DreamsWork

When Abby was in early middle-age she explored all kinds of ways to make sense of an increasingly senseless life. She had been married, had two children, and gotten divorced when they left the nest to search out their own destiny. She had watched her beloved mother die, resisting the curtain of death until the very end. And then she watched her equally resistive father struggle to make a life for himself when much of his reason for living no longer existed.  Where was this mythical mystical Zone where it all made sense? Where was this state where everything was easier and the brain flowed smoothly to a blissful and fulfilling state of mind?

In the past several years she had done yoga, meditated and gone to church. She had traipsed to the gym and done hundreds of laps in the tepid pool at the Rec Center. Her eyes were blurred with reading fiction, non-fiction, and self-help books. She turned on the TV and then she turned it off not wanting to be told by any talking head, left-leaning or right, what to think, or to soak her brain with marginal entertainment. She got massages, took long walks, talked endlessly with friends -- and she dreamed.

It was the dreams that most intrigued her. She had her waking dreams, to be sure; dreams of a body more disciplined and sleek, a beautiful perennial garden blooming in perfect synchronicity throughout the seasons, dreams of her children being comfortable in their own skin and finding happiness.  Other dreams were less defined; hovering in her subconscious, a tantalizing promise of enlightenment and fulfillment but the "aha" moment eluded her over and over again.

So she began to study the phenomenon of sleeping dreams to see what they meant. She had often joked that her dreams were full-length Technicolor Steven Spielberg epics. She loved her dreams and they were—fortunately -- rarely dark or scary. But what did they mean? If she studied and analyzed them, would they help her in her quest to move forward through her mid-life ennui?

She read about the Jungian theory of dreams and scanned the dream dictionaries on Google. She went to dream groups where she shared her dreams with knowledgeable and seeking fellow dreamers. Together they explored prophetic dreams and lucid dreams and dreamers whose brains cast them back to previous lives and ancient times through the nightly firing of synapses. But what she ultimately distilled from her studies, if she learned from her dreams at all, was that she and she alone could interpret the hidden messages. No one had her set of symbols and emotions and culture. What she did learn was to use certain tools to unlock some of the mysteries of her subconscious. Asking: “What does this image mean to you?” (For example, to one person the ocean may represent a relaxing vacation romp, to another a ship-wrecking threat.) “Why did you have this dream now?” “What are the archetypal symbols?”

Abby prepared herself for her nightly dream adventures by closing her eyes and letting pre-dream images roll like the crawl at the bottom of a TV newscast on the screen of her inner eyelids.  Skulls, dragons, starbursts, snowflakes, birds, trees, Salvador Dali forms dripping with distorted images all visited this twilight moment before she started to slip into a dream-filled sleep.

Abby soon learned to discard what were clearly "junk drawer" dreams with no emotional content for her. She also discarded the dream of searching frantically for the thermostat that she had somehow misplaced when her dwelling cooled on a zero night. She knew where the dream of rushing water splashing in her sink came from when she awoke with the urgent need to pee. Abby's questing and sometimes overstimulated brain cleared this excess material with barely a memory of having dreamed at all.

Oh but the dreams that lingered, demanding and insistent, wanting to be deciphered, wanting to be understood and of value. Docile, piebald horses clopping up the lane to her house became ebony-hued thoroughbreds, muscled and strong prancing and tearing up the sod in her dooryard.  A giant oak tree, a symbol of strength, was Swiss-cheesed with woodpecker holes and towered up and up until it erupted in pale green leaves. The dead awoke with smiles. Babies delivered speeches to Congress. Keys changed hands. Over and over again Abby saw change and growth and always she saw these transitions as a good and positive thing -- even if they were sometimes vaguely disturbing, like watching a birth.

By the time Abby saw and accepted the transitions, she was no longer early middle-age. She was approaching that age termed "senior."  Nowadays, she knew without a doubt what she did not like; she would never again dip her toes in the tepid pool at the Rec Center. Leave yoga to the lithe and inclined, not to her. She thought she would keep the massages and continue her reading, but more selectively. She had, in fact, transitioned into knowledge of some of the vicissitudes of life and she was, if not in the Zone, at least more content.

Still Abby wondered why in the world a random childhood friend of her son's came knocking on her door one night in a dream to demand that she hand over Benny Goodman's address book? Benny Goodman -- the King of Swing --  was not even of her generation. He belonged to a bygone era, peaking with his sweet licorice-stick clarinet before she was born. Yet the dream lingered and haunted her in its intensity and demanded her attention. What in the world was this lingering dream telling her? It tickled her funny bone in all its peculiarity and she and yet she was certain there was a message buried in this dream.

Aha, she thought, maybe the message was "move on" as the childhood friend had become a respected adult in real life and Benny with his sweet licorice-stick clarinet had moved on in death – both with accomplishment and with the sweet aura of humor that surrounded the images.

That night, after that revelation, Abby snuggled in her down comforter, welcoming another of her nightly Technicolor epics with great curiosity.  She sought what was there to find and marvel at as she awoke to another day.

Previous Stories:

Who's a Hero?

In the Still of the Night

Under the water and over the dam

Throwback Thursday: Who’s a Hero?

The week was young. It was only Monday afternoon, the Monday before Memorial Day. It was hectic trying to get all the orders done so that there would be plenty of First Prize hot dogs, Koffee Kup buns and Styrofoam coolers. Did we need to turn on the ice machine? Did we have a good supply of Frisbees and Whiffleballs? The coming three-day weekend would kick off the summer season and we had to be prepared.

With a familiar rattle and bang, an old blue pickup truck with a crumbling white cap and 20 years’ worth of bumper stickers pulled up right outside the front door. Old Gib unwound himself from the front seat and proceeded to the back of the truck where he rummaged and tugged until his arms were full. Tall and lean, he looked for all the world like something out of an Audubon print with his knock-kneed flamingo-like gait, pigeon-breasted chest and hawkish nose.

Gib had supplied the Wayside with fishing paraphernalia ever since we bought the store. We depended on him for the right size and type of Mepps, Zebco rod and reel sets, hooks, nets, swivels and other miscellaneous gear suitable for the worm fishermen who share the famous Batten Kill with their fly fishing brothers and sisters.

Gib was trying to get out of the fishing supply business but agreed to beef up our stock for the weekend. His assortment was a little more motley than usual. Some of the Rapala boxes were wrinkled with water stains, and he didn't have any #8 snelled hooks. But he brought in what he had, and he enjoyed his visits to the store, where he sat at the big round table engaging folks with fish stories. His arthritic gnarled hands, covered with liver spots, gestured woodenly as he told his tales. His mostly expressionless face was dominated by the most peculiar mouth, he teeth of which were yellowed and layered. Where the upper teeth met the lower, there was a perfectly round hole as if he had caught bullets in his teeth in a circus act. He would make a circle of his mouth as if he had anticipated someone's astonishment at the size or number of fish that used to be caught in Hopper Brook or the Green River.

We carried on our business between stories and interruptions until we wrangled out what of his remaining stock would be useful. We sealed our deal with a sales slip written out with a stubby pencil and added up the old-fashioned way without the aid of a calculator.

Gib was active in the American Legion, and someone had once mentioned that it was hard to believe looking at him that he’d been a war hero. I had been working on an employee newsletter and wanted to put a bit at the end about remembering the veterans. While we were concluding our transactions, I conversationally said: “I hear that you were quite a hero in World War II.”

Gib was hard of hearing and always slow to answer, so I was not sure he had caught my remark. Imagine my shock and surprise when I looked up from my paperwork to see those rheumy old eyes brimming with tears that leaked over the folds and down his leathery cheeks. “The heroes,” he said, “are still over there.”

Then he began an amazing tale of volunteerism and bravery, protecting our American tanks from Japanese bombs, landing on the beach at Randova, and going down on the US Army Transport Coolidge in 1942. My knowledge of history was so spotty that I could not follow the story in detail, but I did know that while I was talking to this old Vermonter in the worn shirt smelling of engine oil, fish and sweat, I was seeing what made this country great.

Gib was the only one of the squadron leaders serving together who came back alive. After 60 years the scars or were still visible on his psyche, like keloids bumping up the tender skin. Clearly, war hurt and toughened. But it also tenderized in a mysterious way. Gib came back and devoted himself to countless worthy causes: Boy Scouts, the American Legion, Conservation Camp and Hunter Safety. He wanted this to be a country worth fighting for. Each day we all pick our battles and decide “which hill we want to die on.”

Even constrained by the dictates of duty, we pick to do it honorably or not. There is no question about Gib’s choices.

Gib’s heroes are still “over there.” But one of Arlington’s heroes – indeed, one of America’s heroes – is still among us and drives a beat-up blue pickup with a crumbling white cap.

(This story, which originally appeared in my published volume of "Wayside Country Stories," is reposted today both as a nod to Throwback Thursday and in honor of Gib’s wife Ruth who passed away this week.)

Related:

Rabbit Tales

Mind Your Manners

Mush

Rabbit Tales

I am in my car alone.  I want to be alone right now. The funeral service for my Grandpa has just ended -- shovels full of dirt in the deep hole that will be his last earthly home. I am sad for the lessons that now have stopped. His passing leaves a hole in my heart and my life that's as big and deep as his grave.

I loved my Grandpa, though there was a time when I hated him. Not for long, but it was intense when it came to the surface.This was just one the many lessons he taught me: Love and hate are often very close.

From the time I came home from the hospital in a tiny pink outfit with rabbits hopping from the toes to the top, he called me "Bunny." Oh, he called me "Sylvia" too, and sometimes "Sylvie," but in our most endearing moments it was always "Bunny." It seems that traditionally grandfathers have been partial to their grandsons on account of the fact they'd be the ones carrying the family name forward into the future. Nowadays it doesn't matter as much since so many women keep their own last names when they marry -- but that's a different story for another time. My grandpa was partial to me.  We shared so much: deep sapphire eyes, an easy smile and a sunny disposition. When he looked at me, I knew he saw himself in the way that children just know those things.

Now Grandpa was a great hunter and loved the Vermont hills from which which he would procure venison and wild turkey for the family table. I knew that and I accepted that, even from a very young age, the same way farm kids know that hamburger comes from those bucolic-looking cows grazing so calmly in the lush green meadows.

What I didn't know about were the rabbits -- those endearing, charming, long-eared bunnies that inhabited my bedtime stories and provided the touchstone of our relationship. Often, when Grandpa went hunting he'd bring me back the soft white and brindle tails of rabbits. I loved them. They were a special gift and I used them as pretend powder puffs or ornaments for my hair. They were tucked every where in my room -- some beside my lamp, others in the corner of my mirror, and still others scented with Mother's perfume and squirreled away in my dresser drawers. Mother always had to check my pockets before she did the wash as most often a tiny bunny tail was hidden there, a soft and tactile reminder of my protector's love, a tangible wish for my good fortune.

This went on from the time I was four or five until I was eight. I was just starting third grade when we had a show-and-tell time where each student could bring something that they wanted to share with the rest of the class. One by one they would stand in front of the whole class and tell what it was and explain why they had chosen to bring it to school.

I brought in four of the fluffiest rabbit tails in my supply. Swallowing hard to get up the nerve to address my classmates, I went to the front of the room and charged, full speed ahead, with the story: My Grandpa was such a good hunter, you see, he could shoot the tails right off the rabbits in the woods-- without even harming them!

The silence was deafening. I had fully expected my classmates to cheer his obvious skill -- not to mention be envious of my treasures. Instead, what greeted me -- after the long silence -- was an unbelievable snickering.  We were, after all, a community of hunters and even at their young age, many of the boys in my class had already been hunting. Then one particularly grubby boy stood up.

"That there weren't no way that can happen," the boy said. "Them rabbits was in the stew you et.-- and you didn't even know it!"

My face reddened in response and tears sprung to my eyes as I realized that this was most likely true. The teacher, having seen the look of horror and betrayal cross my face, quickly came to my side and gently ushered me out of the classroom. Though teachers must be prepared for anything at "show and tell,"she clearly had not been prepared to witness my moment of truth or to deal with the resulting emotional fallout.

Young as I was, this was my first true awareness that all is not as it seems. A year before I had given up Santa Claus with barely a ripple. He was the spirit of giving, after all, and I still believed in that wholeheartedly. But to have Grandpa revealed in public as a liar and, even worse, someone who used my adoration and trust to perpetuate a falsehood, was more than I could bear.

After an hour in the nurse's office, my mother came to get me. My stomach ached and my eyes were red and swollen. I could not tell her what her father had done to me. I could not tell her how hurtful it was that he had slaughtered Peter Cottontail, defiled the Velveteen Rabbit and made the sweet characters of Beatrix Potter forever sour in my mouth. Truth had been revealed and it was such a bitter pill that my eight-year-old mind, body and soul could not digest it. But the teacher had told her what had happened. To Mother's credit, she remained silent, waiting patiently for me to speak. But I could not.When Grandpa came for supper that night I remained in my room. I could not face him. I hated him.

The class quickly moved on to other things, forgetting my "show and tell" in favor of papier mache globes and volcanoes, double-dutch jump rope, and the intricacies of math. They forgot, but I did not. I had been happy in my ignorance, my head in the sand like a grade-school ostrich, not seeing what I did not want to see. I longed for the hand-holding walks in the woods where Grandpa would point out the edible cinnamon ferns and help me gather the miniature wild strawberries. But I did not know how to go forward.

This lesson I later came to identify with the concept of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." Was I willing to give up everything because of a single betrayal?  Grandpa had been told what happened and his sadness cast a pall over the entire household. He told my mother that he'd never said that he didn't kill the rabbits. Upon later reflection, I guess he hadn't. This I later came to identify with another concept: That there are sins of omission as well as sins of commission.

The bunny tails disappeared from my room and Grandpa never called me "Bunny" ever again. Eventually we established an uneasy truce. It happened while I was trying to ignore him at the supper table one night and he got caught slipping a bit of fried liver off his plate to the family dog who was forbidden table food. He blushed and laughed and then started laughing harder when he saw that I was laughing with him.  His merriment (or perhaps relief) was so great that tears sprung to his eyes and the moment rolled on, both of us laughing as the terrible past started to recede into the past. (Another lesson I learned through all this is the healing power of laughter.)

So, life went on. The shine of my hero may have been tarnished, but he was still my hero, my teacher, my mentor and my kin. In the kind of linguistic shorthand peculiar to families, we began to identify these kinds of half truths that abound in life as "rabbit tales."

We shared much in the next 19 years until, like in The Velveteen Rabbit, he was worn and frail having lived too much and loved too much.  So, today I just want to be alone and remember and think of all the times his lessons held me in good stead.

Nobody is perfect. And to expect that they are is probably the biggest rabbit tale of the all. My hate was fleeting but my love for him -- and his for me -- did not end with his death.

Just let me be alone for awhile.

Related Stories:
Mind Your Manners
Mush
In the Still of the Night

Mind Your Manners

Good God, what have I done?

I stared down at the tabby cat lying stretched out on the pink fleece pillow.  On one side was my six-year-old daughter, Kim, her blonde curls sharing the pearly fluff.  On the other side was Megan, barely four.  They were at that age where so much is at stake.

They needed to learn to share.  They needed to learn to say "please" and "thank you." They needed to learn to brush their teeth and flush the toilet and put away their toys. And they needed to understand that, if you had a cute little kitten, it would grow into an independent cat that still needed to be given food and water every day. And that the kitty litter had to be changed. And that you needed to make sure your pet was safe from harm.

I was trying -- oh God, was I trying -- to be the good mother and teach these precious bundles that had been entrusted to me how to be good, responsible people.

That is why, when I saw the striped cat wounded at the side of the road barely a quarter of a mile from our house, I slammed on the brakes, hopped out of the car and frantically scooped up the mewling bundle. This cat was our responsibility and it was looking like we had failed in our ultimate task to keep her safe. 

We had gone to Second Chance Animal Shelter just six months before and picked her out from among all the rest. She had such a dainty way of grooming her face with her so-soft paws that we would name her "Miss Priss." The girls adored her and took great joy in picking out toys for her: a feather on a string, a neon plastic ball with a bell and a toy mouse that looked so real at first I'd thought it was a freeze-dried version of the real deal.

Seeing that wounded little wad of striped fur tore at my heart. I momentarily wanted to ignore what I was seeing but I was not capable of that any more than I was capable of writing an opera or running for president. It would set a horrible example. Besides, Kim and Megan were not blind, they too had seen their precious pet in distress.

We sat in the kitchen coddling and cuddling Miss Priss, wiping the dirt from her fur since she was too weak to do her own grooming.  Drops of water were administered with an eye dropper and a flake of tuna was placed on her tongue.  By very dint of their affection, it seemed, the girls were willing that cat back to drowsy health again.

But, as I went to the kitchen sink to rinse out my coffee cup, I was greeted with a "thunk" and a "meow" that made me realize what I had just done: Perched on the ledge outside my kitchen window window sat a hale and hearty Miss Priss her round, amber eyes seeming to mock me.

My head whip-lashed from the scene on the window sill to the scene on the floor inside. Still the skeptic, I ran to the jumbled mess of kids and kitten and lifted the eyelid of my feline patient. A deep sea-green orb stared back -- something I had not noticed in my haste to be a shade-tree veterinarian. Worse yet, the faux patient (no, make that faux pet) had snug between his (yes, his) hind legs a pair of fur-covered balls the size of shelled peas.

BALLS? Now what the hell was I supposed to do?

My impostor pet must have been one of the dozens of barn cats from the farm just down the road.  Now, mind you, we had chosen to rescue a cat from the animal shelter thereby opting for a less in-bred member of the feline species. But our Miss Priss very well could have come from that very same farm so similar were they.  Nonetheless, I would return the male version of Miss Priss to the farmer's wife, an elderly, taciturn, old-school Vermonter. I could begin  to guess what her reaction would be but I could not keep this interloper -- even though I had rescued him -- as you can plainly see one cat was already threatening to be nearly one to many.

When wakefulness stirred the bundle of curls, fur and fleece, I knelt down and stroked with equal affection each member of the pack. I murmured softly to each: "This ... is ... not ... Miss ... Priss." With sleep still hanging thready about the girls, I went on to explain that we would take the cat to its rightful owner Maggie down at the farm.

If I live to be 100 I'll never forget the look on that wiry old woman's face when we arrived at her door with a still-lethargic half-grown tabby cat cradled in a pink fleece pillow. I suspect she'd seen hundreds of cats come and go -- and more than she could count squashed on the road that runs past the farmhouse. While she valued her cats for their ability to keep the grain bins and root cellar rodent-free, she was not given to sentimentality about them. She believed that the fittest would survive without her intervention. I suspect she thought I was nuts.

As I babbled my story, she was silent. She either didn't know what to say or knew exactly what she wanted to say but couldn't bring herself to say it in front of the children. Finally, her lip curled in an indefinable way -- neither smile nor smirk -- and she took the cat-laden pillow from my hands with no more than a nod and a barely audible "Ayup."

As I hastened to get back in the van and away from this awkward encounter, Megan began pulling at my pant leg.

"Mommy, Mommy," she whined.

"What, Megan? WHAT?"

"Mommy, she wasn't very polite. She didn't even say: 'Thank you'."

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Mush

Cary was a simple woman. She often marveled at the needs of her contemporaries that seemed to crave so very much to create the illusion that they were happy -- fancy clothes, long cruises and big houses.  They needed pools and bragging rights, art ownership and club membership. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with these things; she simply did want them or need them to define her.

If she wanted a day of unbridled contentment, Cary would cruise the thrift and consignment shops within a 50-mile radius of her modest home.  Often she went with a friend.  But just as often she went alone, seeking out a treasure of low-end but lovely vintage jewelry.  She knew that she often overlooked other treasures as she poked among the beads and tangled chains of other people’s cast-offs so lately she had been schooling herself to rattle among the coat hangers for a pretty jacket or look on the shelves for a pleasing candle holder or vase for the flowers she grew in her garden.  She rarely found anything she wanted.  Often she came home with a desire to clean out her own congested cupboards and closets, to shed possessions instead of acquiring more.

She would frequently see something that reminded her of a friend or relative, living or dead.  And she treasured these little trips into the psyche of the things that please.  She believed utterly in the messages she found; a ceramic owl, a hummingbird pin, a ruby glass cardinal, a crystal angel -- each calling up a private and personal memory, a bit of wisdom or humor.  She was reassured that her friends, past and present were with her even though she may be alone.  These forays were almost spiritual, and they refreshed her in ways that were hard to explain to her family and friends.

Thus it was a startling thing that she found -- crammed in the back of a dusty shelf in a hole-in-the-wall consignment shop.  While owls and angels are a common motif, a dog sled motif was decidedly rare.  But there it was, tagged with a pasteboard ticket on a string looped around the neck of a carved soapstone musher. It was damaged -- one could see one dog’s muzzle was chipped, and the leading edge of the sled was rough with a broken spot.   The tag read “as is.”

Cary knew immediately that this strange sculpture, imperfect as it was, was destined to go home with her.  She knew mushers.  And it just so happened that, at the moment, she was following the Iditarod, that iconic race through the Alaskan wilderness that was in its final grueling days.  She was privy to some of their challenges and knew of their courage and, sometimes, their heartbreak.  Like the little soapstone statue she held in her hands, sometimes they were hurt in the journey but still basically intact. Her mind drifted back almost 30 years to memories of her friend, Jason.  He was a hardscrabble boy whose love of dog-powered sports started when he hooked up his mongrel, Bo, to his toboggan to gather maple sap in the waning days of Vermont winters. Back then, his knowledge of the word “mush” was solely of the gluey mash that he ate day after day for his morning repast.  Now the word “mush” meant that the snow hooks that anchored his wooden sled to the ground were being released and the yipping, yowling pack of his beloved Siberian Huskies could hit the trail.

After all these years, Jason was training for the CopperBasin 300, a qualifying race for Iditarod dreamers. Cary knew, because of him, that this was a unique sport – really more of a lifestyle -- that it was ancient and elemental; a man and dogs mutually dependent. The whole purity of the endeavor was an anachronism in an era of social media, smart phones and beyond.  What were her musher friends telling her now with this treasure showing up so unexpectedly in her hands at very end of the Iditarod? Why had they appeared on this dusty shelf in the form of a tiny soapstone trinket for her to find?

She pondered the message of perseverance in the face of heartbreak, of work and dreams and elemental connections as she climbed into her dusty car to head to the next thrift shop. But she knew that anything else from here on out would not compare to the tissue-wrapped treasure now in her purse. 

The gods had already spoken for this day.  

Previous Posts:

In the Still of the Night

His Bark Is Worse than His Bite

Under the Water - and Over the Dam

In the Still of the Night

The noise was like distant cracks of thunder, full of electricity. Boom, hiss. Boom, hiss. And again.  Each charge of noise intruded on my always troubled sleep.

My eyelids fluttered, seeking the light.  But there was no light. Boom, hiss. One more crack of noise that was, in fact, the house's electrical circuits in distress. Then it was totally dark.

I waited, utterly still, not wanting to accept the fact that the power was really and truly out. I listened to the howl of the wind as it tore through the tops of the bare oaks and maples that surround the house and climb the slopes of the gentle hills of our mountain hollow.

It was an eerie sound, unlike any other.  Not wolf or coyote,-not a train rushing through the intersection of a small isolated town, it was distant but felt immediate, demanding.  It had already claimed my power, my control over my environment.

I do not like the dark. Don't get me wrong, I am not afraid of it.  I do not think that gremlins will come leaping out of the closets or Freddie Fingernail from “Nightmare on Elm Street” will slink up the stairs.  The dark only makes me aware of the illusion I harbor of having control of my surroundings.  Even now, if I reach for the flashlight on my bedside stand, will I knock over the glass of water sitting there?  Will I see the cat or will she trip me up so I crash into the inert lamp and injure one or the other of us?

Tonight there is not a single bit of ambient light.  No moon shines through scudding clouds over the mountaintops.  It is too far from dawn to have the weak shards of light leak under the blinds and around the curtains.  I am not accustomed to the dark. 

Ever since 9/11 no matter how tired I am, when my head hits the pillow I am wide awake.  I no longer pretend that sleep will come and I always have the television on, the volume turned down so it croons and whispers its inane banter into my tired brain, my reading light on over my shoulder and my glasses hugging my brow.  A book rests on my chest ready to read if sleep continues to elude me. 
I resist the mini-death of sleep, afraid not of the dark, but of being "in the dark," of missing something -- anything -- that happens while I am temporarily absent.  I strive to understand but cannot decipher the working of our government no matter how much I read or scan the 24/7 always-on TV news.  I can only read enough to send a pinpoint of light into my awareness of the scary world of fabricating authors and sexual predators.  Steroid use and Judas gospels make me feel stupid and duped.  Hidden paintings in walls and hidden agendas are mysteries and shrouded in the dark recesses of the psyche, not in the darkness of my house. I have about given up thinking that staying awake with the light on will somehow enlighten me.

Thus it is, oddly, not the dark but the silence that is profoundly disturbing.  At first I was glad that the wind had died down but with its death came the silence.  Recently a minor commercial was being filmed at our store and the videographer made us unplug the deli cases, mute the clapper on our cowbell at the door and quiet the fan on the French fry machine; white noise, the background of my existence.  At home, it is the hum of the refrigerator, the buzz of the bulbs in the grow lamps over our house plants.  It is the water pump turning on, the furnace kicking in, the dryer tumbling -- and all the other noises that I cannot name or even identify.  But they are always there.  And now they are not.

Gradually, like feeling your pulse thrumming in your ears in a way that makes you perceive it as a sound, I hear the tick tock of a battery-operated clock that, if there were light, I would be able to see from my place in bed.  I had not known that it made any noise at all.  It was a complete surprise.  If I stay this way long enough, what else will I hear?

There ...  a soft footstep.  Who's there?

Ah, it is only my cat and she scares the bee-geebers out of me as she leaps from the dark onto my chest with a resounding thump.  I cannot tell if it is actually noise or only a tactile sensation so powerful that it feels like sound.

As she settles into the crook of my arm, she begins to purr. I had no idea that her purr was so loud.  If the electricity stays off long enough what other things will I learn? Will there be revelations uncomplicated by the spoken or written word? Will mysteries be solved?  And do I want solutions? Or, like the pursuit of happiness, do I want only the intellectual pleasure of questioning the elusive and complicated?

My cat's internal motor is welcome and gradually relaxes my over-active brain that by now has travelled to all the strange and lonely and exhausting places that only darkness and silence can access

When I awake, the weak morning light is streaming in the window. I have slept in spite of myself.  The power is back on and the house is alive with a cacophony of tiny noises. I have survived my brief visit to the twilight zone of darkness and silence and I have no desire to visit it again anytime soon.

It is too early in the day, too early in the season but my longing for the outdoors and the spring garden is almost physical, a thirst. Like Voltaire's Candide, mysteries are solved there where the process is simple and knowable and uncomplicated by the search for answers in light and sound. Or in the absence of it.

(This blog post is partially my personal experience and partially culled from several conversations I've had about how the frequent power outages in our area effect us.)

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His Bark Is Worse than His Bite

Cobb was a bit of an enigma.  He started showing up at our little country store about two years ago and, in spite of my best efforts to figure him out, he gave away next to nothing about himself.  He was either house-sitting, free-loading or in the witness protection program up in the one of the houses hidden in the twists and turns of the Batten kill valley or its attending hills and hollows.

Once or twice a week he would slouch in, his tall, banana-shaped body crabbing across the worn floorboards to pick up a Foster’s oilcan of beer and a 99-cent bag of Fritos.

If I said: “Nice day out today,” he would respond: “I guess.”  If I asked: “How are you today?” he would respond: OK.” In winter, he accessorized his meager jacket with a length of colored scarf the likes of which is usually seen at Big Ten football games. In summer, he wore a stained Red Sox baseball cap backward. He could have been an old young man or a young old man with either fading blond or fledgling gray streaking his hair, which hung limp around his lean face. His mouth was straight as a pin, muscles never twitching in a smile or even a frown.  He did not complain or grouse. He did not joke or comment, even on the weather or the roads. He was just … bland.

Now, it is no secret that “bland” is disturbing to me.  I want people to share their joys and sorrows and jokes.  I want the challenge of a good political spar and I rejoice in people who are passionate about what they do -- it can be collecting four-leaf clovers, shoeing horses, or raising kids.  It can be teaching or preaching. It can be running or spinning. It can be baking or golfing or basket weaving. But please show me some emotion! Though I sometimes get impatient with “drama,” I would take that any day over gray ennui.  I felt sorry for Cobb who seemed so humorless and passionless.

One quiet evening in the valley I was behind the counter with our night help when Cobb came in. A pretty young lady was at the counter with four cans of dog food.  She was trying to decide the merits of Taste of The Wild vs. Wellness vs. the cheaper Alpo and a generic brand. She was taking up time asking the kinds of questions only she could answer: “How much do I want to spend?”  Cobb stood motionless for a while waiting his turn. Then he spoke.

“I was fed kibble when I was a kid,” he said.

I was momentarily ecstatic -- he was finally interacting!

But, what followed was as unpredictable as the winds that rise out of nowhere and race down the valley.

“Here,” he said, “feel my jaw.”

What his jaw had to do with being fed kibble I did not even stop to process. Not being touch-averse, I reached out my hand to touch the rock-hard clenched jaw.

As soon as my fingers grazed the three-day stubble, he let out a loud and long feral bark that fell somewhere between Siberian Huskies lining up at the start of the Iditarod and a Bullmastiff going after a poacher. Cobb’s formerly bland face broke into laugh lines, changing his countenance to one of a mischievous elf, his eyes sparkling with the fun of having so surprised us. Three startled females momentarily blanched and then laughed the kind of laugh you crave on a quiet day, laughing heartily that we had been the butt of such a joke and amazed at who had launched it like a bomb into our midst.

Cobb paid his modest tab and exited the front door, still chuckling.

“Been doing that since I was 10,” he said shaking his head on the way out. “Gets ‘em every time.”

He was not humorless!  He had just been weighted down by a life that remained hidden and private but still retained a spark and I was overjoyed that he shared it with us on a quiet night in a no longer quiet valley. That feral bark echoed in our minds as we went about our tasks -- and contemplating how we could foist Cobb’s joke on others. But we agreed that it was the context that made the humor so we enjoyed it for what it was.

In the days that followed, I looked with different eyes upon Cobb’s banana shape crabbing toward the beer cooler. His pin-straight mouth now seemed to be curled in a smile as he recalled his joke on us. I smiled back but did not press for what he could not or would not give.

I was content with his gift of surprise and laughter.  

(Note: There's more than a "seed" of truth to this particular tale -- but it's still fictionalized.)