Etur(tle)nity

In the time it took me to go to the plant store,
buy a perennial,
talk to the plant man about how to tend to my ill roses,
come home,
peel and dice sweet potatoes,
make a tray of enchiladas
and put in a load of laundry,
the turtle had dug a small hole in our front yard with her back flippers,
without looking,
and laid her eggs.

I'd watched her
as the potatoes roasted.
She had come,
as she somehow knew to do,
across the road from the pond,
and slower than anything imaginable
had dug that hole,
had deposited eggs,
and then shoveled the spring most dirt back over her children
with her feet.

Her actions slowed down the world.
She was agonizingly thorough.
She would not leave without tamping down every particle
of that sandy dirt,
without replanting every blade of grass she'd pulled,
without making sure each blade of grass stood upright
so that there would be no sign
that she'd come.

I didn't expect to stand there the length of time it took to roast sweet potatoes.
I knew they were almost done,
and that the timer would ding.
I wanted her to rush.
I wanted a turtle to hurry.
It was maddening,
like watching my mother-in-law
in turtle form
prepare to leave the house.

It's fine, it's fine.
No one cares if you don't put back that last piece of grass.
You can do it later.
Just leave it. It's good. Let's just go.
I was waiting to escort her back across the road.
She continued to sweep the dirt
back in the hole,
her clawed flippers moving
hand over hand,
tamping and patting.
I could have grown sweet potatoes faster.

Finally, she'd replaced the soil
and began the more rapid journey
back to the pond.
I stood in the road like a school crossing guard
as she waddled toward the pond,
then slipped into the water
and dog paddled her way to the deep,
then dove.

Knitting

It's the quietest I am,
knitting.
I'm not counting.
I'm in a quiet world of memory,
imagining the rapid stitches of my grandmother,
how she could sew beads and sequins
into the rows of her work.
I'm thinking of my mother,
her needles tapping and clacking,
her pinky bent to hold the yarn,
knitting, watching TV, talking or reading,
not looking at her work.

I'm remembering the small cream jacket I'd made for my daughter
before she was born
and my grandmother's perfume passing through the room as I knit.

I'm remembering the box I'd opened at school
with the sweater my mother'd copied from a picture in a magazine
with a pink satin ribbon woven through.

I'm remembering sitting at the lake
at my grandmother's feet
with my arms outstretched,
a skein of yarn draped over each of my hands,
her rolling it into a ball.

Dull trips to Fall River to look at yarn.
Poring over knitting magazines
because my grandmother promised me a sweater of my choice.
The flowered afghan.
The Fair Isle pullover she said she'd never ever do again.
The Norwegian maroon sweater with white hearts I must have worn every day
for every winter
for all of high school.

I used to fall asleep at night
naming the gifts I've received
in my life
that were knitted for me,
that I've knitted for others.
I am soothed by knitting
and the thought of
so much yarn,
so much color and softness and texture,
quietly woven into love
as they did for me,
as I do now.

Shopping in Reality

The only way I'm not going to come home with black and gray clothes to add to those I already own is if  I successfully imagine I'm the next guest on What Not To Wear. If I am able to pretend that the two well-dressed, likable, fashion-smart people who help clueless shoppers go from a closet full of overalls and torn Led Zeppelin t-shirts to looking like they're ready for an evening in an art gallery are here with me in Macy's, then I will be a better, happy me.

I can pretend this. I am good at this imagining. I've been doing this sort of delusional thinking ever since 5th grade when I imagined a gymnastics scout was waiting until after class to sign me up for The Olympics after he'd seen me do a back bend in gym.

Really, I just need clothes for springtime, but each time I go to a store, I stall in front of the jeans, I pick up shapeless shirts, I run my hand along a rack of dresses, and then I leave the store with a new pair of socks and a dishtowel. Nothing saves me from myself. This is my pattern.  I need Stacy and Clinton.

Each episode starts with a friend or family member who has written to Stacy and Clinton to share the secret of the friend or family member who can't dress herself.  The victim dresses in clothes she's been wearing since middle school.  She leaves the house looking like she's forgotten to take off her pajamas or her Halloween costume, and she does this every day.  When she gets over the shame of having been lovingly yet underhandedly pointed out by her friend/family member, she often cries, telling how she hates to shop, how her life is sadder than you'd expect.  So Stacy and Clinton tell her she's worth it. They give her design tips. Look for color! No more black! Try a heel!  And they send her off by herself to Manhattan where she's left in a store with all these new tips, and where she inevitably succumbs to depression, falls into her well-worn habits, and leaves the store with new socks and a dishtowel.

No one has turned me in.  I really do just need clothes for springtime. So I head for Macy's. I have never, ever found a thing to buy at Macy's. I hate Macy's. But with Stacy and Clinton by my side (in my head), I will find a wardrobe. You two are so great. I appreciate your kind words. (And no,I tell them, I don't need the high heels they are sure I can walk in, the perfect jacket they assure me everyone needs in order to go from office to evening when all I need for that is a bathrobe, and I don't need a dress that comes across me on the diagonal to create the illusion of a full bust line.)  Thanks though. For now, you can help me find tops that don't make me look like I'm hiding the belly I'm trying to hide, pants that don't button just under the belly I'm trying to hide under my new top, and maybe a dress that doesn't make me look like a flight attendant or someone's old aunt.

I hear Stacy and Clinton whispering to each other as I stall in front of a sales rack where the sweaters that have languished on hangers for over 7 months have almost completed their sagging as their uneven sleeves brush the floor.Where the only jeans available are ones with sequins and supposedly stylish holes. "Oh no, what is she doing?" they whisper. "She's not picking up anything we told her to pick up!"  "Not those slacks! Put them back!"

And this is where my auditory hallucinations end.  Stacy doesn't appear by my side to then suggest the adorable tops I've missed, the pants I didn't even know I could consider, the shoes I could wear to work then to the symphony like that ever happens. No, it's still me.  Me and the shapeless top and the dark jeans, looking for more shapeless tops in spring-like beige.

The problem with delusions is, well for me at least, I can't delude myself into a different ending. I don't end up uncovering my hidden style, crying with pride and glowing from the transformation. I don't end up going to the end-of-the-show party where the shopper enters a room full of the people who turned her in in the first place and are now crying over her amazing appearance.  The truth is if I showed up in makeup, bright colors and tailored pants the next day at work, I would spend the whole day hoping no one noticed.

I sneak out of the store before Stacy and Clinton can stop me.

Neighborhood Docent

This is Sarah's house.
Her bedroom was on the top floor.
She had her own sink right in her room.

This is Nancy's house.
Her family had no furniture,
like they were in a play with no budget for scenery.
I turned on a light switch once
and turned it off again quickly.
Nancy got upset, turned it back on and looked at her watch and counted to some number.
It was a waste to have turned it on and off, she said, so she turned it back on and counted.
I never forgot.
I also never knew the magic number that would make the cost go away.

This is where Miriam lived.
Her sister was so old and shrugged at us as I brought my dolls
and my dollhouse up to Miriam's room to play.
Her mother drove sitting up with her arms bent,
her back not touching her car seat.

This is Carla's house.
We played dress-up on her front walk.
We had a bag of clothes with two hats and two purses.
The good hat and the good purse, the bad hat and the ugly purse.
When I would get to have the good purse, Carla would cry
and I would yell across the street for my mom to come get me.

This is Julie's house.
I went to a party there.
I didn't want to go.
My mother told me that only I could make it a good time or a bad time.
If I smiled, I'd have a good time, she told me.
I smiled.
Julie had a jukebox that worked.
It had records in it and we could push any button and listen to any song.
Smiling doesn't always work.

I'd never been in Mr. Chapman's house
and never wanted to
since his rooms were all piled high
with stacks of old newspapers that blocked the windows.

This is Gary's house.
He had a photographic memory.
He is my age and played the piano at Carnegie Hall when he was 11.
I played piano too with the same teacher.
I played in recitals with him.
The ones that were local.

This is Mrs. Thomas' house.
She had toy poodles.
She never let me touch them.

This is Mrs. Dyro's house.
She had a dog I could touch.
Barney.
But he had wiry hair
and I didn't want to.

This is Gisi's house.
I stayed there when my parents would go out of town.
I had my own room, my own section of the house.
I would leave the shower running and then sneak out the back door
to go meet a boy.

Not one of these people still live here.

Giving the Roses a Run For

On those days when there is no snow or rain, when the temperature is somewhere above shivering and just below overheating, when there's no other chore that appeals to me, I go into the garden with my holey gloves and my rusted clippers, and I take on the rugosa roses. The attention they require is what keeps me from having a flower bed like the ones in the gardening books. The ill-mannered, unshapely, thorny sticks, with runners that grab hold and tangle themselves just beneath the soil are what prevents me from planting the crepe-petaled poppies of June, the un-fussy coreopsis of July, the Russian sage that apparently anyone can grow without trouble, all because I am caught in a timeless battle with barbed, overgrown shrub things, planted before I lived here, that save themselves from slaughter with their yearly bloom. Like babies with colic, just when you think you can't take it anymore, they smile.

In April I am not swayed by the promise of their vibrant appearance. Instead, this is my time to catch them, when they are not yet awake.  I pull dead leaves away from where they've matted themselves in a circle around each plant. I yank at the stubborn orange bittersweet vines that add to the snarl by slithering up each thorny spike of rose and cement their roots to the ground below. I inspect each cluster of growth to see if it is worthy of calling itself a shrub. I push down the relics that try to get away with another year by staying upright even though they're dead. I push them until they snap.  

Then June comes and oh, the lovely roses. The pink. The abundance. The fragrance. I take pleasure in watching my neighbors stroll by them, commenting on their beauty.  I put plastic bags on metal dowels in their midst to catch and kill the beetles that force them to lose their petals too soon. I am like every Disney headmistress, stepmother and queen, showing off the beauty of the captive innocents to the unsuspecting public, then belittling and abusing them when we are alone.

In July, we are alone. I think against saving the rose hips for jelly and behead them before their time. I decide there is no need for the roses, now in their setting days, to stretch the length of the perennial bed. So I am back with my clippers. I yank them out by their runners.  I fill and refill the wheelbarrow with their remains.  I visit the greenhouses and buy myself a container of something else. Something I will have forgotten I've planted by the time next April comes, when I am back outside, my dog nearby, leash staked into the ground, running after squirrels within the limits of her restraint.

Spring

It's the sounds I've missed,
The trill of frogs from the pond,
The wild conference of birds mismatched, singing over one another
all at once,
The sound wind makes when it has leaves to blow,
the snow transformed into drops, warm enough to be rain again.

And the smells.
Winter has none.
Spring smells.
The salt of the ocean,
the stink of the hidden earth,
under leaves left.
It smells like spring, she'd say,
when I thought she was too small to know
seasons had smell.

And the slop of my steps
on the now bare wet ground,
and the tools uncovered from last fall
waiting in my garden,
and the empty pots
tipped over drunk in the yard,
waiting for new plants to tend.

And the colors,
the vivid greenness
sharp enough
to pierce through the brown leaves left to protect them.
Here I am!
And the peek-a-boo yellow of a bud,
And the warmth of blue,
and the calm of the day ending,
and the pile of snow
each day smaller,
defeated.

What was the cold?
What was it to be inside
with chapped fingers
and dusty houseplants
and narrow pathways shoveled
to the woodpile?
With only a window to watch
the birds sort through the box
of seeds I'd left them.

Frogs
have come from the murky depth,
ospreys circle overhead
and dive into the brilliant water.
There was never winter.
Just a distraction.
For this.

Lulu

Last night my grandmother appeared.
I talk to her rarely.
I talk at her.
Usually I've just shown her my tricks,
my knitting,
my singing,
my children.

But last night she sat facing me on the sofa,
her hair a beautiful gray,
glasses with wide black frames that suited her.
She looked right at me. Right at me.
I asked her, "Do you miss the lake?"
Yes, she said. That's what she misses the most.
"Me, too," I said, "I miss that the most." And I cried.
I didn't miss her lake,
but I know now what it meant for her
to be in Maine
away, on her own,

I missed my lake.
I told her I look forward to it and didn't say extremely,
but I felt it.
Like a dancer would show with her arms
and her face.
Urgently.
Intensely.
Longingly.

I was about to say how her lake was so different,
that she was more social than I,
that she seemed to need

people around her,
that she'd call and ask when we were coming.
But the opportunity escaped,
and suddenly my husband's nephew
made his way onto the sofa
in the middle
and smiled
waiting for me to take his picture.
Then my mother was there and my aunt,
all on the sofa.
And I couldn't find her.