Meeting Ellen

There's a lot of paternalism about genealogy. The surnames that motivate most family historians are paternal--understandably so, since those names stay the same (well, nearly, given the vicissitudes of spelling and immigration). Male decisions seem to have motivated most of the migratory shifts that make my genealogy what it is-the choices that brought French, Irish, German, English, Welsh, etc. etc. all together to ultimately produce me and Peter. When you input "occupation" for an ancestor, you're adding in an array of arcane pursuits: carpenter, farmer, miner, cigar roller, paper maker, railroad station agent--but usually the women's are pretty basic: "keeping house" was the nineteenth-century census shorthand for being a mother and a wife. I always picture those beleaguered 1800s women clutching a broom as the census taker enters the house. Yup, there she is, keeping house...just like all the other women on this block. Then the census taker scribbles it in the occupation box with a knowing sigh. I then force myself to comprehend what those women's occupations meant: tending home and hearth for a dozen or more children, preparing meals over an actual fire, sewing clothing, darning, washing everything in sight, tending to injuries, worrying, probably pregnant again, dispensing love in a harsh world.

If you've read this blog for awhile, you already know that I'm a major grandmother fan. So when I started out mining data for family history purposes, my motivation was actually much more maternal than it was paternal. Both my grampy and my dad had lost their mothers suddenly and tragically, and they talked about them in vivid ways. Who were these women? Where did they come from?

It's been six years now since I set my mind, my heart, and my computer to the task of gathering my family--and Pete's--into a full-blown databased entity. Six years of meet-ups with excited cousins...weepy moments in musty record rooms when the piece of data confirms a family legend...long, lonely nights of data entry, the sounds of my household swirling behind me as I type and type and type...triumphant print-outs that show my progress.

And last night, I met my mother's mother's mother's mother. Ellen Finn, of County Cork, Ireland.

Well, I knew about her before. But a key piece of photographic evidence seems to indicate that now, I have seen her at three stages of her life:

The image on the right was just given to me by an elder cousin who stated that this was his grandmother, Ellen Finn. And the other two images had previously been given to me by cousins who shrugged and said, "I don't know who this is. Maybe you can figure it out."

Before I met Ellen photographically, I had assembled her life story from family lore and stark data. She was one of three (if not four) siblings in her family to emigrate from a famine-stricken location to, of all places, northern Maine. She made this journey by way of the Baie des Chaleurs, which curves around the northern portion of New Brunswick, Canada. Ellen arrived in Maine circa 1851, around age 17. Within the year she had married my great-great-grandfather, William Emmett Brown, also a recent Irish immigrant. They established a household that overlooked a shimmering lake encircled by pines and birches and maples...not a Vacationland lake, mind you, but a lake teeming with fish to feed a family. Then, Ellen's husband set about defining the town government structure of what became Eagle Lake, Maine. He was also a healer (both faith- and medicine-based), and took frequent journeys with a horse and a buggy full of remedies to southern Maine and Massachusetts, where presumably people paid him to feel better from rheumatism, pleurisy, dropsy, hysteria, and other ailments of the era.

Ellen, true to census form, kept house while William roamed. She bore him at least 10 children. I believe that she wielded a broom fiercely, and probably took a few swipes at that dreamer husband of hers when he got a wild idea about traveling south again. 

Eventually, William opened Eagle Lake's first pharmacy, which apparently brought some level of prosperity because Ellen got a servant. In fact, some of my living cousins are the children of the young maid named Delia who took care of the Brown household. Delia was about 14 when she started that job; she was 15 when one of Ellen and William's sons took her for his bride. (For a glimpse of turn-of-the-century mores, please note that he was 25. And that in their wedding picture, he looks dashing and daring, and she looks blue-eyed-pretty and a little stunned.) 

Delia always told her children that Ellen was fiery. That she had a thick Irish brogue, which even applied to French phrases like Baie des Chaleurs (which Ellen referred to as theBay dee Chaloor.) Probably Ellen's stiff demeanor came from a lifetime of sacrifices. She left County Cork and never saw her parents or her homeland again. She adapted to a place that was freezing cold for much of the year, where 98% of the people were native French speakers, and where her husband was out-and-about in pursuit of business, politics, and, bizarrely, the instinct to heal. She lost a number of children in her lifetime, including her youngest son, who was forced to flee west when a local girl accused him of getting her pregnant. The son, Edmund, swore it was not his child. Ellen and her children rallied behind him and shipped him off to Minnesota, where Ellen's brother Thomas resided. Ellen must have lamented his departure terribly...for just one year prior, her husband had died.

Here's something else I have learned about Ellen: she had a soft side. Maybe she didn't want us to know that--I mean, look at the way she glares out of those photos that bring her to us. But what betrayed her was her beautiful singing voice. Numerous grandchildren remembered being held in Ellen's arms in a rocking chair, while she sang to them in Gaelic. Some reported that Ellen had aspired to be a professional singer, before the boat came and hauled her away to northern Maine for the rest of her days. I feel certain that her lilting voice is what endeared her to William Emmett Brown, the dreamer who needed a practical partner.

Perhaps the baby in her arms, above, was one of the grandchildren whose night fears she soothed with a clear and lovely voice. Keeping house, indeed, for all of us who descend from her.

Tiger's Eye

Technically, it was our first date, but we never called it that. You took me to the movies...Rocky, what, III? "Eye of the Tiger"...that one. A Sunday evening. You and I sat as close as we could with a seat arm between us, our right and left arms twined together, and each hand exploring the other. It was the gentlest touching I'd ever felt, our fingers just slowly moving around--independent and in sync, simultaneously. There's not a good verb for it: stroking...caressing...feeling... no. It was learning.

A lot of my teenage movie dates had been obliterated by frantic making-out. Hard to see the screen around the blocky shape of an incoming boy's head, tilted for the impact. Rocky III was not that. Somehow we connected the pursuit and the intensity on the screen with our emerging romance--and so, we watched the flashing colors...so much red, white, and blue...and that blackness of boxing...the drama and the blur. Similarly, there was an aura of desperation between us, which was always expressed with grace and softness. We were urgent, since we barely had two months before I left home for college--but because of that, we treasured every mundane element of being together. Held it like glass, and looked at it from every angle. Savoring.

We used to say we were stopping time (both of us wrote poems about that, in fact). Walking with you on a misty summer night down an orange-lit city street, our arms locked around each other's backs, the scene felt suspended. Otherworldly. Yielding to our forward motion, but staying the same, as though we could crystallize our surroundings—as long as we were touching.

  

No afternoon ever lasted as long as being at Rockaway Beach with you. Scientifically, I now know that's because of the heat: hot temperatures have been proven to elongate one's perception of time. Well, that fact was a constant blessing to a summer relationship that was doomed by time. We'd lie there on the grainy sand, half-protected by a weak old beach towel, and the eternal blue of the Atlantic would shuuuush a few yards away, restless and endless, slopping water onto the sand in a gleam and then pulling it back. Next to our heads was some 1980s boomboxy rectangle with silver cones that pumped hard rock music, swirling all over us. We had a soundtrack. Keening voices, edged guitars, pounding drums, and tonight tonight lyrics. The sun seemed to take much longer to set at Rockaway, lingering on the weathered boardwalk slats. "we should leave now..." "I know...well, after this song..."

Nights in a rock club, standing near the stage, beer-buzzed, heads tilted up towards the colored spotlights and nodding in time. My midlife penchant for concertgoing directly grows from those times. If you could soak music into your pores...that's what we were after. Sweaty hair was a sign of success. And when we got tired, we'd go sit at one of those tippy little round tables, lean over with elbows against the damp tabletop, and kiss in the semi-dark until breathing became a challenge.

I learned that I was lovable. I learned that I could give my written words to someone else and he would own them and adore them. I learned that I could hurt someone when my every intention was to spare him. I learned that I was tired of being a virgin...and that sometimes, that wasn't enough to change a guy's mind. You were so careful, and I was all wanting. To think now that you saved me from my instincts while you were still just 16 years old...how fortunate I was. Although my inner 18-year-old still wonders why, and craves.

The adult knows: You understood that if we sealed the deal, I would stay. And despite the evident pain in your voice and on your face, you would have done anything to make me leave—thus forcing my future to open up wide. You told me many times that I had to go, and against my heart's leaning, I did what you instructed.

I was 18, you were 16. Who was the sage? Who was the acolyte? Promise me that we both gained.

You remain my sole case of love at first sight. (Trust me, it is possible. A thud in the heart and a sharp prod in the mind. And it laser-etches memories, thereafter. Case in point: ) You were standing at the other end of a long dining-room table. The table was dark wood, with a lace tablecloth. My eyes had traveled the length of the table, ending up at your thigh level. (You could say that I was sold right there: you in those teenage jeans that fit exactly right. Oh, the male shape.) I startled inwardly because I realized I was staring at your hips. So I glanced up to your neck--which was really 2/3s of the way to the bargain, because you had on a grandfather-collared shirt and a white shell necklace against your darker skin. Believe me, if I could have dressed my ideal boyfriend back then, I would have reached for everything you were wearing that night.)

Your face: oh. Done. A flash of brown eyes, mouth set in contemplation, all framed with careless black curls that grazed your neck. Your chin angled toward me, because you were looking at me with equal consideration.

I have no idea what I looked like that night. What was I wearing? Did I smile at you, despite my nerves and (the only word I can think of) worship? My hair was long and I probably tossed it back to recover my composure. And my eyes, I know they must have been sending a pleading message whether I wanted them to or not. Damn, I needed to be loved at that moment in my life.

The next voice I heard was the party hostess: "This is my sister's boyfriend..." Of course, I thought ruefully. (Never fear, young Nessa. In a week, he will have ended it with her, a surprise as big as the last unopened box at a birthday party. And so the summer will truly begin.)

What I owe you is inestimable. I wish we could talk about these experiences, expose them to scrutiny, revel that they happened. Ninety percent magic, ten percent reality. I suppose the reality is why we have never discussed those two months, in the dozen or so times we've seen each other since. No matter. What's important is never forgetting. Magic is too rare for that. And in the meantime, I'm just so glad that I have seen you, that I still know you, that your future opened up as wide as mine did.

----------------------------------------------------

The shuffled iTunes song that prompted this blog:

  

If you didn't care what happened to me,

And I didn't care for you,

We would zigzag our way through the boredom and pain,

Occasionally glancing up through the rain,

Wondering which of the buggers to blame

And watching for pigs on the wing.

  

—Pink Floyd, "Pigs on the Wing, Part 1"

Nonagenarians

I'm done with the word "old". To the best of my ability, I'm going to try to avoid it. It's a judgement, it's a distancing and a defense mechanism, it's unfair.

Case in point: two people I am proud to call my friends: Dorothy and Linwood. They have never met, but they have this in common: they are nonagenarians. Linwood's 92, and Dot is 95. They live in opposite corners of the same state.

Linwood is a retired station agent for the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad. Before he began his railroad career, he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps (yes, the CCC!) during the Depression, and he also served in the U.S. Army during World War II. The words I would use to describe Linwood are humility, grace, vast practical knowledge, and deep kindness. He's my 2nd cousin once removed: his grandmother's brother was my great-grandfather. In my mind's eye, he's in his kitchen, which is really his mother's kitchen. Very little has changed in that house since his birth...just that it's a little disheveled now in a bachelor way. He welcomes you in, anyhow, and carefully shares stories of his life and his town. Never sappy or long-winded...just brings his community to life with simple descriptions. I do the genealogy, and he tells me of the personalities behind the names, the relationships, the houses they owned, the losses they experienced. He doesn't tire of company, and I've never been bored in his presence, either.

When I saw him last month, I said, "You should come visit us down on the Island, Linwood!" (This is where his CCC work was conducted, and I know he has vivid memories of those times.) "No," he said easily. "I don't leave here now. My traveling is done." The serenity in his voice when he said that to me was inspiring. And it made me hug him a little harder, when we said goodbye. I only wish I lived closer.

Dot lived next door to us before we moved onto the Island in 1996. She had been in her home since the 1950s, never had children, and her husband died many years ago. Much as with Linwood, Dot's home remained as it had been when two people lived there. Her living room was anchored by a sturdy grand piano that her husband had played in his lifetime. "Oh, he played beautifully," Dot would say, and you knew by the look on her face that she could hear it as she said it--and that she still admired Robert, her life-partner and friend. The piano was like having him in the room, sitting alongside us companionably.

Her living room had a well-worn teddy bear which was fair game for all young guests to hold and play with, and a dark-wood cabinet full of vintage, much-read children's books. We've spent many afternoons filling her downstairs, the six of us, and she's always welcomed our noisy presence. We could still have a deep conversation around the clamor of children, and she never flinches when they take a corner too fast and veer near some knickknacks. Plus, she always demonstrates her heirloom cuckoo clock, cast-iron piggy bank with the trick cannon, windup dancing Scotsman in a bottle...what kid isn't fascinated by those things?

I have talked to Dot about absolutely everything: my mom's illness, my children's issues at school, tough moments at my job, religious beliefs, happenings in our community, you name it. The insights she has provided me, the alternate outlooks, have been a blessing in hard times. And when things go right, when something's achieved...she magnifies that joy. Sometimes she tells about her girlhood in Pennsylvania, where she was one of many daughters and just one brother. Often we talk about the influence of parents on children...her own remembered example as vivid as the ones rambling around in her downstairs rooms.

Dot's descriptors: welcoming, wise, compassionate, spiritual. Well-read without being stuffy. Disdains medicines whenever she can, preferring to rely on her own five senses without blunting them, to know whether she's healthy or not. Dot has soft, silky white hair that she wears long, usually braided. Her face crinkles in a smile, more often than not. And knowing, kindly blue eyes. She shares that with Linwood, too.

Last Thursday night, I picked up our weekly local paper. I usually don't read it, but something made me dive in. I felt like I should catch up, maybe. And where I least expected it, I got news that made me utter, "Oh no, oh no...." That was in the real-estate section. New Listing: an address, a house photo, a description. God, I know that house. My heart knows it. Still, I checked the address to be sure. It's Dot's.

Tonight, at dusk, we were up in Dot's town...our former town. We drove down her street and pulled into her driveway. Noted the accursed For Sale sign on the lawn. I was nursing a hope that Dot had made this choice herself; that she was still residing there while potential buyers deliberated. Charming them in conversation, during the inevitable open house. That hope was dashed as I approached her back door. Through the kitchen window, I could see clear to the other side. Wan sunset light streamed into an empty kitchen. I could see the floor. Everything was gone.

I turned and faced her backyard, tears welling. There was her garden, Dot's pride and joy. She and a handyman maintained this paradise every year. Forget-me-nots, roses, asters, cosmos, and many other flowers whose names I could not recall, though Dot knew them all. My kids walked these little pathways many times. So have Dot and I. Sometimes she would take my arm lightly as we walked, and I was glad to protect her for just that little time. It was the least I could do in return for all the acceptance and love she had given me.

Dot has family elsewhere and she may well be with them...I don't know yet. But what I do know is that the garden was wearing autumn colors of brown and grey, and muted green. Plants were bent and shriveled, flowers spindly and seedy, trees nearly bare. A birdhouse sat forlornly in the middle...Dot loved her bird visitors. As I walked away, the garden felt as empty as the house. The spirit was gone from it.

I got back to the van, slid into my seat, shared the terrible news. Then Zoe exclaimed from the back seat, pointing at the windshield: "Look! One of her favorites--up there!"

On the slope of Dot's roof was perched a bluejay, almost a silhouette against the sky save for the white markings on its back. I held my breath while I looked at it, this astonishing sign. Before I was ready, it twitched its tail merrily, half-turned, and flew away.

UPDATE, October 10, 2006

Thank you so much to everyone who commented on last night's blog. I was comforted and heartened by your words.

In true smalltown style, I found out about Dot's situation this afternoon. You see, when we lived next door to Dot in the '90s, we were renting. Our landlord from those days is now my daughter's chemistry teacher at the high school. So today, Zoe asked him what happened. It's the best possible scenario: Dot's in an assisted living center, right here in our region. Evidently the family decided she was too unsteady on her feet to stay alone in her home anymore. While I'm sure this turn of events has made my friend sad, I am relieved that someone is helping her out and keeping her safe. And I hope to visit her soon and hear what she thinks about this new chapter in her life.

I thought I would share a few photos to accompany the blog, since you responded with such warmth and enthusiasm. Here is a photo of Dot and me from 2003. We're standing in her homey kitchen, and she's holding one of the many exquisite plants she nurtured there:

As Linwood is my cousin, I have gathered many wonderful images of him as part of my genealogy work. (Last summer I brought a scanner to his kitchen, balanced it on the old stove with my trusty iMac alongside, and we scanned our way through his life story!) Here is Linwood as a young boy in his hometown of Eagle Lake:

I so want to know him in his young-boy days! He looks by turns impish and unusually thoughtful.

This is Linwood during his tenure in the Civilian Conservation Corps, circa 1934:



A dashing serviceman during World War II:

And last year, when I did all the scanning, I also took this photo of him. (He built all of the cabinetry you see behind him, when he came home from the war.)

Interestingly, a good friend of mine just returned from a celebration in Massachusetts: her great-aunt Rose's 100th birthday party. I wish I could show you a picture of Rose, who looked beautiful, poised, and completely unsurprised to be 100 years old. There are so many fascinating stories out there waiting to be told by the elders we love....

UPDATE II, October 22, 2006: Our Visit with Dot

Yesterday our whole family piled into a tiny room at an eldercare facility and enjoyed an hour with our dear friend Dot. It truly was the smallest room I've ever seen in such a facility...and that's saying a lot, because I've visited far too many loved ones in long-term care facilities over the years. It required an instantaneous readjustment: from Dot who lives in the stately lifetime home with the grand piano, to Dot in an embryonic space with dozens of photos around her, three plants, four stuffed animals, and a TV. And the requisite hospital bed, which Dot is evidently confined to, now. I didn't have the heart to ask her, but she seems to be bed-and wheelchair-bound.

My next jolt was her hair, which has been shorn to a bob and has lost its characteristic white softness. Another fact which I filed away silently.

In no way did these conditions reflect on her sunny, welcoming face. It was as though the woes of her body were floating away from her sweet personality--disconnected. Three of us sat on her bed, three jammed into a side chair. The younger kids fooled around with her teddy bear and stuffed kitty, and the rest of us shared news of our worlds. Dot marveled that we have two high schoolers now, and that the kids have such diverse interests. Zoe brought out her ever-present sketchbook and showed recent work—emotionally immediate images of young people with big anime eyes. Dot loved it. We drew Dot's attention to some of her photos, and she told us stories of various relatives and friends. Meanwhile, Zoe feverishly began sketching the oldest photo in the room: Dot's two older sisters and her only brother as preschoolers, attired in turn-of-the-century white garments with dark stockings and laced-up ankle boots.

Dot was fully cognizant of everything except the passage of time--she is not at all certain of how long she has been at the facility, nor did she recollect our last visit to her home in July 2006. With her world limited to this space and a couple of common rooms, I imagine the pattern of day-to-night-to-day feels entirely optional. This does not seem to bother her, which increases my admiration for her even more. Really, she seems to feel safe and enveloped in this place...like the next stop on a journey, nothing more, nothing less. So many homes like this have crocheted afghans all around them...that would be the symbolic representation of how she's feeling: warmly protected.

At one point, Lydia's newfound interest in playing piano came up. "Lydie," I said, "do you remember the big piano Dot had in her living room?" I could have clapped my hand over my mouth as soon as I'd finished--what the hell did I say that for?!--but I stayed rigid, waiting.

"Oh," Dot said immediately, "I sold the grand piano, you know."

"...oh?" I answered in a stammer.

"Yes, it's west of the Mississippi now," she said airily, as if to say, imagine that!, and we all laughed.

Dignity without stuffiness. Belief without dogma. Femininity without a second's fuss. Graciousness personified. As we prepared to leave, she said, "You can come back as often as you'd like. Please do!"

And I need to correct my previous entry: this incredible, serene woman is nearly 98 years old.

Home

I'm standing in the living room of my grandparents' house. It's January 1973. I live with them this year...I asked to stay after a blissful summer here in Millinocket, and my mom agreed to let me. In fact, Mom never hesitated, and while that surprised me, it also freed me to feel fully excited about the idea. And then, Nana and Grampy's joy when I told them I wanted to stay almost made me teary-eyed...for the first time, I realized what I bring to them. That they are lonely when I'm not here. That they love me that much.

It's mid-morning, and we're still on Christmas vacation. So I'm enjoying the odd feeling of being in this room on a weekday, instead of being down the street in 3rd grade at Aroostook Avenue School. It's radiant Maine winter, with a newly fallen clean-white snow banked all around the house, and a sky of cloudless blue. The shades are up, and between the lemony sun and the reflecting snow, the room is significantly brighter than I've ever seen it. The beige wallpaper seems faded a little...which it is, truthfully. It's been here since the 1950s; it shares an air of past style with my nana's wardrobe and eyeglass frames. The furniture, too, is upholstered in a textured fabric that you would never see in a contemporary store. I treasure that nostalgia for an era that precedes me. The vivid light makes this room feel safer and more beautiful, honestly, than any place I can ever remember being.

At that moment, a distant, high-pitched whine begins outside. I turn my head towards it: the oilman has come to deliver heating oil, and in the thin winter air the sound of oil being transferred into the pipe at the side of the house is audible. From this moment ever after, I will connect that sound with warmth and hearth. Because this man is bringing us the heat that blessedly ticks out of the baseboards in these freezing months (coldest weather I've ever experienced, New York child that I am). But even more so, the oilman is bringing us something momentous, expensive. Oil costs have been all over the news this year--and yet my grandfather, my stable and loving grampy who patiently tallies finances at his desk, can afford to keep us warm. Just thinking of him triggers the sound of his desk drawer opening...I could sit and watch him at that desk all day. I adore his competent fatherliness. I hail from a single-parent household where, the previous year, I had repeatedly trudged to the unemployment office with my mom to collect checks. So being in this home is a massive gift to me: a sense of protection I did not quite realize I yearned for, until I heard the oilman outside.

Grampy puts on his jacket and hat, and goes out to the oilman. He knows him by first name, of course, in this microscopically small town. Out the side window of the house, I can see the puffs of steam that are emitted by their jovial conversation. They wear hats with flaps over the ears. Grampy hands the oilman a check in payment..glove passes it to glove. This is the year that I have become fascinated with business transactions: the peculiar green designs on checks, the orderly lines of invoices, the magic of carbon paper, the finality of rubber stamps. I play office all the time in my playroom.

Yes, in this house, I have a playroom all to myself. And on this morning, I am still excited to think of the Christmas presents that are stored there. Nana and Grampy seem to have read my mind...or at least they were watching closely while I read the 1972 Sears Wish Book. I got every Barbie gadget I could have wanted, including a few that I'd pined for secretly and never mentioned to them. Who would have ever imagined that I'd own a battery-operated Barbie kitchen, with a tumbling washer and dryer, a sink with a moveable faucet, a fridge and a stove that light up when you open their doors? And a mountain cabin with a bunk bed, so that Barbie and her friends could enjoy the winter, just like I've been doing for the first time in my life?

Still a couple of hours till lunch, I think. I will pull on my snow pants, which make that thick wish-wish noise when I walk stiffly in them. I'll find the scarf and mittens Nana knitted for me, and push my feet into heavily lined Canadian boots. And then, the olive-green parka...this year's fashionable must-have in Millinocket, Maine. I'm not kidding: it's the trendy item of choice at my grammar school. Conveniently, parkas are wicked warm and have massive hoods. Nana comes out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She reaches up and adds the finishing touch to my winter wear: tying the scarf around the hood, across my mouth. She tells me to keep warm and stay dry; it's twenty-below this morning. Soon my cheeks will sing in the cold, and I'll squint in the glare as I pull my orange plastic sled up McNamara's Hill. A perfect day for sledding.

I always wondered why I remembered this morning with such astonishing clarity. Now I get it: on that day, I understood that my decision to stay in a small town in Maine had changed my life forever...for the better. I was eight years old, and I needed to be there. And that sheltering place, those loving people have guided me invisibly ever since.

Troubadours are my weakness

In 1995, Pete and I were experiencing a musical growth spurt, after a few years of parenting toddlers and feeling queasily out-of-it. We joined Columbia House (don't judge, they had an amazing alternative catalog back then) and soaked up new music videos wherever we could find them. One of our fave outlets for alterna-vids was a Boston-based show called Rage TV (http://www.ragetv.com/). In November 1995, Rage TVbrought me Francis Dunnery.

With a chunky Scots-Irish accent and a wry smile, he sat with his dog and talked with the show's host about his new record, Tall Blonde Helicopter. He got my attention because:

—I could somehow tell he was my age—which was just starting to seem novel, me being in my 30s and all.
—He was simultaneously beguiling yet laser-beam direct with his comments.
—Did I mention the accent?

After the interview segment, they ran the video for "Too Much Saturn," a slice-of-life story song lamenting (and lampooning) Dunnery's need to appear enlightened. It was like hearing a new style of poetry, that song. I stared openly at the television set and felt electrified by his sound and words. The next chance I got (this being pre-Amazon), I hunted down that LP. You know the feeling: one spin and you know this album will be burned in your consciousness forever? Yes, that. There were also multiple bisections between his experiences and mine. He sang about sobriety—a road I knew well and pursued determinedly. He sang about estrangement from his father. Check. He sang about lust and love in a way that mirrored where I was with Peter (still does). And he sang about sweet moments of parenthood. Sold!

You see him up there, that pic I led off with? He's standing in Central Park, 1995. I probably stood on that patch of grass as a teenager. New York was Francis' adopted home and he sang about that in terms that evoked my deep-dwelling home memories. 

The guiding principle of Francis Dunnery's music is unrepentant honesty and revelation. I need performers like him in my life, to calibrate myself.

Eleven years and three LPs later (all of which are DNA albums, to borrow a term from my daughter), Francis embarked on an international House Concerts tour. Last week, this tour actually brought him to Maine. And Peter and I got a babysitter (!) and stayed away from home overnight (!!) so that we could go see this man whom we've admired for so long. The first time in 17 years that we had been away from home & hearth for a full day and night, just the two of us. That alone was fortifying.

We had never met the host of this house concert, but he and his wife welcomed us warmly. We hesitantly stepped out onto their deck , a beautiful spot surrounded by the woodsy green of full-on Maine summer. Guests were milling around waiting for Dunnery to arrive, chatting and snacking. This is a social set-up that, nowadays, renders me mute and useless. I have lost all aplomb (see above: sobriety); I basically feel meek and unequal to people I meet at parties.

Ahhhh, but this was not a mere party. This was a gathering of like-minded individuals with a shared purpose. I sat next to a woman my age, and she initiated a conversation with me--amazing!--which instantly yielded numerous things to talk about. Pretty much everyone at the concert felt like a soul acquaintance whenever a conversation started: artists, musicians, writers, astrology believers, thinkers. So here was an extra bonus to the Peter-and-Nessa-just-the-two-of-us night.

And then, Francis arrived. We all went inside...the host's living room was built a few years ago, specifically to allow musical gatherings like this. The cathedral ceiling makes for exceptional acoustics. Pete and I snagged seats in the second row. Francis stepped to the front of the room and I nearly gasped. First of all was that moment of it's really him, the guy I listen to so much! But the kicker was when he hoisted his acoustic guitar. I knew he was a tall man--well over six feet, like my beloved hub. But I had never noticed how massive and thick his hands were. I watched in awe as he started playing delicate notes with those fingers, skating along the strings.

For a couple of hours, then, he performed, with rich banter in between. Much of the talking has to do with issues of midlife...once again, a perfect bisection for me. He also riffed about growing up Catholic, to hilarious effect--been there too. But the music...oh my. His voice soars on the high notes, undiminished by that midlife he talks about. His large hands form gorgeous chords, and geez can they move fast when he wills them to. Just a gift, to watch Francis play in close proximity.

I am the daughter and sister of musicians. Obviously, from my writings here, music is my life (I used to write that in my teenage diary all the time). But the muse Euterpe passed me over; I can't play an instrument. I love to sing, but I never believe in my ability to do it. Well, something came over me sitting in front of Francis Dunnery--me and other women in the audience. We started singing along, and adding harmony. Reminiscent of my Catholic-school choir days, really.

On one song, "I'm in Love," there's a female backup vocal that comes in on its own (sung by Dorie Jackson on the record...she's an apt complement to Dunnery). I knew when this vocal part was coming: "Stone cold in love," is the line. As the song built towards it, and I was grooving along, Francis looked me right in the eye and held on. With a challenging glint, as if he knew that I knew what the line was. Looking in his eyes made me brave. I sang it out loud. Alone, because no one else knew it was coming. And then he said, in that homeslice accent, "Exactly." And went on with the song, never breaking stride.

His tour manager told me after the concert that Francis had said backstage, "That was the moment of the show, right there."

Well, it was for me. Impressive what we can learn about ourselves in middle age, hmm? Some of the other guests came up to me after and said that I had a great voice. We need to hear that to really believe it, don't we? I felt like a watered flower.

Reader, I met him. But ever-so-briefly, because I was so absorbed in conversation with the others in attendance. Francis was on his way out when I got this picture taken with him:


File under bliss. I believe. What a peak experience.

Keep your eyes on the road...

An augmented entry from my journal, July 27, 1982
(original journal text in Helvetica font)

Preface note: in 1982, the legal drinking age was 18. (This is not to say that my partying career began in 1982, but it does place this piece in some context.)

I worked as per ever Friday (oh, didn't mean to leave out Thursday 'cause I worked then too), 3 pm - 9 pm.

Summer of 1982. Freshman year of college beckoned, in piney, frozen New England. In the run-up, I was cashiering in a Queens, NY supermarket that made the United Nations look plain-vanilla. And forget about diplomacy—these shoppers were pissed off, almost as a rule. I'd grown up in this neighborhood, yet my Manhattan schooling had completely insulated me from its emotional volatility. I frequently got into multilingual arguments that had no chance of resolution, as neither party understood the epithets being hurled. One lady repeatedly jabbed me in the breastbone with a bony finger when I wouldn't allow her to buy nine jars of mayonnaise. She just didn't grasp the "limit three" comment in that week's circular. I was out of my depth, daily.

Rushed home in my usual state of exhaustion and then hurriedly got ready—for what, I didn't know: Sue and Chris had both neglected to call me. But I did know to expect them at 9:30.

Sue and Chris formed the core of my social life that summer: high school friend and new boyfriend, respectively. On that Friday, my working mom had not seen me all day, and I arrived home in a state of post-job agita like a snarling dad ready to blow off steam. So Mom got a half-hour of my unpleasant company while I shoveled in some Lean Cuisine entree that had been extruded from a snipped baggie onto my plate.

Chris came and we blubbered something about Pub 74 [a local hangout] to Mom, though I knew we REALLY had talked about seeing Sue's bungalow in Rockaway. Mom said to be home at 3, which we promised. HAH!

My stepfather had left for good that spring, and his absurdly strict rules had evaporated along with his wardrobe--jingling hangers dangled in his closet. For example, one night that wild summer, I failed to come home at all after promising to be home by 2. When I tiptoed into the apartment at 7:00 am, Mom sat up in bed (where she could see right into the front hallway) and intoned, "You're grounded." I laughed immediately, the selfsame "HAH!" that I'd inscribed in my journal, above.

Sue as much as asked where my pajamas were and I quickly realized "the crew" intended to sleep at the bungalow.

(You'd think I might've gotten laid out of this, but no dice. The Catholic kids I knew were way too freaked out by potential pregnancy to even attempt it.) The car I climbed into was a dull blue Opel. Its horn meeped like the Road Runner, and its owner, Eddie, was perpetually nursing a bottle of Bud as he drove. His (small-b) bud Barry rode shotgun, as always. Sue was in back with us. So we were transporting five teenagers in a car that might hold four, if two were skinny. The floor was totally obliterated by a tableau of empty brown bottles that rolled and clinked in tandem whenever the Opel came to a stop. My legs were draped over Chris' the whole way, a slight space saver. 

The supply of Budweisers in that car was boundless. Eddie never ran out, and the beers were always sweaty and just cold enough.

At 10:20 or so Eddie's wonderful car stalled dead on the Cross Bay Parkway in the middle of nowhere—nothing was within reasonable walking distance.

We milled around the Opel on a sultry New York night, each of us working a beer as we tried to figure out what next. It was hard to believe that Queens could contain such a deserted stretch within its borders--but then, I was learning a lot about my home borough this summer. You could hear crickets this far out. Jets crisscrossed overhead, into and out of Kennedy Airport. A few cars zoomed past us. Given that our only flares were hoisted glass bottles, who blames them for not stopping.

After an hour or so of frustrating waiting, a police car pushed us into Broad Channel.

I was too buzzed to observe how the police linked their car up to the Opel. They curtly told us all to get into the car, and once seated, they began nudging the vehicle forward. Eddie had been instructed to put it in neutral, and he clowned with the wheel at the 5 mph speed. Giggles and snickers overtook us, and then we heard the voice of God: "This is not a laughing matter." Wait, God had a bullhorn? No, that was the cop behind us, issuing the only warning we got for this escapade. Try not laughing with a beer buzz when someone orders you not to laugh, over a crackling bullhorn.

The cops abandoned us to our fate in front of a neighborhood bar.

Seriously. They shoved the car along just till we reached a semblance of civilization, and then they roared away. It really was a century ago, wasn't it? or is it just that there were far bigger crimes than ours to detect and prevent, so the police had no patience for the likes of us?

I was drowsing out in the back seat on Chris' lap—we were all drinking beers throughout this crisis, by the by--and Chris and Barry were joking around while Sue and Eddie tried to find us some means of getting—somewhere. We eventually met a guy named Joey in the bar, and he jump-started the car.

Quite wisely, in fact, the cops had left us in front of a bar that was in full drunken swing. Our own inebriation seemed tame against this wood-paneled, smoke-filled, pool-playing landscape. We crept through the crowd, parting sideways through people this way and that, and finally found a savior, the afore-mentioned Joey. Eddie probably slipped him a ten or something, and he assisted us gladly.

What happened next did not make it into my journal, surprisingly. Once the Opel was functional again, it remained for us to cross a long bridge into Rockaway. Fresh beers in hand, we tootled along with music blasting, vigor renewed--and as the road arched up onto the bridge, Eddie suddenly waggled his hands in the air. "Woooooooooo!" he yowled, the universal teenage sound effect for "I'm doing something really stupid that has a 50-50 chance of ending badly." My friends picked up the mood and someone sang out hoarsely, "Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel!!" Eddie waved his arms higher, loving the Doors comparison. I remember rolling my eyes in the backseat, invisible in the darkness. Great, I thought ruefully, and then holy SHIT the road is about to CURVE—

Eddie noticed the bend ahead just in time, scrambled his hands back into place, and we swerved in the correct direction, almost magically. Chris muttered something darkly, and I rested my head on his shoulder because I knew he knew.

At about 12:45 or so we limped into Rockaway. Teresa [Sue's younger sister], who was waiting for us at the bungalow, was furious that we hadn't found a way to let her know our plight. We realized she wasn't in our crazed mood; the five of us grabbed Buds and went to a payphone to call our respective parents.

The preceding paragraph serves as a vivid reminder of what life was like before cell phones. If I remember correctly, the bungalow didn't have a working phone either, which makes Teresa's furor even more comical. How we were supposed to inform her? Carrier pigeon?

Mom, awakened from an undoubtedly sound sleep, was bitchy, bothered and bewildered when I called. I tried to impress upon her that this was a real story, not just a plan to ensure my staying in Rockaway, and at 1:00 am I really had no way to get home! She waxed snide and I hung up furious, and determined to have a good time with the rest of the crazy night.

Poor Mom. What else can I say? After four high school years of mostly toeing the line, I was finally rebelling openly. I was 18 years old; I was gainfully employed; I was tasting freedom (which tasted remarkably like Budweiser, most of the time). Mom was rendered powerless for the first time, and undoubtedly she felt disgusted with me. However, one bizarre factoid: she adored Chris. So even though he was my constant partner-in-crime all that summer, she forgave me every time because he'd been along. I suspect she believed that I dragged him haplessly into these disasters.

We went on the beach, then, from about 2 till 4. I spent most of that time with Chris, in the dark beauty of the beach at night. I won't even try to describe the intensity, the blackness of the water, or the sleepy, starry sky, or the yielding, damp sand...or the "tacky" lifeguard's chair. It was the ultimate romantic experience and I really didn't ever want it to end.

Yeah, no sex, but I'll tell you what: it was just as ecstatic. Especially from the top of the lifeguard's chair, the night hemming us in like a safe vacuum; wind and waves the only sound we could hear other than our voices. On this night, the reality of my departure for college was completely absent. We were breathing entirely different air, you could say. Focused on the here and now, with no concept of later. I mean, leaving for college...that was a month away. I wish I could bend time like that nowadays. Perhaps the beer helped.

We went back to the bungalow and tried to set up sleeping arrangements in a miniature room with three beds and a chair to work with. I was wet from the beach and afraid I'd never wake up if I slept, so I went to sit on the porch awhile.

Adult self to Nessa 1982: WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?? You spend two hours locked to this guy, blissfully, and when you finally get him back to a place with a warm bed, you decide to stay awake alone, instead?! Sheesh, no wonder you went to college a virgin.

I got locked out,

Further evidence of my teenage genius...

and rather than wake everyone up, I shivered and watched the really slow dawn breaking (though a poetic experience, it was boring as hell). I was all cramped into a rocking chair.

So maybe I needed this separate time. Maybe I hadn't blocked out reality as thoroughly as I thought. I certainly remember those moments with astonishing clarity, all this time later. A star glimmered—from Queens, that's as much as you usually get, one star. I watched it, pondered it, wondered when it would fade. I noted the sky's transit from ink-black to curiously greyer-black, then the onset of morning blue. There was a faint blush of pink around the rim, nothing majestic. The star persisted longer than I thought it would.

At 6:15 I dropped off--blacked out is more like it, awaking with a start at 6:50.

The mother in me now forces me to say: Yes, I fell asleep on a street in Queens. Well, I was on the porch...I guess that was a little sheltered. But I was outdoors, yes.

I finally woke everyone up, grabbed a bed and warmed up for a half-hour under three blankets,

Alone...

had grape jelly and bread with butter sandwiches with Kool-Aid for breakfast,

[shudder] The bungalow was obviously not stocked for a teenage onslaught.

and then Sue, Teresa, Chris and I took a freezing air-conditioned bus back home, whilst Eddie and Barry administered first aid to the "fucking car".

From that night on, the Opel was always addressed as "fucking car". Like it was an unruly pet. I was relieved not to have to get back into that vehicle, but the bus was really, really cold. Combined with the shakiness I was feeling from lack of sleep, the ride home was unpleasant to the extreme. I might have had a light jacket, if that. I leaned against Chris, and each heave and bump of the road jolted me.

And now, friends, here is the punchline:

Somehow I worked 11:30 am-6 pm Saturday.

Ah, youth!! No hangovers, no repercussions, and no bounds. In a wonderfully circular way, this blog entry has brought me to the brink of dawn, and I'm shaking my exhausted head at the thought of my raring-to-go self. And basking in the vividness of memories that I burned into my consciousness, knowing full well I would want to summon them again, later.

Nessa, circa 1982, courtesy of my yearbook:

Living color

There is a color that I love, not in the let's-paint-a-wall way, but in the I-can't-wait-to-see-it-again way. It is the emergent green of everyday deciduous trees. Spring green. Tiny blossom-before-leaf green. It dangles beguilingly from a new leaf stem, curved almost flirtatiously toward the ground. Soon that little floret will drop, crushed and forgotten.

Taken in the aggregate, those blooms form a frizzy cloud, a dizzy announcement that everything has changed overnight.

A week hence the leaves become a mature green that excites me somewhat less, pressed flat, pointed, hand-sized . Not so symbolic, much as I adore the whisper of full-grown leaves in tandem, shushing with the breeze.

Spring green to me is all the teenage romances launched when the weather took its warmish turn. It's sunshine that lingers longer, my bedroom window flung open as I sat and looked out at the glimmering early-evening city beyond my perch (this very view, in fact):

It's that smell--you know it?--that says leisure...youth...air...winter is done. Love can begin.

In my heart there's a roster of songs that accompanied the intensity of feeling with a new romance back then. That's because I was sitting in that window with big bubble headphones, to soundtrack the reverie. Play any of those songs now, and I'm right back in it, reveling. But there's also a part of me that was made to remember those times. It's the writer, certainly; the fatherless girl, possibly, who sought to cling to someone; and it's definitely the pop-culture maven who marks everything by the sounds, sights, and preoccupations of an era. Moreover, I had the good fortune to choose worthwhile guys, so my memories of them are largely positive. Not to mention sharply etched into my brain. And fueled, luckily, by a trove of photos that I've saved for decades. Teenage fun and abandon captured in a rectangle. Faces I'll never forget--not because I pine, but because I savor.

April heralded the arrival of my beloved spring green, throughout my young years. When I moved to Maine 23 years ago, I lost that heady month. Hereabouts, April's signal colors are mud-brown and sky-gray. When the spring transition arrives in these northern climes, typically in the first or second week of May, your breath is barely drawn to welcome it when--hello!--summertime pushes its way in. This equals tourists, silver flash and gray exhaust of many out-of-state cars, surprising and sudden hot weather, and tourists. It's upheaval, not transition. Less easy to run towards. (Or maybe that's just what adulthood brings, the speeding of time, the loss of reflection...regardless of my relocation.)

I'm impatient for it anyway.

Partial Roster of Nessa's Spring-Green, Headphone-Blasting Songs:

"I Wanna Go to the Sun"—Peter Frampton
"Your Own Special Way"—Genesis
"Lovely to See You"—Bay City Rollers
"Yes It Is"—The Beatles
"A Little Is Enough"—Pete Townshend
"Dreams—Fleetwood Mac
"Love Alone"—Utopia
"Old Brown Shoe"—The Beatles
"And You and I"—Yes
"You"—Tony Banks
"In the Air Tonight"—Phil Collins
"Don't Stop Believin'"—Journey