other teacher had been so careless, and wistfully added that she wished I hadn't stormed away before she (Heidi) could show me what she'd gotten for me when she learned of the oversight. She offered me the strawberries, and I cried again - this time because of that loving, gentle woman's kindness.

She and the teacher whose rooms I'd invaded were possibly the best people I'd know, up to that point. Don't get me wrong - I loved my Mum and dad, my brother, my grandparents - but at that time, at that age, for a variety of reasons, I hadn't seen a lot of compassion, a lot of tolerance, a lot of understanding (or at least effort towards understanding) from the people to whom I was related. My whole family was (and to some extent still is) a big old tangled mess, and if I'm the only one who admits to my madness, well...that doesn't mean I'm the only one who has it (I won't say I suffer from it - I don't. I like crazy - they keep a room there for me and my face is on the currency). They also had no idea some of the things I'd experienced, because next to a promise? A secret is something I know how to keep.

That night, in that room, I felt like someone loved and cared for me despite my many glaring imperfections. I was good enough, even though I was angry and dared to act on that anger. Someone thought I deserved a little care, not because it would gain them anything (because it wouldn't...all it would mean was trouble, since they weren't punishing me and I really shouldn't be in a male teacher's rooms) or because they wanted to buy my silence or sooth their guilt - just because they were decent people.

I credit them with reattaching my humanity to the rest of me...because I really could have gone the sociopath route with very little effort. They didn't give me my soul, but they bandaged the poor tattered thing and gave freely of themselves to the healing of it.

In a dark, tiny, crowded teacher's rooms, I ate the best strawberries ever grown and tried to get a damn grip, and the two adults in the room didn't chastise, didn't lecture, didn't make me feel guilty or wrong for having an emotional self - they shared the berries (at my insistence) and reassured me that it was OK to be angry (although throwing food at a teacher's head wasn't exactly how they'd suggest I handle that anger), that it was OK to be hurt, and that the other teacher was wrong when she made it clear that a broken promise meant nothing.

I didn't evolve my attitude toward keeping promises that night - that came after, from books and stories of honor, from the two teachers and other fine people who didn't talk...they showed. They did. It was my thoughts on breaking promises that crystallized, and my attitude towards promises made.

For losing my temper, however righteously, I was punished. I understood and accepted that. I never bothered trying to like the teacher who was such a bitch - this wasn't the only time she'd been a complete cow (and not just to me - she was equally horrid to the other kids, too).

The other two teachers and I didn't mention the strawberries, or our chat. That was between us. I'd found two allies that night, though, two friends that I cherish to this day.

I promise (maybe).

I read this over at Noble Pig, and it reminded me of when I was a kid and one of my (many, many, no really, I can't count them all) quirks; I don't make promises.

Not often, anyway.

When someone does manage to wrangle a promise out of me, I'll promise to try, but not to do. I won't make a promise I am not certain of keeping - if I think weather, time, humanity, or my own perfidy will keep me from keeping my word...I won't give my word.

Promises flew through the air like popcorn from a lidless hot-air popper when I was a kid. I can't begin to tell you how many trips to Disney World were promised by my grandmother as rewards for good grades and/or behavior - but I can tell you that I went once, with someone who never promised we'd go, just showed up one day and asked Mum if he could borrow me and my brother for adventures in the home of the rodent with a side jaunt to Cape Canaveral (Thanks, GDH - that was awesome). Other than the one person who'd never promised to take us anywhere, the trips never happened. When I was six, I really believed the promises...then I cottoned on.

From my grandmother I learned that people make promises because it's more convenient than being honest, because they want something from you.

Now, I am not referring to mistakes like mixing up dates or times, or when something catastrophic happens and things can't be avoided.

Nope. I'm talking about promising your ten-year-old daughter that you are coming to visit her at boarding school this weekend and not showing up. And she refrained for going roller-skating with the rest of the dorm because she was waiting for you. So instead, she spent Saturday in a tree coming to the conclusion that she meant absolutely zero to you. That's what I mean.

If it happened only once, that would be one thing - but more than thirty times in four years? Umm...that's a pattern, a habit.

From my father, I learned that promising is easier than telling someone they mean less to you than the party, the boat, the hunting trip, the inconvenience of the effort of keeping that promise.

I was probably fourteen when the last straw hit me. It was such a stupid thing, really - my grandmother decided I wasn't fucked up in the head enough and maybe an eating disorder and an unhealthy attitude towards food were just the things I needed, so she placed me on a special diet. Easy for her to do - I lived at a boarding school where she didn't have to implement this bizarre diet - the staff did. Bless their hearts.

I was seriously limited in my dining options, since I wasn't permitted to consume anything with wheat, oats, sugars, yeast, or anything remotely resembling "tasty".

One night a week, we planned our own meals. One week, the other kids decided to have root beer floats for desert. I didn't say anything, just knew I wouldn't have any. As usual, I would probably just leave the room.

One of the relief house-parents knew about my restrictions and offered to get me some special ice cream - I couldn't have a float, but at least I'd have a special treat, too. Since I'd been living on rice cakes, tofu, and tree bark for months, I was happy to believe in her promises.

The anticipated night came, and we had our dinner (lasagna for everyone else, salad with no dressing for me)(yes, some eighteen years later I remember - that garlic bread smelled good!). I didn't mind that I couldn't have lasagna or garlic bread - I had a treat waiting for me.

Or...did I?

Yeah, umm...it seems that a certain relief house parent (I don't have room to explain this, here. maybe some other time) had forgotten.

So while the other kids were digging in to ice cream and pouring root beer, I was quietly waiting for my promised Tofutti. A plate was thrust under my nose. A plate with rice cakes on it. As an added bonus, some old, rancid, organic, no sugar added, stir the oil back in every time you open it peanut butter had been swiped across the tops. Festive.

And definitely not on par with Tofutti, ice cream, or root beer floats. I asked what had happened to the Tofutti she'd promised. She casually said "Oh, I forgot about that" and she made it clear that it meant nothing to her. I started to cry. Yes, I know, it was a stupid thing to cry over...but she'd promised. I'd looked forward to it for a week, endured meals I wouldn't feed to the worst of humanity knowing I had this one small thing in my future. I mentioned that she promised, and she basically told me to get over it, I was being childish (Umm, hello? I was a child!!), and it didn't matter.

When I declined the offered taste treat, I was called ungrateful - ungrateful for the effort this woman had made in un-bagging some stale old rice cakes and topping them with something akin to baby shit but with less appeal.

I took the plate, stared at it for a moment, and did something I'd never before done. I lost my shit. I threw the plate at the woman (I missed, but the offending cakes did stick to the wall in a most satisfying manner)(organic peanut butter apparently makes a fine stand-in for wallpaper paste, should you run out) and left the dorm. She yelled at me to stop, and I kept right on going.

I'd never rebelled against anything, never lost id like that before. It was a revelation. She stood in the doorway screaming, and I kept right on walking, over the lawn, past the big hexagonal school building, and into the woods. If I had known the word "fuck" at the time, I think I might have used it.

That was the last time I believed in a promise. Oh, sure, I'll hope that someone means it, but I don't put any faith in the vow - I don't trust promises, and (sadly) I am rarely disappointed in their breaking. I am (more sadly) usually stunned in their keeping.

I, myself, will not be forsworn. I'll die first. That's not hyperbole - I mean it. If I promise a thing, I will kill myself keeping my word. I have not broken any of the rare promises I've made in life, nor will I. I may ask to be released from a promise, but I won't break it. I won't disappoint my son the way I was disappointed - I won't wound him with that kind of carelessness. I won't do that to anyone.

Hell, I even hedged my wedding vows, promising not to love forever, but to remain as long as love lasted. No "'til death do you part" for me. Nope. It was "As long as love lasts". I won't promise forever...won't even promise next week. I'll promise the moment I'm in and no more.

I could go on about the promise that's kept me kicking through this old life, and the aftermath of my tempestuous, teen-angsty blowup over Tofutti (today, I would consider it a favor if you didn't give me any)(and doubly favored am I if you never, ever offer me anything with tofu it), but this has gone on enough.

I'll post that other stuff another time. I promise.

Oh, and? Noble Pig didn't break a promise - she made a simple mistake from which she and her child will recover and learn. I just feel the need to point out, again, that it's not the same...because she's a terrific woman, a loving Mum, and human. It was the disappointment that reminded me...that's all...

North Meets South

I wasn't born in the South - I moved down here from New Hampshire in 1986.

Before I moved here, I didn't give the South much thought, as a region. I was at home in the Northern woods, happy to be lost among the trees or half-buried in snow. I liked hauling wood to heat buildings, and had little experience with A/C - even my short stint in Florida didn't acquaint me with cooled air, since we were too broke to afford that luxury.

While I was at home up there in the wilds of New England, Georgia took some getting used to. People spoke differently, thought differently, moved differently, ate and drank differently. They ate grits, and they expected me to eat them, too. Umm...not so much. I find grits to be taste and texture fiestas for which I am never prepared. They ate barbeque (the real thing, not hot dogs on the grill) which looks like a horrible accident on your plate but tastes....mmmmmm. I like barbeque. They didn't understand clam boils or lobster bakes, and they cooked shrimp in fresh water or with giant tea bags full of...stuff. Bleh. Biscuits didn't mean Brittish cookies, and iced tea came two ways (and I don't mean with or without ice!).

I came to love my new home state, and I'm content to remain here for the duration. They may not have lobsters for a buck apiece fresh from the boat, or steamers, or snow up to my ass, or maple trees that turn flaming crimson in the Autumn and provide such sweetness in the Spring, but they more than make up for that with chicken fried steak (be still my heart...oh, wait, if I eat enough of this fried goodness with the white gravy that comes on the side, you will be still, won't you??), fried okra (I know, I know - I'll eat this but not grits?), fluffy biscuits with blackberry jam (oh, I could sing the praises of this delight for ages, but you wouldn't understand until you had some truly fine examples of the two culinary crafts put together for your benefit), barbeque that will make you slap your mama (so many delightful euphemisms), and sweet tea.

Sweet tea. Not that crap in a can with or without chemical lemon-flavored additive that most people mix at double strength. No, I mean real, honest to goodness sweet tea.

Now, everyone has their preference for which kind of tea to use, but the two most prevalent are Lipton and Tetley. I like Lipton because I grew up with it up North, so I know it hot - and it's just fine cold, too. There are special blends for iced versus hot tea, and different brewing methods, from jars in the sun to gadgets that allegedly do all the work from brewing to cooling with the push of a button. As long as the people drinking it are happy, I say brew what you like.

Me?

I take three large Lipton Iced Tea blend bags and three small (single cup size) Twinings bags of either Earl Grey or Lady Grey, and clip them to my one-gallon pitcher (plastic, utilitarian, standard kitchen fare). I clip the with a clothes-pin so I don't have to hold them or fish them out later. I'm lazy that way.

I boil a full tea kettle of water and pour it into the pitcher, careful not to hit the bags directly because a burst tea bag makes for some gymnastic tea drinking.

Let it steep for ten minutes or so before removing the bags and adding one-half cup sugar. Yes, that's all. I know, I know, the proper Souther ration is one cup to the gallon, but that's too freakin' sweet for me! Stir it up a bit to get the sugar to dissolve.

Now, if I'm in a hurry I top up the pitcher with a mix of ice and water. If I have time, I just top it up with water and put it in the fridge until it's cold.

Serve over ice, with or without fresh (for the love of all that's holy do NOT use that so-called Real crap!!) lemon or little sprigs of mint (fancy!).

Mmmm. Ahhh. Nice.

Swimming in the Deep End Again

I have a scar. Well, I have quite a few, actually, but this particular scar is attached to a panoply of memories. I seem to be lingering in Little Compton at the moment(My Aunt S has written me about my posts, and she refers to it as "LC", and I may start doing the same since it's a handful to type). I lived there, or nearby, for perhaps the first eight years of my life, then moved to Florida, then back to New England, dividing my time between LC and New Hampshire before finally moving down here to Georgia, where I have hunkered down to bide my time until I take over the world, win the lottery, figure out what I want to be when I grow up live. I have been in Georgia for more than half of my life, but it seems to be what came before that has marked me the deepest (in more ways than one).

So, about this scar. It's a small one, almost invisible after all this time. I believe I was all of seven when I got it. I'm a bit muddled about the time, but I hope I may be forgiven - it was a very long time ago, and the scar was caused by a somewhat traumatic event.

I was at my grandparents' house at the time. We often spent time there, sometimes living there between homes when mum was still sorting herself out. Give her a break - they had a fantastic, huge, beautiful house that could easily hold us without ever noticing we were there, and she was trying to raise two kids by herself. My grandfather had a boat. He always had a boat - once, when I was in my teens, he even bought a speed boat and named her for me, a signal honor in our family. It was his way of telling me he was proud of me and he loved me, and definitely not a commentary on the size of my ass. Poor Papa, he tried to teach me to water ski with that boat, but the silly skis kept falling off my feet! It had nothing to do with my weak arms and general lack of grace and athletic ability. Nope. It was the skis. Back to the scar.

On the day in question, my mum was out on the boat with Papa, Mimi, and some friends of the family - adults only, so all of us kids stayed behind. I was disappointed because I loved going out on the boat, at that time a Chris Craft somethingorother Cruiser thing. Hey, I was a kid, give me a break. Much as I loved the boat, to me it was just a boat - something to motor out into deep water on, jump off of and clamber back onto, and watch the occasional Tall Ships parade (do boats parade??) and Blue Angels or Thunderbirds show from. And oh, the picnics we had, and the swims, and the wind and sun and air and motion. Ahh. When I win that dadblasted lottery, I am getting a sail boat. With someone to drive it. Yes, I know you don't drive a boat, you skipper it, but I don't care. I shall have a skipper and the boating equivalent of a handsome cabana boy. Yep. Sorry, gone are my days of sailing out along on a little Sunfish without a worry...at least, for now. Where was I?

Oh, right. So on this particular day it was my older brother C, myself, and the B's son A (All these letters are confusing, I know, but I simply won't refer to people by name unless they give permission first). It was a lovely day, and we were playing outside the house. Inside were L, the housekeeper who was so much more, and I think also M (housekeeper and cook), but I only remember L. She was houkeepering away in that humongous house, and the three of us kids were outside. C and A were playing off in one part of the yard, and I was wandering aimlessly about talking to myself, or singing to myself, or staring at things, or whatever it was I did those days. Probably mumbling or singing, those seemed to be my favorite pastimes when I wasn't buried in a book, attempting to become entirely a fish, sucking at tennis, or trying very hard not to fall off a horse. As I was wandering about the yard, I passed close to a clump of trees where C and A were playing...something. Honestly, I never did really know what they were playing - they were eight and probably at something violent or destructive.

Out from the center of the clump of trees came a dire warning - I should go away and leave the boys alone or something would happen. Oh, yes, terrifying! This clump of trees was just past one end of the laundry lines, and I believe some mention of a ghost was made - likely a ghost made up of little boy and linens (which would make L cross, but really, do kids care about how difficult it is to do laundry??) I kept up my meandering, largely ignoring the boyish protests of my slight female presence. I don't recall actually wanting anything to do with them, their "fort" just happened to be along my way. Suddenly, out from the trees burst A, bearing a spear!!

No, not really a spear. It was one of those old-fashioned tomato stakes, those square wooden poles that went into the ground and you tied your tomato plant to it to keep the thing upright, because tomato cages hadn't been invented yet or weren't widely used, or perhaps Mimi thought they were plebeian. I have no idea. I know she gardened for a while, but stopped for some reason.

Sidebar: I used to have a recurring dream about falling into a post-hole dug for a fence going around the miles-long garden. In the dream I would fall into soft, dark earth, could smell the loamy richness of it, could see the sky above as a little round button of blue. A post would come down on top of me, but I never worried much about that - somehow I knew I'd be missed before they shoveled too much earth back into the hole. How odd, the things children dream.

Back to the whole reason I started this post. Out popped A with a spear!! He arghed at me and began to chase me about the vast lawn. In those days, there was a half-circle drive surrounding the house and separating it from the bulk of the lawn. The drive was lined on the side away from the house with very tall, very old fir trees of some variety. They shielded the house from us, and vice versa, so no one saw A chasing me. I do not remember if C was also giving chase, but I think it likely. A was the one armed, though, and so he was the one I ran from. I thought he was playing, teasing me, so I didn't run very hard, and ended up cornered against one of the grand trees lining the drive. There, A menaced me, shaking the spear and generally being a little boy.

Imagine his surprise, and mine, when the thing slipped from his hand and smacked me right in the face with enough force to knock me back into the tree. Oops.

I believe he ran. I am sure C ran. I don't know what I did at first. I remember the "spear" hitting me, the sound of the thunk, something crunching...and then...

And then I was somehow on the other side of that tree (perhaps I teleported? Wouldn't that be something!) and stumbling across the driveway to the front door. I had a hand pressed to my face and couldn't see very well because I may have been crying. I hope that lapse in dignity may be forgiven, considering the circumstances. Up the lovely old stone steps to the slate patio, then up the wooden steps to the house, trying not to drip on anything - at the ripe old age of six or seven, I knew that blood stains and Mimi would be very angry if I stained anything.

Somehow, the screen door opened, and the front door, and then I was in the entry room. Then the front hall. If you every knew me in when I lived there, you are walking with me, I'm sure, into that fine old Georgian Revival house. Left into the sitting room and then through the dining room, the pantry (how I wish I had a pantry like that, now, a whole room to keep dishes and food in, with a sink and a WC and all that cupboard and counter space!) and finally into the kitchen, where I found L at the butcher's block.

Another sidebar: I have that butcher's block table now, and it's my house altar. I keep Papa's old Zippo lighter in is, among other things, and it's one of the things I would try to get out if my house was burning down around me...right after the humans and the cats and Bob the Wonder Computer.

L was, I think reading or something, because she didn't know what was wrong at first. When she looked up, I imagine she saw a bleeding, crying little girl who was struggling not to bleed on anything that made up the actual house, which left my clothing, hands, and the possibility of levitating the blood until an appropriate receptacle could be found. Somehow I managed not to bleed on anything until I got to the kitchen, if you can believe that!

At some point, my brother made it onto the scene, because after a moment of horrified observation, L ordered him to fetch a towel from the linen closet one floor up. A hand towel or a wash cloth, I think. He brought one and I refused it because it was one of the good ones, and didn't he know Mimi would be mad?? Really, priorities, C, priorities! Off he ran, up the back stairs to fetch a less "nice" towel, which L then used to try and wipe me down (hoping, I am sure, that it was simply a really vicious mosquito bite or something) and then wetting it and filling it with ice.

She called an ambulance when she noted the extent of the injury, and I don't know if I told her then or later what had actually happened.

I got to ride up front in the ambulance, and all I remember about the ride was they were very nice men and you can't see very well through an ice-filled washcloth. I believe I may have asked if I could make the lights and siren go.

At the hospital or medical center or wherever they took me, L told me not to let the doctor touch me. Much later in life, I found out it was because he was an intern who'd been there who knows how many hours, and she didn't want him stitching me up and making a huge scar. She was concerned for my future, and possibly also that Mimi would skin her alive for letting this happen in the first place (as if it was her fault!!) and then for letting some quack make me into the Bride of Frankenstein. AT the time, all I knew was I was on a hard surface staring into a bright light with a gently throbbing face and the nagging feeling that I'd done something wrong and was going to be in trouble. And when the doctor wanted to stitch me up, I told him he wasn't allowed because L said so, until she informed me that this doctor could.

I went cross-eyed trying to watch him work. He wanted me to close my eyes, but I wanted to see what he was doing. By the way, I am still that way - I would have remained awake for the removal of the amazing exploding appendix surgery, but the nice surgeon didn't really like the idea of a pregnant woman staring at him while he worked around her womb. Silly fellow.

I had seven stitches that day, making a jagged but really hardly noticeable scar on the bridge of my nose. I distinctly recall the doctor remarking on my incredib;e luck, that ducking or flinching even the slightest bit would have left me with one eye and the nickname of "Winky" for the rest of my days. OK, he didn't say the "Winky" bit, but it would have been funny if he did.

It never hurt. Not when the spear hit me, not when I was wandering dazed through the house, not when I was on that cold metal table and they were jabbing numbing needles into it and picking out splinters. Not after, either. This, too, has carried into my adult life. Things don't hurt me the way they ought, and I am grateful, because when I do notice pain, I find I disapprove of it entirely.

Things are a bit of a blur after that, until later when the adult boating party returned. Did L call them? Was it simply time? I don't know. There weren't cell phones, then, so if she called them it was through the marine radio or the Coast Guard or something. I think my mum knew right when it happened, in that mummish way they have. We have.

At any rate, I pled with A's mum and dad not to spank him - he'd had splinters in his hand from trying to hold onto the thing, and he felt awful, and I think I may have had a tiny little crush on him (he was, and is, a real cutie) as well as a healthy fear of spankings for anyone. I made them promise, and who can deny a crying, bloodied, stitched up, bruised little girl? They promised, and A never had a spanking over it, and many years later he'd forgotten entirely about it until I reminded him - and suddenly he knew why he felt ill a the sight of blood!

After the adults came home, they asked me what I wanted to help me feel better. I was no fool - even if I didn't feel wretched, I could work this! I asked if we could please, pretty please, go to the T&C (the Town and Country, a sort of LC road house/bar/eatery)(remember that place, LCers??) for steamers. Please? Oh, I loved their steamers! Of course we went. All of us, because nothing would do for me but that A and his family came too - I think his parents really wanted to take him home and lock him in the dungeon, but again, they couldn't deny me. Manipulative little wench, wasn't I?

At the T&C, I ate steamers by the millions, drank more Shirley Temples than I'd ever had in one sitting before, and danced with Papa. Yes, danced.

It was the one time in my life I felt good dancing. I felt like a princess. My big, handsome, beloved grandfather took me out onto the old wooden floor after feeding the jukebox, and let me dance with him - he put my feet on his and he did all the work, but I was dancing. I've never felt so loved, safe, or protected since. My brother and A were playing pinball and largely ignoring and being ignored by the party, but Papa was dancing me and that was just fine.

I have a scar. It's not too noticeable, but it's there for all to see, and it's not pretty either. But that scar? Oh, it has some beautiful things to remind me of.
~~~~~
Scars are just tattoos with better stories! But tattoos don't require a medicare bond. Still a scar can make you look mysterious, and they do have good stories!

More of Yesterday

It's the Stone House, again. My Aunt S read my post Waxing Nostalgic and sent me an e-mail about the Inn. She live in Little Compton, too, across the road and down the bumpiest, stoniest, potholiest, bush-linededest (shut up, it is too a word!) driveway you've ever seen. Really, it was amazing - mountain goats didn't want anything to do with that driveway! As I recall, she left it that way because it kept people from bothering her - only the really determined made it to the house. Most of the time with all their teeth intact, too! I used to ride my bike down there to visit. I had a bottom of iron.

My Aunt reminded me of something I knew but forgot to remember - the Stone House Inn was sold last Spring. Throughout my childhood, it was an Inn with a taproom/restaurant in the basement (during prohibition it was a speakeasy!). When my grandmother determined that I "weren't right in the head" (I do love Southernisms)(she would never have used such poor grammar, and she wasn't Southern, but it's my blog and I'll write what I like. Take that, proper English!) she sent me to the owners of the Stone House, who were not only friends of the family but counselors. I have no idea if they were actual shrinks, but I was all of thirteen or so and didn't know to ask. They were nice enough, but they were her friends, and so suspect. I always felt they reported back to her what I'd said. Paranoid, much? It was justified, I think, because she always seemed to know things that I'd only told them. Hmm.

One of my favorite things about the Stone House was the widow's walk up top. You can just make it out in the picture. I would ride my bike down there and pop into the lobby to snag some of the giant buttermints they kept in a jar on a table by the door. I loved those mints, and would usually take a pocketful, if no one was watching. Then, up the spiral stairs...

...and up, and up, until I was in the attic. There was a skinny sort of stairway, and a trap door, and then I was on the walk! Now, I wasn't really a fat little butterball, despite my grandmother's insistence to the contrary, but that skinny stairway was a tight squeeze! It was a bit like being born up into the sky, climbing up there. When we visited last July, the walk was closed to the public, so I don't have any pictures from up top. It didn't look as sturdy as it was when I was a kid, either. It's funny...I am fearful of heights but I'd go up on that roof in an instant to look out at the water. I was a little sad that we couldn't go up, but we're not "family" now - we don't belong to the town any more, and I imagine are largely forgotten as individuals, although the family name will always be there. After all, they named a beach after my...er...grandfather? Great grandfather? Eh, one of those stern, dusty old men in the paintings I grew up with.

Also, there's a patch of woods donated by a cousin in memory of her mum (I think) that's a park of sorts, and a lovelier bit of leftover New England wildness you've ever seen - although you'd better see it from inside your car with the windows closed, because the deer flies are thick in there and could clean the meat from your bones in a minute or two! No kidding, we drove through last summer and didn't dare to tarry for fear they'd find their way in through the vents or something! The town, or at least some of it, is working on cleaning up the woods - they let them get into a disgraceful state over the years, but recently started caring about them again. The walking trails, bridges over the creeks, and stone benches are slowly being restored to their former state. I think I remember a birthday party there, when I was a kid...for my cousin...and a game where we were each given the end of a string and had to untangle it and follow it to a prize. It's funny, the things that stick.

The folks who've bought the Stone House, I've heard, plan to make many changes to it. In a good way! There used to be an addition to one side that disappeared long before I was born - fire? Storm? I don't know. They intend to rebuild that. The intend to add A/C. I mentioned that the breeze is constant, but so is the damp. It might be nice to be able to close doors (boy, do they ever swell in the summertime!) and breathe air that isn't thick as molasses from the fog. They're also going to enclose the widow's walk. I was a little unhappy about that, at first (I don't hold with mucking about with historic buildings - I like 'em the way they were built!), until I saw some old pictures of the Inn - and what do you know? The walk was really a cupola to begin with!! It was blown off in a storm, long ago. The new owners just want to restore it. How nice. They're also considering replacing the porch that once graced the front of the building - again, well before my time. They plan to make it a private club, so I guess we won't stay there if/when we go back for a visit. That's a pity, because it sure was nice to stay somewhere I knew in the town instead of a chain motel far away. Oh, well, at least they will leave the two-hundred-something year old stones standing proud.

I'll still drive by for a look, should I make it up there again. Old habits die hard. I wonder if they'll keep buttermints in the lobby...

Waxing Nostalgic

This is the Old Stone House Inn, in Little Compton, RI. I was there last July for a memorial and stayed up on the third floor. Ahh, memories. The building has no a/c, but it doesn't really need it, what with being so close to the sea.

There's always a breeze. I watched the curtain billow for several minutes, entranced. I grew up in this town, with this very breeze, in a house not far from the Inn.

This was the view from my room at the Inn. The water closest is Round Pond. The tiny bit of silve-gray in the distance is the Atlantic. The land between the pond and the sea once belonged to my family. A very long time ago. My grandfather grew up there, and we managed to wheedle permission to scatter his ashes there from the family who owns it now. That was back in the mid-nineties. I hadn't been back until last July. When Papa died, there just wasn't much reason...my remaining family in the area were strangers to me.This was the beach that my grandfather looked over, played upon, swam and boated from as a child.


Why do I mention all this? A smell.


A smell caught my attention, and in less than a moment, it brought me back to Little Compton and my time there. I loved that town. I love that town still, even if it doesn't know me any more. Oh, some terrible things occurred in my young life, there, but I loved it anyway. I could lose myself between sea and sky if I sailed out from the harbor nearby. I could play in the waves at South Shore beach until the sunk sank down with a sigh for his own evening swim. I could happily clamber on the tremendous rocks at Lloyd's Beach, sneak around the back to Haffenraffers place and play on that beach, too. We weren't supposed to go to Haffenraffer's place - it was once my grandfather's family land, that's the place he grew up, but they sold it long before I was born. For some reason, it was taboo for us - I never understood that, and one of the best rocks for exploring, for playing on, was over on that side of the spit. So, being a child, I ignored the taboo and went and played on the wonderful stone and in the little stand of trees there.

I would hide from my family, source of much pain and confusion...hide from everyone in those trees, only emerging when it was time to go home. No one worried I'd drowned...I was more fish than human back then, and drowning me would have required a great deal of cement and some lead weights. When I was older, I would ride my bicycle down there alone and spend hours sorting through the pebbles that made up the shore, looking for wishing stones - gray slate-like stones with a quartz band all the way around them. Find one and you can make a wish. I have staccato memories of searching them out with mum, with Mimi, with Spouse (my father's mother), always hunting for them and for sea glass on the way down to the water. It was always the water that I wanted the most, and not even freezing weather or storms could keep me from it.


If I lived near the shore today, I would go down each day, whatever the weather, and swim - though the waves be great and the water frigid, I would wet myself and paddle about for a while because above everything else, the sea is my mother and I wish for her embrace always. More fish than human, still.


The smell that brought me back? Hard to name it. It's a combination of things - the scent of old, old wood, exposed to generations of wear and countless fogs, sea breezes, rains, nights, and hours of sun. The smell of sand and salt, damp cotton towels and sun-warmed cotton clothing, wet stone and seaweed, wet rope and planks and a hint of sunscreen with a touch of lemon dusting spray and Murphy's Oil Soap. There's a hint of horse, too, and leather, and Zippo fluid from Papa's lighter. The iron tang of water from the old hand pump by the house, where we'd rinse our feet. A faint note of pine and cut grass, a bit of earth and always, always that playful zephyr blending it all together.


I have no idea how it found its way into my closed-up house in Georgia. It must have followed me here last year and been waiting in a corner to be discovered. Just now, it yanked at my cuff and demanded notice, reminding me of where a part of my heart is still rooted. I am home, here...and I am home, there...I am divided between what was and what is, with no sense of where I will be in the future - some combination of forest, mountain and sea if it is to satisfy all my yearnings, all those nostalgic little tugs from the many places I've lived and loved the Earth.

Papa.

Crystal, over at http://boobsinjuriesanddrpepper.blogspot.com/ posted an entry about her grandparents, both still living but on the downward slide. They're struggling, as are many of our elders, to pay for their medication, their sustenance, their continued existence. Crystal's trying to help them raise funds to pay for their burial plots. Y'all, it's a shame that they should have to worry about where they'll rest. Really. No one should have to choose whether they'll eat today or pay on their plot. These two gave life to generations, are a part of the shared history of this nation, a generation that struggled to rebuild our country from its shaken foundations on up - so the least we as a people can do is let them know they'll rest easy when it's time. All six of you who read this, pop on over to Crystal's site and make a donation if you can. Given the financial stress we're under here, my own donation will be pathetically small, so maybe you can go bolster it with one of your own.

Meanwhile, I wrote her a comment, it started getting long, so I truncated it to post there and am now re-posting it here in full.
~~~~~
This is an incomplete tale...there's not enough room to tell it all. It's long enough, anyway.

My grandfather was the best thing about living with my grandparents when I was a kid. They had custody of me and my brother for four years when we were in our early teens, but before that we would often visit and stay with them for long stretches.

Papa was a man of habits. He woke in the morning, went out to feed the horses, had his breakfast (cereal with half milk, half cream, coffee, several cigarettes). He drove out to take care of any errands he had, and made the rounds of his cronies' homes. Came home and read the papers - The Sakonnett Times and the New York Daily News. Read the Reader's Digest if there was a new one. He'd sit and think, staring off into space, for hours. His chairs were shaped to him, and there were bald spots on the rugs from where his feet sat day after day, week after week, year after year.

After lunch, he would maybe mow the lawn, or go out again. Late afternoon, early evening, he drank scotch, smoked, and watched TV. I watched with him, sometimes. The Dukes of Hazard, Hee-Haw, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, the evening news. We never spoke, just watched, but it was cool.

When my tyrannical grandmother went out of town, he would have to reshape his schedule to accomodate us kids, although not by much. We were fairly free range, back then - it was a different world. My brother, as I recall, was fairly self-sufficient and spent as much time out of the house as he could. He had friends. I didn't. I'd leave in the morning, ride my bike down to Sakonnet Point for a sail, or to the beach to swim, or just ride around aimlessly. Sometimes I was gone all day, sometimes I came home and read, played in my room, or got in the way in the kitchen. On rare occasions I would try to be helpful to the housekeeper or the cook. Doesn't that sound pretentious? They had folks come clean every day, and someone to cook dinner on weeknights...catch Mimi doing housework! I liked to help them, and they were nicer to me than they had to be.

Once a week I had riding lessons, and when Mimi was out of town (which was often ) then Papa would have to drive me because it was too far to cycle. One summer, against Mimi's wishes, Papa arranged for me to have lessons from the daughter of one of his best pals - the much maligned Western style riding. Mimi hated that kind, thought it was for the lazy and the unskilled. Feh. She never had her ass in a saddle, as far as I know, but she knew all the snobs rode English so I had to as well. Papa thought I should know another style, and that was the most fun I'd ever had on a horse. Come to think of it...it still is. After lessons Papa and I would go to a local restaurant and indulge in the things she didn't allow - he'd have a double scotch and clam chowder, I would have a grilled cheese sandwich and mud pie. We were united in our conspiracy to commit gustatory larceny - I won't tell if you don't.

I was a lonely kid, too. Thank goodness for perceptive grandfathers. One summer he bought a little speedy boat and named it after me. He tried to teach me waterskiing...what a spectacular failure that was!! He was a boating man, always had something to motor out on...but those are more long stories for another time. He gave me a saddle and bridle...the saddle got stolen, but I still have that bridle, although I'm sure it would fall apart if I tried to use it for anything besides decoration. He was trying to tell me he loved me as best he could.

He got older, his body retaliated for all the years of drinking, smoking, and carousing when he was young...he had strokes and other health problems, and over ten years he failed to thrive. Well, really, he spent ten years coming to his end. I was moved out, by then, back with mum, but I visited when I could. I'd sit with him, listen to his stories about his mother's rose gardens, feel his frustration when he couldn't speak clearly, be understood. He was well-to-do, so he didn't have to worry about nursing care, medical expenses. There were nurses, home-health aides, medical equipment - nothing was spared. He never had to worry about where he would rest. For that, I am thankful. I wouldn't want to see someone I love so deeply caught up in such a sad concern. Maybe I'll write more about him another day. To this day, the sound of a Zippo opening takes me back to our times together. I have his every-day Zippo - it's the only tangible thing I got after he died, and it's all I wanted. I didn't care about his money or who would inherit it. That's never mattered to me...not about him or my other grandparents, or my parents...I don't care about that. I care about what I carry with me, the marks in the book of my life. He wrote with bold, sloppy, loopy strokes, and I will never forget his boyish grin, his eyes, his laugh, and the sound and smell of a Zippo lighter.

Almost twenty years later, I still miss him.

Crystal's story about her grandfather's watch made me think of all this, think of the Zippo, an ordinary thing that has extraordinary meaning. Thanks Crystal.

Thanks for the memories.