consolationland

The cold snap warmed up today. Instead of snow or sleet or frozen pavement, all day there was dark cloud cover and hard rain flooding the icy streets and yards.

In that steady deluge, there was not a soul or passing car on the streets. For once, the park was empty of sports events and joggers and dogs. From the road it’s a sharp slope down, much too slippery to navigate today, on a trail descending straight through tall conifers and oaks, to a broad field covered with snow. Under heavy rain the snow was melting fast, steaming up in a blanket of thick drifting mist. This scene could be a backdrop by Ivan Bilibin, awaiting knights in armor on horseback.

In my dreams during the cold snap, Angelina showed up in a cameo role to help me be a better Catholic. (Later I sent a text to thank her. She texted back “Oh my gosh that is hilarious. Since that’s the last thing I want you to be.”) Anyway, Dream Angelina knew that in our icy weather, it would be hard for me to get myself out to evening Mass. She told me “Mary. Don’t even try walking over to church in this weather. You stay home. I will drive there, stand in the Communion line, and bring you back a little wafer whatever it means to you. You’ve been to Confession first, right?” Well, no; I haven’t been to Confession in over a year, and had to confess that to her. “A year!” said Dream Angelina. “Then you certainly are not spiritually prepared to receive Communion if you have not been to Confession. Well, I’ll go stand in that line too. Here: write down all of your sins on this piece of paper. I’ll carry it into the voting booth with me and add it on to my sins to tell the priest. Father can absolve us both, like a two for one special.”

To reward her piety, her offer to present all of my sins as her own, and her faith that they would all fit on one sheet of paper, I stopped by her house tonight to share an annual splurge holiday confection: four ounces of organic milk chocolate drops with a crunchy colorful candy coating. They’re an imitation of a familiar childhood candy, but made with different ingredients (the pigments come from turmeric, radish, red cabbage, spirulina, and beets). Real-Life Angelina and I tucked in to the jar and started munching the chocolate drops. They were an ideal festive backdrop to chatting and watching “Angels We Have Heard on High” by the Piano Guys.

When I unscrewed the jar lid, Super Pup snapped to attention on her dog bed. She’d just had a relaxing walk topped off with delicious pup-healthy treats. But even after I tightly resealed the jar, she zeroed in on that unfamiliar substance under glass, a food which canines are not at all evolved to digest. “Chocolate is toxic for dogs,” I informed her. She was not deterred. She rested a tiny paw on my shoe. She whimpered in a plaintive manner. She crept on to my knee. She nudged the sealed jar, staring at vivid colors that a dog (they’re pretty well colorblind) couldn’t even see. I put the jar away out of sight in my duffle bag, thinking she would forget about it. Instead she crept closer to track and sniff my mouth and hands. She tried a protest yip. She even tried flashing her teeth. I nudged her away with a fingertap. Nothing daunted, she vaulted off the sofa to rummage among some toys. She vaulted right back at me with a little slice of bone. Cuddling right up, she nestled the bone slice in my palm, then tipped her head and gazed sweetly in my eyes. “That’s a trade,” Angelina explained. “Fork over that chocolate, and you can gnaw my favorite bone.” For the rest of the visit Super Pup plied me with ploys to get at that candy. Finally we leashed her and Bingo so Angelina could walk me home. Only then did the standoff end.

None of this even mentions Our Lord and Christmas. That story comes tomorrow. Silent Night!!

Autumn trailed away with some nice parting views.

This house had a dainty planter at the front gate, holding miniature succulents.

Here are some implausibly tall cottonwood trees (the picture can’t do justice to their towering height or the glorious sunshine), losing their leaves in a high ray of light from the setting sun.

Here below is a sturdy wooden fence with a genteel tempering of lichen. A random side glance through a space in the frame revealed this glimpse of the garden inside.

On a cold morning of intermittent freezing rain I was nested in perfect comfort on the bus to work, eyes closed, head bowed, arms folded, breath long and gentle. In that profoundly restorative interlude, thoughts of worry and regret drifted past and misted away, leaving only a clear inner mirror of calm and interested sensations: feet on ridged non-skid floor feeling the surfaces of the road, balance gently shifting as the bus changed directions and speeds, supportive plastic-leather seat, soft surrounding cell-phone chat in nearby seats, alternating heated and chilled drafts of air. Thoughts and impressions passed by that clear mirror in peace, leaving only good wishes and warmth for this group of strangers heading into their day.

“Would you LIKE A PAIR OF GLOVES?”

My head and spine snapped upright; the words seemed to be right inside my sweatshirt hood, but were in fact about six inches from my face. A genteel and sweet looking lady had bowed right in close and raised her voice a bit. She was holding out a pair of nice little gloves. “I have an extra pair at home. Please, it’s fine.”

I gave her a smile and showed her my hands. “Thank you so much! My joints are too bent for gloves. That is why they are folded into this kangaroo pocket, all snug. But that is very kind of you.”

“Is that rheumatoid arthritis? I am so sorry. Well all right then. See you next time!” We waved goodbye as she got off the bus.

It was very kind of her to just offer that way. It’s not too rare for people see me hiking around in freezing rain and assume that I’m very poor. But in fact for rheumatoid hand circulation, nothing beats a lined sweatshirt with hood and a kangaroo pocket for comfort and warmth. Nothing beats a jumbo rain tarp either, or clownie men’s shoes with cleats and a high toe box (the feet are rheumatoid too) or a fluorescent vest for safety, or a sturdy beat-up shoulder bag with broken zipper bought ten years ago for a dollar at the Lutheran church charity sale, the perfect size for my triple-filtered water green tea and the best organic produce money can buy cooked up fresh into neat glass jars and some Pimsleur language learning tapes and a library book and eye drops and tissues and a flashlight. This caring lovely lady wouldn’t know that I’d just invested $366 for the incredible luxury of a followup CT scan of last year’s gum abscess. (Rheumatism comes with gum disease. But it’s all fine; there is even new bone growth, which was wonderful news.) That’s putting my money where my mouth is, not wearing it on my sleeve.

That calls to mind our Greek Orthodox church, where the youth group assembled bags with bottled water and protein bars and hygiene toiletries and clean socks for distribution to community members experiencing homelessness. On bag assembly day I was standing in the purchase line at the church bookstore waiting my turn with other customers. A congregation member spotted me with the clown shoes and rain tarp slung over one arm and the Lutheran duffle with provisions for my post-Liturgy prayer hike. She hurried into the bookstore singling me out with a raised voice. At first glance, her eyes, tone, and assertive approach looked as if she thought I was shoplifting. It took a dim gaping moment to figure out what she meant by “You NEED a BAG?!” But in fact I was just lost in enchantment, surrounded by beautiful devotional items, eagerly waiting to purchase two books on monasticism and an icon and cross. I was also happy that day to be dressed not to tote file boxes at work, but for church in my nicest dusky-rose blouse and long rose dress with matching rose & silver Pashmina shawl. Well, that’s what humility is for, and it’s good to know that we have generous people afoot.

This week saw the start of a new winter season. Last night at bedtime there was soft steady rain. But before dawn, there was a wake-up surprise: at eye level right outside through the screen at the open balcony door, a foot away from the bedroll and pillow, there were inches of snow! It all melted with sunrise, and the day turned clear and brisk with an early moon (84.7% full, waxing gibbous). In the garden, here was some of my frozen flowering kale in the early sunshine.

And here is a new winter crop. On an afternoon of sleet and freezing rain with gusts of wind, the Wing Family harvested their bumper crop of sunchokes (the first three quarts of chokes are now in my fridge) and brought in fresh black topsoil and giant turnip plants. They planted a row of white turnips, and a row of Chinese Red turnips. The plants thrive in snow, and will grow all winter as a source of edible roots and leaves. Mrs. Wing explained that she will also use them as one ingredient to compound her herbal medicine cough syrup elixir. It does the heart good to see this hard-working family constantly tending every available bit of space and improving our quality of life and garden enjoyment.

Well, the sprouted chickpeas are all cooked up, and this week’s batch of kimchi is mixed and seasoned and in the weighted press. Time to go soak some rice and cook greens for tomorrow. Maybe we will have a thaw for that hike in the woods….

Just for the record: this plant is not stolen. Our building management said I could dig up a geranium from their planter and take it indoors out of the frost. Here is how it looks now.

That night I was last and late leaving work in the basement stock room. I locked up the office and stepped outside into six inches of water. The wind took my breath away and threw me back against the door. My rain slicker somersaulted up and off; I yanked it back on and pinned it down with one arm, shielding my head with the other from the horizontal rain.

The main street was empty; not a soul or car in sight.

A shopping cart raced over the curb and spun out in the road. Metal trash cans flipped end to end, spilling and splitting their bags of garbage. Some window behind me broke in a shower of glass. Up on a half-finished building, Tyvek wrap was all booming shreds. Streetlights jolted like hanging effigies with their lights spelling empty black.

Taking off my steamed and streaming glasses I peered through my fingers to slide along a drug store wall and cower in the doorway for the next hour, waiting for a bus that came an hour later. I’d always been afraid of bad weather, and ashamed for feeling that way. But even for me, all this blowing debris seemed extra scary. There were no pay phones in the area to call the house. Maybe I should go sleep in the stock room at work? But that would mean walking all the way back through those dark streets to the empty building. Some sense told me to just stand right there in my little nook at the drug store, and shelter in place.

Next I was hit in the chest by a potted plant. It was a hefty armful of leafy tree in a planter, bounding down the street. On some impulse I picked it up, and then saw the bus headlights. Wait, how would the driver see me in the dark? I ran out to the stop, hopping up and down and waving the tree. The driver swerved and pulled in. I fell breathless up the bus steps.

   “Gwan gwan move IN,” the driver ordered as I fumbled for the fare. “Get back.”

The bus was jammed with delayed commuters. I wedged in, holding the tree sideways out of their way. Potting mulch and rain streamed down me and on to the floor, already a trampled sludge of fallen leaves and newsprint. A young man in a good suit and London Fog coat gave me an indignant glare. “That is a stolen tree. That tree and planter were stolen right out of my house.”

Passengers turned and stared at me. I thought fast. “And now, here it is! I didn’t know where the tree came from. I was getting on the bus and it flew right at me. Here you are, Sir.”

He waved me away. “Whoa no. I don’t want it back. That was all my tenant’s idea. The plant was all dried out at the curb on trash day, and he dragged it home. He got it all blooming again. White flowers and little oranges.”

An orange tree! The passengers and I took a more appreciative look at the five gallon bronze colored planter with scalloped edges. The tree was about four feet tall, covered with jet black leathery leaves. “It’s frost-bit some is all,” I said. “I can re-pot it and care for it a while. Then your tenant can have it back as a surprise.”

   “No,” he said. “That is… no but thanks. He died last year.” The passengers turned and stared at him. “He named it Clara.”

   “Clara it is, then. She can stay with me, and be his memory tree. He must have cared about plants. Did he work in a plant nursery?”

   “He worked in two restaurants. But he moved here from Delaware to stage ‘The Nutcracker.’ That was his whole big dream. He rented my ground floor. Every spare minute he was building sets and models in his rooms downstairs, like a whole little stage world. Playing the music, learning the score, walking through choreography, drawing costumes and decorations, moving panels and curtains around. He was all excited over this dead plant. He always said if the tree makes it then he’ll make it too. Like, ‘It’s you and me, Clara. All the way. Together.’ And when the tree grew back, he was so happy.”

   “And ‘The Nutcracker’? Did anybody see his stage set?” I asked.

   “Couple of guys came over and looked at the plans and talked with him. Then he caught a cold and didn’t get better. In and out of the hospital. At home he lay in bed looking around at his stage and playing the music, making little Christmas ornaments to hang on the tree. When he died his parents came and picked up all his things.”

   “They took the stage set to Delaware?”

   “They took it to the dumpster in pieces. I found it there that night after they left.”

   “The tree too?”

   “They didn’t get the tree. After he died…” He stopped and cleared his throat, looking around. We all waited for him to go on. “I had this dream about a group of men. They were whispering this little song, like chanting. They joined hands and walked in a circle all around the tree. And I woke up and jumped out of bed thinking ‘My God, those men are inside the house!’ And I ran downstairs. But no, the place was all quiet and locked. Then I saw an orange blossom by the front door. I opened up his room. Everything there was right the way he left it, but the tree was gone.”

Passengers took a long collective breath. Then they stirred, looking around.

   “Where are we?” A couple sitting nearby wiped the steam off the windows and bobbed their heads to see past the rain. “We missed Washington Street. Six blocks ago.”

   “We missed Maple before that,” said another.

   “I just missed Rutherford,” said the young man.

The driver stopped the bus. “Jeez, you coulda rang the bell. Folks, this is bad out there. I’ll have to circle back to Maple, let ya’s all off at your stops. And you, Miss. Young lady with the tree. Where ya headed?”

   “Center Square, Sir. Last stop.”

   “Stay put while I loop around.”

The bus emptied out. At Rutherford the young man left the bus. “Good luck with that.”

Clara and I took a seat near the driver. I dropped my coins in the fare box. Center Square was the last stop. I stood up to leave.

   “How far you going, Miss?” The driver turned around. “Top of the hill? No, you can’t lug that thing. Sit down and point out the way I’ll drive you.” That night our residential neighborhood, all soaring sycamores and pines and three-story family houses built in 1900, had an off-duty Metro bus ease along the flooded street and right to my door. “Get in safe, Hon. Take care of yourself. And your little tree there.” I thanked him and waved goodbye, and rushed for the house.

The rain roared down on roofs and tall rocking trees. I groped my way over fallen sycamore limbs and up the porch steps. Unlocking the front door and sliding along the wall I eased sideways up to our apartment on the second floor. I carried the pot down the hall to the bathroom off the kitchen, and set it down in the bathtub along with my shoes and socks. Then I sat down on the edge of the tub and realized that I’d forgotten for a while to be scared of the storm, because now there was something important to care for, a tree with a story and a name. What if it really did start to grow again? It would look so pretty in my room, and make a nice story for our guests. Best of all, maybe that young man’s spirit would feel pleased that Clara was doing well and in good hands.

On the first floor, all the lights were out; our neighbors were away for the weekend. In our household upstairs the four other guys and gals were all at home, but not for long. The gal headed over to her boyfriend’s for the night. The guys were heading to the pub with their friend Trigg to shoot pool and play darts. The fellows urged me to join them. “It’s a gloomy evening for sitting home alone,” Jared pointed out, tuning his guitar on the sofa; “They’ve got a Trivia Night. Maybe the bonus topic will be Russian Grammar, and you’ll win.” But I was too wary of heading out again for a late night in rough weather. I wanted to tend to the orange tree, then warm up and get to sleep.

First I grabbed my rain tarp and rubber sandals, and ran down to the garden. I emptied an extra five-gallon clay pot, rinsing it well under the rain spout. Then I picked up and threw in a quart of rocks, and hauled it all back upstairs. I was cooking the rocks over the stove in my laundry-boiling pot when Trigg strolled in to the kitchen for a hello and a hug, and took a look in the pot. “Short ’til payday, Love?”

   “Hi, Trigg! I’m sterilizing these stones to transplant an orange tree. It flew along and hit me at the bus stop.”

   “Full-blown gale, trash flying all over hell. This one has to drag it into the house.”

   “Can you have a look and tell me what it needs? It’s right there in the bathroom.”

   “Sure… Wait, that sorry ragmop in the tub?”

   “What’s it mean when the leaves turn black?”

   “Means ‘plant death.’ Let it go, Dear. Could have mites or who knows what. I can walk it to the bin for you.”

   “Oh, it used to be dead to begin with. But a young man from Delaware was staging ‘The Nutcracker,’ and he nursed it back to health and named it Clara. I’m at least the third owner.”

   “You’re likely the last. You got all that from what, the note in the foundling basket?”

   “Owner’s landlord was on my very bus. Somebody stole the tree from his house, but he didn’t want it back. Let’s see if it perks up in a few days. I think these rocks are done.”

   “Why not give it up and come with us.” Trigg ruffled my hair. “I’ll have the van at the door in ten. And look, I’ve got a houseful of plants and trees, Pet. I’ll bring you something healthy with a fightin’ chance.”

Jared on the sofa left off practicing his guitar and put his boots on, and the men got ready to go. “I enjoy watching Mary do her life,” said Trigg to the fellows as he left to bring the van. “She’s all hero’s journey. Like a kitten fighting its way out of a sandwich bag.” The sound of their voices trailed off, and their bootsteps creaked through the ceiling as I grabbed the clay pot of rocks and headed down to the basement.

There was a van horn and the flash of Trigg’s headlights. “Is that the downstairs lights you’ve left on?” he yelled up to the house. “Aw Jaysus, no — that’s your girl down cellar coddling that roadkill in a planter. What’s wrong with you lot, letting her catch her death of damp and mold! She’ll be haunting the house next. Go get her out of that and into the van and I’ll buy her a pint.” After some calling back and forth and slamming doors, the men drove off.

The project took a chill drafty hour or more. There was a trip four flights up to the kitchen bin for newspapers to spread on the floor, a trowel, scissors to cut open some construction sand to spread over the hot rocks, then a wrestle with the large bag of potting soil, then another trip to the kitchen for an old platter to put underneath, then later another trip for a jug of distilled water and fertilizer liquid and paper towels. Finally the planting and sweeping and cleanup were done. I locked up the cellar, turned out all the lights, hoisted up the pot, and began to struggled up the four flights of back steps. The wet clay pot and rocks and watered earth and mulch were so heavy that halfway up I nearly fell, and had to half-drop it on the stairs.

And with that final jolt, all but one black leather leaf fell off the tree in a heap. I sank down to the steps, head in hands. Maybe this whole Saving Orange Clara fantasy was all about me wanting to reach out and connect and do something helpful and feel all special. Huddled on the steps I just felt crestfallen and chagrined. The emotion felt familiar. Where had that feeling come from before? Then, the memory came to mind:

It was a hospital room, with a young friend on a lot of monitors and machines sitting up in bed and me perched in the doorway being quiet, just to keep him company. He’d been there for weeks, and for some reason that day it felt important to go get on the bus and visit him. When I tapped on the door frame with a soft hello he didn’t look at or speak to me. But he seemed acutely sensitive and aware of everything around him. He knew exactly who I was; it’s just that now his energy was fixed on a smaller more focused circle of rapt attention. He was staring hard at the wall, working to keep his head upright while watching some vast epic that I couldn’t see, playing out all across the white painted surface. His vigilance was so tense that at one point I stood up with some murmur of reassurance, and slowly reached over to touch his hair. His head snapped back. He flashed his eyes at me like some captive bird of prey. Clearly my intervention had disrupted his epic, and possibly its entire outcome. I backed away on tiptoe to sit down again. Two nurses rushed in to the room and hurried me out. He died the next day.

   “Clara? I was wrong this time too.” I picked up a black leaf. “I rushed in and intervened in your epic. I wanted you to get well and to stay with me! But you just want to be an orange tree in heaven, don’t you? You just want to see your young man again.” I took a deep breath. “Here you go then, just like he said: ‘All the way, together.’ Goodbye.” I wrenched the tree roots out of the pot.

When I did that, an immense wave of grief and despair, something more than any wind or weather, swept from basement upwards, straight up and out of the house. I cowered down as the cloud passed over. Then, to my immense relief, loud men’s voices rang out loudly upstairs. The fellows! They must have turned back to spend the evening at home! I leaped up to call out to the four of them and join their good company. But then I realized that the voices were strange men, in our house. At first I froze. Was it the police with news of an accident? Were they people breaking in? Should I run upstairs two flights, and out the back door? What if there were more men outside?

It took a long moment of fear and a musical commercial break to tell me that the voices came from the television. Creeping up the stairs, I peered into the living room. Sure enough, the television showed a basketball game, with commentators hollering about the score. But why hadn’t I heard it, trudging up and down to the kitchen for the past hour? And why would the guys turn it on before going out? We housemates almost never watched TV at all. That black and white set was left from some long past generation of tenants. It was a large wooden console with sound panels of scratchy gold fabric, and an old-fashioned on/off button — push in hard to turn on, push in hard again to turn off. I pushed the button.

And at that, the set turned on.

It wasn’t basketball. It was white snow static and no reception at all. I crawled behind the console and yanked the plug out of the wall outlet, using both wrists because my hands were shaking so hard. Then for some reason that I can not explain, I ran down the back stairs and grabbed the clay pot, ran right up two flights, and put the orange tree right out of our home. The 1900 house had a closed pantry porch at the back. It led to a closed yard with a tall chain link fence. The porch floor boards were so warped and loose that we never used that door ourselves, so I settled the tree there. Then I slammed and bolted the porch door and house door, charged up the two flights to our back kitchen, and locked the stair door and the kitchen door. Still shaking hard I changed into dry clothes.

My bedroom was all windows, and the wind and rain were pounding on the house. So I settled on the living room sofa in a Jared-shaped space in the cushions, and fell asleep next to his guitar with my rosary. At least it was a comfort to think about the unexpected fellow-feeling on that city bus, and the kindness of that driver. By looping around and driving us home, he might have kept us safe from walking around with flying branches or downed wires. Here it seemed like I was out saving an orange tree, when maybe the tree saved us.

That was the weekend of All Saints/All Souls, 1991. Later on we found out that those wind gusts reached 75 miles an hour. The nameless hurricane that people in the city still call The Perfect Storm passed over us. Thirteen people lost their lives. The Andrea Gail sank off the coast.

In the morning I woke up and ran downstairs to place the tree in our compost. I searched the porch, the chain-link yard, the steps, the basement, and even asked my housemates whether they had moved it. But the tree had vanished, pot and all, leaving one black leaf by the door.

We were fortunate that night. Everyone got home safely. At 2:00 am Jared woke me up and marched me back to my room. I was mainly walking in my sleep, but happy to see him. “How was Trivia Night? Was it Russian Grammar?”

“That’s right. We all lost. What were you doing sleeping with my guitar, Mare? I think this rosary is yours, not mine.”

“Is the TV off?” I worried, getting into bed right in my street clothes and too sleepy to care.

“TV? What?” He just smiled, sitting down at the foot of my bed. “Sure it’s off. We weren’t watching it, and neither were you.” He tucked me in, then stopped in the doorway on his way out. “Mare? I won’t quote his exact words, but Trigg says your orange tree isn’t gonna make it. Tomorrow he’s bringing you a Peace Lily from his sun room. Sweet dreams.”

This week a friendly enthusiastic kind and caring young woman asked, “So do you have big plans for Thanksgiving?” I said “Well, Thanksgiving is for families at home, and I don’t have family at mine.”

She lit up with a radiant smile, and said “Then WE will be your Thanksgiving family!!” It was very dear of her to volunteer herself and all her associates on their behalf, so I thanked her. Here all I’d expected her to do was ring up my dental floss on the pharmacy cash register and then say “Next customer, hello.”

When people say that to me, and they do, what picture are they carrying in their dear heads? Are they really thinking “We’ll be closed for the holiday, so sure she can totally spend it here in the Dental Care aisle”? Somewhere over the years, did the term “family” wander off its little dictionary page and take a tumble right into the Sunday funny papers?

Or, maybe my view of kindred connection was wrong to begin with, some cotton-candy notion about coming home at the end of any ordinary day, and people there say “There’s chicken soup. It’s on the stove.” And they share the sofa, and the kitchen, and the real stories about their life. They stay around, maybe for years, maybe a lifetime, maybe generations, saying “Let’s pray about this,” or “Let’s move to the same town,” or “Let’s buy a house,” or “Let’s raise my kid / restore some land and grow potatoes / take a road trip through 10 endless states / start a band and play music on the street.”

Pondering all this on the commute home last night, I reached for my bus reading (Pema Chödrön, How We Live is How We Die), but the book had slipped under my groceries. To keep from rummaging and fussing I just sat back and worked with deep long breaths for the 40 minutes home. Soon on an out breath the thought occurred, “This breath now is the most at-home that you Mary can ever be. For you, that’s all there is.” There was really nowhere else than to be in this breath now, on this bus now, and my home group was this random assortment of phone-swiping strangers. It was not my favorite choice of possible thoughts. But I just kept floating down into it and kept breathing out and out in this one way to live and die.

In pleasant contrast, at church there is the most beautiful lovable couple, married for lots of years. They reflect a steady state of deft thoughtfulness and sweetness and uplift and understated humor, generated by their deft thoughtfulness toward one another. Well, this week out of the blue they had a distressing misfortune. But they teamed up and got right through it and for Wednesday mid-week service they even managed to bake and bring us pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Of course with a glorious dessert like that, the bananas that I brought for the refreshment table didn’t vanish, and there were plenty left after. So our dear Mrs. asked me “Mary, may I possibly take two of your bananas home?” She explained that dear Mr. is fond of a banana every morning with his breakfast, but with their circumstances this week, they’d had no time to go shop for produce. I said “Please take them all! And I have another bunch right here.” But oh no, just two was fine thank you very much. They offered me a ride home, and left the church hall marveling in pleased voices about my astounding generosity. “The Lord has provided,” dear Mr. proclaimed in wonder. “Through Mary,” dear Mrs. pointed out to him, with a thoughtfully procured banana in each hand. Their distressing mishap week was drawing to a close — and now he could look forward to his favorite breakfast tomorrow and the day after. But she sounded happier still, at the chance to serve it and then sit with him while he ate it. They kindly dropped me at my door. Then they headed home together.

There’s an ideal that I’ve been pondering for years about “holiday spirit” and all its associations.

This is all just an anthropologist on or from Mars talking, who has never set up a holiday for a houseful of people or put up a tree full of lights or cooked a turkey or plum pudding with brandied hard sauce. But here on the outside looking in, it appears that everyone could save a little stress if they spread out the festivities and socials over time, rather than herding it all into one day here and there to fit the Gregorian Calendar and the store sales.

That can work in a more interdependent society where people check in with one another more often. “Who has time for that?” Well, people who share their cares and chores in everyday ways.

On Sunday at our small church up the road, one of the women brought delicious chickpea hummus. She and I were swapping hummus recipes and methods, and she talked about her sourdough baking, which led to a talk about pickling and fermenting, and then she mentioned kimchi. Kimchi? I never would have bet the ranch that the demographic of this church would be chatting with me about shopping at H Mart for gochugaru versus gochujang. (Then again, those Baptist folks are so energetic and enterprising that they do get up and out and living around the world.) “Me too!” I hollered at her, flapping my hands and jumping up and down. “There’s always a weighted crock in progress on the counter.” Then we talked about our favorite kimchi styles. (Later on her spouse remarked “It’s interesting to sit across a room and observe the conversations, and to see which people in the room light up at the word ‘kimchi.'”)

Well, wouldn’t it be a better world if we routinely swapped the weekly sourdough or pickling or what have you? Then everybody would have more friendly bacteria and more leisure.

Sometimes people shoehorn a whole bunch of celebrating into just a day here and there because, they explain, cleaning a full size family house with kids and a dog is such an exhausting hat trick that they can only carry it off every so often. That’s absolutely understandable to me, someone living in one room with nothing to tend but a salvaged geranium in a pot. So I tell them “Let’s set a timer for 30 minutes, and I’ll walk across the street and help you declutter until the timer goes off. Then you come over and we’ll set a timer for another 30, and you keep me company while I file paperwork. If we do that every week for an hour we’ll get way ahead and have fun.” But so far that idea has fizzled the conversation pretty quickly. “I can’t do that,” people say. “I’m too ashamed.” (Ashamed of what? You’re a paramedic who works crazy hours rescuing people and also raising three kiddos! And standing in the way of our quality time is a dust bunny trying to stare us down?)

What I’d like in my stocking this year, along with my foot, is a life where people are engaged with each other more often, sharing more holiday spirit (= generosity, engagement, and appreciation for our blessings) all year round. This holiday season I’ll practice more of that in my interactions day by day, and talk up the idea on how we can carry that over right into January.

Ok, got to stir the kimchi. Added some Nappa cabbage last night, so the mix might need more anchovy sauce.

Note: As always, any character details have to be pastiched around with great care for everybody’s sake. A white Spitz might be borrowed from Chekhov, and might really be a red Pomeranian. Who knows? That sort of thing. If any beautiful woman of distinction in her seventies or eighties should read this now — please rest assured. There’s good reason why it’s not about you.

She was one more face in the crowd at the publishers’ media show.

The expo center was acres of jostle and hubbub, wares and swag, raised voices and microphone feedback, motorcarts beeping around. Warren and Jancie and Glimm and I staffed our booth with publications, posters and banners, sign-up sheets, cash box and coin rolls, receipt pads and pens, catalogues, business cards, logo fridge magnets and pins, first aid kit, and hot Schlegel’s Bagels with cream cheeses and lox. For Friday’s display I brought autumn leaves, toffee in gem-tone wrappers, and appealing stuffed animals (wolf, hedgehog, bunny, hawk). At first, the men put up a fuss over those plush huggies. But they were impressed when time and again some customer or other with evasive manners and a cat-got tongue would step up to pet the animals, jiggle them around to make it look like they’re walking, and then sign up for our mailing list and take a catalogue. Seeing that would attract more people to come ask for a band-aid or tissues or a toffee or change for the pay phone, or for the rest rooms, water fountain, elevator, parking garage; then they’d sign up too.

Plenty of convention visitors just needed to talk. Hearing their stories in a welcoming way was my job, while minding the inventory and receipts. That way the men could work in peace. Warren consulted with business owners who wanted our services: tape and dictaphone transcription, proofreading, typesetting, advertising layout, list fulfillment, mass mailing, book packaging and binding. Glimm and Jancie toted merchandise, moved the van, made bank and coffee runs, assembled the display and broke it down, and caught a smoke break now and then. On Friday an hour before closing, we were working away when something new made us stop and look around.

In the house of merchandise, a shadowed hush came rippling in our direction. The hush materialized as deferential space around one young woman in motion. Everywhere she set foot, people looked twice and turned away, silent as she floated past booth after booth. Their riveted attention did not extend to giving her a single neighborly word or nod of acknowledgment.

I was all smiles at sight of her. She was altogether lovely. She was years older than I was, perhaps thirty or so, or even more; but I couldn’t tell. What other image of timeless beauty might compare? Possibly heroine Elise McKenna from “Somewhere In Time,” strolling Mackinac Island with pompadoured hair and a parasol. Here in this venue with no animals allowed, the lady had two snowy Spitz dogs, perfectly matched and groomed, in step at her heels and gazing up for orders. Her style was flowing and modest from high collar to cuffs to hem. She wore a long creme dress with a wide shawl in tints from lavender to sea green, and turquoise jewelry. She had long fair hair piled high, pale cameo features, languid eyes lashing off into some middle distance. They looked remote or weary, or perhaps weighed down by the press of the crowd. 

But her expression flickered with a hint of animation at sight of our plush menagerie. Pausing at our table she arced a turquoised hand at the catalogues in her reach. She asked me for one in a cultured whisper, beckoning with palm up and grasping the shawl high as if to warm her throat and protect her voice. Eager to assist, I pounced on a catalogue and offered it with both hands. She took the copy and skimmed right past the men as if they were nobody and nothing. Her silence trailed after with the two white shadows gliding at her heels. The men just stood there, looking uncharacteristically subdued and at a loss for words.

“Isn’t she beautiful,” I said with a sigh. Any appearance of fresh wholesome old-fashioned purity always earned my respect and admiration. I sighed again, looking down at my layers of sturdy denim and sneakers for a day of loading cartons in rough weather. “I hope that she’s all right. She looks delicate and shy.”

Glimm spluttered into a coughing fit. Warren gave him an amiable pounding on the back.

   “What is She doing? Here in town?” Jancie burst out, then backed off and examined the floor.

   “Bank run.” Warren announced. He counted the cash, filled out a deposit slip, and handed the envelope to Glimm. “And load up these three boxes. We’ll make do with the rest for an hour.”

   “It’s only an hour. We could all just go then,” Jancie reasoned.

   “Or you could just go now.” Warren handed Jancie another twenty. “Put some gas in the van. Have a cigarette. Have two. Freight dock at five.”

Glimm pocketed the envelope, hanging his head. “I kinda figured she’d be taller,” he said softly.

   “It’s in the contract,” Warren explained. “No men over five foot six.”

   “Whoa. What?” Jancie looked from one of them to the other. “What else is in the contract?” 

Warren threw the van keys at his chest.

The crowd was thinning out. I packed up the plush animals and toffee, and in the relative quiet heard a rush and drumming up on the glass roof. “Gee, it’s pouring! The fellas will get soaked!”

   “It’ll do them good,” Warren handed me the thermos of tea. “We’ll let ’em have their guy talk.”

   “Do you think she’ll be back tomorrow?” Her regal poignant fragile look haunted my sympathy and spirits.

   “I don’t.” He swallowed some cold thermos coffee. “Pumpernickel, sesame, onion, or raisin?”

   “Sesame. Oh Warren. She’s everything I’m not. I’m just one of the guys, huh? Men don’t notice me like that. Like ever.”

Warren put down his pumpernickel bagel and lox, and took a deep breath. Then he quietly explained that our guest was a movie star.

“Wow! In anything I’ve –?”

Warren shook his head and started over. He explained in brief tasteful terms about films in a parallel universe. Listening to him called to mind our video store, and a dim awareness of seeing a back alcove where customers could step in, like a confessional, and browse a rack of videos displayed behind a curtain. I listened in awe, about our guest’s formidable acting charisma, but also her astute knack for finance and negotiation and promotion and self-maintenance. In fact, that might explain her appearance at the media fair. Like the rest of us she’d probably heard about modem communications from one mainframe computer to another. Not many of us pictured ourselves accessing these capabilities, on small computers right in the home. It’s possible that she saw far ahead of the curve how this might have implications for her own industry.

I sat there with my sesame bagel, looking at the wilting autumn leaves on the table, trying dimly to imagine being so attractive, and also having all that awareness and influence over one’s profession and career (and in an industry by and for men! That had to be difficult.). So she really was everything that I was not, after all. Still, what was it like for her, that day, to walk among so many fans and see no sign of outright welcome from anybody? That sounded a little lonesome. And though she was older, it made me want to do something friendly and motherly and comforting for her. I should have given her my hedgehog, toffees, magnets for her fridge. I still wish it now when she walks through my memory; I always ask God to please protect and keep her safe and well.

   “Warren?” We were folding up the chairs. “She didn’t have an umbrella or little coats for the dogs. I sure hope somebody was planning to pick her up at the freight dock.”

Outside my apartment, Glimm and Jancie gave me grippy shoulder pats while I hopped out of the van. Warren saluted goodbye. “Rest up, Mare. And in the morning, we’ll be right here for you.”

This weekend a major self-cheering campaign was in order. Where to start?? Well, there is always some task worth doing, and always some person worth reaching out to for company.

Well, there’s our good senior neighbor who makes her careful way home every evening from the bus. She crosses two busy multi-lane intersections and comes down a dark street. There to avoid a broken sidewalk she steps off the curb, walks into the road around the parked cars against the traffic, and then back up on the curb. Whenever I catch sight of her I run to walk her home, and we stroll together chatting in a comic hash from three languages. It’s really been a nice ritual, women sticking together like a couple of wise pilgrims sharing the path and the lights to get home safe. Days are getting shorter fast and rain season is here, so a couple of weeks ago I had fun going to the work gear store and buying her a flashy reflective vest. It’s a copy of the one I always wear outdoors after sunset. I set up my new carry lantern too, with fresh batteries, to be ready for our dark evenings. Then for Friday night’s rain storm I surprised her at the bus stop, holding out the new vest so she could put it on. “Now we’ll match,” I joked with her. “We can start our own railroad crew.” The plan was, at her door I was going to give her a hug and say “Merry Early Christmas! It’s yours!” But she waved away the vest firmly. She also let me know that Honestly, it was really not necessary for me to walk with her this way. “I can walk it my Self.” And she means it, too. Maybe she felt beholden, or I was only in her way with my fussy safety ideas. I can certainly stay out of it. But I’ll miss our little walks.

On Saturday morning I stopped by the farmers’ market, to my favorite most informative entertaining display of all. The vendor is Ace at explaining his crops and his harvest, and how to grow and cook the roots and greens. He’s a few years older than I am, a super-fit handsome wholesome dynamo of energy and good nature. For about twelve years I’ve stopped to listen with avid admiration while he tosses advice and banter at passersby (with jokes to the ladies that he is single and earnestly looking). Between shoppers he and I have good talks about diet and health and social wellbeing. I photograph the vegetables, and one time printed up the best pictures and dropped them off with a thank you note (he hung them at the cash box). I read and keep all the bulletins that he sends to his customer list, about seasonal produce and recipes. A couple of times I’ve made up my own recipes with his produce, and dropped them off at the stall for him and the customers. Our neighborhood is right on his way home, so this time I loitered around until he had some down time with no one stopping by. Then after all these years I worked up the moxie to suggest that he stop by and see our raised bed before it’s tucked away for the winter. I was ready to bring a bite of lunch down to our picnic table. Then he could meet the Wings, people who truly know their stuff when it comes to plants, and we could all have a little visit.

Wellsir. In few words he indicated that I was not, shall we say, a going concern. He arrowed off into his produce truck and out of sight. He sounded upset and frustrated. Perhaps he wished that one of the younger customers had asked him instead. After a dumb gaping moment I backed away and left. At home I sat for a long time, pondering an email message to apologize and explain and to make sure that he was okay. (Luckily I did not write or send anything. There’s no need. He didn’t ask what I thought or felt. If he wanted to know he’d get in touch.) It’s a huge market, vendors everywhere with good turnip tops and beets. Now I would rather go shop with any of them instead. It’s sad though. Over the years, that was such a nice little sunbreak in the social fabric of a weekend.

This morning there was a pre-Hallowe’en community event for children over at the park. A Russian-speaking family from Canada was in town for the weekend, for some medical followup. A neighbor invited them to the event, and asked me to come interpret for the family so they would feel more comfortable. I had other things to do, and was shy of going to watch young couples with little ones interact with other young couples with little ones. But here’s the thing: when I go to a strange town, what’s the best most important memory? It’s not the architecture or the public events or scenery; it’s always when someone in that town goes out of their way to be friendly. Wouldn’t I enjoy meeting someone who speaks my language? Sure. So I dressed up and hauled on over to the park. There were the Russians, who smiled cordially when I said hello. But they absolutely froze when I kept talking, about sights worth seeing in our neighborhood when traveling with kiddos, and the logistics of getting around. Mom and Dad nodded politely and took the children away to mingle with the real Americans. I lingered around, looking pleasant, but the families talked to families and the Russians stayed out of my way. Finally I backed off and headed home. By the way, their behavior was perfectly appropriate for them. (I will get the same reception if I walk into a Russian Orthodox church anywhere and try chatting people up in their own language.) In a perfect world, our mutual acquaintance would have alerted them that I was coming, explained who I was, and introduced us. This statement goes out on a limb a bit, but in my experience Russian culture has a strong precedent for respecting privacy, leaving the neighbors in peace, and being careful of strangers. They’re not Midwest Americans, who have their own precedent of saying hello to everybody and bringing hot pie to their door.

Well, what to try next? There’s a nice recipe from “Off Grid with Doug and Stacy” for crispy homemade baked potato chips and beet chips. That would be something good to bring to church. So I thin-sliced some baking potatoes and beets, mixed a big batch with a little coconut oil and Redmond salt and and ginger (with black pepper for the taters, and cinnamon for the beets), spread them in baking pans on parchment paper, and baked them at 350 degrees. Those chips baked the whole afternoon. The centers stayed soft and didn’t crisp up no matter what, though with the first test bite a hard baked potato skin cut my gums. A teething Malamute would have fun tossing them around, but I can’t serve these to anybody.

Okay, next plan. Maybe clear out the garden? The sweet potatoes didn’t get enough sun this summer to produce any roots (well, two potatoes turned up today; they look like “pinkies” — the hairless newborn mice you buy frozen at the pet store to feed your snake). We had our first chilly morning, and frost will kill off sweet potatoes. So I pulled up half the vines and cooked a batch of leaves for lunch. (Safety alert: Don’t eat leaves from real potatoes. Those are toxic nightshade leaves, not fit for human consumption.) I’ve munched on sweet potato leaves all summer, but it’s easy to see why they are not a commercial commodity. They wilt the minute they are picked, shrink down instantly to nothing when dropped into simmering water, and have a mucilaginous mouth feel and blander-than-spinach taste. This time I added some goat cheese and garlic oil, and resolutely munched them down.

That still left several long thriving vines. In jars of water on all the windowsills, the vines can grow indefinitely for use over several meals.

In the afternoon we had a fleeting sunny break, so I decided to pull up the whole bed. From now on, it will be dark and raining after work. More important, bedding the garden now will save Mrs. Wing the work of clearing my stray sweet potatoes vines out of her own patch. So I pulled them all, brought a much bigger pile of leaves upstairs, and washed them thoroughly. When gathered in such a large quantity, they gave off a very bitter fragrance. A careful inspection of the leaves showed that yes, all the leaves were heart-shaped with a rich green color. All in order there. Still, was something wrong with the vines, to give them that sharp creosote smell? As an extreme plant amateur, my rule is “When in doubt, throw it out.” To be safe and cautious I stuffed the leaves in batches into the Cuisinart, ground them up for the compost bucket, then scrubbed the Cuisinart three times with soap and baking soda. Downstairs, I spread the summer’s worth of ground leaf pulp over the patch.

Mrs. Wing, who sees all, rushed right outside with a pleasant smile and wave. With a little trowel she quickly but gently began turning over the newly cleared soil. “Looking for roots,” she cheerfully explained. With tender care she combed through each spoonful of soil, extracting fine white fibers about six inches long, and laid each one aside. When she had a handful of them and found no more roots, she showed them to me. “These are our medicine.” She waved goodbye and went inside.

Then, it dawned on me. Whoa dearness. Last spring, Mrs. Wing brought home a tiny plant. She set it in their patch, and kept a fond watchful daily eye on its welfare and growth. She was so happy when her plant put out its delicate white blossoms. Captain Wing explained that this plant is prized in the Chinese materia medica for its roots, a valuable wintertime cough medicine. Mrs. Wing cared for this rare little plant all summer as an investment in her family’s good health.

By summer’s end, the lovely white blossoms had died, leaving only greenery. Meanwhile my happy sweet potato vines spread everywhere, a ground cover of root suckers and vines all along our raised bed. Now while clearing those vines, in one stroke I had disturbed the precious white roots growing under the plant’s leaves — which just happen to be heart-shaped and rich green. The beautiful website “China South of the Clouds” at this link

http://chinasouthoftheclouds.com/articles/in-the-yunnan-kitchen-fish-mint-root/

calls it Fish Mint, or “fish-smell herb”(鱼腥草; “yúxīng cǎo”). In Yunnan cuisine, the heart-shaped leaves are a salad green, and the roots are a prized delicacy for their piercing saponin-bitter taste. So that astringent flavor would have done me good. It posed no health hazard in my kitchen. The only hazard today was me, ransacking the wrong plant.

(Update, 10/29: that sharp bitter smell was really nasturtium leaves. I’d thrown in a handful, because the round leaves are edible, and taste milder than the flowers. Still, a bit goes a long way or longer.)

Here’s a little fan video of film scenes with a song. Is it viewable here? Let’s find out. If not, the YT title is “Scott Krippayne (While the days are young).” The film is “Old Fashioned” with Rik Swartzwelder. Among the critics on the Rotten Tomatoes movie site this film earned a remarkable 17% out of 100 on charges of being sexist and saccharine, but I’m fond of it and even fond of the lighting. Finding this little clip cheered me up. I’ve been playing it on repeat, singing my heart out for the past hour while typing all this up.

Okay, time to give up and let this whole weekend go. Clean the roots out of the sink. Take out the compost. Do the dishes. Pack some sweet potato leaves and root jerky for work tomorrow. Monday’s a new day. Night.

 

That was Wednesday’s alert on airnow.gov for the atmospheric presence of Fine Particulate Matter.

For the day, the local news said we had the worst air quality of any city in the world.

To be fair, it’s not yet winter. That’s when the balance shifts, when we have soft rain while folks in some other countries have to burn coal to keep themselves warm. We were terribly lucky here. Our smoke lasted only a few days. The towns closer to the wildfires had it worse, and for much longer. Compare that to Ukraine or Haiti or half the world, and this is nothing.

Still. AQI 100 and up means nausea and indigestion and eyestrain and fitful sleep and ominous dreams and a creeping sense of dread. It meant no Wednesday church with its 14 minute walk there and back. Early that morning it meant hopping the bus to work, because a great big building has more air than a little studio, right? Except their HVAC detected smoke in the system and went into overdrive like a wind tunnel in the elevators and halls, to blast the smoke out. That of course blasted more smoke back in. So then it made sense to just give up and leave early.

On the bus commute home, it was broad daylight with over an hour to go until sunset. Here was the sky where the sun was supposed to be.

Outside the bus window the sun is even more not there when eyeglasses steam up from the safety mask (fine particulate matter model PM2.5) worn under my cloth mask and over my knitted cap from the Muslim women’s shop all tucked under a long wrapped head scarf to hold everything together. The bus reading is Доктор Живаго (Dóktor Zhivágo) from the Little Free Library. It flips right open to some apocalyptic Russian wartime winter where characters are trying to cobble a chimney and stove so the smoke doesn’t kill everybody before the cold does.

At home everything is silent. It’s like late evening on a snow day, but not fun and without the sledding. The library up the road has to close on smoke days and in hot weather because they don’t have AC and it isn’t safe for the staff. No pedestrians or neighbors or dogs or birds or cars. Any other day at sunset there’d be whole flocks of mouthy crows rivering over in a racket. Today there’s only a few of them, sitting on the lawn with their beaks open. Crows are not somebody to mess with, so I always back up and nod to them and point away to show them where I’m going, and I walk the long way around them. Then there’s a chammering little squeak that I’ve never heard before. It’s squirrels, creeping close and staring at me like they’re in a trance. Some tenants hand feed them, but I think that’s not a good idea. “Hi guys,” I tell them, backing away. “I don’t have any food.” But they chammer at me and close in like they’re going to climb my pants leg. Finally I pull out my rain slicker and let it float open like a curtain, and that makes them uneasy enough to stop and let me walk away. Late that night I wake up in a sweat in the closed room and realize: oh gosh, they must have been thirsty. I should have run and got them some water.

This smoke drill is new to us. It’s only happened the past five years or so, and absolutely never this late in the year. But we know enough to batten the hatches and seal the doors and windows and leave off the kitchen and bathroom vents and fans. Whatever air you start with is the air you will have until the alert is over. That means fast cool dipper baths, and no hand laundry; clothes on the rack outside will smell like burned tires and need another washing. If clothing dries indoors, that is more condensation and humid air, and that’s not ideal. (Some other units have mold, and one had mushrooms turn up in the bedroom closet.) Same goes for cooking. The Brussels sprouts and collards and onions in the fridge need to stay there, not to bother the neighbors up and down the hall. No point in setting up a crock of kimchi either. Even cooking potatoes just leaves more steam. So it’s defrosted beans and salads and pre-soaked flash-boiled oatmeal and fruit and nuts and Ezekiel bread and goat cheese. Which is fine really. Except at one point when I masked up and went to the supermarket just to see people and breathe a while, and bought some pudding and chips. Taking walks and gardening and returning library books are all off limits. So is toting water from the triple-filter machine down the street. By yesterday the water supply on the counter tasted like what might be pond scum. 

But late last night, Thursday, I could pour those bottles out and scrub them with salt water and then suit up in fluorescent gear and go bring home a couple of days’ worth. That’s because all of a sudden the wind shifted around and brought in a breath of fresh air and real honest mist. This morning Friday brought this whole new AQI score too. Cause to leap up and throw the windows open again, and fix some collards and eggs.

And with the morning I stepped out for a look at the garden and found this bouquet. The Wings could tell the smoke was getting to me. So they went out and gathered my tomatoes and cleared away the bushes. And then Mrs. Wing worried that I’d come back out and miss my tomato patch. So out there in the AQI 251 she went outside and cut down some of her very last dahlias of the year and left this.

Captain Wing was out early with the garden hose.

“If Mrs. Wing left these flowers last night — and no other candidate comes to mind — then it’s a good thing I was not around to see it.”

“How come?” he asked. “What’s up?”

“Because I was told at a culture seminar that it is not polite to run up and hug Chinese people. Is that true?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Depends.”

“Oh, okay. What did I do in my past life that your family is so kind to me?”

“Your “past life”??? WHAT are you talking about! It’s for this life here now. Go get that bag: she left you some cucumbers and avocadoes for your breakfast.”