The other day on the way to a soccer game, though I was doing my best to endure the Pop station that the girls love, there came a point where I just couldn't take the insipid lyrics anymore.
"Listen, Elspeth," I said, in my instructor's voice, "This song is about a girl who is on fire. Her head is in the clouds and her feet are on the ground, which means she's terribly tall. Plus, she's on fire. What do you think of that?"
Elspeth stirred a bit in the backseat. I felt proud of myself for taking an educational moment to examine popular culture. I heard her take a breath and then she said: "I like the singer's voice."
A little while later, as a man crooned, "Temptation is so hard to resist," Elspeth piped up:
"He speaks the truth!"
"What experience do you have with temptation?" I asked.
"Candy!" she said, in her sugar voice, as full of lust and desire as any pop star's. And it's true. Elspeth had to do penance for stealing two of Merry's Werther caramels this weekend. Temptation is hard to resist. The man speaks the truth.
*
The weekend, glorious, full of sun and still cool, gave us ample opportunity to finish stacking the three cords of wood that Martin had delivered to our house. For some weeks of hectic schedules, the 3-4 ft. sea of wood that stretched across the driveway dwindled slowly. On Saturday after Bea's game, I rolled up my sleeves and wheel barrowed the rest to the back yard, where Martin stacked it expertly--and beautifully--in and around the shed.
"Heave ho, Neighbor!" yelled the man from across the street. He seemed elated that I was finally clearing the driveway. This is the first time he has ever talked to me, and though he yelled through his screen door, I think this could be the beginning of a minimal but warm conversation between our homes. His wife, a woman with soft white curly hair around her shoulders, came over one morning and invited me to Bingo some time with a deep, gentle Southern accent. I'm sure she also felt pleased to see me hacking down the bushes that had all but obscured our front window. I feel like quite the good neighbor now.
I came home this morning after a perfectly wonderful walk with Charlie through the mist (every cedar cradled tiny drops of water) to a snug, warm house, a reward for rising early and making a fire in our wood stove this morning. I always dreamed of living in a house with smoke curling from a chimney, and now I have realized it. It's like living in a storybook.
My heart feels heavy with the knowledge that my dear, sweet mother-in-law is possibly entering the hospital this morning after a prolonged sickness; if you pray, please do include her today.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away of where I would wish to be with my in-laws in Texas, I will return to a short story set in the hills of Pennsylvania, where a girl pretends to see angels; and I will drink lots of tea and put more wood on the fire.
Do good work and drink good tea!
"Listen, Elspeth," I said, in my instructor's voice, "This song is about a girl who is on fire. Her head is in the clouds and her feet are on the ground, which means she's terribly tall. Plus, she's on fire. What do you think of that?"
Elspeth stirred a bit in the backseat. I felt proud of myself for taking an educational moment to examine popular culture. I heard her take a breath and then she said: "I like the singer's voice."
A little while later, as a man crooned, "Temptation is so hard to resist," Elspeth piped up:
"He speaks the truth!"
"What experience do you have with temptation?" I asked.
"Candy!" she said, in her sugar voice, as full of lust and desire as any pop star's. And it's true. Elspeth had to do penance for stealing two of Merry's Werther caramels this weekend. Temptation is hard to resist. The man speaks the truth.
*
The weekend, glorious, full of sun and still cool, gave us ample opportunity to finish stacking the three cords of wood that Martin had delivered to our house. For some weeks of hectic schedules, the 3-4 ft. sea of wood that stretched across the driveway dwindled slowly. On Saturday after Bea's game, I rolled up my sleeves and wheel barrowed the rest to the back yard, where Martin stacked it expertly--and beautifully--in and around the shed.
"Heave ho, Neighbor!" yelled the man from across the street. He seemed elated that I was finally clearing the driveway. This is the first time he has ever talked to me, and though he yelled through his screen door, I think this could be the beginning of a minimal but warm conversation between our homes. His wife, a woman with soft white curly hair around her shoulders, came over one morning and invited me to Bingo some time with a deep, gentle Southern accent. I'm sure she also felt pleased to see me hacking down the bushes that had all but obscured our front window. I feel like quite the good neighbor now.
I came home this morning after a perfectly wonderful walk with Charlie through the mist (every cedar cradled tiny drops of water) to a snug, warm house, a reward for rising early and making a fire in our wood stove this morning. I always dreamed of living in a house with smoke curling from a chimney, and now I have realized it. It's like living in a storybook.
My heart feels heavy with the knowledge that my dear, sweet mother-in-law is possibly entering the hospital this morning after a prolonged sickness; if you pray, please do include her today.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away of where I would wish to be with my in-laws in Texas, I will return to a short story set in the hills of Pennsylvania, where a girl pretends to see angels; and I will drink lots of tea and put more wood on the fire.
Do good work and drink good tea!
Comments
I always feel excited by the return of tea-drinking season, even if it means winter is around the corner (in South Dakota, winter is too long and too cold for tea to make much of a dent, and by February I never want to see another steaming cup of tea again). Actually, I imagine it's too long and too cold here, as it was in Nebraska, and we've only moved farther north.
Anyway, what led me to comment was your mention of the neighbors (and the insidious neighborhood politics of lawn care). People and their lawns! We just moved to a new, very tidy neighborhood in a new, very tidy city in South Dakota, where we're renting a house from a family for nine months, selling (hopefully) our Nebraska house, and generally getting our bearings. We'd been warned by the family who lives here that the neighbor to the south was somewhat fanatical about lawn care--particularly about mowing and leaf vacuuming (vacuuming!). Sure enough, the man mows every three days. In early fall! It's not even the height of summer, and he is out there every third day, pushing his mower in neat rows across the already neat grass--you could set your watch by it.
Meanwhile, until last week, our lawn grew, as lawns are wont to do under the encouragement of water and light. It was only a bit shaggy a week into our move, but compared to the ruthlessly trim lawn next door, it was looking downright wild.
Getting settled in with three very small children has been challenging--our rooms are still lined with boxes nearly two weeks later--and mowing has been fairly low on our priority list. Therefore, under the mild influence of shame, every time I found myself outside when our neighbor was likewise out of doors (usually mowing), I found myself evading his glances, and I avoided going over to introduce myself (as I usually would) because I imagined--with each passing day--his annoyance only grew, keeping pace with the lengthening blades of grass on our side of the lot line.
Highlighting the absurdity of our situation was the fact that, while we were busy not mowing our new lawn in South Dakota, we were in fact paying to mow the lawn of the rental next door to our home in Nebraska, on the advice of our realtor, who worried the wildness to the south was hurting our prospects of resale. While these neighbors had, for most of our two-year tenure, mowed sporadically, the mowing ceased abruptly two months before we moved. When my husband stopped by shortly before our first Open House and sheepishly asked if they'd consider mowing, they informed us their mower had been stolen (this having coincided precisely with the eviction of the only tenant who ever mowed the lawn--hmmm). Rather than hassle them, we just asked permission to hire a local lawn guy to do the mowing for us (we were leaving the next day and couldn't do it ourselves). They eagerly and shamelessly granted it.
Late last week, now in South Dakota, my husband mowed, and would you believe it? Our new neighbor strode over with a beaming face the moment the mower's engine cascaded to a halt. Hand outstretched in unmitigated welcome, he introduced himself, and engaged in all the neighborly niceties one would expect upon moving to a new place. We are left to wonder whether it was our embarrassed aloofness that dissuaded an earlier show of welcome, or if indeed, the welcome was contingent upon proving ourselves good, responsible neighbors, capable of keeping our grass under human control.
Well, that was meant to be a paragraph! Who knew the topic of lawns could yield such fodder for writing/hand-wringing. Anyway, you've lived in Orange City, so you probably have had your fair share of experience with lawn zealotry ;)
(And he's at it again as I hit "publish"!)
But the worst thing by far we ever did, close to the end of our tenure in that Dutch town, was to emerge on a Sunday to put in some flowers for our landlords (trying to increase the possibility of a successful sale after we moved). Up until that point I'd thought it was a joke that you shouldn't work on a Sunday, but a man we'd never met walked up very seriously and intoned in a voice of judgment, "Couldn't get it all done yesterday?" We finished our work and slunk into the house, and I thanked my lucky stars that we were moving on to a place that measured godliness neither by the state of the lawn nor the day you chose to garden!