October 19, 2016

Contact Paper Fan

          Jan Chozen Bays says the mind "fritters away its energy" dwelling in the past or—even worse—in future worry or fantasy.
          It's true, all that pain is like biting the fingernails too deeply, or smoking too many cigarettes too fast.
          But on this warm October morning, I think of my Aunt Ada, 85, sitting in her rocker and fanning herself with a giant, homemade cardboard fan covered in thick contact paper printed to look like stained glass. Heavy as a frying pan, she waved it in front of her face and gave little pushes with her nylon-stockinged feet against the floor. The delicate smile behind her eyeglasses—twinkling, conspiratorialwas timeless.
          Any moment she would slice up a peach, or write a letter.
          The memory of it enriches me, still. 

October 12, 2016

The Attic Star

          I conceived a dislike for her when she told our agent she wouldn't sell us the front porch bench. Long and low under the tank-shaped front window, the short spindles of the back like piano keys, it seemed to define the houseas I had first seen it in photos.
          Carrol with two r's had paid cash for the house in 2006, coming in from the exclusivity of Mt. Desert, sampling Ellsworth life like you might try a decaffeinated tea or a new hairstyle, her father funding everything with the transfer of some golden island property that must have made her purchase as easy as picking up wine. Somewhere, also, implied or guessed, there had been a successful divorce.
          So that a decade later it had a full line of Swedish appliances. The farmish balustrade of the front porch, just a box of painted boards without ornamentation, was pulled away, leaving a theater stage with large, thickly-planted ferns for footlights. Now the posts were longersexieras they met the floor planks. The kitchen was gentrified with hanging copper skillets and Le Creuset. Bowling balls of smooth Bar Harbor granite held the bedroom doors open. A gazebo was placed on the lawn.
          She had agreed to Friday, September 16, then informed the team, about a week before, she would not be attending closing. Booked into a motel at the edge of town, I walked past the house the evening before fantasizing that I might see her in the driveway, stuffing the car with some last-minute boxes. Stepping a little bit up onto the driveway in the dusk, I would say "Well, you're cutting it close!" But the house was dark, and the curtains were drawn. I headed back out the Bucksport Road with my Gruyere and flagon of Cabernet in a plastic bag that knocked against my knee as I walked, no snappy introduction made.