MaineCourse

Commas

Maine Event

Dan Downing

It takes a long lever to move me off my long-post-empty-nest butt. But how enjoyable, once forces conspire to do so (yet how quickly inertia sets in again). But the bonds strengthened and the territory explored make a repeat of this weekend a must.

Picked up Jim at Alewife Thursday eve, enjoyed a Linda dinner of pork tenderloin, and retired early. We rose by 6 the next morning, and by 7, with fresh-brewed Starbucks in hand, were off to Stow Acres for an 8:05 tee time with Irma and Beth.

We relished the glorious late-Summer morning, encouraged each other, swung those clubs way too many times to bother counting, and let several groups play through our beginners’ slow pace. Then a brief stop at home to scarf some lunch, pack a few clothes, bag some food for Remo, and off to pick up Greg in Somerville.

By four we were headed north for the main event – father-and-sons -- and-dog --getaway at Boothbay. A first; spontaneously planned; the stage sparingly set for improvisation.

The three-plus hour ride began with catch-up talk on current events: Channel1’s dialup customers transitioning to Earthlink and Greg’s subsequent job-hunting; record quarterly sales at Jim’s Starbucks and his overcoming store politics to train managers for a new store; my Tufts project signaling a long-awaited upturn in the computer consulting business; movies in the “fuzzy reality” genre that we’d recently seen and had puzzled through to understand (Mulholland Drive, Memento, Swimming Pool).

Conversation gave way to Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits as we hit the Maine Turnpike, triggering reminiscence of songs and concerts long enjoyed, as interpersonals settled into a welcomed comfort zone. Greg’s Robin Williams Live found its way into the car stereo as we hit Falmouth, comedic commentary spiked with laughter filling our mobile private world.

Pulling into Hannaford Foods and letting Remo out not a moment too soon for a long pee and dump on a wooded trail at the edge of the parking lot, we provisioned for the weekend: Fresh shrimp, Bombay Sapphire, tonic water and limes, for cocktail hour; ice cream to cap our anticipated lobster dinners; bagels, OJ, fresh ground Starbucks, and half-n-half, for breakfast; two bottles of wine for the next evening.

Five minutes later, Remo was happy to be back on the ground as he jumped from the car one last time at the new-yet-familiar-smelling 148 Atlantic Avenue cottage.

We settled in and repaired to a round of G&Ts and shrimp on the front porch, with the tranquil bay at high tide in the distance. The conversation flowed into more personal territory as dusk settled and appetites rose.

From: “Why do gays universally love celebrities like Cher and Bette Midler?”

Answer: “Because they’re ‘right out there’ with their stuff -- and this speaks to gays’ more flamboyant personalities.

To: “ Greg, ever think about what your ideal job would be?”

Answer: “ Really can’t say…I guess I’d like to be doing something I’m good at…in a small homey atmosphere…you could say my two years at C1 have been my ideal job”.

And then: “Is there anything you feel passionate about?”

Answer: “Well I used to be about writing…but I stopped after concluding my stuff just wasn’t good enough”.

That subject would be pursued deeply on Sunday morning.

Dusk led to twilight which moved us to dinner. We walked down the hill to the Lobster Dock and traded cousin Marjie’s gift certificate for two lobsters and a crab roll, two beers and a coke. Greg has never liked lobster, but agreed to forsake fried chicken for a different shellfish. We cracked and chomped and washed down, conversation meandering in and out of inconsequential side-dish topics.

An uphill walk, and ice cream, followed, and for me, shortly thereafter, sleep.

Saturday was made for the outdoors. We clambered about the unequivocally-Maine, seaweed-laden rocks at Lobster Cove, where Remo took a couple of assisted dips into the high-tide water. We reminisced of a Summer long-passed, when the kids were little, on one of our many family mini-vacations, which Jim, at 21, had only recently become part of. Linda had brought a blow-up shark, and I taught Sarah, Greg, and Becca how to jump off the big rock with the shark tucked under their legs. And how Lucy, our water-loving lab, intent on “saving” the children, would swim out to them and unwittingly to scrape them up with her splashing front paws, with ensuing screeching and a round of band-aids and hugs to soothe all bruises.

Our second adventure was more strenuous: a boat trip to Squirrel Island, a two-hour hike along the 5 miles of paved and wooden walk ways and trails that encircle this exclusive but uniquely New England Summer community. We picnicked on the ocean-facing north side, a rocky ledge shielding the hot sun, not twenty feet from the crashing breakers, in direct view of the dozens of sailboats tacking for position for the afternoon regatta.

Shopping, naps, then JimK’s favorite Pinot Grigio with chips and dip on the same porch followed our return. More conversation about work: the engineering desk job options that JimK is looking at for his next Coast Guard assignment. St. Pete, Miami, Virginia beach, Boston, or Portsmouth, in that order of preference. The Jims have had enough of this ‘going to sea’ six weeks out of every ten. Stressful way to have a life together.

Appetites pulled us off the deck and back into the car (Remo unhappily staying home again), but before dinner, a ride out to Ocean Point. Jim shivered in the brisk breeze while we three scampered about the rocks as far out as we dared to where the Bermuda storm surge was spraying.

Heading back to Lobsterman’s Wharf in East Boothbay, we ended up making a couple of circles, finding that retracing our steps in the dark was trickier than it seemed. The restaurant was busy – a good sign. As we slid into the only empty table, Jim and I were already coaxing Greg into trying a new fish. He evidently felt adventurous and did -- broiled cod (he liked it!).

Between slurps of my lobster bisque and Jim’s morsels of Salmon, we discussed the challenges of moving to a new city. How lost you feel at first, not knowing where to go for the simplest things, like mailing a letter or getting a haircut. Having moved once, though, and succeeding at making new friends and establishing a new life, how empowering. You feel you could do it again, no prob. Ann Arbor to St. Pete…and now to…?

“One thing that would be hard, though, is re-adjusting to cold weather, if our next move is to Boston”, Jim mused. “But on the plus side, we’d be close to you guys”. “On the minus side, I doubt you could afford to buy a condo in Charlestown”.

Stuffed, we paid and drove back to the anticipated Scrabble board. I started with a seven letter word: S-T-E-A-M-E-R – that opened up the board, but dimmed Greg’s hopes of beating me. We talked, appropriately, about the meaning of words, about what happens when you use a “big word” in a context where few understand it, about the effect on the reader when used incorrectly. This – and the discussions about Mike’s web log -- may have sparked Greg’s The Power of Language.

Two games later, and another night of deliciously refreshing sleep, perking Starbucks roused us all, and a misty morning soon found us again on that porch, armed with juice, bagels, and Remo’s breakfast bowl.

“So exactly why did you stop writing, Greg?”

“I guess it was the criticism from people whose opinions I cared about. I couldn’t seem to get my meaning across without someone misunderstanding.”

Earlier conversation threads came together over the next two hours, as we considered:
- How good Greg is at writing, and how many of us wished he hadn’t stopped
- Thinking about who your audience is for a given piece
- How much of your stuff do you reveal – and to whom
- The art of writing concisely
- Being clear about what your message is.
And finally, taking a writing course, and talking to Mike about his. “He can give you good advice about writing”.

All this must’ve dislodged a boulder, as Greg ran inside, found some writing paper, and proceeded to write “The Rantmaster’s Rebirth”.

The ride home found us exploring our likes and dislikes in reading.

Greg’s: “Fantasy explores the eternal struggle of Good and Evil more starkly than in real life, and how heroes use their special powers to defend Good. It makes me think about how I would use special powers.”

Mine: “I prefer reality writings, how real people relate and deal with real issues; what I can learn about how to live my life better. How I can be a hero in perhaps unglamorous but plausible settings”.

Remo was clearly unhappy at being abandoned in the car while we three lunched at Sarah’s Café just over the bridge in Wiscasset. Enough fish for the boys; they had burgers. I stuck with chowder.

On our return, Remo showed his displeasure by refusing to move out of the passenger well, and snarling as Jim tried to help him out. We let him out a bit later on the first Rte 95 rest stop. He peed, then deciding it was okay to drop his attitude, resumed his co-pilot position in the back with Greg, paws perched on the front console, apologizing to Jim and me by kissing us, and drinking some water from the cup we’d brought him.

The ride home was dominated by light: light banter, light snoozing, and, thankfully, light traffic. Whew, enough heady subjects, already.

Greg asked to be dropped off rather than coming back to Lincoln. Jim and I arrived home to enjoy yet another lovingly-prepared meal, debrief with Linda, and sharing some people-food scraps with Remo. I again was off to bed early, sugar plums of father-sons weekend lulling me to sleep.

Let’s definitely do this again, I thought, after dropping Jim off at Logan the following noon. It was energizing, all the way around, I think.

Remo said so.

Perspective

Diane. “What was that blonde joke that Jimmy told us? The one that
was so funny, about dieting. I might use it with my patients.”

Me. “Yeah, what was it. Matt do you remember?”

Matt. “No.”

Me. “Give me a moment, I’ll find it.”

Clickity, clickity, after maybe fifteen seconds, tops.

Me. “Here it is.”

A blonde was terribly overweight, so her doctor put her on a diet. I want you to eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day, eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day. Repeat this procedure for 2 weeks.

"The next time I see you, you'll have lost at least 5 pounds."

When the blonde returned, she shocked the doctor. She had lost nearly 20 pounds.

"Why, that’s amazing!" the doctor said. "Did you follow my instructions?"

The blonde nodded. "Ill tell you though, I thought I was going to drop dead that 3rd day."

"From hunger, you mean?" asked the doctor."

"No, from all that skipping!"

Diane. “That is the one, but Jimmy’s version was much funnier”

Me. “ It was, but what do you think of yours truly, The Googlemaster?”

Diane. “Incredible.”

Matt. “Pathetic”

Updates:

Two new contributors to the blog, Dan and Ed, are honing their stories.
Scheduled publish dates....soon.

The BMW flywheel is on it’s way to Dublin NH, to a machine shop that specializes in classic BMW restorations.

Matt is going to the LOCOBAZOOKA! 'UNITED WE ROCK!' festival this Sunday. It’s an all day, open air concert, held at the airport in Fitchburg.

Last night we celebrated Mark and Ginger’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and then went to Willow Books to see Elinor Lipman read from The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. I queued up to have her sign my copy and to tell her how much I liked her writing. Before I finished, I looked down to see her stroking my arm.

All News is Local

Email from Ed yesterday:

That overhyped Isabel has left us in the dark for nigh onto 70 hours
now. Most of Bowie is without power, and I've had to drive into
College Park to the Univ. of MD, which has local generators keeping
its servers alive. (where I am now)

Beth and I have been cooking on our camp stoves and using propane
& kerosene lamps. We're a lot better off than our neighbors,
who seem to be using candles for light and heat. It would be as dark
as Gilsum in our neighborhood, except that some powerful street
lights in other parts of town light up the sky.

We've been going out of town to movies and restaurants, though we
have to pick and choose among towns. Annapolis is flooded and getting
worse, and parts of DC are threatened by a rising Potomac. Some other
towns in MD seem to be unaffected by the storm, but a few are
darker than Bowie.

What day is this anyway? Sunday? Saturday? It seems like Monday
because of all the days off since Isabel came to town.

Got to pick Katie up from her dorm. Then head back home 13 mi
thru intersections without lights. Interesting times.

Ed

Spirits

We sat on her porch, enjoying the first breezes inspired by Isabel. As always, her doors are open; the house full of light and life. Her gardens planted and tended in memory of her husband. I sipped fresh gazpacho, swallowed the last bite of my second pastry and thought, what a giving, nurturing woman.

“How are you doing?”

“Some days okay, but other days, so so.”

“ Don’t tell me that.”

“Why?”

“Because, you look so good; I want everything to be okay.“

“So do I” her voice rose, “but I miss my guy. We were married twenty-two years. If I’m busy I’m all right. I ran a workshop on Star Island and I hurried around all day. Working, talking, teaching, but then I came home and ... .
Sometimes I flop down and do nothing.”

“Could I ask you a favor? I have a friend, her name is Ann. Her son died when he was seventeen and her husband died two months ago. Whenever I ask her how she is, she cries. She’s so overwhelmed, she cried as we talked about water in her garage. As if her wet floor made life impossible. When you said you feel better when you are busy, I thought you might be able to help her. She rattles around alone in her house with nothing but memories."

“You could say that about me.”

“But you’re moving, doing, creating. Look at your house, the spirits are free to fly in and out. There is no movement in her dark house. Her spirits are locked up tight.”

“I’ll call her if you want.”

“She’s English. You know, that stiff upper lip. I’ll give her your name and if she can, she’ll call you. At least I’ll have done something. Yesterday I snapped at her. I told her, ” You said before, it’ll take time. You can’t rush it, Ann. You want it all over, but it takes time.”

Still crying, she looked hard at me and said, “I’ve been through worse. I’ll get through this.”

I should have hugged her.

Two Kinds

That guy is me.

http://www.mikimoto.com/index_f_en.html

Sent to me by my sister, Joan.

Flashback

I don't know that I'll know how to just BE in the room, if and when it is judged to be done (which will have to be by more objective observers). It has become so much The Project for me, such that its needing doing now seems sufficient reason just for its being.

I'm not averse to being finished, mind you, but there is a perverse sense of jealousy about sharing it incomplete, when a sense of done finally seems a tangible possibility. On our recent 10th anniversary, Tricia suggested inviting Mike and Diane over for a quick impromptu drink to help celebrate. Now, Mike has been there since the room's birth, right through its Terrible Twos, gradeschool eagerness, highschool daze, and young adult flightiness. But Diane has only seen pictures thus far, and I found myself not ready to share it with someone thus removed until the room was in its wedding dress and poised on the aisle. Especially not someone about whose reaction I care.

My thought process might be somewhat informed by my subsequent reaction to Tricia talking me into installing the stereo this weekend. I had long imagined the first bars of Tori Amos' most excellent "Scarlett's Walk" CD wafting into the finished room -- a major carrot. But here I was being asked to eat that carrot before journey's end. With lighting installed and cabinetry all but finished, there are few enough such carrots left that I am loathe to relinquish their distance. They drive me to finish the more mundane details. And unveiling the room to close friends is perhaps the juiciest of them left.

This last weekend Mike volunteered a few hours time helping me work on the deck, the old familiar friends-with-toolbelts relationship at least temporarily supplanting the employer/contractor one. Not much was said, but we whiled away quite productively, our shoulders against separate wheels, but driving the same wagon. Much progress was made. Having arrived about 1:00, Mike finally cleaned up, packed up, and shoved off about 6:00. I continued putting stuff away awhile longer, and then, rather than try slopping sealer on in the dark, I chose to erect some tarps against forecast precipitation. And Isabel but days away................

Tarps................ While many fond associations linger -- our annual Maine camping trip is less than a month away, after all -- I was not happy to see them back on site. It had been many months since they were last required. But after showering and having dinner, I looked out at the deck and had a thought:

Mike has grumbled and tried to cajole a blog entry out of me for some time. Perhaps he wanted other than a room update (I'm sure others would have), but I thought to try. But what to say? What to show? The room's in its lacy underwear, putting on makeup, the smell of perfume in the air. An indecent time to publish voyeuristic peeks into the chamber. But I realized I could show the day's progress and not show anything of the interior, with a night flash shot and the right angle. And given the tarps, I could even be somewhat coy about the deck itself............... So perverse or not, I offer the above text and the following photo as sacrifice at the altar of Mike's blog:

The World's Smallest Deck awaiting railings and sealer.

To Henry

Dear Henry,

Although you didn’t ask, you’ll be interested to know that I visited Diane’s new office, and met most of her fellow fighters of anorexia in teenage girls. Diane needed various colorful photos hung, and after failing to drive simple nails into her walls-you know women, where would they be without men-she begged for my services.

I left work early on Friday, turned left onto the grounds of McLean, took another left at the first fork and finally one more left into a huge common parking lot. Diane had warned me that her old building, Bowditch, was adjacent to the lot, but that the entrance was on the opposite side of the building. I spied a huge red brick structure and followed a well-worn footpath through tall green grass until I came to the front entrance. As I was about to open the mostly glass, too modern door, I noticed that it said, “Admissions,” not “Bowditch.” As you know, McLean is littered with stately red brick buildings.

I couldn’t walk back the way I came. I can’t explain it, but I hate to retrace my steps and I won’t admit when I’m lost. Therefore I continued to meander, hammer in hand, nails in my shirt pocket, looking for a building called Bowditch. I passed patients who looked exactly as they did thirty years ago (I thought there were new, non-zombie creating drugs), and staff too, with their remote I’m just-out-for-a-stroll look. Reminded me of what Joe G, a patient on Brian’s floor, had told me thirty years ago. He was attracted to Brian because of that, nonjudgmental just-out-for-a-stroll, look. Joe said, ”He was someone I knew I could talk to.”

Anyway, I finally came to an unlabeled building, this one, too, with those modern glass doors. Taking the chance that it wasn’t Bowditch, I entered and asked for directions. After much discussion with someone who looked like a receptionist, who consulted with someone who looked like they were from dietary, I was taken to the rear door where the helpful employee pointed and said, “It’s that one, I think.” I thanked her and walked to the front door of Oaks, again not Bowditch So, like Brian, and the staff I continued to see, I resumed my stroll, hoping to eventually get to Diane’s office.

I circled back to the parking lot, chose the other building facing it, and when I finally did arrive after walking through the famed McLean tunnels that connect all the buildings, Diane asked, “Did you get lost?” I simply said. “The front door was locked.” Which it was. That explained my underground wanderings, but not my 30 minute tour of this land that shaped so many of my friends.

Diane’s office is, as she has explained, small, but cozy with a large bright window, from which you could see my truck parked in the lot. From which she might have witnessed maybe ten minutes of my stroll. She has an institutional-type desk, and because McLean provides no chairs, her space is now furnished with an odd assortment we have collected over the years. Three chairs made of bright steel, beige wood and cane, for instance, from Bob’s old office. The one that was consumed by flames, smoke and water.

And those walls? Rock hard plaster that bent my nails too.

While I’m blathering away, Henry, let me tell you a bit more about our trip to the woods. The old Adam was a frequent companion. Say the word “Gilsum” and there he was, sitting in his truck, ready to go. The new Adam, the one engulfed in the finish details of his addition (another story for another time) has been mostly unavailable. Oh, he pops his head up for a blog comment now and then, but that is about it. But not last Saturday. At 3 PM, having completed enough work to free his conscience, he drove up in his BMW, top down, archery target hogging most of the back seat, camping gear the rest, all ready to go.

Diane gave up her car for Adam’s, leaving me with Robby, Daryl, Joe and Matt. I must say, we had a blast on our ride north. We played Robbie’s downloaded and burned collection of rock at full volume, made our obligatory stop at Mr. Mike’s in Winchendon for extra supplies (more coals to.... ), passed a cloudless Mt Monadnock we again promised to climb, and finally arrived at Beech Lane in Gilsum. This is where the boys pile out of the truck and ride the back bumper for two or so miles through the woods to Ed’s cabin. I try my best not to speed, but the whoops and screams when we hit bumps and hollows makes it irresistible.

We got to our site too late for an afternoon swim, but in plenty of time to chop wood, get two fires going (one at their site, out of sight from ours), tents set up, and dinner prepared. Hamburgers, chicken, veggie burgers, crisp raw vegetables, and dip. And four bottles of wine for the grown-ups. I know, Henry, that this would be anathema to you, swatting mosquitoes, picking dirt out of scrambled eggs, sleeping on the ground, but it’s true, Diane loves the outdoors.

After dinner, Adam, Diane and I walked alone in the dark to the pond as the boys, following Matt’s panther-like skills sneaked on ahead of us. When we got to the dock at ten thirty, half a bright moon illuminating the pond, Matt and Joe had already been swimming. This is a first, no adult supervision, or should I say, adult reassurance. And remember, Joe is frightened by most everything in the woods, including unexpected bird songs.

The following day: more food, more swimming, and on the way home a near stop at the demolition derby at the Cheshire County Fair. I offered to pay, but there were no takers. I guess Matt had seen enough in Buffalo. We are all refreshed by these trips to Gilsum woods and are eternally grateful to Ed.

Speaking of the woods, Henry, this year’s fall Maine camping trip, with the guys, has a radical new look. Like Rummy’s army, it is leaner and arguably more efficient. Though we don’t care about efficiency. Both Dan and Mark Schreiber have work obligations, and that leaves Adam, the other Mark, and me. Our present plan is to camp on a lake near Baxter and take hikes into the park. Using the most frequently climbed trail, it takes four hours to climb to the top of Katahdin. There is a longer, more interesting path that takes you over something called the knife edge, and we may default to that one.

At the end of every summer, I bump up my exercise routine to make sure I can keep up with the youngest and fittest of our group. And now that the heavy lifting at Adam’s is over, I can tolerate my old routine of thirty to forty minutes of weight lifting and an equal amount of aerobics on a rowing machine, another gift from the Hopkins.

A funny thing happened on Wednesday. In the middle of my routine I forgot the time of my dentist appointment. You would say a crispness issue, but I had adjusted my entire schedule to arrive at Dr Pinansky’s at 5 PM. All of a sudden I couldn’t remember the time, or even what day it was. Diane tells me my routines are too strenuous and that normal people don’t finish with soaking clothes, bloodshot eyes, and wobbly legs. Maybe she is right or maybe, as I suspect, I had a stroke.

That is it, H, the cool weather is upon us after a frigid summer and the days are getting shorter - Diane is again quizzing me on how many hours of daylight remain. “Twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes,” she just announced. Too many things to do to get ready for the winter: trips to Mark Queijo’s for firewood, broken windows repaired, our heating system bled, and wood stove flue cleaned. (Btw, that teak kettle from Grandpa Earl’s is a perfect size. ) You know, we never put away our winter quilt.

One more thing. Yesterday, in the mail, I received my story Clemency , edited by my writing teacher, Robert Atwan. Still suffering from PTSD, I couldn’t open the envelope, but Diane did, and even read some of his comments aloud. That is grist for another time, another story.

Oh, and your original question, the one that inspired this letter?
The BMW sits in Dimitry’s lot, waiting for a flywheel for the clutch. The original plan, to machine the existing flywheel, failed, and so far so has the backup plan, to find a new one. Three weeks ago Leonard (Dimitry’s main man) told us that he had ordered one from Germany. This week he called to say, in all of Germany, they could not find one. So that is where we are at the moment: no flywheel, no working clutch, no inspection sticker, no BMW. Stay tuned.

Michael

PS Would it surprise you to know that Chris has a poker group?
PPS Flo won $300.00 in bingo and is taking us out to breakfast.

Because someone asked:
http://www.mainecourse.com/nahmakanta/crew/pages/motley_crew.htm
Begins with Adam.

Adam's Art

Susan wouldn't need the title to know that this is Adam's
photograph.

Links

I could take credit for finding these links (think Matt's photos) but I
won't. They were sent to me by my brother.

Ed can relate to this one.

The trampoline is too small.

You could spend the day here, but I don't suggest it.

And this guy, well, he was just insane.




On the dock after Matt and Joe's late night swim. Daryl behind Joe.

Mock Orange

Mock Orange

My mother comes in the front door.
That smell is too much, she says, nodding
toward the mock orange.
Those little white flowers are pretty,
but the bush smells too ripe, don't you think?
Maybe you should cut it back.
It smells like those locust trees in New York
near the hospital-so sweet
they'd take over your senses, cross the line.

I tell her I dreamed of Jeff last night.
I don't like to think about dreams.
I push them away, try to forget everything bad
like when Jeff insisted on telling me about...you know.
She looks out the window.
I told him I knew but didn't want to know.
I didn't want my friends to feel sorry for me.
I went to the beauty shop when he was sick.
and played bridge with my ladies.
And honey, when you write poems about him,
you don't say what he died of, do you?

Linda Goodman Robiner

More Gilsum

Matt flipping those cakes. Robby and Joe.



Leaf on a silk thread.

Breakfast

Sunday morning Matthew announced that he and Daryl were going to cook
breakfast.



Matt's perfect pancake in spite of three adults sitting back in their
easy chairs telling him they could do a better job.




A dozen eggs (scrambled) in one sauce pan cooked over flames that
threaten to incinerate the chef. They too were perfect.

Undocked

There is a dock, or a platform, or a whateveryoucallit, that is anchored by cinderblocks in Spoons’ Pond, about fifty feet from the dock that is a dock, as in a land based boat dock, except there are no boats that dock to it. Anyway, the boys got this brilliant idea to pull up the anchor of the floating dock and paddle it to where we were, on the dock, dock. To my knowledge, this was a first. Click on the image, it’s worth a closer look.

More than Semantics

How about missing that which is right in front of you? A scratch ticket with the winning numbers? The solution to a puzzle? A street sign?
Here’s one of mine. Late fall, 1980, while I was working at Emerson Hospital as a respiratory therapist.

“ I feel sick. Is it hot in here? I’m sweating, but I feel cold.”

Martha’s forehead glistened with small beads of perspiration. Adjusting the oxygen in her air conditioned room, and nearing the end of my shift, I was in a hurry to finish. Minutes before, she was attached to monitors in the Coronary Care Unit; now deemed stable, she had moved a floor closer to home.

Martha wiped her face with the loose sleeve of her johnny and repeated her question, “Why am I sweating?” She looked worried and embarrassed to be complaining, a mother accustomed to taking care of, not being cared for. I looked, I listened and I dismissed it all. Here I stood, in my white lab jacket; there she lay, looking for reassurance. That I could give. Help, apparently not.

I left Martha, sweating, but not diaphoretic. Had I thought diaphoretic would I have alerted her doctor? The head nurse? Diaphoretic implies a medical cause for sweat. Associated with heart attacks it is often accompanied by a sense of foreboding. In hospitals it is rarely mentioned without its companion, chest pain. But I only saw sweat.

I told her, “You’ll be okay. "

Ten minutes later, and back in our office preparing my patient report for Dave, the gangly night guy, I heard the code. I didn't need a nurse to shout the room number. I didn’t need to stare at Martha’s upside down face to know it was she. Between chest compressions, I slid the endotracheal tube past her beige vocal cords.

Two Birds

Shingles

Matt and Chris stipping shingles from Chris's garage roof and getting
paid a minimum wage busting $15.00/hr

Up close: Chris Grojean, Robby Nadler, Matthew Miller

Alives, Revivals, Survivals and Arrivals

A wonderfully written essay I've read many times.
Each reading reveals more, and while I understand her
cancer, her mother, her relation to Anne Sexton, I still
don't fully understand survivals or arrivals.

Laboriously typed for those far better versed in the subjunctive than
I : Adam, Susan and Diane.

STUDIES IN THE SUBJUNCTIVE

If I were to write you a letter on a card from a collection entitled "Autumn Leaves," this is what I would say: Today is Anne Sexton's birthday. Would you wonder how I knew? Would you remember, even in November, the calendar you gave me? She would have been 73 today. Or would not be. She could be dead of cancer(all those cigarettes! all that alcohol! her mother's painful extinction at 58) The subjunctive's sharp blade can cut in more ways than suicide.

If I try to imagine the knife, I cannot. It must have been steel and sharp, but was it serrated? It must have been accompanied by others, some smaller, some longer. How odd to feel the serious effects of an event for which I have no memory. Which is the purpose of anesthesia after all. The surgeon warned I might not survive. But after eight hours of cutting, I was still alive. The tumor was not.
Though all care be exercised, the letter could be fatal. Once my worry was that my card would contain some embarrassing grammatical error. Or at the most severe, with no Ariadne to guide it to liberation. But now I imagine my creme-colored and rust-lined but still porous envelope which just happens to be poisonous. It might be that I have sent spores to you when I meant to send a cheery greeting. anthrax is now a part of our vocabulary.

Live life normally! The imperative from public officials. From my doctors. And so I try to continue my letter to you on Anne Sexton's birthday. Deciding to forgo her conditional age in favor of her unconditional poetry, I consult my bookshelves, brimming with what my mother once cursed as my vanity. My twenty-five-year-old paperbacks are infested with microscopic organisms: mold or even paper mites. I sneeze (could this be a symptom of something else?) as I look for an appropriate quote with which to begin. Something so serve as an epigraph. We are nothing if not literary; even our letters have inscriptions, like tombs. but my inspection of the book is distracted by under-lining. In ink?

What a pompous college student I must have been. Thank goodness you didn't know me then. I often wondered whether, if my family had believed in poetry or the rules of grammar or that language could solve or soothe or be useful. I might have continued a career in literature. I might have not been so intimidated by the professors with their perfect accents and syntax. I might not have been mortified when I was directed to Fowler's A Dictionary Of Modern English Usage (and make sure you get the third edition) after I handed in my paper on The Uses of Ocean Metaphors in the Poetry of Anne Sexton.

Now that the subjunctive is dying...This from the third edition, 1938. Anne Sexton would have been ten years old and my mother would have been one year old and the renowned H.W. Fowler would have been delighted about his
work's immortality if he were alive. The subjunctive is, except in isolated uses, no longer alive. Isolated in a suburban house seems better than being isolated in poverty. What if my mother had had the privilege of Anne Sexton? She probably still would have been depressed, but she would have been smarter about it. Or at least she could have driven a convertible bought by her father, the wool-factory owner, rather than walking to her job in the garment factory as a pregnant teenager.

Anne Sexton's psychiatrists thought it was only a matter of time. Isn't that what they always say, these doctors who chose the mind over getting their hands dirty? Before I found the surgeon who would agree to operate, other doctors
recommended a psychiatrist who would assist me in accepting my death. I did not come from a family that believed that money should be wasted on a luxury like therapy. Wasn't that lucky?

In THE AWFUL ROWING TOWARDS GOD, this is what I have underlined:
pounding tides, the surf biting the shore, the sea that bangs in my throat, the sea
without which there is no mother, the surf pushes their cries back. There is the kind of reader who feels compelled to decorate her books with her own comments, little notes to the writer as if the author could read them, as if the author would be interested. I have not been her kind. But in this book, there exists one phrase of marginalia: extended metaphor. My handwriting is careful. Just as it must have been on my paper, The Uses of Ocean Metaphors in the Poetry of Anne Sexton, produced before the age of personal computers and at an age when I was too poor to purchase a typewriter. Somewhere in the universe, if only in the past, this paper still exists, echoing on the envelopes I would grace with my return address: Ocean Avenue, North Sea Drive, Tidewater Lane, Shore Blvd. Sexton's poem At the Beach House made me cry for what I did not have, would never have. Sexton's poem Doctors (They are not Gods/ though they would like to be,) I had ignored. Today, at the inland post office, the postwoman
comments on the beautiful calligraphy that graces my envelopes, announcing my prosaic return address. Now that all mail is suspicious, that it could wind its way through the body in ways that could be uncurable, I find her compliments comforting, talismatic. I would hope my doctors would be her kind.

Fowler classifies the uses of the subjunctive into four categories: alives, revivals, survivals, and arrivals. The alives consist of imperatives and conditionals in which no one could suspect the writer of pedantry or artificiality. (I wish it were over is the example provided by the ordinary writer, who cannot but sound antiquated should he write If ladies be but young and fair. The survivals are not incorrect grammatically, but they diffuse an atmosphere of fullness and formalism over the writing in which they occur. Most objectionable, the arrivals are the best proof that they subjunctive should be put to rest: infected at it is with the illnesses of mixed mood, sequences of tenses, indirect questions, and the dangerous miscellaneous, risking pretentiousness. A risk Sexton avoided with her direct accessible language. too direct, some critics declared.

If it were fall and it were 1974, Anne Sexton would be newly dead, and I'd be in college, and H.W.Fowler would still be dead, and I'd be drinking vodka in water glasses, and my mother would be threatening suicide, but my girlfriend would actually commit it. Not neatly in the garage, like Ms. Sexton in her cherished red car, but as colorfully daring as the dying leaves in New England. Blood splattered on the sidewalk in front of her house. In autumn, the sea doesn't dry up, but it might as well.

Were, in the subjunctive sense, is applicable not to past facts, but to present or future non-facts which belong to utopia. Fowler is quite precise on this. But to understand the exactitudes of grammar, one has to have an acquaintance with the basics. Before I went to school, the word were was a place of mystery to me, a utopian where. The past, present, and future were not tenses of verbs, but the captives of then, now, maybe someday. Listen to my mother talk: We was going to get there then, but they was late and so we go nowhere. No were.

Where you were that morning: in the CT machine at the cancer center; stopping for a bagel, cream cheese, no butter please; sleeping late with a former lover, sweaty with regrets that will soon dry small; on the plane you almost didn't make, feeling lucky to be going from Boston to L.A. for an interview; finishing the carpeting job in Queens before heading to the project downtown; at the Pentagon cookie shop, selling the last macadamia and chocolate chip; in the student lounge, looking up from the television set to se the same smoke, the same absence; at the veterinarians's office, picking up the dog's ashes; on the ledge, holding his hand, considering a choiceless choice; in the cockpit, between the sky and the ocean, aiming for the skyscraper's promise on Chambers Street, using a briefcase as a shield; cradled in the stairwell, counting the flights, coughing and crying, dialing the cell phone, battery dead; in a place that will never be forgotten, never remembered, in heaven, in hell, in shock, in pieces, in tears, in a rage, incomprehensible, inarticulate.

Having revived.
Having arrived on the other side of some deep but invisible ocean. On the continent of those about whom the word miracle is whispered, I am still possessed of Fowler's and my mother and my handwriting and my long for a beach house. Only now I don't understand suicide. Only now I am suspicious of Anne Sexton (and the others, the others) for their deception: that death is romantic and not full of dullness and formalism; that death is literary and survivable.
Only now I wonder if Sexton (or Plath or Virginia Woolf...not to mention Hemingway) would have been diagnosed with a rare and almost always fatal cancer instead of depression; would she have fought her way into the clinical trials, past the doubting doctors, screaming I am but young and fair, too young to die. I am only 45, 30, 59, or 42 like me; or would she have succumbed, welcoming the morphine the doctors would provide in excess, as if they are gods and this is mercy.

If I were to continue my letter to you on Anne Sexton's birthday, inside the card with the images of the yellow gingko leaves and red maple leaves and the towering trees we once would have described as aflame but can no longer since we have seen what we have seen, I might still insist on trying to turn lines from Sexton into aphorisms with my careful inscriptions. In November counting the stars/ gives you boils. Be careful of words/ even the miraculous ones. Many humans die./ They die like tender, palpitating berries/ in November. I would not write you how my abdomen still twists, a labyrinth constructed by my surgeon, my Ariadne, my rowing god with his oars of knives. Of the dangerous miscellany of my side-effects, seeming to mimic the symptoms of anthrax poisoning, now that we know what the symptoms would be. I cannot but sound antiquated should I write: if oceans be but metaphors, then what is this salt that clings to my scars? And I would not but sound too much the poetic writer rather than the ordinary one,should I write you, my dear, that I struggled to get past the subjunctive ( what if? if not?) every day, including this brilliant November day when the waves twist from a far off hurricane and we still strive in our boats hewn of grammar to arrive at utopia, or at least into some future.

By Ruthann Robson published in Bellevue Literary Review Spring 2003

Our Parents

Our parents died at least twice,
the second time when we forgot their stories,
or couldn't imagine how often they craved love,
or felt useless, or yearned for some justice
in this world. In their graves, our parents' need
for us is pure, they're lost without us.
Their honeymoon in Havana does or does not
exist. That late August in the Catskills-
we can decide to make them happy.

What is the past if not unfinished work,
swampy, fecund, seductively revisable?
One of us has spent his life developing respect
for the weakness of words, the other for what
must be held on to; there may be a chance for us.

We try to say what happened in that first house
where we were, like most children, the only
needy people on earth. We remember
what we were forbidden, who got the biggest slice.
Our parents, meanwhile, must have wanted something
back from us, We know what it is, don't we?
We've been alive long enough.

Stephen Dunn

"Piglet'

Anyone who has fed a goldfinch would understand Diane's nickname for them.
(Taken with Dan's camera)

Not Paint Chips

A better but not complete view of the twenty-four foot high ceiling.



Believe me, Mark, Adam and I appreciated the breakfast we made at
your house yesterday morning. Nevertheless, because we (this includes Jan) know that you are not about to throw away the remaining mix, I am posting this to remind you of what pancakes should look like.