Flu

Down and out for a day with the Polar Express influenza. It swept through me like the cold front that took the temperature from the forties down to near zero for a day and a half, with snow. Or to use the Ted Hughes metaphor, it, not love, "struck into his [my] life, like a hawk into a dovecote." It has all but disappeared today, along with all symptoms of the flu, with temperatures now in the fifties. Amazing. I have about a day and a half to do my Christmas effort this year. Pathetic. I am just hoping that Sally doesn't catch the bug, the longer she does not show symptoms the better, or the worse, should she come down with this, say, on Christmas eve. Why is it that these things happen so often on special occasions? All I want for Chrismukkah is a dose of flu. Joy to the World, and wonders of His love... As an endnote, this sneaky little flu did not leave as quickly as it came. It kind of hung around, making me feel crappy for a week. And then Sally caught it New Year's eve, and nearly two weeks later, she still felt lousy.

I Remember Judy

I remember lying next to Judy in the long grass of the sandunes of Bridgehampton. I remember her beautiful red maillot and her long, lithe body, her gleaming brown hair. She's a classic any way you slice it. I was only inches, an inch, a casual brush away from a casual touch, from cupping her breast in my hand, from a passionate tryst in the sand. That is what it would have been back then. I loved her and she felt something for me, something I did not want to test. When she went to California for a month or two, she sent me postcards from LA almost daily. I posted them with their "Love, Judy's" naively above my desk and I'm sure there was talk in the office, but in truth, there was nothing more than a very close relationship between us. However, the idea bedding my married boss was just out of the question, though it should not have been. I was too hesitant to take the risk; I did not want to blow it. She was married and ten years older. In my ignorance at the time, I wasn't quite sure whether she would seem "old" to the touch. And her husband had a terminal illness, so how selfish could I be, taking adavantage of his infirmity, not to mention his hospitality. I thought poor Ronald, rather than, probably more accurately, poor Judy. It was she who needed warmth and physicality to free her from her desperate, dark despair. I ought to have touched her on the beach that day. I should have kissed her there in the sand, and slid my hand down her neck onto her breast. I saw her nipples pressed tightly upwards under her suit, waiting for a caress that never came, hoping. Had I but touched her then, the rest would have all been so quick and easy. I would have pushed her suit bottom over to the side and stroked her wetness, her smooth skin everywhere. and I would have entered her and felt her thighs tighten around me, the clutch of her encircling arms and I would have felt her push and make whatever sound of love she makes and come as if for the first and last time she'd never come before, an emotional explosion that neither of us had previously known. And we would have had to run down and swim in the Atlantic to wash all evidence of our lovemaking away. And we would have felt a little sheepish about having consumated what we so often thought about, imaginging. But I never brushed my fingers across her forehead or her lips. I never touched her breasts, I never stroked her gently between her parted legs. I never actually felt what she was like this way, filled with desire, aroused, and I never learned if she moaned or screamed or trembled, or whether she would scratch my back or bite when making love. I only wish and wonder. I wish we had. Love's a mystery, especially unrequited.

Sex

Sex with Sally is always I bump and you don't, you grind and I don't, I do and you won't. Almost always, we were out of synch, OK at best, even in the very beginning. That's why I was so uncertain about marriage from the start, in like but not in love, at least in the lustful way that I had always known it. Of course, I speak from memory, not having intimate relations with my wife (or anyone else for that matter) in more than a decade. Before that, there was Molly who was always willing and able, instaiable and Alice, much the same, who told me "it didn't get any better, trust me," and Lyn and Pam and Susan and Barbara and Tanya and Christina, and before that Carey and Jeanette and Lisa and Caroline and Wendy and Carla and Carol and Susan and there were others, dozens all in all. Nearly all fun, nearly all of them wonderful in some way if not destined for marriage to me, nor I to them, I'm sure. But now, after years of nothing. Years of emptiness, without physical companionship aside from sharing a bed like a brother and sister, I ache for something more. It is the undivulged secret of our marriage, the missing ingredient, the probable cause of why things are not what they ought to be. There is no lovemaking, only friendship and a trust. When I think about the girls and women I slept with, most of them were there for fun, not for the duration. Maybe a few were. It seems that the more intense the physical relationship, the more damaging was its aftermath. The frustration of having a partner who has little or no interest in sex, at least with me, since the days when we wanted to have a child, sex for procreation's sake, over thirteen years ago now is acute at times, nonextant at others. I wonder if this little secret is one which more couples share than they'll admit? I wonder if this asexual life is what many of us experience, yet almost none admit or talk about, even to the Kinseys and the Masters and Johnsons of the universe? I don't know, but I sure wonder. If we only go around once in this life, I sure have missed something I used to like a lot.

Fricken Chrismas

It's fricken chrismastime again, and I hate it. Just an entirely depressing crock of manure to deal with, all this down time, this false religion. And all the compulsive, stupid presents and present giving, mostly resulting in debt. This is the first year I can say that I just don't want to know about it. I have three days to change my mind, and I really don't feel like it. I cannot say just what this is all about. Lousy, bickering relationship with wife? The transition from old house to new apartment? Move from country to city? No fun? No friends? No sale of house? Or is it dealing with a 13 year-old know it all, rather spoiled daughter? Is it the midlife crunch time, with me feeling old and beside the point? Feeling broke? Unemployed? Stress? Fuck it! It's fricken chrismas, that's all I have to say. Goddam!

Last night it went down to three degrees above zero, from in the forties the night before. And this afternoon it is above freezing again. Go figure! It is all part of this weirdo, senseless time of the year. I've gotta do something about my frame of mind. It sucks. Take Dad's leftover Zoloft pills or something. Self-medicate; I don't dare! Get drunk? I don't think so. Get a life? You bettcha, but where do I start, and when? Iknow what's going to happen. I'll just get into the car, drive to a mall and pull out the plastic and buy, buy, buy. No, this is crazier still! What do I do? Eat some chocolate? Life is like a box of chocolate. Go for it, Forrest Gump! Fricken chrismas. It'll be over soon, thanks, and I cannot wait!

Ghost Town

I am wandering across wet fields. No one remains but me. It is December in a summer town, and everyone is in their winter mode, or Florida, anywhere but here. In my mind's eye I can see Uncle Charlie, big as life, fat, smiling. He shoots tin cans with a 30-06 that we, on the other side of the house are plinking at unsuccessfully. Charlie was the merry prankster. Until I figured out that he was shooting everytime we shot, I had no clue as to how we always managed to hit our target. I mean we were little kids; no way were we sharpshooters as he was, and it did not occur to me that we could miss. One time, when he was a boy, Charlie allegedly shot his big toe off in the dining room of Red Top. The story goes that they recovered it in the coal bin in the basement below, and there was a hole, or was it just a knot hole, in the floor. It never occured to me to examine Uncle Charlie's feet for proof. And then there is Helen Rand Sherer, his wife. She died so young, only in her 40s while taking a shower in Avon, Connecticut. Cerebral hemorrhage. Charlie had some serious cancer, but he died from an aortic aneurysm. And of course there's Joe, still around, the last of his tribe, spry at 85, still pulling his lobster pots for fun, and darned healthy, it would appear. And Aunt Mary, everyone's favorite, who must have died nearly twenty years ago. What was it that made us all adore her? She was funny, and she always seemed glad to see us. Back at my house, I see the shapes of Nina and Grandpa Dick and Susie and many assorted guests from the Whitin and the Burchard and the Shethar clans, and the Rockwood cousins, Court and Betty and their girls, more aunts and uncles and cousins and step-etceteras. I think of Nina reading me the story about Mr. Lobster, and of Grandpa Dick feeding the catbirds raisins at the cocktail hour. And Uncle Joe with his lolipop tree, or, now that I think of it, his father up at Red Top Farm, making packs of Beemans and Blackjack chewing gum appear magically out of the FM radio in the kitchen. that lollipop tree, a type of cedar or arbor vitae now towers above the Red Top camp. I think of Clayton, the caretaker at Stonepile, and his wife Adele who used to let me shoot her .22 when she babysat me in her house at the top of the lane. She was great, a favorite. And so, too, was Georgie, Susie and Dick's cook, babysitter and bottle washer. She would hang out in the kitchen, often sitting as she aged and her legs got bad. Georgie always had cookies for us in a large, round tin. The best ones were ginger and chocolate chip. We would come across the fields with the sole purpose of raiding the cookie tin. And then we, packs of cousins, or if it were just me, would go out with a few more in our pockets and walk down the trail to the beach, or find another house filled with relatives across another field. This was safe, unstructured fun. The only thing in jeopardy was a rabbit or a woodchuck when I happened to be on my own, hunting imaginary big game with my .22. It was a good thing to get out of my system at an early age. It is probably amazing that no one was ever hurt that way, come to think of it. And I have an indelible image I have is of my mother back at Stonepile with her cancer, knowing that she would not likely see the following spring. Knowing that as she drove up her driveway from the place she loved all her life, that she would never come that way again. She's there again, about a mile away as the crow flies, in the cemetary by the Commons. Why is it that these people have all vanished so young, so prematurely? Why are they not here to help us understand our lives, our selves, our worlds? Where are they, when we need them all so badly?

Winds of Change

The sea comes in from the southwest, ocean direction. Yesterday's warm, 50 knot winds from that direction built up a surprising sea. During the night an eqally powerful cold front arrived from the northwest, a clockwise shift of 135 degrees. The driving rain has been replaced by clear and cold. Each has its disadvantages. Warm and rainy is preferable in our unheated house in December, while the sun warms the spirit, if not the body. We have been here long enough this fall, weeks longer than my most optimistic expectation. Yet we do not want to leave, even now when our rented place in Providence is now available and paid for. We just do not want to go there, yet. So tonight, we will extend our stay in our own home here by one more night. The fields are all shades of brown and red, with ochres and a few traces of yellow. The lawns are still, surprisingly, quite green. The moon is nearly full and its light illuminates the living room where we've been sleeping on our separate c0uches in our down-filled sleeping bags. We have burned through an entire cord of wood, though it was not, truth be known, the best sort of hardwood one might want to have. The house is ready to be closed. The plumber may be here tomorrow, or maybe not. He has a mind of his own. And so we will move on, to the next chapter in our increasingly peripatetic lives. We will look forward to the changes, not fear them. It is undeniable, however, that I sense some sadness in our moving and have questions about the great unknown. We cannot hesitate; we cannot turn aside and brood. Newness comes with Providence where there is so much to see and learn. And we can look ahead to coming back next spring.

The Plumber

Jimmy Waite, aka "Can't Wait" is waiting. Waiting for me to leave. He shuts the water off each fall and empties the pipes, and he reverses the process in the spring. This year I've outwaited Jimmy. He's anxious that a cold snap will pop the joints or crack a toilet bowl. We came close a few weeks back, but it has been so mild since that we haven't had a problem. My problem is only paying him to do something that I think I can do perfectly well. This little exercise costs plenty every year, and I have the competence and the time, and I should do it. But he's coming this year because I am anxious that I might forget to do that one thing that will cost us thousands, the save a buck to lose a lot routine. How often have I done things like that before! So I ask Jimmy, can you show me how to close the house down and he tells me that he is just too busy to connect with me, and for this one more time, his bullying will get him the job, but his gravy days at Stonepile are definitely numbered. And that's the truth of the situation.

Transparent Eyeball into Profundity

It feels like a river, running, gurgling, clear as that stream at the base of Mt. Katadhn, transparent to the point that I had to touch the water, four feet deep, to be sure that it was there, sending rings out from where I touched the surface, marring its tranquility. And like a noisy river, it chatters over rocks and its swirls around bends with light, like shafts of diamonds, streaming off in all directions, an intense, pure white. It is hard to behold, flashing brilliantly. No gem cutter could possibly compete with nature in this regard, myriad facets ricocheting off in a trillion different ways. I find this river in the quiet, often while driving early in the morning. It awakens then, and my thoughts flow. I want a pad, a tape recorder, a direct drive from inside to something tacticle and discernable. It beckoned me coming back from New York to Providence on the interstate hours before the dawn, each sign and sensation evoking dozens upon dozens of past memories, some building and others collapsing into a template, filled with feelings and people who are often no longer. In a way, it is just like being in heaven, where we meet deparated souls we have encountered along life's path as well as in the imagination, regardless of the fact that they may be long gone. This is like a mythical river in Hades, a tributary of forgetulness or remembrances. I see old and fantastic times, triggered by the faintest vision in the rear view mirror, or the sun rising in the East, or the power of accelerating through a bloodstream of humanity, passing and being passed. Today, at this precise moment, we are on this planet together. Tomorrow, who knows? Some of us will be gone, some forgotten, apart from and part of the flow, the river of Time. No matter who we are, we will fish here for a little or a longer while. I am filled with awe; this river is also my river of salvation andd my redemption. Much is expected of one who has been given so much.