Notes from Maine - 2020/05/28
And just like that, it’s summer. A few days ago we had an overnight frost, and today it’s 73°F (23°C). I’m not complaining. Summer here is lovely. There’s always a tiny bit of sadness associated with it though. When I was a kid, we used to come to Maine every summer for vacation and the experience was always magical. Part of the fun involved finding new things to explore because I was out of my element. Back at home, the days were filled with the same mundane activities. Even something you love becomes tiresome if it’s the only option.
When we were transported to Maine, everything was fresh and interesting. I could explore the woods, swim in the lake, or rummage around in the barn. The novelty was the important part. Moving to Maine was a wonderful idea but also a bit of a mistake. In the past thirty years, I’ve worn deep grooves into my patterns. How can I sit and enjoy the beauty of the morning when I’m surrounded by all the tasks and chores of regular life? I’ve muddled together the exceptional with the mundane and created a palatable ration that neither thrills nor bores.
These are the problems one wants to have, right? A perfectly wonderful life that’s so consistent that it seems disappointing? I guess it’s inevitable. We experience more and more things, collecting those memories and readjusting our expectations. We’re all drug addicts—trying to score the next endorphin rush and discovering that it’s not quite as vivid as we remember.
“Jaded” is such an evocative word. It makes me picture a stone that has been worn away by time, sand-blasted and distressed until all the hard edges are tired curves. I’m not depressed. I swear I’m not.
My father told me an amazing story yesterday.
His mother told him about the 1918 flu. His mother (Charlotte, but us kids all called her Cha) was the family storyteller. She repeated her memories over and over until you knew them by heart. By the time I was old enough to write them down, I had heard them so many times that I didn’t know how precious they were. Fortunately, my father still remembers some of them. This was one I had never heard.
Cha was born in 1909 and they lived at 185 North Street in Salem Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston). The flu came in through the sailors arriving at port and soon spread to the civilian population. At first, they told people to avoid crowds, and to stay at home if they were sick. There weren’t enough doctors in the city—they hadn’t yet returned from the war. Eventually, Cha was told to stay inside. People would put up a poster in their window to say if there had been a death in the family. The poster would warn people away. It would also alert the man with the horse-drawn cart, who would stop to collect the dead.
According to Cha, they barely understood how the disease spread. One of her schoolmates died and my great-grandparents took Cha to the wake. The girl was lying in the casket and Cha’s parents told her to go kiss her friend goodbye. Cha kissed her friend on the cheek. Somehow, my grandmother didn’t come down with it.
Later, after Cha was grown up and had kids of her own, she returned to live at 185 North Street. Her mother was dead and her husband was off building air strips for the Second World War, so Cha lived with her father and two kids.
Dad remembers the ice man decked out in his rubber cape, hauling a big block of ice to the second floor where the icebox sat. You would put a sign in the window if you needed a delivery and he would come down the street with his truck, yelling, “Ice Man!” Later, Cha’s father got rid of the ice box and replaced it with a refrigerator that had a big beehive heat exchanger on top. My father missed watching the ice man bring the deliveries.
Those are my random, scattered thoughts for the day.
I hope you enjoy the book I’m sending with this email. It’s not a horror book.
It deals with love, loss, and recovery. I hope it’s not too depressing, but it’s such a nice day—there’s always that.
