consolationland

Tomorrow afternoon a big rain front is coming in, but in the morning we’re going out for topsoil. This is the big end-of-winter garden event of the year, and the neighbors are already taking an interest. I sent out some mild broad hints that it would be fun to see them standing around when we unload the sacks and break them open and start spreading it on the 40 foot bed. Many hands will make light work, or at least we’ll get some entertaining remarks from the kibbitzers watching it happen.

Last year good neighbor C. offered to drive me, so we two women went and got the topsoil. Earlier this year Captain Wing offered, but it didn’t seem right taking his time away from the family. So I asked neighbor C. instead.

Well, neighbor C. ran into Captain Wing, which is hard to avoid because he is everywhere all of the time, and they got talking topsoil the way people do, and she asked him to send me profound apologies for not being available this weekend to go buy the dirt. This came as a little surprise to Captain, who was under the impression that he’d be buying the soil himself. He got on the phone right away.

I was making a batch of kimchi when the cell phone rang with the Wing family phone number. When I picked up, Captain said “You do realize, of course…?”

I didn’t realize. I was supposed to chime back with the correct ending for that English sentence. The correct ending comes from any Bugs Bunny film, and is “this means war.” I don’t know anything about Bugs. I need research scientists from China to call me on the phone and explain that line, and to clue me in about my own popular culture of yesteryear. That’s pretty funny in itself.

“You are in trouble now,” he affirmed.

“Again? For which reason?” I asked. I figured he meant for spading the patch with Aziz’s shovel.

But no, he’d been talking to neighbor C. and learned that I’d gone right past him in my topsoil quest. So over the phone we confirmed our plans to go hit pay dirt tomorrow morning.

What about the egg?

That new bed sheet has been such a hit, and is moreover such an attractive pattern, that it seemed a natural match for one of Mrs. Wing’s pickled duck eggs. I added ground punkin seeds for texture, and put them all together in a shaft of wintry late-afternoon light. The result made me happy. It reminds me of some modern art poster from a warehouse loft museum with hardwood floors and stark white walls and soaring industrial ceilings and exposed copper pipes. But it’s really just my floor with a sheet on it and a bowl with an egg.

Off to call the garden store and see what time they open in the morning…

It was high time to have the garden all spaded up for spring.

My leisurely but persistent practice is to start nibbling on the job starting in January, just chopping and turning for 20 minutes a day. One essential element was the use of Captain Wing’s very nice pointed spade, a small light ergonomically handy garden tool. One day I borrowed it for a bit, did some work, then shined it up and set it back in its place on his porch. So far so good.

But for the long term, Captain had a plan to spare me further labor by spading the whole strip himself for me in one efficient upcoming fell swoop, just as soon as he had a little minute to spare.

Well, it didn’t seem fair to trouble him or any of his little minutes, nor to keep borrowing his elegant spade. So on Friday under cover of darkness and in stealthlike manner I passed by the lighted kitchen windows where the Wings were innocently eating their dinner, walked around the block, and dropped in on Neighbor Aziz.

“I’d really appreciate the loan of a shovel,” I explained to him. “And would appreciate more if you didn’t tell Captain.”

“He’d probably do it for you,” pointed out sensible Aziz, waving me to a chair and plying me with refreshments. “I am sure he will be happy if you just ask.”

“Yes, that’s the point. I’d like it done this weekend, but don’t want to trouble him or hurt his feelings. This way I can just sort of turf around a bit. He doesn’t even have to notice that the job is done.” Then the humor of the situation occurred to us both. “Our neighborhood is like a sitcom, isn’t it? Like ‘I Love Lucy,’ but ‘Everybody Loves Wing.'”

Then I headed home the long way, around the block, with shovel on my shoulder.

“Did you lose Snow White?” asked one of our smoking bench neighbors. I explained the whole shenanigan, securing their promise of secrecy and their high amusement. Upstairs, I parked the shovel in the bathroom and set an alarm for 6:00 a.m.

By 6:15 next morning I was standing on the raised bed, getting a feel for the shovel and realizing just how much potential racket a spading job can create. It was important to work quietly so as not to disturb the windows of sleepers all along the strip. This meant leaning carefully on the shovel instead of hopping on it, and shaking dirt off the blade instead of whacking it on the ground, and moving stones by stacking them on the wall instead of just casting them off to the stone drainage area nearby. As a computer potato unaccustomed to real work, I had to stop with every half-shovelful and squat and stretch out the spine first before carefully easing the clump of soil over and off. Then every few spadefuls it seemed wise to very gently float to an upright stretch, take deep breaths, and admire the early morning. There were gulls high overhead chuckling along, crows rivering past, and in the Scotch pines just overhead a tag team of chickadees and dark-eyed juncoes and squirrels. The building Golden Retriever appeared across the yard. At sight of me, he snapped to attention with ears up and jaw dropping in amazement. (Is that Mary up on that raised bed? How do I get there? Can I sniff her? Can I get her to pet me?) He had to figure out his way around the garden wall before bounding over and leaping half up on the raised bed with wiggles of ecstasy.

It was arduous, but a lovely way to greet the morning. That very easeful slow approach, visualizing the energy of the earth peacefully digging itself, yielded an unexpected safety advantage. The shovel kept bottoming out on something hard. Each time it did, I backed up a few inches and tried tapping at it, clearing the clods on either side, but to no avail. It turned out to be a tough orange Scotch Pine root as thick as my wrist, running parallel all along the bed six inches under. A vigorous attack might have broken the shovel, or jammed my boot underneath and sent me falling off the strip. With an attitude of peaceful coexistence I could just let the root be.

At 8:15, the first pass was done. I crouched down and gripped the wall, lowering one foot firmly to solid ground, then the other. Wiping my hands on some pine needles I put the shovel in my bucket to keep it from shedding dirt on the way upstairs. I carried the shovel and bucket to the front door, took off the boots, put them in the bucket, and carried it all upstairs in sock feet being very careful to keep the shovel handle level on the stairwell so it wouldn’t bash the light bulbs. The shovel and boots went in the bathroom to dry. Then I lay down, aligning my back flat against the floor under warm blankets, doing gentle posture stretches, and took a deep nap.

After chores and lunch I got back on the raised bed again. The second pass was more tricky. It meant standing precariously on top of unstable clods a foot or two above the raised bed, with uneven balance on one leg or the other as the clods kept sinking and shifting underfoot. Crouching on firm flat ground to lift and turn little slices of thatch takes some energy, but so does standing on shifting soil whacking the thatch into pieces. But finally that was done. Upstairs I cleaned off the shovel and give it a nice polish with some damp and then dry paper towels. I carried the shovel back to Neighbor Aziz.

Aziz was out in front of his house, tending his prized fruit trees growing along the street. Last year he fashioned polite little signs and tied them to the bottom of each trunk. But our neighborhood dogs did not stop to read the signs, so now he was putting up little white picket fences all along the strip as a helpful hint to the dogs or at least their owners. To my chagrin, Captain Wing was right there helping to brace the fences in their post holes. Busted! I was afraid that at sight of the shovel he would feel hurt. But the two men just had a friendly laugh about my clandestine tippy-toeing around.

Later in his kitchen, plying me with yet more refreshments, Aziz explained “I had a talk with him. I said ‘Just leave Mary be, with all her digging ideas with dirt. It is not only for gardening; it is helpful for her mental state.‘”

Aziz was so right. It sure made for a good night’s sleep too.

In 2006 I found some perfectly good navy blue sheets at the Methodist church needle-exchange thrift shop for about a dollar each. They remained perfectly good with only an alternating quick boil and hand wash on alternating weeks, and time in fresh air to dry the same day. In the last year they needed mending here and there. Then last week while sleeping I accidentally put my arm through one and it tore in half.

So, for the President’s Day holiday, it was off to the Goodwill store. The bed linen aisle was a bewildering array of odd sizes of folded fabric. Luckily, for one section some industrious staff member added tags: T, Q, K. That looked like twin and queen and king sizes, priced at $4.99, $5.99, and $6.99. What to buy? Well, I sleep on three stacked yoga mats, and they’re pretty narrow, so that seemed like a T size. The purchase quandary was that with a yoga mat there is no efficient way to tuck in the sheets. So by morning they can migrate off and roll up in a ball and the whole arrangement is all undone.

But then, here was a whole entirely new idea. The best fabric, in a sturdy cotton, was labeled Q. For only an extra dollar I could buy something roomy that was wide enough to accommodate even tossing and turning, and it would not scrunch up and wander off by itself! Why not?? Not only that, the Q had the most practical and pleasant pattern, flowers in mixed colors of cozy gray-brown-sage.

After some boiling and washing it draped out over all my furniture, and 24 hours later it was dry. The test run was last night. What a big difference. How nice to stretch out without the top sheet wandering off. It certainly is sturdy. The fabric won’t be wearing out any time soon. Now the only interesting complication was that the old top sheet was worn and chintzy enough that it draped right in, while the new sheet is sturdy enough to hold its shape, like a boat sail. That made it harder to tuck it in warmly. Still, this made a significant and welcome comfort upgrade.

On the way home from the Goodwill Store, I got off the bus to visit the local park, and then to walk the last 35 blocks home for exercise and fresh air. The park was very pretty, a clear sky with just one ethereal vapor cloud, shown below. Usually it would be nice to sit at the pond in the sun and watch for interesting animals and birds. But for some reason I soon felt anxious to get home, walking fast to try to warm up, racing the sunset and counting the blocks uphill all the way. With nothing else to do but hurry and feel stiff and cold, it was a good time to lean on my favorite prayers to ease the journey.

As it turns out, that vapory white cloud was a cold front rushing in, nicely combed and fluffed by high altitude winds. The precipitation that night looked like a sleetstorm, but was really rimed graupel, a weather pattern that forms tiny perfect spheres of soft snow!

The new sheet adventure, and getting back indoors, made two special reasons to be very thankful.

This pond is enjoying some sunshine, but the waters are choppy and the cloud is a cold front.

The sun came out on Sunday morning. After our wintry weather spell, that was a wakeup surprise. I ran right out and down the road for a picture of the trees on the hilltop catching the sun.

Jordan in Produce asked me out on a date.

His invitation was a cherished high point in my time as morning cashier for our natural-foods grocery, where each day I’d show up half an hour early to learn the produce and how much it cost. Then I could ring up merchandise from memory instead of flipping through the price binder while the upscale customers fumed at me to hurry.

The produce aisle is where Jordan first noticed me. Soon he started telling how he chose and grew vegetables, citing research from his education at agricultural college. I was all avid ears and admiration; Jordan was living my secret dream of life on a family farm. Meanwhile, our co-workers noticed the two of us in rapt discussion in the break room. They decided that he and I shared a family resemblance: tall, fair, with red-brown curly hair and blue eyes. By then he and I were swapping mannerisms as well, being soft-spoken and attentive with a slow but ready smile. Soon, team members were calling out “Mary! Your cousin needs labels for the produce scale,” or  “Jordie! Your sister needs you to tote bags to some lady’s car.” When they heard of our picnic plan, they said “The Twinsters on a date? How cute is that! Oh wait — is that legal?”

All that week, my spirits soared in anticipation of our outing. I resolved to make it a great day for Jordan. I figured that on a picnic a man would expect a healthy ample smorgasbord of home cooking, as a courtship display to show how a girl will treat him once they are married. For most of the night before, I cooked and packed enough food for six people, so that Jordan could choose the foods he liked best. The forecast called for rain, so for our uphill hike to the picnic grounds I chose a no-nonsense heavy lumberjack shirt; sole-slappy sneakers that would look no worse soaking wet; voluminous combat “gas attack” army trousers with drawstring; vinyl chaps tied at the thigh; and to conceal it all, a long hooded capelike slicker. To save Jordan the effort of getting out of his car, I stood outside under the eaves half an hour in advance, holding our food. By then the rain was an Atlantic northeaster with high winds. When my punctual escort drove up on time, I was soaked to the skin. In the plastic satchel, the multiple paper wrappings were so sodden that I feared we’d be foraging our chicken legs off the floor of his car. 

   “Would you stop at Unity Church?” I asked. “I have Tupperware left there from a potluck. I’ll run in for it, then repack all this.”

   “Church?” Jordan checked his rearview mirror, signaled right, pulled over, downshifted, braked, and turned to me with unease and regret in those blue eyes. “I… don’t do church.”

   “Oh no, they won’t have services today,” I explained. “Saturday is just Course in Miracles book club upstairs. I’ll duck into the basement, and grab my containers.”

   “But… no, you see… I… I really don’t do church,” he repeated. “At all. No church.”

   “Sure. You can stay put here. I’ll just be a sec,” I promised.

At the parking lot, we saw that Course in Miracles Club had a remarkable turnout. Cars were everywhere. We had to park a block away for my dash in the driving rain. Tense yet still chivalrous, Jordan accompanied me to the dark basement. With fogged rain-sluicing eyeglasses and sopping hair, I groped through the meeting rooms to the kitchen and grabbed my jumbo punchbowl piled high with plastic containers.

A side door opened. Lights clicked on. A child six years old or so peered in, looking intently at Jordan, at me, at Jordan, at me. “Excuse me. Are you both…” The sight of us perplexed him. “Are you two relatives?”

No wonder this observant African-American child thought two tall lanky auburn/blue Whites might just be related; our team certainly did. If this had been a grownup, I’d have said “Nah, we’re just people picking up our Tupperware. Enjoy your book group! Bye!” But because every young person deserves respectful validation, I said “People often ask us that. We do look like relatives, don’t we?”

   “Elijah!” A young African-American man looked in the door. “The young lady just told you that she and the gentleman are relatives. Who are we, to ask questions?”

   “Yes, Dada.” Elijah turned to me. “Miss, I’ll show you the way; you can come with me.”

   “Thank you!” Relieved to follow Elijah’s short cut, I rushed up the dark stairs. I was so eager to start our big date that I did not wonder why these members wore matching black suits and black ties with black polished shoes just for a New Age book club.

Elijah held the door. While stepping through I turned back to smile and nod at him. Then, still mopping my hair out of my eyes, I faced front and saw a coffin. The coffin proceeded step by step straight toward Jordan and me, borne up by pallbearers.

Clearly, our guide Elijah, reprimanded for asking whether Jordan and I were related to him, had ushered us to the sanctuary for family seating — front and center, facing the congregation.

The pews were packed. Everyone looked resplendent, in suits and dresses, gloves, scarves, pearls, pocket watches, brooches, corsages, dotted veils, and trimmed hats. Not so the two storm-tossed Caucasians. The hapless sidekick had turned whiter than usual as he plastered his back to the wall. The Clem Kaddidlehopper minstrel figure stood frozen, punchbowl in arms. To stop drenching the carpet I struggled out of my slicker, then recalled too late that the poncho was a vast improvement over the rest of my getup.

One of the gentlemen seated by the podium rose, and with kind hands on my shoulders gave me his own seat. He stepped to the microphone and opened a profound prayer of blessing on the assembly and his parishioner. He raised a touching tribute to the courage and sweetness and humor of this loved one and her wonderful influence on generations of family. Then other congregation members began standing to contribute their own recollections of their beloved matriarch, their Granamere. They told stories of gratitude and sorrow and joy.

At the edge of the minister’s seat I waited on tenterhooks, begging God for help in easing us out of here and leaving this family in peace. But meanwhile, with their testimony the open hearts of Granamere’s children opened my own heart. They tapped in to the loss of my two grandmothers years before. In this sacred space, a state of true mourning set in, moving me to copious tears. 

   “And now, Dear Family and Friends.” The minister turned to Jordan and me. “See how this young couple came to pay their respects. What a gift! Sister, come up here. Tell us how you met Granamere, and your memories.”

At that I wept so hard that I could no longer breathe, let alone share anything coherent about anyone. With Jordan hard at my heels I bowed to all, and ran sobbing out the door.

In the car, on our drive to the park, Jordan and I watched the road in delicate restrained stillness. His silence looked like inert shock. My silence was remorse. My sensitive companion had trusted me to understand that he did not do church — yet was dragged in to needless distress by my buffoon-caliber foolishness. His tactful restraint, with no word of reproach, should have earned a retroactive merit badge for the Eagle Scout sash he’d earned back in school.

We hiked up to the park shelter and shivered in a gale force horizontal rain, eating a cold drumstick apiece. We squelched back to the car for the trip to my group house. After a chastened and subdued parting I waved goodbye with the sinking sense that Jordan might never ask me out again.

Next day, our store manager invited me to turn in my apron and try some other career. Jordan joined a self-awareness training program called The Forum, and moved off to new friends and new interests.

Tonight an online search by his real name and hometown and alma mater turned up no trace of him at all. All I know of Jordan now is that after me, his dating life could have gone nowhere but up. My better-looking Doppelganger deserved happier times with the right person.

To the family from Unity Church: I am so sorry for disrupting your beautiful memorial. Your mercy toward me was a splendid tribute to your Granamere. To this day, in customer service work, it inspires me with patience when distraught implausible people burst across my path from the northeasters of life.

And you, Granamere: God grant we meet one day. Bright Memory to you!

The new apartment had four cozy wee rooms: kitchenette, bathroom, central room, walk-in closet alcove. Each had a window with oil-heat radiator facing west, looking up at a six-story brick wall of windows and a little slice of sky.

In a multi-college city, getting an apartment was a long shot. How was I one of the lucky ones? Three reasons.

Reason 1. That morning, Maintenance Master Frank discovered a unit left open and abandoned, filled with spoiled food and cockroaches, where the tenants had vanished leaving dented walls and cigarette-burned floors and thousands of dollars in unpaid utility bills and rent. He reported the news to Property Manager George.

Reason 2. In the office of Manager George, rental applications came pouring in through the fax machine and piling up on the floor. George busily typed the names in to a database, and found that all hopeful applicants had credit scores which dashed his hopes.

Reason 3. Enter Mary, walking in just then with checkbook in hand to cover first + last + security, and the greeting “Hello, Mr. N___. Why — YOUR last name comes from Byzantine royalty!”

Judging by George’s happily astonished reaction, no one at this hassle of a job had ever shown the slightest interest in his royal heritage. Leaping from his chair, he grabbed the keys to show me — if not the challenged unit itself, at least the building outside it. We finished an enjoyable chat about Byzantium and the Orthodox Church, shook hands, and clinched the deal.

Moving Day! Faithful friends Bill and Sarah moved my stuff in their van. Their plan was to carry my things in, then take me shopping for a full selection of winter groceries and new household goods. But on our way, it began to rain. Then the rain roared down and turned to sleet. So with curbside hugs and a promise to return next day, they dropped my boxes at the door and leaped in the van for what proved a dramatic and strenuous trek over the bridges and down the shore to their seaside home. 

I took the boxes in. It was 3:00 pm. In the winter courtyard the daylight had disappeared, to return at 10:00 next day. In the early darkness, high-intensity timed floodlights switched on. They gave our courtyard an evocative Stalag Newsreel look. This was enhanced by a loud radio in a window across the way bouncing echoes of distortion off the brick walls, with an assertive news broadcast in the Russian language.

Closing the door, I said a few prayers to dedicate the apartment as a refuge of prayer and introspection, naming it Little Beje after Corrie ten Boom’s family home. I opened a special housewarming present from Bill & Sarah, and laughed. They’d given me a mascot of theirs, an inflatable nine-foot boa constrictor from the Museum of Science nicknamed Mr. Snakey. When coiled in the closet alcove, Mr. Snakey looked impressively lifelike and vigilant.

Next I plugged in the refrigerator, and flicked on the light switches. Nothing happened. I plugged the landline phone into its jack. There was no dial tone. But thanks to Frank, the gas stove pilot light was on and the floors gleamed with fresh polyurethane varnish. The walls were slathered with fresh paint. So were the windows; they were sealed shut. The oil radiators had no off valve. They poured out dry heat and the roasted rancid-blood essence of dry-roasted cockroaches in the pipes. The whole floor was crunchy with grout bits or paint chips. I grabbed a box lid as a broom and cleared the central room at a walking squat, moving each box at a time. Opening the hall door for light and air showed that the bits and chips were in fact a layer of fumigated cockroaches, lying on their backs with folded multiple arms. That was great incentive to sweep the place corner to corner. Wrapping my hands with sleet-soaked advertising circulars from the lobby, I scooped the whole rout into a garbage bag, grabbed the keys, then slipped and skidded across the courtyard to the dumpster. 

The gas stove worked like a charm. So did the water faucets. But the water smelled like paradichlorobenzene, the active ingredient in mothballs. After running the kitchen taps for twenty minutes I made tea, took a sip, and gagged it into the sink. Then I grabbed the keys and my coat and slipped and skidded to the Store 24 on Beacon Street. The men in the long line snapped up soda, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, scratch tickets, and magazines discreetly wrapped in brown paper and stored behind the counter. Unlike me, they had tuned in to the weather and spent their day not packing, but shopping the goods off the store shelves.

On the short return walk I was hit by a hissing whiteout snowfall. At home I stored the grapefruit on the cold bathroom windowsill. In the baking heat I locked the door and dropped all my clothes on a chair. To protect the pipes from freezing I turned on all the taps to a trickle. I washed up, and fixed distilled-water oatmeal and tea in the dark while snow hurtled past the Stalag lights. Then for a breath of air and to vent the stove gas and polyurethane I put some clothes on, opened the hallway door, and set up for the night in the doorway with sleeping bag and Bible.

We had three blizzards in five days. The streets were silent. There were no people afoot, no traffic noise but sirens, no trolleys on the Green Line. The nearest pay phone was a 25 minute walk each away up and over snowdrifts. I called my family, Bill & Sarah, and our office. The boss answered, but the company was closed for the week. He ordered me to stay home until after New Year’s. Other businesses were closed too. The drifts were 5 feet high. On side streets the plows could clear only one central lane both ways for cars and pedestrians to share, with blackening snow walls that lingered until April. Maintenance Master Frank worked all hours on the roof chopping ice, or fixing burst pipes for tenants with no heat, or plowing snow from the doors. He promised to get my windows open soon.  

Every morning it was time to break camp, roll up the sleeping bag, and lock the door. Then I dropped all my clothes. (Naturism was soon a necessary automatic reflex, that is if naturists vacation all alone in small dark rooms.) With the cardboard lid I’d sweep up the cockroaches, re-robe, drop the garbage in the dumpster, and gather some pine twigs on the way back. The pine twigs went into a stock pot of tap water boiling all day with grapefruit peels and cinnamon to improve and moisten the atmosphere. There was always pease porridge to tend on the stove too, with legumes and seaweeds and grain from my boxes. Then after a dip in the trickling bathtub I’d wash the laundry and dry it on the radiator in minutes. With a pickle crock weight as a hammer I’d tap a wooden spoon all around the window frames, in hopes of a paint gap for fresh air. When the fumes and heat made my head spin, I’d get dressed and stroll a bit on the snow drifts. Then with the Bible and Mr. Snakey for company, and a bath towel over my head for the draft, I sat in my doorway on the sleeping bag to study, read, and write, in hopes of meeting some neighbors. 

But where was everybody? There was plenty of bustle in the building across the courtyard, but our floor had no one. Perhaps the other renters were students, at home for winter break. Only a couple of men traipsed through now and then, kicking the advertising circulars into a junkmail-mâché across the floor. I always said hello. They took one look at my setup and kept walking. 

Before Christmas the dizziness from the fumes was getting worse, even when I stepped outdoors. The trip over drifts to the dumpster was extra tiring. The cold in the hall felt shivery even with extra bundling up. The heat with the radiators felt feverish even with bathtub dips and clothing-optional living. A sore throat set in with laryngitis, a cough, and shortness of breath. One night I was resting in the doorway with head wrapped in towels, with a fold tucked down to cover my eyes; the fluorescents had a painful glare, and my stomach queased up at sight of the mâché slush on the floor. It was stained by melted rock salt from the snowplows in two city-issue colors (cotton-candy pink, and inauspicious pea green). 

At about 3:00 am a rustling noise shook me out of a fitful reverie. Peeling back the bath towels I looked around blinking, and caught sight of Mr. Snakey. He was across the hall in the opposite doorway. Oh no! While stumbling around feeling sick, I must have fallen asleep in the open door of the wrong apartment! In a panic I flailed around to an upright position against the door frame, trying to stand up.

To my further dismay, Mr. Snakey seemed to come alive. He yanked back his head at sight of me and the feel of the cold hallway. Then a young man appeared in the open doorway. With a whispered epithet or two he grabbed the moving snake, glared at me, and slammed the door with his pet in hands — another nine-foot python that looked a lot like the inflatable one right behind me. I wobbled up to my hands and feet, crawled into my apartment, and locked up. Then, a good idea dawned: because the bathroom was all tiled walls and floor, Frank hadn’t painted or varnished in there. So that night I pulled my sleeping bag into the bathroom, closed the door, and had caught some rest beside the trickling tub under a reassuring view of sky slice with star.

That day or next, a cheerful cricket noise rang out in the alcove. The telephone! The first call was from Bill and Sarah. All during the blizzards they’d been telephoning my new but inactive phone line, wishing they could pick me up to stay with them, or at least drop off some fresh produce; but by the sea the roads were still hazardous, and they’d had flu themselves. 

The phone line felt like a gift from heaven. People called every day for long insightful conversations. “You are SUCH a wonderful listener,” said one girlfriend. “Nobody pays attention as well as you.”   
“Conditions are perfect,” I explained. “You’ve reached a snowed in person sitting in the dark with no clothes.”  

The phone gave me a new daily ritual: calling the electric company.
   “This is Mrs. Washington,” a customer service associate snapped. “Name and address?”
   “Hello Mrs. Washington.” My throat was still husky and sore. “It’s Mary —”
   “Speak UP!” she barked. “How do you spell that?”
   “It’s M –“
   “Is that M as in ‘Mary’?”
   “Why… yes. Here is my address and unit number.”
   “What is the nature of this call?”
   “I paid Management on December 1 for the first month, but…”
   “EXCUSE me! We are under a SNOW EMERGENCY!”
   “Yes Ma’am, I see it out the windows. Just wondering, in a case like this —-”
   “Hold the line.”
After 25 minutes of Muzak, the call disconnected.

So did the other calls. I kept on dialing, night and day.
Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Jefferson, Mrs. Monroe, Mrs. Madison, Mrs. Buchanan all looked up my address and unit, then simply put me on hold for 25 minutes of Muzak until the call cut off. 

Finally, Mrs. Roosevelt explained. The former tenant had finagled thousands of dollars out of the electric company, and now they were in no scramble to light up my life. I would have to prove to them that he was not me, that I was not him, that were not in cahoots, that I was hereby renouncing all his vain pomps and works. “Only a supervisor makes exceptions. And they are all out with the repair trucks. To speak with one, you’ll have to call back.”

Mrs. Coolidge wanted a letter faxed to her with my previous addresses, signature, date of birth, and social security number.
Mrs. Eisenhower said I’d have to fax her a postmarked envelope showing my new name and address. (I didn’t have any. All my mail went to my post office box downtown. I would have to mail a letter from myself to myself, but I was too sick to walk to the mailbox and mail it. Besides, they preferred that the envelope be from a utility such as the electric company.)
Mrs. Cleveland said that the fax needed to show a copy of the cancelled deposit check. (I didn’t have the copy. The month wasn’t over, so the bank statement with cancelled check wasn’t issued yet. Besides, the statement was going downtown to the same post office box which I was too sick to get to.)
Mrs. Wilson wanted the fax to show a money order with a future deposit of $500. (I couldn’t get one. The bank was probably closed, and I was too sick to get there on the trolley that was not running.)
Mrs. Harding wanted a past bill from some other utility company. (I didn’t have one. For years I’d lived in group houses.)
Mrs. Garfield wanted a copy of my lease.
Mrs. Truman wanted a government-issue ID with photograph, and my birth certificate.

At least waiting on hold for all those calls made a good meditation and stretching practice. Soon I could hum along to the different classical Muzak pieces while eating dinner or napping with the receiver tucked nearby.

On New Year’s Eve day I called again.
   “Ms. Jackson. State your name & address.”
   “Lo, Ms. Jackson.” I recited the address for her.
   “What do you want?”
   “Not a thing, Ms. Jackson. I’ve been calling about this account for a couple of weeks. This is just to say that any day now it will stop snowing and I won’t always be sick, and then I’ll go out and find an open business with a fax machine and send you all the documents that you would like.”
   “What is the nature of your emergency?”
   “To say thank you. You have a high-stress job, and you’re saving lives in this terrible weather. And your Muzak! It’s all I have to listen here at home in the dark, and it’s LOVELY.” I started getting tearful. “So thank you. Happy New Year.”
   “Unh.” Pause. “Right. Bye.”

For dinner that day I had the usual split pea soup and the last two figs. An empty potato chip bag turned up in one of my boxes; the crumbs gave a delicious seasoning accent to the meal. Eating dinner, I was longing for a church, a place with electric lights and people.

So I wrapped up warm with a bath towel around my neck and ventured out for the first time in days, down Beacon Street. Eureka! A large community church was open. In an upper floor all the lights were on. I hurried over snow drifts and up to the parish hall. About a hundred people were gathered for the service.

   “You’re here!” The organizers rushed to greet me at the door. “Thank goodness! Oh, you’re our invited speaker, right? Well, it’s time to start. Can you lead the meeting anyway?”
   “Meeting?” I looked around and saw the 12-Step slogan banners all over the walls. “Oh sure.” I was expecting a prayer service, but this was fine; I’d led many Anonymous group meetings before, including the mixed-program share-a-thons on holidays. “No problem.” Walking up to the microphone I greeted everyone, and suggested a moment of silence followed by the Serenity Prayer.
   “We welcome you, to this meeting of –” I opened the speakers’ binder. “Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.” I stopped and looked up at the audience.
They looked back at me.
These hundred people came through snow and ice, who knows how far, for my story of experience, strength, and hope in recovery from this addiction. I was the keynote speaker for the evening.

First, in keeping with Program standards of complete honesty, I let them know precisely how qualified I was to serve as their speaker.
Well now. That led to a moment of silence for sure.
Then, they laughed. Soon laughter rolled through the hall in waves.
People would start to calm down, take another look at me, and start laughing all over again. They laughed until they were weeping, slapping their sides or waving their hands in surrender.
   “So were you gonna walk into just ANY meeting?” one man called out in friendly fashion.
   “Meeting???” I said. “I thought this was Vespers!”

Everybody just howled, laughing all over again. While they did, I looked out over the hall and thought: Come Holy Spirit; this would be a fine time to give me an idea of what to tell these good folk. Finally I said “But aren’t we all here for the same reason? Isn’t it just human, to want to find safety and comfort, and also connection with other people? Isn’t that how we got here? Isn’t that how we can come together right now, this evening? We’re not alone; we made it here. We are in good company. We have wisdom and stories to share, and that starts now. The floor is open for sharing.”

So people shared their stories and treatment plans and recovery. There was a lot of adversity and courage and wisdom and cooperation in that room. It was a great meeting. And then people joined hands and said the Serenity Prayer, and gathered around with coffee and cookies and punch before saying goodbye. Hearing from these people did my heart a world of good.

That week, my flu got better.
Frank fixed the radiator valves and got the windows open.
Bill and Sarah took me to my favorite thrift stores and then to the Food Coop.
As the snow began to melt, neighbors showed up out of nowhere.
Here I’d been feeling down, thinking everybody else was off on vacation. But no. Some were hiding in their units all scared and waiting to venture out to stores. They needed their checks to arrive from Social Security. They needed pain meds, baby formula, diapers. There must have been some way to help them. If only I’d put up posters in the hallways, or asked Frank in Maintenance to give out my phone number!
After that big snow, one lovely frail couple had to be taken to a nursing home. They’d survived World War II together in Belarus, and were so overjoyed to find that I was a Russian speaker that they begged me to come for a goodbye visit, to have tea and view their photo albums.
What a life lesson for me! There is always more that one can do, to get out and meet and check on our neighbors.

But meanwhile, on New Year’s Eve, the walk home from that SLAA meeting was beautiful. The air was cold and clear. In some places the snow still had some glitter to it. At Store 24, they had bananas!

Back at home I locked the door, took off my boots, put the groceries on the frozen windowsill, fixed some mint tea, dropped my clothes in the heat, and sat on the floor watching neighbors with lights on celebrating together, enjoying their TV shows and parties.

The sound of early fireworks had me leaping up in the dark to stretch up against the glass, peering at the scrap of sky in hopes of color and flash. 

And at midnight, the electric company made a judgment call. The First Ladies — Martha, Dolly, Mamie, Lady Bird — turned on my lights. All of the lights, with me in full view of six floors of neighbors.

With a yelp of chagrin I hit the floor out of sight. I slid across to my sleeping bag, rolled in, zipped it decently up to my neck, teetered upright against the wall, and hopped around in the bag long enough to turn off all the light switches with my chin. Then back in the dark and popping out of the bag again I moved my bananas from the windowsill to the humming refrigerator. Then I raised the tea cup and drank a toast to the Electric Company, humming my favorite piece from their Muzak ensemble.

You can hum it too. It’s the Intermezzo instrumental interlude from “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Pietro Mascagni.

Happy and Blessed New Year to Everybody!

Mary