It’s morning in Maine and it has started to rain and I have gone in to sit at Bob Stickland's computer to write down some thoughts.
After a highway crowded with
vacationers (like us) returning from or going to their destinations- highway I-
95 going in the opposite direction was bumper to bumper from Maine to Massachusetts.
We were coming from the family reunion
in Pennsylvania and going to visit friends in Maine and we arrived road weary
but strangely invigorated after the last 8 miles on a two lane road with no
traffic and now going so slowly we could appreciate the rock formations on the
curves, the people walking their dogs in the early evening. Our friends greeted
us and apologized for the heat- they had been trying to cool down the upstairs
all day- this is a house and area which are strangers to air conditioning. The
upstairs- sleeping quarters for guests and children are rustic and besides why
would anyone need air conditioning in Maine on the coast? But the world is changing
and apologies are given for it not being a luxury suite in a hotel. But I came
for the company and the simplicity of life in this summer cabin on the water
outside of Friendship, Maine.
 |
| Not the dock but it sure looks like it |
We went to bed early (9:00) and I got up late for
me (5:00). It was cool in the evening and very cool in the morning waking up to
the sound of lobster boats busy at work. I climbed down the narrow stairs and
went out to the porch and watched the work of the lobstermen and listened to
the birds sing and signal to each other from the trees in the forest to the
gulls, ducks and mergansers in the water. My mind slowed down and instead of
reading the books on Jung that I had packed to prepare for the course I was
taking beginning in late August, I stopped and gave thanks for the honor of being
alive and being with friends and family.
I thought over the
last several days of being with the Farmer family reunion. I am not a Farmer by
occupation or name but my father’s sister married Len Farmer and the six
Farmers children and the four Wilson children shared two of the same
grandparents. Three of the Farmer boy cousins, Len Jr., Joe, and Michael have
died and we were placing Mike’s ashes into the family grotto on his “farm”. The
family had gone on a dinner cruise on a paddle wheeler on the Susquehanna River
and OH the noise of the children from two year olds to teenagers greeting their
cousins and running up and down the two decks! It reminded me of the times when
I was a child and the cousins would visit- yes it had been a year since we had
last seen each other but the time evaporated and the renewing began. My father
of course would never have allowed all that noise and would have to stop us
numerous times- but this time there was no one who wanted the noise to stop. My
cousin Susan and I were the only members of those cousin gatherings of long ago
alive and attending this gathering. At the family picture taken Pat and I were
put in the front row seats with the younger children at our feet and the
younger members standing behind – about 50+ of us -because we were the part of
the senior members- how a half century changes your place in a picture. But
everybody was there. I looked at Len, Joe and Mike’s children and grandchildren
and saw their fathers in how they laughed or got serious. Being right and wrong
in matters did not seem to matter. It reminded me of a poem by Rumi: “Beyond
the ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is a field. I will meet you
there.”
One member of the clan got off by himself and downwind
smoked a cigar. My grandfather used to smoke a cigar- heck all the adults used
to smoke then - but now he was the only one of these new generations gathered
to smoke. I was flooded by memories of how the grandchildren would go into his
room and he would give us tootsie rolls and ask us how we were doing- and always
the cigar smell of that room. I thought it was great! The me memories blossomed
as I thought of riding in Little Len’s (that is what the cousins called Len Jr.
in the southern fashion) new convertible with the wind blowing all around us
and my grandmother had to put a scarf over her hair and act as if she was
having fun. I remember Mike getting into trouble yet again and we thought he
was so cool. I remembered Joe’s wedding to this absolutely gorgeous Italian-American girl in Scranton and how I was bowled over with her beauty and the fact that
she had learned how fix food for Joe and his diabetes and nephritis because she loved him. That
memory was even greater as I looked at his widow – still gorgeous and all of
their straight from central casting darkly Italian looking children and grandchildren-
so different from the Scotch-Irish, French and English pale skin types but now
so much a part of the family – as she helped Mike’s widow Jan who had been
cooking for weeks, and Len’s children and Susan children put all the home made
food on the groaning tables for breakfast and dinner. I saw the original cousins’
boys gathered around the grills cooking the ribs, steaks, hot dogs, and chicken
wings and sharing stories of their children and sharing advise about should you
allow a 15 year old to go steady? , and about how some of them were doing at
college.
Pat and I did not stay for the whole reunion- we
are the old people now and we left early to go back to the motel to get rest
for the long trip the next day. The reunion would continue for hours more as
they would gather around the fire pit and tell stories of the past and hopes
for the future. It was a blessed day and a blessed life.
No comments:
Post a Comment