If You Let It

It's the end of the year, if you haven't noticed. I moved into my writing room to cool my face down. For the past hour or two I sat and read in front of the fireplace, and my left cheek blazes with a shaming blush of sluggishness. I haven't exactly been slothful because I hauled in the firewood, folded some laundry, made a salad, and put away all the holiday decor. I was a verb this morning. There's tension in my neck and shoulders, a tightness in my foot. There's that light orb of grief, an ornament that rests in my chest, ready to break during any season.  My head is an unkept office space. My whole body has much to say, outside of calendrics. I possess a body chemistry that rejects time. Watches stop when on my wrist. 

I do like this time of year in spite of its expectations, sales, announcements, exclamations, proclamations, and resolutions. I feel the contrasts build in me like a cloud cover. It's a quiet drear among the glitter: to be more, do more, wrap everything up and move ahead, to get beyond, to rise above, to have it all figured out and together. Have you seen the aisles of empty plastic containers, ready to be filled with what we want out of sight? Once you've hidden Who-You-Once-Were, you can set your table with the gleaming flatware of I-Know-What-I'm-Doing-Now. 

I know what I'm doing now, which is writing this while red cheeked and feeling the collywobbles caused by a robust handful of chocolate almonds. I haven't made a list, or drawn up a plan for anything else I wish to share. I have nothing for you. Were you expecting anything? I just have now. The dog across the road barks into darkness and fog, there's one light on in the neighbors house, and if you let it, the sound of rain as it hits the porch roof could be mistaken for a clock. 

All Day Duende

A duende is an elfin figure of folklore. I think of duende as a feeling, a cross between fidgety passion and contemplative inspiration. Frederico Garcia Lorca's vision of duende includes irrationality, earthiness, an awareness of death, and a diabolical touch. That fits.

In Spanish duende originated as a contraction of the phrase dueño de casa or duen de casa, effectively "master of the house." The duende of various cultures get up to all sorts of tricks, masquerading as leaves and woodland creatures who then prank women by pulling down their skirts and pinching their bottoms, or they pop down chimneys and lurk in corners to create havoc in the home. The chimney entrance sounds familiar. Is Santa duende? Because the whole season, this stretch from the end of October through about mid-February (as soon as I can smell the ground again) is intense All Day Duende for me. The rest of the year is All Day Duende for me too, but with the sun's varied satires.

The Moon Appears

by Frederico Garcia Lorca

     At the rise of the moon

bells fade out

and impassable paths

appear.

     At the rise of the moon

the sea overspreads the land

and the  heart feels like an island

in the infinite.

     No one eats oranges

in the full moon's light.

Fruit must be eaten

green and ice-cold.

At the rise of the moon,

with its hundred faces alike,

silver coins

sob away in pockets.

Tricksters

A few mornings ago I looked up from my desk and saw a raccoon hop up from the road onto the stretch of grass in front of my window. It was raining that day, and its fur was sodden. It walked right up to the house like it had important business by the Japanese quince and the linden. Then it disappeared. It was right near the house and I lost track of it. This is the magic of raccoons. They are shapeshifters. When they visit, they are here to teach you to be vigilant, or persistent, or clever in your dealings.There's a lot of folklore surrounding them. When we visited Japan I fell in love with the sensual depictions of tanuki. Tanuki are more of a cross of a fox and a raccoon. I prefer the cheerful and benevolent rogues they turned into to their original forms, which were said to possess humans and haunt them.The rogue tanuki is a partier, with a large belly and scrotum, and usually a bottle of sake at hand.

The animals around here have more business than I do, scribbling and dreaming at my desk. The owl knows when there's the business of a loose duck, the fox knows spring dusks by the pond are her best business hours, the deer keep a quiet business of traffic across the fields, stray cats have the business of frog and field mouse hunting, the rats keep a hippity hoppity duck feed business.

My business hours are 5 a.m. to about 4 p.m. now, when the light shifts into night. I crack open a can of corn, put on muck boots, a giant, black sweater that makes me look like an ominous wooly worm, and lead the duck parade to safety. The business of the raccoon, the weasel, the fox, the owl, thwarted once more by the cleverness of chicken wire, hardware cloth, and hope.

The Raccoon Whisperer, a retired veteran in Canada who feeds raccoons hot dogs, is raccoon and human business transaction at some of its best.

Views From the Windows of My Mother's House

Kitchen

A stretch of green yard with a concrete sidewalk on the left. A 100 foot tall (or so it seemed) Norway Spruce that dropped torpedo pinecones we loved to throw at each other. The garage where Dad kept his car washing supplies, and the upper room full of hats, costumes, props, and a filing cabinet with our childhood drawings. The parking pad with Mom's car next to the garage. The gate with a closure Dad made that was difficult to open and close when it rained. The long garden of perennials Mom planted along the chainlink fence that separated their yard from the Gehr's. Tammy, Mr. Gehr's tiny dog, sniffing the edges of the fence. The alley beyond the garage.

Dining Room Gehr's Side

A porch with a square table covered in a black and white checked tablecloth in the summer, topped with a tiny blue vase with choreopsis and speedwort from the garden. The patchwork pattern of the Gehr's asbestos shingled siding, and their dining room window, curtained in 1945.

Dining Room Other Side

The first floor apartment porch of a reclusive woman who lived there for decades. She had an exotic sounding name I can't remember now -- Florence, Lorraine, Yvonne, Eleanor? A man visited her regularly, who she claimed was her brother, but Mom figured to be her boyfriend. When he arrived, he'd pee facing the garage on that property, an action we could see from Mom's kitchen window. His suspenders ran up his back like crossed train tracks. 

Living Room

The brick porch with a blue painted ceiling, a cherry tree, a lavender bush, and a stretch of State Street with a line of large Victorian homes. Most of the neighbors were unknown. The road was a wide river that wasn't crossed too often. 

Bedroom Porch Side

The upper floors and roofs of houses, the midsection of the Norway Spruce, a zigzag of powerlines, the sky. This porch is where we watched the fireworks each year from a bench swing that hung by chains from the ceiling. Dad installed it.

Bedroom Other Side

The rental property with the reclusive woman. A long staircase leading up to the second floor apartment, which changed tenants often. More often than not, there was a pile of moving boxes and leftover, unwanted items on the porch.

Bathroom and Guest Bedroom

The second floors of all those expansive Victorian homes across State Street. The tops of trees, the sky. This was a view you only saw if you were brushing your teeth at the sink in the bathroom and happened to turn and focus your attention through the sheer white curtains Mom hung above the two little shutters on the bottom of the window. Or if you were making the bed in the guest bedroom with the blue striped wallpaper and matching comforter.

If there were windows in the attic and basement (there must have been), I never looked out of them. The basement was Dad's stained glass workshop, so my focus was on what was being created there when I was in it. The attic was filled with childhood toys, books, costumes, dead birds, and holiday decor. I can see in my mind's eye where the light is coming from up there, and I never walked over to it, afraid of dead birds or squirrels.

My memory of this house asks for more. It is the season of more, please, until I am stuffed to the tear ducts with nostalgia.

A Reconnaissance of Cats

This morning I woke up thinking about cats, as the newest one in our family wiggled her way from the bottom of the bed to perch directly on my chest. It's hard not to think about cats when you have one breathing on your chin. I made a mental list, and discovered I've known and loved fifteen cats in my lifetime, not counting the ones who lived with my parents or friends.

Spooky

  A black and white wilding of a cat, she was a first cat memory of early childhood. My sister named her. I don't remember much about her except a story of her clawing Dad's back, an event which didn't go over well. She was in and out of the house, and when we moved Mom worried that she'd not be able to find her way back to the new house. She put butter on Spooky's paws, following an old wives tale that if the cat licked it off she'd also taste the dirt of home, and know where she was meant to be. Spooky must have tasted the roof in that butter because she spent a lot of time on the roof of our newly built home in the winter. Our icicles were yellow. 

Pip

    Pip and Pyewacket were a sister and brother pair who found us as kittens in our early teens. Pip was Kristen's cat. A black and white cat, similar to Spooky, I remember her sleeping on Kristen's bed, devoted. Later, when Kristen went off to college, and Mom and Dad moved, Pip found her favorite spot in the new house was in the onion basket on top of the fridge, a perch she used to swat at people as they walked by. Surprise! 

Pyewacket

    A tiger striped male, Pyewacket was really the first cat I called my own. He was a friendly cuddler; a rollicking fatboy. He enjoyed playing with chipmunks outside, which I didn't like to see. Once he got into a ground bee nest and was stung multiple times, and panted like a dog as we took him to the vet. Pye heard all my teen dramas, sadness, and dreams. I couldn't take him with me to my first college apartment. He became an escape artist when Mom and Dad moved to Ephrata. 

Poem

    A calico female I got at a pet store when I was in college, Poem was a tiny and elegant cat. As a kitten she was acrobatic, and leapt onto bookcases and mantlepieces. My grandmother Romayne was amazed by her energy. She accompanied me through college, and my early marriage. She was the cat who sat in my vanishing lap as I was pregnant with Helen, and she was Helen's first cat. We brought Helen's little baby hat home from the hospital so she could meet her through scent. She slept next to Helen's cradle and watched over her.

October

    Mom used to say "The fur fairy threw up on October." I'd  never seen a tweed cat before, but that's what October was. She was like the jacket of a literature professor. Thin and clever, she enjoyed eating spaghetti noodles directly out of the pan in the kitchen, and once sunk her teeth into a tube of ground turkey. She didn't like it when I went away on weekends though. She'd drag her butt across the carpet of the apartment, and I'd come home to poop trails. Mom and Dad took her in when I couldn't keep two cats, so she ate spaghetti at their house, and enjoyed the morning ritual of feeding the African frogs. Mom had her trained to the sound of a music box. She'd open the lid right before she fed the frogs, and October would run in to get her treat of frog food.

Mouse

    Mouse showed up one day on Buttonwood street, in the little patch we called a backyard. She was grey and white, and longhaired. A lovely fluff of a cat. Bewitched by her floofiness, I let her in, and she caused havoc. She was a storm cloud who found her way to a friend in Reading.

Edna

    Edna and Albrecht were adopted at a Reading shelter when Helen was two years old. As kittens they slept with her on her toddler bed, all curled up at her feet. They were her cats, even though I claimed Edna, and Joe claimed Albrecht. Edna was the sweetest, most tolerant female cat. The color of a latte, with faint stripes and spots of white on her chin and paws, she was beautiful in a simple and subtle way. Helen used to dress her up in doll pants, and she would walk around with a rankled look on her face. She curled up neatly on laps, and loved every visitor. In her later years she had a neurological event (a stroke, maybe?), and we took her to the vet after finding her stumbling around on the stairs. She recovered, and was with us a few more years. Her fur was as soft as a rabbit.

Albrecht

    An orange tiger male, Albrecht was named after Albrecht Durer, Joe's favorite artist. In his later years, he grew enormously fat, and loved to sleep in Helen's "critter heap" of stuffed animals. He blended in well, but he snored loudly, giving his location away.

Mango

    I adopted Mango from a Wilkes University student who found herself with a litter of kittens. It was Helen's birthday, and this cat was a birthday gift. Mango was formally named Mango Toodles Kaucher Caraballo, a collective decision of Helen and her best friend, Alex. I remember bringing Mango home, and driving over the Market Street Bridge to discover that she had escaped her box. She climbed up onto my shoulders and tried to sit on my head for the rest of the drive. Mango was white with orange spots, and shorthaired. She was similar in temperment to Edna. She enjoyed sliding around in the hallway in a shoebox, a game we played with her often. She accompanied Helen into her young adulthood and moved with her a few times, including back into our home for awhile, a "home from college" visit.

Stella

    Stella was the half sister of my mother's cat, Miss Havisham. Both of them came from a woman in Ephrata who fed all the feral cats in the neighborhood until they were friendly and less fearful of humans. Stella and Miss H. always retained a bit of the feral in them, even when they found cozy homes. Stella's thrill was discovering baby rabbits in the basement and bringing them up into the hallway for snacks. I still don't know how she did it. When we moved from Edwardsville to Lancaster, she was spooked, and found her secret hiding spot in the basement. We left food and water, and Helen brought her to Lancaster later. Then she became Marissa's confidante. 

Lucy Bob

    An adoptee from the SPCA by way of PetSmart, Lucy had a gravelly, old lady meow, as if she'd spent a long time smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky. On our way out of the pet store with her, some guy heard her meowing from the carrier and said, "Good luck with that." She hated the litterbox, and only pooped next to it. She was cuddly, and chubby, and had no troubles with her roommates, Edna, Stella, and Mango, and Muninn. I have a photo of myself at Christmas one year, sitting in a chair, covered in all five cats. Bliss.

Muninn

    A beautiful black male cat who found us by way of our friend Jack, Muninn was half of a pair of cats Jack had for years -- Muninn and Huginn -- named after the Norse ravens. Muninn didn't like living with us much. He didn't like being away from Jack. First he was first rehomed to Jack's mother, and then to us, where he had to live with four other cats, and none of them were Norse Gods. 

Steve

    Steve was the only male kitten from a litter born on the rainy day porch of one of Helen's coworker's uncles. When I went to visit, all the females hissed at me, but Steve peered up from his spot under a glass topped coffee table. When I picked him up, he purred. He's an all black ragdoll cat with long fur that mats in the summer. He gets a regular "lion cut" when he mats, which makes him look a little silly, but it's more comfortable. Steve loves all of my costumes. When he hears the closet open he's right there, ready to admire (lick) feathers, and chew on tulle. He gets the same giddiness around Christmastime when the decorations and wrapping paper come out. A lover of water, he drinks from the sink, and will also have a sip from your unattended cup, thank you very much.      

Ozgood

    Oz found us by way of the "Kitten Bush" here on our property which we think blooms once or twice every couple of years. I found him in the shed one morning, meowing behind the tools. A tiny, male tabby, he stayed outside for awhile, getting used to us and our schedule. He loved the farmstand visitors and people asked about him. He joined me for hoop practice in the barn, and played with everything I was working on. When it got cold, he came inside and was an indoor/outdoor cat, until he brought poison ivy oil in on his fur. Now he's indoor only, and is the friendliest and possibly the smartest of our cats. When Stubs joined us, he welcomed her like a big brother. When she escaped recently, scared by a power outage, he went outside to look for her. A hero. He's also a great mouser, which is helpful in an old farmhouse. 

Stubs

    Dan heard her meowing behind the rhododendron last year. "I think the Kitten Bush has bloomed again" An all black stump of a kitten, she was truly feral. It took me a long time to woo her with food, and I spent a lot of time sitting on the cold patio. Our neighbor helped too by bringing his stuffed mouse on a string, and coaxing her into play. On Thanksgiving Day last year,she walked right into the kitchen, and never looked back. We call her Kettle Bell, Stubby, Gremlin, Bunbun, Bowling Ball, and a host of other in-the-moment nicknames, and recently Dan said she looks like a whiskey barrel on four thumb tacks. She's short of stature, but has some heft, and plenty of independent attitude. She's the cat I wake up to every morning, because that's when she gets fed. 

If you're up for more cat stories, you can check out Cats I've Known: On Love, Loss, and Being Graciously Ignored by Katie Haegele. 

A Few Typewriter Poems

Bare November trees

slip on wigs of grey clouds

lunch ladies at dawn

Woodpecker on oak

taps to find what feeds her

Royal typewriter

Alcoholic friend

sends a text at 2 a.m. --

the only light on