The Green Wave

April 4, 2010

The Step Between Shore & Ship

Filed under: Pleasures, Spirit — kate @ 10:39 am

Yesterday I donned my faithful red wellies and set off down our street, pulling my kayak along behind me on its wheeled dolly like some huge rubber duckie on a string. It’s a quarter mile or so to my put-in place. Neighbors have gotten used to seeing me parading up the road with my woven hat, boat, and wellies – and also the huge smile on my face that says I’m about to surrender to one of life’s sweetest pleasures.

But before that blissful moment arrives there is necessarily some awkwardness and even, on occasion, some mess.

First I must slide the boat down over the tar slip and nudge it through the rocks which stick up more or less depending on how much rain or sun we’ve had. Once the kayak is afloat I decide how much of myself I’m willing to soak. Most times I can stand with one foot in the water while swinging the other one into the boat, taking a breath and then sitting down carefully with only a little rocking and spillage; then I hold the wet foot out of the boat at a comic angle and shake it a few times to dry it off a little before folding it into place.

Other days when the water is too high or I lose my footing, I more or less fall into the boat and go out on the lake with wet knees and a soaked lap.

I don’t mind, of course.

The joy of exploring, of encountering the sunlight so directly, of paddling right into the wind and feeling the boat respond to every single thing – all of this is worth any little awkwardness in the transition from being an earth-creature to being a water-creature.

Knowing the pleasures ahead makes it easier to be brave. But what about those times when we don’t know if what lies ahead will be worth it? What about the many journeys into the unknown we all make in this life?

Well, at least it helps to know that the changes may be awkward. And it helps me to know that they’re also funny sometimes. And finally, it helps to remember that being stuck with your leg in the air and your lap full of water means that you are in it, as the Irish say: you exist, you are alive, you are a vital piece of energy struggling into a new form. Funny that is, yes – and noble, too.

And so worth it.

February 21, 2010

Library Dreams

Filed under: Music, Pleasures, Poetry, Storytelling — kate @ 2:03 pm

Last Friday I had the wonderful chance to perform an hour of songs & stories at the West Springfield Public Library as part of their lunchtime concert series.  The people who came were delightful:  they munched their sandwiches and sipped their tea in between grinning and clapping, and occasionally, obliging me by trying to say or sing some Irish words.  It was a great pleasure to spend that time with them and also to find myself, once again, making music in a library.

I hadn’t realized how much that meant to me until then, nor how long this combination of libraries and performing has been in my dreams.  Like many things in life, you look back and all at once see the tracks leading to where you are now; you’ve been making them without fully understanding what you were doing.  But there they are!

These last two years I’ve gotten more and more chances to give concerts in libraries. I remember that my first library came close on the heels of a particularly disastrous attempt to play at a bar.  The place was altogether too cool for me, too laid back, too dark, and too distracted.  “Know thyself,” commands the ancient Greek Delphic oracle.  Well, OK, then.  I’m really not that cool and I rarely find myself in a bar, and I spent that evening battling upstream with a tea-spoon instead of a paddle.  I wasn’t at home.

In the library, on the other hand, I am happy in a familiar temple with its cherished holy items (books and maps) and its priests and priestesses (the librarians).  I’ve been a library-goer all my life, finding solace in their silences and dignified spaces, and finding delight and instruction in their books.  My life opens up as I scan shelves or pore over the card catalog (yes, I’m a fan of those old magic boxes – but I also love the new wizardry of keying in a search and receiving the instant rewards).  Libraries have always provided me with the particular shelter my soul most requires:  gentleness, learning, curiosity, and the understanding that the world is waiting to open its pages to us.  All we must do is ask.

When I was young, my mother and I used to attend concerts, plays, and poetry readings at our local libraries (the Dyer in Saco and the MacArthur in Biddeford).  Those nights glow in my memory.  Our libraries, usually quiet places, bloomed into life and merriment.  I can remember a night when the the MacArthur was so full of people that I sat on the floor to leave my seat for someone who needed it more.  This afforded me the thrilling advantage of being even closer to the performers – Northeast Winds that night, I think – and getting to watch their hands and even notice their set list, taped to the floor.  I watched them quietly negotiate changes to the list and share a private joke.  An inside view:  I loved that!

I think I loved it most of all because it brought together the things I loved best:  music, books, poetry, learning, art, kindness, and festivity.  These are still my favorite things (apart from moons and oceans and birches and apples which best fit in libraries in the pages of books).  Watching those concerts and plays and readings, I lived two lives:  in one, I just soaked up the beauty of what was offered.  In the other, I dreamed that I could be that person making music or reading poems there in that most perfect of concert halls:  the library.

And now in the beauty of life and all its winding and mysterious ways, I am.

Isn’t that rather wonderful?

The West Springfield Public Library

January 14, 2010

Tracks

Filed under: People, Pleasures, Spirit — kate @ 2:15 pm

On Sunday, I rose early to go with my friends Kathleen and Craig to the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge for an introduction to the basics of tracking.  We had the great good fortune to land in the group led by Rona Balco, an inspiring teacher and experienced outdoorswoman.  Let me put it this way:  while most of us tromp down the path, perhaps noticing the warmth of the sun on our shoulders and commenting on the odd birch tree, Rona reads the natural world the way an English professor reads Ulysses.  It is a huge sounding board of intricate signs and signals, replete with tales and tragedies, good characters and savages, hard luck and fortunate moonlight.  She is a native speaker of the woods – or at least she has become so fluent in nature that she passes as a native.

In her company I began to sense the possibilities for interpretation, the many clues to read and wonder over, all played out on the vast canvas of the snow.  Thank heaven for the snow!  For without it, a complete newbie like myself would have a much harder time even seeing the signs, much less understanding them.  Rona told us that in deducing the story behind the signs, you have to take everything into account:  time, habit, preference, ability, environment.  When the tracks end, as they do many times, you look a little ways off and realize that the creature has traveled for a time under the snow where it is warmer and safer.  (We do this, too, of course; the tracks of our lives disappear briefly when we go under the snow for safety and respite).

I came away with deeper respect for the wisdom of the creatures who really are the First Peoples of this planet:  for the beavers who teach their one-year-olds to build dams but who are willing to accept these youngsters back if things don’t work out in the wide world; for the coyotes who trot in tandem over the ice and work as a hunting team; for the deer that sniff out hunters and take themselves without further ado into safer territory, like people without drama leaving a mean party; for the trees themselves that pass along word of changes or dangers through chemical signals in the soil.  Through Rona’s eyes, I saw an intricate web singing with vitality, cleverness, generosity, bravery, instinct, adaptability, and wisdom.

Rona herself is leaving such beautiful tracks.  She is a consummate teacher – passionate, patient, eager to see us all learn and love what she loves – and she is also an advocate for better communities, for better stewardship of the earth through wiser use of resources, and for the Oxbow, which seems to be her dearest dear.  She is also a woodcarver, a mother and wife, and a wonderful friend to the people in her town.

If we followed her tracks we might see them disappear at the edge of the river and wonder where she went.  But we could use all she taught us to deduce the real story:  this is where she took to the wing.  What a life and gracious, what lovely tracks!

January 3, 2010

My Friends, the Writers

Filed under: Pleasures, Writing — kate @ 4:42 pm

There are times in my reading life when I crave challenge, risk, edginess, and the kind of confrontation that shakes up the status quo.

This is not one of them.

Lately, I turn to my books as to the faces of beloved friends. I open them up in hopes of finding not a tongue-lashing but a comforting chat with a trusted confidante. The tone I’m after is conversational, confiding, kind, and interested in the world. There is something leisurely and good-humored about their prose; yes, they see problems and questions, but rather than screech, they’d rather pour a second cup of tea and imagine their way to a better world. They know that there is as much meaning and interest in a shoe-lace as there is in a political summit. They are prepared to ruminate on the difference between daisies and lilies, but they’d be ready to listen if you put in a word for roses.

In short, I love their company. In time, they come to seem like friends to me.

Here is a partial list of friends:

  • J.B. Priestley -  When I finished my first reading of Delight, Priestley’s collection of essays about dozens of pleasing things such as pine forests and reading detective fiction in bed, I wrote in my journal that I had met a new friend.  I never wanted to be out of his company nor lose his particular way of seeing the world.  Now the book – formerly a library copy – sits by my bed.
  • Anne Fadiman – In At Large & At Small, Fadiman writes what she calls “familiar essays,” and by that she means both essays about familiar, ordinary things (coffee, ice cream, and mailboxes among other things) and also the sense of family and relationship.  Her curiosity knows no bounds.  In her company we travel from the world of insect-collecting to the world of Charles & Mary Lamb.  She wears her knowledge so lightly you scarcely realize how much you are learning -but learning you are, and not just facts, either:  a way of taking a deeper and livelier interest in the world.  She feels to me like a kindred spirit.
  • Charles Dickens – I wrote about him in my last post, “Scrooge & Me,” and my experience of his writing is fairly limited to the “greatest hits” (Great Expectations, Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol), but I will amend that gap now that his good humor and humanity have impressed themselves upon me.  He is that person at the party who seems at first quite ordinary and later is revealed as the most extraordinary person in the room.
  • Robertson Davies – Pick up anything by this Canadian writer for broad-minded, intelligent company, but if you like essays, get Happy Alchemy, his book about music and the theatre, two of his life-long passions.  And for sheer delight, check out his book of academic ghost stories set at Massey College in Toronto, High Spirits.  Great laughs!
  • M.F.K. Fisher – Fisher writes about food, but not just about food:  food as a metaphor for the way we take in life, how we digest experiences, how we dine on relationships or abstain all together.  Her essays tell us about the pleasures of eating alone (she seems to favor an omelet, a green salad, and a glass of wine – OR she’ll go for something messy and forbidden), about the feeling of extreme hunger in youth and how older people forget what it is to be ravenous (for life, of course!), and even about the various sinks and kitchens in flats she rented throughout Europe.  You can start anywhere with her, I think – her early books about cooking and eating (Serve it Forth or How To Cook a Wolf), or later books of essays like Sister Age, or dip into her journals and letters.  She’s honest, unflinching, friendly without being saccharine, and wise.  Another friend I’m glad to know.

This is just a tasting plate, and I’m sure you have your own list; if so, I’d love to meet your friends!  Happily, all it takes to access their company is to open their books.  So tonight I’m throwing a dinner party and inviting all of these and others (the poets and novelists who belong at the table, too).  I hope MFK won’t judge my cooking too harshly – but since we’re friends, I think she’ll be gentle with me.  And besides, we’ll be dining on words, words, words, with whimsy for dessert!

November 22, 2009

Your Musical Blood-type

Filed under: Music, People, Pleasures — kate @ 2:31 pm

On Friday night, my friend Bo Veaner and I played three hours of music for a wedding rehearsal dinner, though to me it seemed no more than 20 minutes or so. The time flew by in a happy blur of song after song, of listening and harmonizing, adding harp to Bo’s beautiful original songs, and in one moment of unexpected pleasure, belting out The Beatles’ song, “Oh, Darling!”

Our rehearsal for this three-hour extravaganza consisted mainly of conversation and a quick run-through of perhaps four or five songs. And then off we went to the gig, happy and curious about how it would all turn out. Brilliantly, as it happens, because we just had so much fun discovering what we could do together. We played and experimented and suited ourselves. The guests enjoyed it, and even danced at one point when we played “Goin’ to the Chapel” (a brilliant inspiration of Bo’s), and we emerged at the end of the evening in a daze of gratitude. Yes! Playing music all night is good for your health, for your wallet (nice to be paid), and for your belly, too, as we also ate a good fish supper as part of the deal.

And last night I joined my friends Ellen Schmidt, Debra Rocha, Cheryl Perrault and her daughter Abbie, and Michele Boule, for an evening of songs & poems at a local restaurant. Again, there was no rehearsal and the briefest e-mail exchange about the collaborative effort. And again, the evening was a delight – easy, natural, friendly, and completely stress-free.

I love working this way, but I recognize that not everyone does. Bo and I exchanged stories of other collaborations between people of different musical blood-types, by which I mean the Type A musicians who prefer to work out every detail beforehand, and the Type B musicians who love the seat-of-your-pants style of planning (which is to say, very little). Sometimes collaborations between these two types can be quite awkward and even unpleasant, as each strives to find comfort in the way most natural to him or herself. The planner sometimes resorts to control-fits or even to pulling out of the gig altogether. The seat-of-your-pants person resorts to casting gentle aspersions on the other person’s ability to just relax and play.

Mixing musical blood-types can feel like limping along, herky-jerky, in a three-legged race – hard to find a rhythm that works. There’s loads of good will, but loads of confusion, too.

Neither type is right, or better. It’s just the way we’re put together and the shape we’ve grown into.

But understanding this now, I deliberately look for musicians of my own blood-type and situations that support my natural inclinations. And if I get even a whiff of high-maintenance, stressy, or hyper-planning in the mix, I respectfully disentangle myself.

I do believe that each type can learn a lot from the other – a little more structure for my type, and a little more flexibility for the other type. But I also think that for musical transfusions – especially the three-hour variety – I’m best sticking with my own musical blood-type.

Popeye said it best: “I am what I am.”

Hey! What type do you suppose he’d be?

September 16, 2009

What’s Your Slogan?

Filed under: Pleasures, Spirit — kate @ 12:51 pm

We all know what a slogan is, of course, but what I didn’t know until I checked is that the word slogan comes to us by way of Scottish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm, meaning “a war cry.”

It won’t surprise you that I love any English word with a Celtic history, but I also love thinking that a slogan is what warriors cry as they rush into battle.  A slogan gives them courage, focuses their aim, and reminds them of what matters.

Now, for myself, I’d like to jettison the war-imagery and instead seize hold of the slogan as a focusing shout for myself as I step through the (relatively peaceful) days of my life.  And it seems to me we can really choose any slogan that suits us.  The main thing is to choose consciously, rather than to smear into some sad slogan you don’t really want or one which you inherit.  Here are some examples of that kind:  Life is hard.  Struggle is noble.  The most overworked/unhappy one wins.

Yuck!  Who’d rush into adventure under such a banner?  Not me!

Last summer, my mother gave me a pair of Crocs to wear when I’m kayaking, as well as a kit for painting on them.  Early this spring, I spent a blissful evening thinking ahead to the freedom and pleasure I experience in my kayak, and painting my Crocs:

Happy Crocs

When I am in my kayak, I am truly myself – and true to myself, too.  So my Crocs are hopeful, buoyant, and emblazoned with words that matter to me.

Walking in InspirationOn the left foot are three things I love:

POETRY

MUSIC

STORY

And on the right foot is my slogan:

JOY

BEAUTY

FLOW

I’ve decided that right now, these are the things that matter most to me.  Seeing them on my feet as I step into my kayak reminds me of life’s possibility and excitement, and also of my own power to choose what matters.

How about you?  What’s your slogan?

August 30, 2009

Vitamin-I and Your Daily Beatles

Filed under: Pleasures — kate @ 1:44 pm

The things we love act as solar panels:  when we experience them, we take in light and heat.  They make us shine, they warm us, and their main bi-product (unlike expensive oil or electric heat) is joy.

I’ve been thinking about the importance of doing what we love a lot more often.  My friend Kathleen and I talk about our frequent trips to Ireland as a necessary replenishing of Vitamin-I, which if it were sold in pharmacies would say something like this:

Vitamin-I (Ireland) is necessary to complete enjoyment of life, to the senses of rhythm and proportion, and to the ability to understand and tell a good story.  Some users report the following side-effect:  a tendency to dance the jig on otherwise serious occasions.

For me, Vitamin-I works best in conjunction with Vitamin-G, or Vitamin Gaeilge (Irish language).  Give me the land and the language together and I radiate health and well-being!

My friend Lauren – a brilliant songwriter and guitar Wizard – thrives when she gets a daily dose of her greatest inspiration:  Beatles music.  When she was just a wee girl of four years old, she saw them on the Ed Sullivan show and chose a life of music on the spot.  Today, as a Berklee professor, a flourishing songwriter, producer, and recording engineer, that initial impression is still vital.  Listening to her four lads brings her back into contact with that excitement and playfulness and possibility, qualities that certainly stand out in her own musical life.

It’s worth figuring out what things serve as your solar panels and then engaging with these light sources as often as you can.  Here’s a few of mine:

Kayak-time

Friday found me gazing at 13 geese floating amid a patch of white and pink water-lilies, paddling into coves among the pickerel weed, and keeping a respectful distance from a great blue heron so that she’d stay put and let me look longer at her.  I need these spells of long-looking and quiet wonder; they put me back in my skin when I lose myself.

Poem-time

Yesterday I found a “new” poet – well, new to me, anyway!  He’s Li-Young Lee, and when I plucked his book off the shelf of our local Barnes & Nobles, I read a poem called “The Apple Elopes” which took my breath away.  (The book, in case you’re interested, is called Behind My Eyes, a line that comes from the final amazing poem in the book).  Last week, I found the absolutely gorgeous Barefoot Book of Classic Poems, illustrated exotically, thrillingly, and lavishly by UK artist Jackie Morris.  Reading poems every day fills my tank with language and hope.  I need that!

Walking-time

Cousin to kayak-time because of the long-looking and wonder, but it’s the action of walking I crave.  Walking, you’re a poem in motion or a song being born.  You’re a built-in rhythm-making, heart-ticking, deep-breathing, instrument.  The wires that hook your mind to your heart to your body un-snake and re-connect in a peaceful braid.  Certain problems cease to be problems as you walk.  Everything looks brighter, more possible, more benevolent when you’ve taken a walk.

Art-time

I love to remember that I live in a world of creative, busy, hopeful people.  Yesterday on a visit to the Fitchburg Art Museum, I saw an exhibit of paintings, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, photographs, and paper-arts by artists who live within 25 miles of Fitchburg.  So many beauties!  I felt so proud of our area and so inspired to think of all this creativity going on all around me.  But it doesn’t only have to be local to count in my book.  The 19th century painting of a French woman counts, as does the African fertility mask, as does the English chocolate pot and cup.  People using their imaginations and skills to make a more beautiful, more exciting world:  yes!

Kitchen-time

When I’m stressed or out of whack, I tend to spend very little time in my kitchen.  I catch something quick for a meal, and standing at the cutting-board holds little appeal.  But I notice that when I’m in balance, when I’m happy, I relish the chance to wash & peel & cut up fresh stuff, to take my time simmering or inventing, and to soak up peaceful kitchen sunshine or moonshine, often with a lovely glass of wine in hand.  And if the music is loud enough, it is simplicity itself to dance a little!

The great thing about these solar panels is that I can partake in them every day.  They don’t cost much. They don’t have to take much time.  A poem before breakfast?  That’s a great investment.  A quick kayak-run before supper?  A brilliant foretaste of a happy evening to come.  Some time at Dick’s Market admiring the colors of our local harvest and letting them inspire a new pizza?  Delicious!

Let’s remember our pleasures, be loyal to them, and savor them daily.  Here’s to unabashed and joyful reliance on all our solar panels!

August 23, 2009

James & Dreams

Filed under: Music, Pleasures — kate @ 2:16 pm

Last night I dreamed that James Taylor & I sat together at an upright piano and improvised in A flat major.

It was delightful, effortless, fun, and surprisingly coherent, as though we were reading each other’s minds.  He played treble and I played bass, though we traded off playing melody and counter-melody and harmony without even having to talk about it.  The music was full of lights and shadows, complexities that resolved and opened up into great hopeful spaces.  Pure pleasure!

The dream shifted, as dreams do, and suddenly I found myself walking into a nursery where James was playing a little spinet and smiling at a blond, blue-eyed cherub whom he introduced as his new child.  He beckoned me in and said, “I want you to come to my house and play more piano with me!”

I told him that I’d love to, but that I didn’t think I’d be able to find or get into his house, that his staff would prevent me.

“That’s not a problem,” he said.  “I’ll draw you a map and I’ll write you a note.”

Oh, for such a map and such a note!

But you know, I think I have those things already.  Today I am drawing myself a map to all the music I love and I am writing myself a note of invitation and permission to live inside it.  With these enchanted documents I have everything I need to make music and a life that touch those great hopeful spaces I found in my dream with James.

How about you, gentle reader?  Can you draw yourself a map to what you love?  Can you write yourself a note of permission to pure pleasure?

August 11, 2009

Oideas Gael Celebrates!

Filed under: Irish, Pleasures — kate @ 8:10 am

I’m just home from a glorious and rather wild adventure in Ireland – glorious because it’s Ireland, after all, and my soul fills up with Irish language, songs and music, great people, and swoon-worthy beauty; wild because I experienced all of this at the same time as I’ve been sick with mono, of all things.

I’ve been going to Ireland for 20 years now, and every time I go I see more angles and love more facets of the place.   Even with mono, the place wraps a tendril of whistly music around my heart, and re-installs the grandeur of a far-west Donegal sunset. And even in Derry, a tough city to say the least, you still feel those currents of wit and surprise that delight and stimulate the imagination.

This time was particularly special because I had the great opportunity to visit Oideas Gael, the fantastic Irish-language school and community center located in Gleann Cholm Cille, in the south-west part of County Donegal.

The tea-break bench at Oideas Gael

The tea-break bench at Oideas Gael

If you’ve been there, you know what a special place it is.   At its heart is a brilliant teaching philosophy that has done more to spread real love of the language than anything else I’ve come across:  learning Irish should be fun and meaningful.  And it is!

Liam Ó Cuinneagáin, the founder and manager of the school, deserves a medal for his insight and ingenuity, not to mention his years of dedicated hard work.  This year, Liam, Siobhán,Gearóidín, and all the other teachers and staff celebrate 25 years, and I feel like cheering!

The road to the sea, just outside the door of Oideas Gael

The road to the sea, just outside the door of Oideas Gael

I’ve been going to Oideas Gael off and on for 15 years, and in that time I’ve learned so much beautiful Irish and also a great deal about singing and listening and enjoying life.  I have met people I love.  Here’s one, Seoirse Ó Broinn, beloved of many:

Seoirse, a charmer

Seoirse, a charmer

I met Seoirse in the ard-rang (the highest level class) a few years ago and instantly capitulated to his intelligence, whimsy, and spark – and so did everyone else who met him!  His Irish was beautiful and rich, and as a singer he shared a lovely mix of light-heartedness and real generosity.  Here’s a picture of our whole class.  Many of these people were close to being native-speakers, and I sat among them and soaked up their knowledge and love of Irish.

The Ard-Rang, August 2004

The Ard-Rang, August 2004

After I sent him this photograph, Seoirse wrote me a letter saying how much he liked it, “cé go raibh mé amaideach ann,” – though I’m rather foolish in it!  Well, we both were – but I’m so glad to have it, because Seoirse died the following Christmas.  Just knowing him has enriched my life, and thinking of his dedication to Irish, whets my own appetite.

He is is just one example of the kind of amazing person you meet at this extraordinary school.  This time I met two folklore scholars, a bird watcher, a trilingual international social worker, an herbalist, and so many passionate, excited Irish enthusiasts that I’m still a-buzz.  And Irish is woken up in my ears and in my tongue, and that will carry me another good while.

This year, Liam wrote me a note asking me to contribute a short essay and a photograph to the book that commemorates the school’s 25 year anniversary, Oideas Gael: 25 Bliain Faoi Bhláth (25 Years in Bloom).  And when I was there, he gave me a copy of the book, which is full of photographs and words of people I love and respect.  Treasure!  How lucky I feel to be part of this combination wild dream & practical project.  I hope I’ll be heading off to Oideas Gael many more times in the next 25 years.  If I get the chance, I know I’ll return just as delighted and inspired as I feel now.

And if you’re drawn to Irish language, hillwalking, music, culture, fun, and fantastic people, I hope you’ll consider doing the same!

Oideas Gael abú!

(Oideas Gael Forever!)

July 12, 2009

Hermits

Filed under: Pleasures, Storytelling — kate @ 1:48 pm

Today I need to remind myself of two things:

1.  Creativity is often helped by limits and structure.

2. You get to decide that everything will turn out fine.  You can write your own story and invite a stranger through the front door who reminds you about what matters most.

This little story came out of a challenge at Artella.com in which we were asked to write something containing the words:  hermits, sombrero, plastic, chime, sample, now.  I love doing things like this.  My mind instantly starts whirling!

Hope you enjoy it, and also that you unabashedly gorge on a plate of hermits – or whatever taste or sensation brings you to hope and freshness.

Hermits

“Nobody makes hermits any more,” she complained, biting into an oatmeal-raisin cookie and looking as though it were a slice of aspic or a mouthful of fire-ants.  “They’ve become quaint, like letter-writing.”  Like me, she thought.  “My mother,” she began, but a look from her friend quelled her.  “But really, where are the hermits?  Both kinds, I mean?  Does anybody wander around without a plan anymore?  And where are the old ladies baking hermits for picnics – back in the days before cookies grew to the size of hubcaps and sombreros?”  Their eyes swiveled to the plate, and without speaking they agreed that treats had expanded alarmingly.  She knew she was getting heated, but she couldn’t help thundering on.

“And is it any coincidence that everything seems to be made of plastic these days?  Even people?” she added, slam-dunking the cookie in her watery tea so that it slopped over the edges like a tiny, turbulent lake.  Her friend hustled away to the counter and grabbed a fistful of napkins, and she sat by the little mess and felt oddly homesick.

The door opened with its metallic chime and a man strode in, carrying a basket from which wafted an intoxicating fragrance.  “Ladies,” he said, approaching their table, “May I offer you a sample?”  With that, he peeled back the blue checkered cloth and revealed… a tray of freshly baked hermits.

“You can’t eat that!” protested the other woman.  “We don’t even know who this guy is, or where these things came from.  Don’t be stupid!”  She reached out to intercept the hermit but it was too late.  With an expression of almost worshipful concentration, her friend set to work on the cookie.

“Mmmm, raisins,” she said, nodding.  “And nutmeg, yes.  And very finely chopped walnuts.”  She smiled, her eyes shone, and the lines melted from her face.  “These are every bit as good as the ones my mother used to make.  And I don’t mind telling you,” she said, looking directly at her companion, “that my mother was a genius when it came to the good things in life.”

The man handed her another hermit and she accepted it gratefully while her friend looked on in confusion.  “This one,” she said munching, “is even nicer than the first.  It reminds me,” she brushed a crumb from her cheek into her hand and then ate it, “of my grandmother’s house at the lake somehow.  The fun we had there!”  As she spoke, her face softened even more so that she looked now some twenty years younger.

When the man handed her a third hermit, she reached out for it eagerly.  Her belly was nearly full but she felt that one more hermit could not hurt, after all those years without them and without so much else that she’d missed.  All of that seemed less painful now she thought, tasting this third and most delicious hermit.  “I now believe,” she said with a new steadiness in her voice, “that there is a time outside time where the best of the past and the best of the present and maybe even of the future exist together.”  She looked at the man, and he nodded.  By now she had regained the freshness of her girlhood and she seemed to glow as though she’d just come in from a walk in the wind.  “And I see, too, that we can go there if we have a key – like you’ve given me today.”

He nodded once more and handed her a piece of paper.  “And here is one more key for you, dear one,” and with that, he walked out the door.

She stared at the paper, noting the lovely old handwriting and the fine green ink.  “A Recipe for Hermits Eaten by the Lake with People You Love and Who Love You,” she read aloud.

And without looking back at her companion, she too sailed through the door and into a refreshed life in which she baked delicious and properly-sized hermits in a cottage by the lake, wrote unabashed letters in fine green ink, and offered a seat at her table to any hungry person who wandered the world without a plan.  In that time outside time, she lived and continues to live and indeed will always live, happily ever after.

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