Forest Lovers

I dreamed last night

We chanced to meet
At the Russian Bishop's house
In Sitka.

Snow floated,
Suspended,
In the air.

Totems spoke
Of secret symbols
And I enfolded you,
Slowly,
In my arms.

Image from Sitka NHP

Reunion

I had dreamed about her before, the feisty grandmother in the mountains with the white hair always drawn back in a conservative bun. Our paths coincided when I was a child, and she taught me wildflower lore, edible mushrooms, the tangy taste of watercress, and spinning & weaving. She gave me a loom for safe-keeping.

She has been gone, now, for almost thirty years, yet, I have dreamed about her. In the first dream, her soft white hair was long and loose. She was in a white shift that came to the ground. Her feet were bare on green moss, and she was convening a forest coven. I remember thinking, "I knew it. I knew this had to be a part of her." In that night, I communed with her as an adult, learning the deeper and darker part of mountain folk-life.

Last night, I found her again in her cabin, back as she had been before the Druidic evening. I said, "Elizabeth! You gave me the loom, but you never showed me how to thread it."

"Did I give you the dark one or the light one?" She asked.

"The squarish, rectangular one," I answered. "Light."

Her eyes twinkled as she said, "The big one."

"Yes."

"Will you come?"

"I'm not sure I can anymore..." But she did. She came to the cabin, and it was such a cause for celebration that everyone turned up - mom, dad, my siblings, and others long dead and those still alive - and then we looked out and Elizabeth's husband, Marion, was also walking toward the place with his characteristic mustard and brown checked fedora and impish, mischievous grin. We all rushed out onto the porch to hug him and weep with the joy of reunion. 

On the way back inside, I told dad "we need to place another stone here." My mind was already alive with all that could be. Elizabeth began spinning the gears on the loom, cranking it to life, pulling yarn through; Marion was in the rafters before we knew it, weaving ivy and grapevine through for aesthetics and warmth. 

Mom and dad looked on in wonder and admiration, and I felt as though my heart would burst.

Salt Cure

While studying and writing a treatise on the curative properties of salt, I gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. I wasn't sure what to do with them, and oddly enough, I had no milk. It made me sad, for I'd always regretted being bottle fed, myself. Like some fundamental need had never been met.

That notwithstanding, we set out for milk. My sister went ahead with the girl, and I was making headway in leaving with the boy when all the relatives showed up to see the babies. That's when I discovered I was somehow outside the house with no key and no baby. The door was unlocked, so I opened it, only to come to the startling realization that the boy had been an orange kitten all this time!

I nabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck, recalling my roommate had also gotten an orange kitten, and I wasn't altogether certain which one was mine. The scene transformed into the dark, where I could hear the music of a siren singing from a lighted window in a stone tower.

Salt Cure

I passed it and looked out to where veterans of an ancient war were denied entrance because of their wounds. The vial of salt studies was in my hand, and I saw that the salt had dried all the impurities in the vial, and they had flaked harmlessly to the bottom of the bottle.

"This!" I cried. "This can help the veterans so they can be part of our world, but be sure to deny the siren's song when you enter."


The moral of the story is:

Let's give the play a new Twist
And call it Olive, shall we?

Please, sir, can I wash my hair?

Image: https://www.fengshuiweb.co.uk/just-how-important-are-salt-water-cures/

When in Paris

At first it didn't seem entirely implausible that she should see an old classmate in Paris. At least, she was fairly certain it was an old classmate. It had been 30 years now. That red hair, though.

When she saw the second with the first, however, she was sure. Then there was another, and another.

"What are you all doing here?" She asked, her curiosity piqued.

"Why, we've gotten together every year since school, but only for something elegant and refined."

"Like the finer things club?" She asked wryly. Even though she was a bit miffed for not being included in this tradition, she had made the choice to leave and not look back when she graduated.

"Alone in Paris"

  "Exactly!" They responded, not perceiving the slight.

  "And what is this year?"

  "The Paris prom!"

  "The Paris...prom?"

  "Yes, it's quite the thing."

  "May I come?" She couldn't miss this.

  "Well..." They began hesitantly.   "I suppose."

She found an evening gown and went to the glittering affair. Her classmates did look lovely as they posed for the photographer one by one as they came down the stairs. No one would engage her in conversation, however, and she drifted from group to group.

Finally, she went upstairs where an old love interest was sitting with his new wife at a table. Of course they were. She sat down with them, and while it was awkward, they talked about historic periodicals and publications made since they had seen each other last.

An odd repast at a ball, or a prom. Even for Paris.

Hairpin Jack

Wild Ride, by Canvas on Demand

He was wild looking, with red light hair and unkempt beard. He was wiry and tanned, and only ever wore his swim trunks. He loved his extreme sports, and he loved the water. And so begins the legend of crazy hairpin Jack. He started working for Extreme Water Sports, where he would take people on thrilling, death-defying motor boat rides - pulling them along like skiers one by one,  dipping them underwater, and flipping them back up upside down while he laughed soundly. He weaved along the waterways among the transfer trucks of boats, saying “it’s not too close!” He would take the sideways tram trains held by cables to the edge of bridges where the turnabout was, and, amid crashing waves, let it slam to turn. Then, "everyone back on the boat for the return ride, this side of the yellow caution tape, please!" Once he had everyone on dry land he would teach them intense dance moves like the Volta.

I was shaking from the experience when I took the elevator back up to the restaurant above the dock. I could see people eating on each level, and I  checked for people I knew through the glass door so I could tell them my insane story. I was eating when I discovered I still had my locker keys. When I came out onto the street, suddenly there was no way to find Hairpin Jack again. There were just rows and rows of flashy restaurants as far as the eyes could see, as well as food trucks and street vendors.

I tried to find the company, even by overhearing tells of him downtown by the street vendors - "did you hear that Charlie got out of the hospital and took one of Hairpin's tours?" "OH my! Did he survive?" "Yes, but barely!" And then they would start pointing in every direction that didn't help at all in finding the location. My MapQuest said 49 miles, but that couldn't be true! I'd just come from there!

As fate would have it, he ended up in the hotel room across from mine. I picked up the keys. He went to his door frame, outside his door, and pressed his head against a button to hear his messages, but I interrupted.

"Hairpin Jack?" I said. He turned to look at me. "Since you’re right here and all..." I held the keys out. "Thanks," he said. "I tried to find you," I said, "but I ended up only being able to find that other company."

"What other company?!"

"Don’t worry," I explained, "it didn’t even compare, but it WAS on the map.”

The last I saw of Hairpin, he was hanging upside down from the roof railing of the hotel, ready to take a dare-devil free-fall parachute jump to the ground.

Little Women Variations

The girls were excited to stage their own rendition of Little Women, there on the sloping green bank leading down to the river. It was summer, and dragonflies flitted amongst the tall marsh grass. They donned their lovely, flowing dresses and began the show. It went well, until one of them went too far with improvisation and no one knew the words anymore.

They decided to visit Orchard House in costume instead, but the narrow visitor center area devolved into a chunnel of registers, and no one was certain what any of them were for. This one spoke a foreign language, another one seemed to be for vintage jewelry sales, but no one could discern which one was for tickets. And where were the books they were so certain would be there with lovely hard backs and colorful illustrations?

Vintage postcard of Orchard House, found online

The Wandering Dame

She hiked the Appalachian Trail in a fur coat. Not to be at one with nature or to commune with the animals, but because she was a diva. Her husband sent her boiled eggs and caviar to eat at the first shelter. Her emergency card read, "Where to, what next! If found please return to Olivet, TX. Love, Lola."

At her birthday celebration at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, MI months before, the entire staff, dressed in Edwardian clothes, had sung her happy birthday to an old hand-cranked music box and told her to follow her dreams. So she had.

Monkey and a Music Box
by Alan Schwartz