the cassandra pages

Other Kinds of Ghosts

There was the day of the dead, and then a day of loneliness and mourning for other things, followed by a return to a more familiar state of body and mind. On the second day, hoping to escape the memory-heavy house, I walked down to the post office, along the same short route I've taken for all these decades but very rarely during the past three or four years.

Back in the late eighties, our little village was beset by many problems stemming from poverty, absentee landlords with rundown buildings, neglect by the local government, and a lack of basic amenities. I was a walker. As I still do in the city, I usually took an early-morning or mid-afternoon walk around the village, and that's when I saw and heard things. After a series of really bad incidents, including intimidation of the elderly and very young, and the suicide of a troubled village youth who'd been involved in some of those events -- and the mere wringing of hands by town government and police when accosted by very upset citizens -- my husband and I took the lead in forming a village association for the purpose of building up our sense of community and shared responsibility for the village's future, and for one another.

Because the timing was right, the effort succeeded in capturing the imagination and energy of a lot of local people. We had regular meetings followed by potluck suppers, we all got to know each other, and various projects took root, from the publication of a quarterly newspaper to community gardens to an annual summer picnic and parade. A multi-year project by a smaller committee analyzed our resources and needs, and wrote applications for state grants for improvement of the village's infrastructure. Those of us who served on that committee became close friends and worked very hard; we were the first grassroots organization (as opposed to town government) to win major grants from the State of Vermont; with that money we built a park and playground, improved sidewalks and lighting, and began tackling the much deeper problem of affordable housing, property upkeep, and changing zoning laws and the mix of property ownership to be more benevolent, interested, and local.  We also learned to be an effective squeaky wheel, skilled at packing selectmen's meetings and getting publicity that showed local citizens helping themselves against an ineffective, inattentive town government that deserved to be shaken up. It was fun, personally and socially rewarding, and, lo and behold, it actually worked.

And then, gradually, over five or six years, the association disbanded and the potlucks stopped...because they weren't needed any longer. People weren't afraid of their neighbors, and they didn't perceive an ongoing problem in the village. Everyone was putting more effort into keeping up their properties, the worst landlords had sold their buildings and moved on, not wanting the bad publicity - a couple of those multi-family units got converted to low-income co-ops. People used the playgrounds and the library, sat on the benches, and went out for walks at night, as if those things had always been part of normal life.

On my walk to the post office the other day, I looked around and saw the changes - how much the trees had grown, how much better the rental units looked. Young families - like the buyers of our house - are moving in and making friends here; the village has lost the stigma it once had. I greeted a woman sitting beside the street waiting for the Advance Transit bus, and said hi to some kids on their bikes. They were friendly but looked at me like I was a stranger -- which, of course, I was. Back then, we knew absolutely everybody. Now, I realized, I was like a ghost myself, walking the utterly familiar streets unseen and unrecognized. The revelation was that that was exactly as it should be. The sense of egolessness felt a little odd, but also natural. I now had another place, and this one was merely inhabited by others who had succeeded me. It was the way the world works; I was like one who was dead, and my works, such as they were, had become anonymous and simply a part of life as it now was. Instead of being upset by the realization of being forgotten, of being a part of the past -- which hit me with much greater force than such an idea ever had -- there was something about it that felt extremely liberating.

Close to the post office I saw a neighbor coming up the street toward me - he's a tall and taciturn guy who always wears a cowboy hat and walks in long, slow strides. We used to always have the same schedule, and met like this nearly every morning for years. I never knew his name and I don't think he knew mine -- he wasn't a joiner -- but we always greeted each other without speaking, exchanging a nod or a wave. Yesterday he looked up, from under the brim of his hat, and saw me coming down the hill. He was pretty far away, but I still saw the surprise and recognition, and it made me grin. His house lay in-between us, and before he turned in, he raised one hand in greeting just as I raised mine.

Hello, goodbye; no questions asked of ghosts.

On the Truck

I'm so glad I didn't sell it.

Back in excited, forward-looking mode today. The movers are here, taking box after box out of the house. It's a family-run, local moving company and they've been absolutely great, coming to check on our progress each day and offering a lot of helpful advice. I feel completely confident that they'll get everything there safely tomorrow - the one question is whether we're going to be over-weight for the truck. But we'll find that out pretty soon.

Ghosts

It started today with my father-in-law's groaning ascent of the stairs as I made the morning coffee. I even turned around to watch him climb up, smiling, making exaggerated sounds with each raising of a knee. My mother-in-law sat in the living room, content to be waited on for once; my mother was already in the kitchen, thirty years cleaving away like the soft block of mozzarella under my knife; maybe we were making the wedding cake, that other night in a long-ago late July. 

Funny, how the poignancy of leaving hasn't really hit me, except in these shadowy presences that somehow decided to make themselves known today. I pour the coffee, gaze out the window at last things: the reddening apples, the tall white shafts of hosta blossoms, the budding hydrangeas that won't fully blossom until we're gone, the tight green blackberries, the white-throated sparrow anxiously guarding her nest... and everywhere I go in the yard, the catbird precedes me, flicking his tail in the low shrubs.

In the afternoon I had to do an errand, and found myself on the street we always took to see my father-in-law. On a sudden impulse,  I turned in, and drove slowly up to the entrance, around the back, and looked up at the balcony of his old apartment. Someone had planted the windowboxes with dark purpley-red petunias, which were thriving under their vigorous care; there were no pots and clutter, no chairs set out in the afternoon sun, just the flowers, and my quick tears, unable to water anything but my cheeks.

At the yarn shop at the bottom of the hill, women like me parking their cars, shooting me a quick glance, a knowing smile: you knit too. Yes, but I'm leaving, don't you see? I may never come here again, and then the shop-owner's blind golden retriever is pressing against my leg like the ghost of my old dog, from the first years here, before I'd even met J.

Back at home, I park the car, go inside, and sit down on the sofa-bed, the only piece of furniture remaining in the living room. "It will be all right, honey," my mother says, and I close my eyes and sink back into the blue velveteen cushions, wondering if I'm just exhausted or if these people are really coming by to say their farewells to the house and tell me it's OK. After a bit I get up, look out the window, and see a woman from the neighborhood stop at our free pile. She's young herself, with a little girl running beside the carriage that holds twin boys, and there's another in her belly. They're all blonde, these four, and they walk by every day, with their shy smiles and slow manner; this is her life, tending these children that keep coming amid a poverty she tries to hide.  There's nothing out there for kids today, I realize, and so I go off into the garage and quickly skim through the boxes of books for a few children's titles: the worn Mother Goose my mother read to me when I was the age of that little girl; a large-print version of Pinnochio. They've left our yard, but it's easy to catch up to them, and I call out "hello" so as not to startle this mother who seems to walk so meditatively, or perhaps it's just a kind of stupor, I can't tell. She turns around and says hello, and I tell her I'm the one who's moving, would she like a few children's books? And she says sure with a shy laugh, thank you very much, we've been taking your stuff,  and stows the books in the stroller along with a whole pile of others - she's been at the village library. "Enjoy them, they were mine when I was her age," I say, and turn around and head back to the safety of my own lawn, my own porch, for a few more days.

Freecycle

I first heard about the Freecycle Network at an exhibit of alternative/guerilla environmental actions at the Canadian Center for Architecture, and it sounded great to me. Through grassroots communications, individuals and groups try to keep unwanted, reusable items out of landfills by letting each other know about the good stuff that's available. Couldn't be simpler: the movement now includes 4,775 local groups and about 7 million members worldwide.

Our own freecycling lately has been even more local: just a sign and an ever-changing pile of stuff on our lawn as we clean out the house. What's astonishing is that literally everything has gone, from metal shelving to old shelves and chairs, wooden cross-country skis to slightly-moth-eaten rugs. All the old videos and unwanted DVDs have disappeared; a perfectly good leather purse; a camera bag; oil paintings and posters; all the dishes and glasses I've put out.

(The only thing I've found distressing is the size of the vehicles that have stopped to pick things up. Non-Americans woudl be shocked, I think, at the uniform enormity of what people drive. Almost every vehicle was a big van, a large SUV, or a pick-up truck. Our driveway has been used continually by a neighbor, in our absense, because his truck is just too big to park in his own drive.)

I happened to look out the door when a woman was putting a large watercolor painting into her van. It's a picture that J.'s mother always had, of a South American woman at a market; we've held onto it as a sort of family relic, but it seemed like a good time to let it go into other hands. The woman smiled and said, "You really want to get rid of this?"

"Yes, absolutely," I told her, "I'm glad if you like it."

"We've got a catering business," she said. "It will be perfect - I love it."

Yesterday afternoon J. put out our old Thule clamshell roof rack - we used to transport our skis in it - that hadn't sold at last spring's yard sale. It's got a crack and is pretty worn; it seemed like a long shot but we really didn't want to take it to the dump. At the endof the afternoon another van stopped and a guy and his daughter got out. The man, wearing a headband, turned the box over and examined it carefully; J. went out to talk to him, and pretty soon I saw them loading it into the van. J. came back inside, looking like the cat that's eaten the canary and all the goldfish. "That's great," he said. "You know what he said about it?"

"No..."

" 'All this thing needs is a little bit of duck tape!' "

La Vie en Rosé - Parts Five and Six

PART FIVE

In the distance a dog barked once, twice, paused for ten seconds, barked again twice then repeated the whole pattern until Susan stopped counting. Crickets sang their crickety tunes, lavender, thyme and oranges dispensed their perfume generously and time-worn cobblestones massaged her tired feet. Everything about this evening felt heightened, momentous, as if she had stepped outside her usual life and seen it from another angle.

"It's not just the booze," she said aloud.

The party was still on at the Morrison's house. Susan could hear familiar English voices making loud party noises in the back garden. Apparently her absence had not been noticed or if it was, had not caused much concern. Susan couldn't remember how long she'd been gone. It seemed a very long time. Her car was still parked in front. No doubt George's conversation with Mrs. teetotally bitch had progressed to a quickie upstairs. The thought of re-entering all that stress made her feel sick. Susan decided to walk home. Let George take the car. She wanted to hold on to the new calm mood as long as possible.

* * *

Père Lafitte finished his evening prayers and reached up to a shelf high above his bed. He pulled down the book he read every night, a book he had stolen, aged thirteen, from the public library. He was not sorry for the theft because the book was meant for him: of this he was certain. It was his companion, his entertainment, his inspiration: Exploits Etranges et Extraordinaires. In these accounts - truth or fiction, no matter - of amazing, outlandish exploits by ordinary/extraordinary people, he found a kind of faith which religion didn't entirely supply. He turned to his favourite story. No matter how many times he read it, each time it was new and thrilling.

As he settled back in his narrow bed, the heavy book propped up against his knees, Père Lafitte heard a dog barking once, twice, pausing for ten seconds, barking again twice then repeating the whole pattern. The priest smiled contentedly. Every night the dog performed this ritual. Every night Marcel Lafitte read the same book. Every morning he would say mass. Things were as they should be.

PART SIX

"I like Lafitte. He's completely free from bullshit." Susan was talking to herself, caressed by a warm breeze. "Rare in anybody but in a priest, that's a bloody miracle. I should have got to know him sooner."

The way home was through the village and then twenty minutes down a pot-holed road with a boarded-up tile factory and a couple of abandoned farms as the only scenic attractions. When they decided to move to France, minimal traffic was the first item on George and Susan's list. All the picturesque places shown to them by over-excited estate agents could only be accessed in summer if you were willing to spend hours sitting nose to tail in traffic queues longer than those in London. So they went off on their own, driving randomly around the country, drinking a lot of wine and following hunches until, eventually, they found La Rive and an unremarkable house with potential to become their home.

Susan shivered, one of those sudden, mysterious shivers not caused by the weather but by some inner climate change. George. She did not believe in love at first sight and it was not love when she first laid eyes on him. Only a certainty that all the affairs and occupations which had crowded her life until then were merely rehearsals and that here, at last, was the role she was meant to play. No question, no hesitation. Whoosh! Her past was swept off the map and the future was clear: George. She had no illusions. He was so transparent you knew immediately that he was trouble. No matter. He was the only unambiguous decision she had ever made. And decisive she became. Susan seduced him slowly, trusting her instincts, ignoring all obstacles, especially those designed by George to make her fail. " I'm not your man, " he'd say repeatedly. But year by year, denial after denial, he grew to depend on her. Susan was making an adequate living as a free-lance proof-reader and typist and he had come to her recommended by a friend. George was well-enough established among the cognoscenti but he was no literary superstar and too disorganised to go after superstardom, though he craved it. Susan, he discovered, was an excellent organiser and it was foolish to  keep on resisting when she was so eager to take on the task of ensuring his immortality, as if her own life depended on it.

* * *

By the time George got home from the party Susan was asleep. "You could have told me you were leaving," he said, getting into bed, "I looked all over for you."

"No you fucking didn't. You were busy entertaining Mrs. Morrison."

"Look,' George said, turning away and closing his eyes,  " If you want to go back on the booze, that's your choice, Susan. But I'm not  going down that road of paranoia with you."

Not exactly Alexandria, but...

My goal was to reduce our library by half. I don't think we made it - this was yesterday, and the shelves are bare now - but we came close. This follows a similar reduction a year ago. Sigh. I was so tired this afternoon that I went back to bed for a nap; yesterday at one point I put my head down on the dining room table and fell asleep like a little kid in first grade, taking a nap on her desk.

The fatigue is physical, for sure, but I've actually been sleeping better the past few nights. I think a lot of it is emotional though, the result of making decision after decision, of repeatedly holding my past in my hands.

Yesterday a friend wrote me a kind and thoughtful letter, speaking about how moving can be a spiritual practice. One reason is that it forces us to compare who we are now with the person we used to be, and to think about how we have grown but also about the ways we've deviated from our true selves, from our hopes and dreams and the path we set out upon when we were young, before all the disappointments, obstacles, compromises and seductions of life. Because I've lived in the same place for the past thirty years, and had already saved a good deal from my even-earlier past, I've definitely been confronting those contrasts, and thinking hard.

I'm also grateful to have options at this point in life. So many people don't, and so they live with their regrets.

Hey. The sun just came out!

La Vie en Rosé - Part Four

 
by Natalie d'Arbeloff
 
Marcel Lafitte was used to silence, he craved it as others craved 
communication. But the insistent, demanding silence which now 
inhabited the room oppressed him. C'est toujours la même chose avec 
ces gens, he thought, le sexe, l'argent, le mécontentement.
 
"Alors c'est quoi?" he could not hide his irritation, "The problem? 
Sex? Money? Discontent with yourself?"
 
Susan stared at him. "The money's fine, the rest is a mess." The 
priest's lack of social graces was surprisingly encouraging. "I was 
looking out the window. My husband and yet another other woman. All 
these voice were chattering around me and suddenly I couldn't 
understand anything. Nothing real. C'etait pas vrai, you know? So I 
drank all the booze and walked out."
 
"You went looking for a nunnery."
 
Susan shrugged. "I was drunk. I am a drunk. A reformed one, at least 
until tonight. Three whole years! Trois ans j'ai pas touché la 
bouteille! Not even a sniff. "
 
"Alors, what is your next step?"
 
"I have no fucking idea!" She laughed. "What kind of a priest are 
you? You're supposed to be telling me what to do next."
 
"Madame, this collar does not give me wisdom. A gendarme's uniform 
does not make him obey the law. I have little experience of the life 
you speak of. And I must retire now, I have an early mass tomorrow. 
Do you wish me to accompany you back to your friends' house?"
 
Susan stood up reluctantly, disappointed, like a child being sent to 
bed. "No, I can manage on my own, Padre. Thank you for your 
hospitality." She extended a limp hand which the priest shook 
politely, gravely.
 
"If I can be of any assistance, you can always find me here or in my 
church. Bonne nuit, Madame."
 
Swaying a little, Susan walked out into the warm night, carrying her 
shoes. The village street was deserted, lit only by the moon.

Studio

 

micropoem

Sandalwood mala at 4:00 am
soft voices splash on the street
rain lingers in the air.

The beads pass
but sleep has flown;
gulls are laughing.

slightly expanded >140-character version:

Sandalwood mala at 4:00 am;
soft voices splash on the street,
rain lingers in the air.

The beads slide
but sleep has flown;
above the trees
hoarse gulls are laughing.

La Vie en Rosé - Part Three

by Natalie d'Arbeloff

The walls of the priest’s kitchen were stained brown and black -  tobacco brown, soot black, with a patchy patina of grease like badly applied varnish.

“Like those old brown paintings by forgotten artists lining the walls of remote museums,” Susan said aloud, talking to herself.

Alcohol had always given her words and thoughts which she would never have expressed when sober, even if they occured to her. The priest did not respond, absorbed in ritual coffee preparation: the struggle to open the rusty lid of the tin, the search for the measuring spoon, never where it should be, the rinsing of the pan still ringed with the morning’s grounds, the boiling of the water and finally, triumphantly, the hot strong black grainy liquid poured into chipped, thick-rimmed cups.

“Voilà. You take milk?”  He sat down at the rough wooden table. Susan’s eyes were searching the crowded shelves above the stove.

“Vous avez brandy? Le cognac?”

“Non,” the priest lied. His one bottle of Courvoisier was safely stored away to be eked out slowly on winter nights. He was not about to let it disappear down this woman’s greedy gullet. Susan smiled, reading his mind.

“I am a vampire. But I crave alcohol, not blood.” She leaned forward, inspired. “I am a vampoholic!” Susan laughed, suddenly unreasonably happy. “Vous comprenez? Vampoholique!”

Père Lafitte was not at ease. Such uninhibited behaviour, such joking, came from a world that was not his world. He smiled guardedly. “Oui, je comprend. But the couvent, the nunnerie, you were serious?”

Susan’s face darkened. She did not want to be reminded of George or of anything at all outside this reassuring room. She looked up at the halo of summer insects circling the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“No. I was not serious. Well, yes, I was. But not now.”  She wrapped her hands around  the hot coffee cup. “Were you born in this village, Father?”

The priest sighed wearily. Here we go, he thought, la biographie obligatoire.

“Non. I was born in Toulouse. My mother became ill. I looked after her many years. Many years. Then she died. She left me un terrain, a piece of land, near here. I became a priest. I became the village priest. I am sixty-three years old. Voilà. C’est tout.”

(to be continued)