A Tribute

The County-Jerry and Rex (year unknown)

Travelinma is 10 years old today.  Ten years ago, my friend Jeff Kirlin encouraged me to begin a photoblog.  He had started one and was having lots of fun.  Having just returned to Maine following my first trip to Costa Rica, I had a slew of really great shots. Exotic location plus perfect lighting equals engaging photography, right?  So, on May 7, 2007 I posted a guest photo of a questzal taken with my camera (Panasonic-pocket type) by Ricardo the guide that led us into the Rain Forest on a search for the bird and other creatures that showed up like a sloth.

I had thought of myself as a writer until sometime in high school when the
English teacher marred by piece with a red pen. He offered little encouragement and frankly, I was a bit angry and discouraged. My image of myself as a writer was tentative. In college, my professor Jay Hoar who was a Civil War buff and writer helped me as we wrote volumes and read and read. When my twins were two, Jerry supported me in applying to Stonecoast Writing Retreat.  Lasting a week or two, that experience changed my life.  At that point, I hadn't done much writing beyond professional pieces like IEP and Assessment Reports as part of my teaching job until my youngest brood could fend for themselves.  Again encouragement from a friend Lynn Bonsey led me to the Maine Writer's and Publishers Alliance and my mentor, Susan Hand-Shetterly.  Without nudges, Travelinma would not exist as it is today.

For a long time, I continued to photograph my life, but the desire to marry image and words gnawed at they thirst to express myself in ways beyond photography.  Travelinma chronicles family-in good times and in challenging moments.  Travelinma seeks answers.  Travelinma shows the evolution of a woman who rediscovers herself with every new day.  Travelinma supports those dealing with loss.  Travelinma shows the frailty and the uncertainty of life, as well as the possibilities.  Travelinma records love.

Travelinma is likely to outlive me. Just think of that! Depending upon the technological format that my grandchildren will encounter, it is possible that they will learn about their grandparents and their aunts and uncles living during this time.  On that day in May a decade ago, never did I imagine that a blog, my blog would mean so much.

Happy 10th birthday to my creation, Travelinma.

WHAT MY CHILDHOOD TASTED LIKE

             

                               

Sea-salty steamed clams,                                
I remember the first time I ate them
dripping with melted butter                          
at Wormwood's Restaurant in Camp Ellis,
I think my mother cut me off,
I ate too many.

On hands and knees
in a vast field,
 I picked until my fingers were stained
red,
Little tart, sweet jewels
Wild strawberries.

My Gram pressed coins
into my hand
sending me to Reilly's Bakery
for eclairs,
the custard oozed
when bitten or the pastry was held too tight,
we indulged, just the two of us.

Peppermint stick ice cream
dripped down my hand,
down my arm to my elbow,
a melted flow,
my mother yelled, 'Lick!"
the napkin stuck to the sugar cone.

Root beer barrels, two for a penny,
I sat on the scratchy beach blanket
the candy rolling inside my mouth,
when I grew tired of root beer
I counted the licks to the center of a
cherry tootsie pop, until my tongue grew
tired.

  (This post is inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.)            

The Whisperer

"Did you smell it? Did you?" It was all the buzz at school.  The radius of aroma was far reaching, but there was no evidence of the source.  They say that smell activates memory...

                                Jerry is in the middle.  The youngest boy of three.

"Get that thing out of here. Now!"  I imagined his father barking from his chair, CB in hand.  Jerry  would catch skunks by the tail, putting his hand over the gland.  He claims that prevented them from spraying.   Dangling head down (picture the swaying),  I imagine the skunk was lulled to sleep or too shocked and scared to move, I don't know.  The rough and tumble tow headed boy, my husband was once a skunk whisperer.

I can't remember why he stopped catching skunks, but I have my guesses.

Lunch is Served

One by one, my classmates moved until I was left sitting alone at the long table. 


St. Mary's didn't offer hot lunch like all the other schools did in the city, so we had to bring our lunches from home.  Some who lived a short distance from the school, went home for lunch.  I don't remember much about what was usually in my lunch box aside from fruit like an apple, four cookies (four was the house limit) and a sandwich either peanut butter and jelly or sliced meat. I recall one day that I brought sardines to school.  It didn't go well.

I loved sardines. After school my father and I would often share a tin on saltine crackers.  It was a bonding experience as we both smacked our lips in utter satisfaction.  The intense fish flavor paired with the crunchy saltines became a favorite snack.   One day my mother packed me a sandwich-sardines on soft white bread and a smear of mayonnaise. The wax paper that it was wrapped in did little to trap the fishy smell.  So when I undid the folds of the wax paper in order to eat the sandwich the smell wafted quickly, assaulting the noses of every child in the large room where the entire school ate at once.  This room was in the basement of an old brick building where both my grandmother (at age 4) and my father attended.  There were no windows that opened and the two exit doors at top of each opposite stairway leading to the first floor did little to alleviate the odor.  Three or four long tables were arranged end to end and lined horizontally to accommodate about one hundred kids.

Placing the contents of a can of sardines between two pieces of bread was a messy affair. Eating it was worse.  The oil that the little fish were packed in  dripped everywhere and the bread pressed thin and became soggy in places; the oil oozing through the holes in the bread.  The sight of it all and the smell was just too much.

A few weeks after this lunch-time disaster, my mother with sardine can in hand began wrapping the metal tab of the tin around a key in preparation of packing my lunch another sandwich.  She stopped amidst my screaming,  "Ma, please, please don't give me sardines again.  Please no."

"A sardine sandwich was my favorite lunch.  That or a bean sandwich.  'Want a bean sandwich?"my mother asked, her voice light and promising.

That day I ate lunch with my friends and the peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Too Busy to Bother

Hobbling through the door after a long day of work,  he made a limping beeline to the couch, situated not too far from the door.  He sat and grunted to pull off one work boot and one sock; both removed nearly in one, quick motion.

"What's wrong?  What are you doing?" I asked my husband.

"I've had a rock in my boot all day. 'Never had time. 'Til now." He cupped the culprit in the palm of his hand for me to see.  It was far bigger than I expected.

"It IS a ROCK! How the heck did you work all day without stopping to take it out?  It must have hurt."

"It did," he replied.  "I have a blister now."

Some learn the hard way.  My "boy" hobbled for days.

Google It

My grandmother hid under the bed during thunder storms.  My husband watches storms from the shelter of our porch.  I am somewhere in between, but I can easily imagine coaxing my grandmother to move over to make room for my quaking body under her twin bed.  Now it is pouring.  Moments ago I thought I heard a rumble.  My brain tripped to a notion of safety-devices off, stay away from open windows and don’t take a bath.  Don’t sit under a tree, don’t walk in an open field and don’t decide to take up golf. Don’t.  Don’t. Don’t.

I realize I don’t know the do’s. You would think that such a fear filled brain would be able to recite the steps in dealing with any natural disaster and man made one.  I don’t know what to do in the event of a tornado.  Head for the basement?  When do I stand at the threshold of a door relying on the strength of the frame to protect me?  I don’t know. Is that during an earthquake? Some people sit in empty bathtubs, don't they?  My father was the protector.  He clearly trained me in the “don’t do’s”, but failed to solidify the ‘ disaster do’s.”

I have not heard any more rumbles.  Perhaps it was an isolated thunder event in the distance?  Maybe it was a truck driving past, but then again maybe it was an earthquake? How do I prepare?  Maybe I will just “Google it.”

we all have stories to tell

"How do we know about those around us?...Sit close to someone you love and implore that person to tell and tell and tell their story. " -Thanhha Lai

We’d sit close on the sofa, but not before my grandmother smoothed  the scratchy coverlet, the one with white gray roses as big as cabbages that seemed to match the wallpaper in Papa’s room. She’d tell me stories.  I only remember a few.  As a young impressionable boy, my father aimed for piety.  He would pretend that he was a priest.  His religious collar-a Kotex pad. Each time Gram told me that story she would laugh holding her belly, but she told it in a way that expressed her love for my father and his resourceful ways.  He did not become a priest. I think that thought was short lived.

My grandmother threw up just once in her life.  The  cross country trip from Washington, DC to San Francisco was hot. She unloaded in a gas station rest room that did not meet my grandmother’s strict standards of cleanliness. Two stories. One  kotex and a whole life time of experiencing the wretchedness of “tossing your cookies” just once.  I remember that story because it seemed like I had become adept at holding a bowl under my chin. Oh how I long to remember something really really important.  Something really really meaningful.   Decades of stories lost on a girl who didn’t know better.

Do I know better now?  I am not sure.  At one point in my life, actually several points in my life I toyed with the idea of becoming a Social Worker.  Psychology fascinated me.  Mostly, I thought I was a good listener. Is it because life has become complex?  Everyone is moving about so fast.  Is it that I have a tendency to be anxious and  to jump to conclusions?  I stopped listening. I stopped listening well.

Listen.  Invite the stories to come.

Somewhere

All air was sucked out of the room,

Yet I couldn’t leave

And

I couldn’t stay.

I stood to leave,

You pulled me back.

Your last few

Moments,

Few ragged breaths,

I was there

As you were whisked

Off  to somewhere.

The Measure of Love

Presently we are in amidst a whirl of birthdays in the family.  Yesterday my twin daughters turned 24, in four days my youngest 6’3” son cranks up to age 16 and his brother mid-month turns 17.  It makes me reminisce...

Carefully I turned down the thin, white bobby socks-edges trimmed in lace. I twisted my body sideways one way and then the other  buckling my patent leather shoes.  With a Kleenex and a glob of Vaseline they glistened. My mother encouraged rigorous buffing until I could just make out a wavy distorted image of myself.  It was my 9th birthday. My dress for the day had to be just right.  The grass saturated with snow melt recovering from the fury of winter was a brown mustard like color.  My bare legs pretended that spring was near.  I remember how cold I was early that morning my legs peppered in goose bumps.  I kept warmer and distracted  while jumping rope with my friends on the asphalt covered playground. The soles of my shiny shoes scraped the tar with every jump as I was careful not to scuff my toes and ruin the shine. “My bonnie lies over the ocean, My bonnie lies over the sea…”  

It was my birthday. And instead of the usual crisp $5.00 bill from my grandmother, she hired a friend to piece together a doll for me.  It’s embroidered face round while the body, arms and legs were strung together small twists of cloth yo-yo’s.  Somehow the notion of my grandmother orchestrating a birthday surprise for me with her friend, May Ryan somehow sealed the fact that I was loved. It is funny that out of all my childhood birthdays this one I remember vividly.  I am not sure why because I am not driven by materialism now nor was I particularly struck with it as a child, but that day was different. Every Irish Catholic girl on the playground wished her birthday were on this day.   I jumped out of the arching rope and tucked my green blouse into my wool skirt. Everyone wore green on St. Patrick’s Day. I felt loved and extra-special.

As an adult,  I do not measure love through gifts, yet I recognize my wealth through other means. Particularly, this time I year as I mark another birthday I mix gratitude with a tad of

melancholy for the culmination of all my relationships feed me all the love that I need. Yes, I still feel loved and extra-special.  I just hope I have passed this gift onto my children as well.  For they are all loved.

Winter Wait

We are in wait.  Tonight words march across my i-phone screen warning of severe winter weather ahead.  Again.  This is how it has been of late.   The snow is piled high.  As a kid, this was the norm. Storm after storm the white stuff piled up.   We didn’t know what to do with it.  Four kids armed with four shovels moved the snow from the driveway carting it to the middle of the front yard.  Shoveling was an all day and all night affair as the team of four trudged out every few hours to keep up. After all, we do live in Maine.

Now we have one shovel in the family.  My husband is the keeper of all the snow removal equipment. He likes it that way.  I am grateful for the truck with a plow hitched to move a volume of snow.  Thankfully, Jerry takes care of our long, long drive.  More stuff is on the way, but I am not bothered.  Instead, I know how fortunate I am to be warmed by the wood fire as I prepare to settle in for the evening with a good book.  Life is good with one shovel and one motivated willing husband. I am grateful.

The Ordinary

We walked everywhere and when we were not able to make the journey on foot, we would hop on public transportation.  Later, when I was older, I rode my bike miles and miles to a friend's house in Saco or a longer distance to Fortune's Rocks near Biddeford Pool.  It took me so long to ride my three speed up and down the hills to the beach that I was not able to stay, but for a quick bare-footed walk on the sand, until I had to turn around and head home before it got dark.

When I visit home, I  feel much like I did during those early journeys on my bike.  It takes so long to get home, I  am never able to linger, explore all the crooks and crannies to recall details of my past life in Biddeford.  Not having lived there in over three decades now, the changes make it hard to remember.  The big historic tree in front of my grandmother's apartment was cut down.  The changes are not all bad, many once empty store fronts have new life now as restaurants have opened and my beloved city is being revitalized as a center for the arts.

When I was little, I would most often walk throughout the city with my grandmother Caroline.  We would visit Butler's where extra attention was given to my grandmother's carefully wrapped in lamb skin feet.  The shoe attendant would take great care in helping my grandmother get the  perfect shoes with the most comfortable fit.  I would walk up and down the sweeping staircase of this small department store slipping my hand down the shiny wooden banister my heels clicking on the large tiles as I landed at the bottom of the stairs.  Once the shoes were purchased, my Grandmother would take me to Woolworth's a door or two down from Butler's for a whirl in the soda fountain stools while I waited for a sundae or a colossal banana split. The price was set in accordance with the small tag found inside the balloon of my choosing that hung like a bunch of bananas above our heads on each stainless steel column that lined the counter area.  The draw of the colorful array of round balloons must have sold a number of banana splits each day, for while my Gram and I sat there we heard the pop of many a balloon the only way to pay for your split.

With a full belly, the walk home seemed long. Sometimes we would stop at a shop near the Thatcher Hotel where they just sold undergarments.  My grandmother would pull a dark green curtain aside while a woman with a short, graying hair and a tape measure dangling from her neck would follow my grandmother.  I would wait patiently until they both emerged.  Everyone would talk in undertones, a parcel was quickly put into a brown paper bag and we would head for home.  After a morning of running errands, my grandmother would arrange her bed for an afternoon nap.  The coverlet folded down at the foot of the bed and then removed so it would not be dirty or wrinkled.  I don't actually recall napping, but we would snuggle in her bed and she would listen to my hours spent with Sister Mary Natalie my first grade teacher at St. Mary's School and she would tell me of the two weeks she spent with my aunt as they traversed this great country with two little kids in the backseat.  It sounds like an adventure, one that my grandmother cherished.

As I age, it is the moments spent  growing up in a bustling little city in southern Maine where running ordinary day to day errands with my grandmother, buying shoes and spinning in a soda fountain chair are what I cherish.  It is the slowing down and the taking time that help to forge the memories.  I went cross country in a big old jet plane, but I don't remember much.  Pardon the cliche:  There's no place like home.

The Nature of Things

This morning, every flat surface in the house seemed to have a teenage boy snuggled under a blanket.  What a wondrous way to wake, so we set about to make them all feel at home.  Pounds and pounds of bacon sizzled in the pan sending a lingering wake-up smell in the house and a waffle recipe that multiplied by five times for all these extra mouths, plus the adult children and significant others who normally join us each Sunday.  The house was filled with food and people.

It was cold and drizzly and some folks in the state woke to snow.  My trusty Sue-Baru would get us to Bangor (running some errands) and then to the Augusta area to visit with my dear aunt.  This trip was long over-do and I was able to catch up on the welfare of all my cousins who have been lost in the decades of adulthood.  Photos along with my aunt's commentary provided me with a glimpse of their lives with children and grandchildren since my younger wild days of chasing my boy cousins for hugs and kisses.

Later in the afternoon, as I sat on a bench in the middle of a large square room (facing what I thought at first was a self-portrait taken with a camera), I was in awe that this piece of art that was two stories tall was in fact a tapestry.  My daughter, who is an artist told me that this particular artist is confined to a wheelchair and has designed a lift to hoist himself up to meet eye to eye with the line he is working on.  Such tedious work. It puts a ridiculous touch on my little self portrait project and my hesitation to share art depicting myself.

Today after the visit with my aunt and a brief stop at Colby College's Museum of Art, I realize that my life is full of possibilities: the human connection spawning love and the divine connection unfurling creativity and love.    I sometimes fail to recognize these.   Both experiences were of a Divine nature.  Love and creativity.  'Can't miss.

Creating History

There are a few things that change around here as soon as the cold weather arrives-the wood stoves are cranking, I have all I can do to stay up until 9 p.m. and the family gathers for what has become traditional Fall and Winter meals.  Thoughts of Friday night conjure up testing yeasty dough for proofing and using four hands to decorate the pizza pie.  Some weeks the house is filled with hungry teenagers and older Keene children with significant others, while other Fridays are pretty quiet with wedges of left over pizza available for a snack late into the night or for the perfect "take and go" breakfast in the morning.  Food does not last long around here.

My childhood Sundays were filled with mass at St. Mary's Church in Biddeford and then a big family brunch at my home on Dearborn Avenue.  I think that is where I learned to overeat.  This meant that family was gathered around the table eating and chatting until everyone was finished.  The longer I ate english muffins slathered in peanut butter and bacon (after a course of bacon and eggs) the longer I had to listen to family stories.  These tales uniquely bound us together.

My children are big story tellers.  Recently, Jerry and I learned over Sunday waffles (homemade by the way) that Gabrielle was the scape goat for many escapades instigated by her older brother Alex and twin sister Elizabeth. No wonder Gabrielle was always in trouble, I ponder as I toss a few fresh strawberry slices on my blueberry waffle.   Of course, no one else was there on this particular Sunday to deny or to support this point of view, but nonetheless the stories flow freely among the Keenes and their significant others or friends who choose to join us.    

While writing about my childhood and family through the years, I realize that what has been most important to me has been the constancy of traditions and routine.  Over the past week, we have jostled between summer like temperatures in the mid-60's or have endured the frigid task of scraping frost off the car windshield when the thermometer read 23 degrees.  This is our season of gathering and telling tall tales over some mighty good homemade food which is part of our family history. I am ready.

On The Black Box

It has always been one of the most unnatural things for me to do-to stare into the eye of a lens for the sake of capturing my image.  This difficulty has been fodder for family stories for decades and it drew my mother's ire.  With care she gathered together all my school photos and hung them in the hallway across from the cellar door.  Whenever photo day came near, she would beckon me to study the expression in each photo.  There was no smile, but an odd pull of the lips that disappeared into a set of twin dimples.  No teeth were shown.

"Here, smile like this. Show your teeth," my mother would demonstrate accentuating her smile with a pointed finger."You do it, now," she coaxed.  I practiced in the tiny hallway, just me and my mother long enough to satisfy her.  We parted, each hoping for a different outcome.

While sitting at the kitchen table, she unhinged the glass protecting each portrait-the expression was the same year after year. As I stood in line waiting for the photo to be taken, I  practiced smiling as my mother had shown me. Sitting on that big black box and staring into the lens made me self-conscious and nervous.  I always deferred to the default 'no smile, no teeth'-my mother's disappointment.

 Even today, portraits are such a difficult undertaking. Everyone is coaxing me to smile. And, I just can't.  I really don't know why.