“I learned early on, to leave most of my family & friends un-featured, or totally out of sight, on social media. Trained by my opinionated teenagers, who had gone online first, but resented my follow, to “keep them out of it”. Partly because of the evils of digital enterprise, partly because I was still just “Mom”. Not really a person, not really a monster, just a backwards, “stalkery” presence. “You printed out all our emails?” one said to me, obviously affronted by the notion. But mothers abandoned by growing children, have been known to trip and slide, and somersault down slippery slopes. I can’t say I’ve been above any of that. And with friends, I don’t want to be swaggering, about any of my fine friendships, as if I were owning a prize sheep. But I do love my people. A swirling mass of beautiful human energy. And I include many, who would never guess, how much I’ve loved them, and secretly love them, as if from behind a hedge. In many ways, I’m still the child who played store & staged a stuffed animal hospital under honeysuckle bushes, on the school playground. Or in my closet, or in a hollowed out tree trunk. My dead animal cemetery was not advertised. I’d find the bodies spontaneously, in the woods behind my house, and make coffins out of shoe boxes: red, rounded-toed Ked’s or fringed, faux “Indian” loafers. Most squirrels fit, and mice and chipmunks, easily, with extra room for wild flowers. My family must know this about me. How I stole daffodils, avoided snarling dogs, & walked up stream beds, to and from school each day, by myself. Which is why tears of joy may glitter, decorating the corner of my eye, should you talk of such things or remind me to love. It’s all of a piece. However rusty, fearful, trampled, silenced, misunderstood for your whole lifetime you may have been, yet a god of your making will still be able to yield just enough to bring you solace and comfort. Maybe during your final hours, or tomorrow, when you suddenly lose faith in what you thought was real, be it your “one true love” or just falling victim to a lie. But this post, is testimony to the fulfillment of dreams. That’s all. Look at the faces, of perseverance. When this race of humans finally flexes its muscles, all I can say, is: look out. The leaders of this vanguard, who’ve been scrambling up the rubble, who’ve paid - in exile, as well as in blood, to forge another highway across a river of impenetrable odds. We found the road, but drove up the wrong driveway first, his brother’s before we realized it was the next. So much had changed. All the shiny 911 green road signs, the old houses, no longer recognizable. It was another 50 feet - been 20 years, or so, anyways. A pickup was coming down. In the hot, summer dusty heat. Hayfields, to either side of Frances’s driveway. We pulled in, window to window. He rolled his down, as we rounded the mailbox. And it was just what it was, on a day we never expected to find each other. His heart surgery, which he described, in detail and then I got out, to get closer to him, & talk eye to eye. To take in the meadows, the day, the summer, let the breeze ruffle my hair. We were there, the three of us, two in a car, one in a truck, leaning on hot metal or free standing, the slow drawl talk of sugaring & reverse osmosis flecked with the smell of recently mowed fields, & what we’d each made out of a brush with death. I asked, and he gestured to the ridge line, indicating where his maples were. 500 gallon, he had for sale, now, I mentioned about my friend up in Johnson who still used buckets for a small operation & he said pipeline destroyed the pure taste of tree sap. It’s factual, that things go missing, for good even, maybe. As I look around, and can see the losses: in my family, in my circle, in what’s left of the renegade tribe of Vermont. But, well, who knew, its a blessing to merely breathe, & survive here, I guess. To take in the basic tenets of life, to recognize what’s corrupt, and what’s evil, that must not be crossed in any casual way. Or watered down or allowed to spew out, like a liquid manure spreader into your living room, by people who can’t do anything better than trick you. Because they, unfortunately, still believe it’s all true.”
