Views from Annie's Cabin

Well, this was the beginning of my blog on “Finding Hermitsville”—-seems the blog found it, if I haven’t…..Oh well, nice photos from the day anyway. And I shall NEVAH be defeated by an electronic gizmo! NEVAH! AFter all…tomorrow IS another day…..

HAD MY VERY INSIGHTFUL, REFLECTIVE, THOUGHTFUL NEW BLOG WRITTEN AND POSTED (SO I THOUGHT!)—AND IT DISAPPEARED INTO CYBERSPACE NEVER TO BE FOUND AGAIN.  

FINDING HERMITSVILLE:  OR, THE GLORY OF A WOMAN UNLEASHED WENT VAMOOSE!

I’M SO MAD I’M JUST GIVING IT UP TO CYBERSPACE–YOU NASTY LITTLE TWO-TIMING, CONNIVING, HEARTLESS THIEF!

JUBILANCE!  FREEDOM!  ALBATROSS LIFTED!  

Saturday’s Gatherings…

Today is a RED LETTER DAY–August 16, 2014.  Saturday.  For in today’s mail appeared my final invoice—signed off upon—PLUS the final check for all my agonizing work was enclosed!  This is the day I’ve been living for, waiting for, praying for—–the day my engine’s been purring for, in steady holding pattern for, for four long years.

I’ve always marked milestones in my life—and I’ve had a few major milestones to mark in my sixty-odd years.  I look back over my favorite jewelry and find my citrine ring with the leopard-like spots, enameled on yellow gold,  a milestone for leaving one oppressive job.  A 3 foot tin elephant, painted rich Indian colors marks another, more mundane, milestone but one nonetheless.  A wooden flying angel painted by my dearest friend in the world, herself a Renaissance painter, wears the colors of the Sistine Chapel, marking yet another major turn in my life.  A hand-painted sign that reads:  Happiness Is Not a Destination—It Is a Way of Life, still another, sending me forward, armoured against the vicissitudes of the world.  My red sequined cat-eye glasses, tinted in lavender—yet another.  And handsome, six foot Byron—my Muse— who reminds me of all the writings I have within me, strikes a thoughtful quiet pose in my river bank of azaleas.  And there are more, many more, and one day I should tell the story of them all, though, truth be told, their stories will be found in the lifetime journals I’ve kept—for better or worse.

So today, when the mail came, I honestly was speechless!  (Imagine that…!)  The import of what that “processed invoice” and gleaming beautiful check held for me was infinite—-One of the hardest struggles of my life is now behind me.  My life opens up, yawns big before me.

But the task before me—the import—is formidable as well as freeing.  For it means I’m the captain of my ship now……I have no one else to blame or rant and rave over and about; no deadlines other than those self-imposed; no excuse for wandering idly through my wonderland of life other than that’s just how the spirit’s moving me today.  Another kind of burden indeed, but a burden whose weight is joyous, not heavy at all.

But it all came as such an unexpected surprise this morning—I was unprepared for celebration, for singing and whooping it up, dancing in the garden and generally carrying jubilance to its utmost extreme.  So my Good Man and I shared a Mimosa, clinked the glasses together (he as much relieved as I, probably saying “Thanks be to God!”)—– and then I came back alone to my garden spot by the window in Abbey my Book Barn, and sat down to mark yet another milestone in this life of mine.  But this time I’m marking it with words—–words weightier than gold in my heart and mind, weightier than gold…..rich and heavy, yet buoyant with the promise of what lies ahead: Freedom. Jubilance. The Glory of Woman Unleashed……

I have a dear friend who’s gone minimalist, who has de-cluttered and de-owned almost everything she had. Including books. I find the general concept admirable and it’s working just fine for her. And I can understand minimizing everything you own—with the exception of one thing: BOOKS. Without my books I’d be a lost soul.

A room without books is a body without a soul.——-Cicero
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.——-Cicero

Me and Cicero. We think alike. Would probably have been pretty good friends had we been able to time travel and visit each other’s centuries—–and libraries. I’d like to think of him visiting my library, Abbey the Book Barn more than formal library, but I can imagine him reading my shelves and then gazing out the double windows to view my garden. And though he’d probably think the colorful Bottle Tree a bit arcane, I think he’d smile at the riotous morning glories climbing twin trellises and butterflies dancing among the impatiens, and goldfinches bobbing up and down on the wild yellow strawflowers. I think he’d wonder at the paperbacks—“Are these real books? Without top edge gilt and tooled leather? hmmmmmmm. Too modern for me,” I can hear him say. And I’d be quick to agree. But a poor scholar’s got to do the best she can with what’s available in her century…and affordable to her pocketbook! He would appreciate, I think, my prized 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica set, and some of the beautifully bound old books for which I’m guardian, but I believe fundamentally we’d be of the same mindset—on the same page as it were: that there’s nothing more deeply comforting and satisfying than sitting in a comfortable chair, under good lighting, feet propped up….with a good book in hand.

All this in mind, I’ve decided to gather together some the book quotes I’ve collected over the years, primarily for my own old-fashioned Commonplace Book of favorite quotations and sayings. And to share them with you today, Gentle Reader. I hope you’ll find them the same inspirational treasures I have. And I hope they’ll keep you holding real books in hand, for, as Churchill said, “If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on their shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances.”

** ** ** ** **

“…for it is said to be the mark of a gentleman that he have a well-stocked library and a speaking acquaintance with some good books.” Temple Scott, 1911.

“The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of truth,of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of necessity make himself a Lover of Books.” Richard De Bury, Philobiblon, 1344. Translation of 1473.

“But I sit here with no company but books and some bright-faced friends upon the wall, musing upon things past and things to come; reading a little, falling off into a reverie, waking to look out on the ever charming beauty of the landscape, dipping again into some dainty honeycomb of literature, wandering from author to author, to catch the echoes which fly from book to book, and by silent suggestions or similarities connect the widely-separated men in time and nature closely together. All minds in the world’s past history find their focal point in a library….All the world is around me. All that ever stirred human hearts, or fired the imagination, is harmlessly here. My library shelves are the avenues of time. Cities and empires are put into a corner. Ages have wrought, generations grown, and all the blossoms are cast down here. It is the garden of immortal fruits, without dog or dragon.” Gilbert de Porre, LETTERS.

“Here is the best solitary company in the world, and in this particular chiefly excelling any other, that in my study I am sure to converse with none but wise men; but abroad it is impossible for me to avoid the society of fools.” Sir William Waller. Divine Meditations: Meditation upon the Contentment I have in my Books and Study.

“When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to be alive and talking to me.” Jonathan Swift. Thoughts on Various Subjects.

“Sitting last winter among my books, and walled round with all the comfort and protection which they and my fire-side could afford me,—to wit, a table of high-piled books at my back, my writing desk on one side of me, some shelves on the other, and the feeling of the warm fire at my feet,—I began to consider how I loved the authors of those books; how I loved them too, not only for the imaginative pleasures they afforded me, but for their making me love the very books themselves, and delight to be in contact with them….I entrench myself in my books, equally against sorrow and the weather.” Leigh Hunt. The Literary Examiner: My Books.

“Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select the more enjoyable….” A. Bronson Alcott. Tablets: Books.

“In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present; with the book I am in the past.” Alexander Smith. Dreamthorp: Books and Gardens.

“Books are our household gods; and we cannot prize them too highly. They are the only gods in all the Mythologies that are ever beautiful and unchangeable; for they betray no man, and love their lovers….” January Searle. The Choice of Books.

SO, Gentle Reader, them’s some of my more trenchant quotations on or about books and why I hold them dearer than all my other possessions; why, too, as my good husband Hollis will be quick to tell you, “Anne belongs to the Book-A-Day Club.” Guilty as charged. Happily guilty as charged!

Twilight Afternoon

Driving home, eyes foggy with tears, my heart’s so full I’m scared it could burst. The ache is palpable, measured in heartbeats against the pounding of sorrow, of loss, of hope even within utter hopelessness.

I am returning from visiting my devoted friend and mentor. For the past 20 years I’ve known him in sunshine, amid gardens abundant with flowers, and old barns abundant in “plunder”; have known him with rich and folksy stories to tell of people and times of old, stories shared freely and repeatedly so that they would perpetuate— stories shared with me so I could carry the baton and keep the ever-dimming pockets of history alive for coming generations.

He was lying down when I got there and struggled to stand up when he saw me enter the room. He was confused though he’d not had time to fall fully asleep after luncheon; he raised himself and then made the effort—and succeeded—to stand, gentlemanliness being deeply bred into his constitution. I took his hand and asked the caretaker for a chair, but when she looked bewildered, I said never mind, I’ll sit on the bedside with my friend.

“I’m not sure I know where I am, I’m not even sure I know who you are….” he faltered at first, then he looked closely at me beside him and said, “Are you Anne—Anne Blythe? You’re beautiful,” he smiled. “So good to see you, it lifts my heart to see you, it gives me a boost.”

And so amid smiles and memories and promises we sat there together, stripped of all worldly barriers, holding hands, holding all four hands, one atop the other. Holding tight and not letting go. Holding our hearts in that pile of clasped hands and fingers.

I told him his blueberry bushes were yielding. “Remember when you came up and planted them in my garden?” I asked. “Oh yes, I still remember and they’re blooming now?”  “Yes,” I said, “though there are not nearly as many berries as your bushes have…but I’m still hoping to get enough for a cobbler soon, and I’ll bring you a dish,” I smiled. “Oh that’ll be nice,” he said, his memories trailing back to his own garden, to his own blueberry bushes, the progenitors of those he gave to me.

“And the Confederate roses you planted, and the old-time azaleas you brought up to my mountain and planted by the river…..they’re all thriving as well.”

“So, I’m there every day in your garden, then, aren’t I? “  “Oh yes,”  I smiled, “indeed you are.” And then he said, again more in memory than in real time, “They’ll live long after we’re both gone…they’ll still carry on, long after we’re both gone….”

And we held hands.

We’re both December babies, celebrate our birthdays together. But December always brings back other memories again, coupled with the pain of those memories, memories of December 1945, of The Battle of the Bulge. A survivor who saw the worst as a young man of 19, he was awarded the Purple Heart for his actions during the battle. He’s given me that story, too, but always with the same caveat he gave again today. “There is no such thing as a hero, you know….a hero is a person who does a thing that needs to be done…for no other reason than that.”

He grows frailer every day….”How old am I,” he asks me.  “I can’t really remember…I know I’m in my eighties….”  A soft sigh, and memories take him again backward in time. “I’ve known a lot of people,” he says, looking up at me. “But you and I have something special.”  “Yes,” I say, “we have books and gardens and flowers and the history of the Dark Corner—We’re the Mann & Anne Show, remember?“

All the world put aside again, in tenderness he says, “I want you to say a few words at my funeral…I know I’ve asked you before, but I’m asking you again, now. We don’t know when or how or anything about it, but I like to be ready for whatever happens.”

“Of course I will,” I say to him gently. “But then— [in a slightly stronger voice, I manage to say]—and same thing applies to you—I want you to say a few words at my funeral. For who knows…I may go first!”

That drew a little laugh. And, sitting side by side on that hard little bed, holding all four hands together, amid the stale fetid smells of that dingy place, we instead smelled the flowers and the sunshine and the rain. And smiling into each other’s eyes, we gave each other our old familiar “All is Well” squeeze of the hands. A trademark. A banner. A flag held high in our hearts to remind us that indeed, yes, all is well with life.  And with Mann and Anne.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past…….

                                                         [Sonnet 30]

Walking Gracie, our rescue dog, yesterday in the still of the mountain morning, coming round one of the river bends I heard the faint purring hummmm of an old gas mower. And, like Proust’s remembered madeleines whose taste and scent transported him back to his youth, to a simpler and softer time, the sound of that mower took me back to 1963 when I was a girl of fifteen, and sleeping late, or rather dozing, in the warm luxury of an early summer’s morning.

Windows open, soft breeze trailing in, I could hear the mower in the back yard and smell the scent of newly mown grass. I knew it was a Saturday and I knew Pink was here, helping Mother and Daddy with housekeeping chores. I also knew it meant all was right with the world, with my world; that there was no need to get up, or hurry, or do anything at all except bask in the very sweet moment of now. Somehow, even as a girl, I knew that I was in a moment, a bubble of time, that would never end in my mind and memory and being, even though, inevitably, it would end in real time. For times change, and young girls grow up.

So I’m hearkened back to a more innocent world, a world barely out of the 1950s, a world where two races moved together in harmony. My family were leftovers from the Great Depression, and lived modestly and frugally. Mother made our clothes and every summer Daddy would come home from the office for midday dinner where we would all eat a good simple meal round the big dining room table. Good china and ancient silverware, passed down from generations before. Faded elegance. Slipcovers on furniture in the summer and clothes shared down from sister to sister.

And Old Pinckney, one of the most gentlemanly of gentlemen I’ve ever known in my life, would take the bus from his home to ours, dressed in his neat dark suit, clean white shirt and hat, carrying a small bag with him. When he arrived on Saturday, he’d slip into the hall lavatory and change into work clothes and help Mother and Daddy—and me—with things that needed to be done around and outside the household.

He’d start outside, mowing the lawn, while it was still cool and breezy, before the day got too hot. And that’s how I knew it was Saturday, that I could afford to sleep and think and dream just a little longer….fuelled by the putt-putting purr of the motor and soothed by the fresh scent of dewy grass being mown.. Then I’d hear a low whistle and know that Daddy had brought our cups of tea to my sister and me, placing them almost at the top landing of the steps, reaching through the bannister rails and setting the steaming cups sweetened with cream and sugar on the first of the uppermost curved steps. That was my signal to get up: To get that fragrant delicious cup of morning tea, I had to get out of bed and pick up the cup! Clever Papa…..it worked every time, without fuss or muss………..

Pink would polish the brass fender and coal scuttle in the living room, the door knobs, and whatever other brass was about the house. And occasionally would wax and polish the hardwood floors the old way, on hands and knees with wax and rag. That, too, was a wonderful old-time scent. And many years later, when we girls were grown up and all home together for a visit, I have a photograph of the three of us taking over Pink’s job…on our hands and knees, wax tin beside us, dining room table and chairs moved out, waxing and polishing the floors for Mother and Daddy. Continuing the old ways long after the old times had slipped away.

And Pink would help me, too, a fifteen year old girl who kept pet rabbits in hutches in the far end of the back yard. Snowball and Daddy-O….who always seemed to have baby bunnies in the depths of winter, and I’d have to quickly, upon discovering the newborns, move old Daddy-O to a separate hutch and more often than not, there’d be a bitter cold snow and I’d have to go to the hutch and pick up the babies and bring them inside. I remember like it was yesterday, sitting on top of the heat vent in the kitchen floor, hairless bunnies in lap and hand, feeding them with an eyedropper. Till all danger of freezing was passed…….We all loved the excitement of having a cardboard box full of squiggling baby bunnies in the kitchen.

But with pets come responsibilities, and my chore was cleaning out the hutch. And so Pink and I would get out there together and clean the inside sleeping compartments—and muck out the rich rabbit dung fertilizer. Sweet and scentless and rich with the promise of making anything at all grow…..we’d divide the dark gold and I’d take my share to the compost heap and Pink would take his share home in a strong bag, all nicely tied.

He’d have lunch in the kitchen with us girls and the rabbits and then he’d slip back into the hall lavatory, and change back into his gentlemanly attire, walk the block up to the bus stop and make his way back home. I later learned that even when he was too old and frail to work any more, Mother and Daddy continued to pay him, continuing to honor the old gentleman who shared and enriched our life in so many ways.

And isn’t it remarkable, how, walking this morning, no longer a girl of fifteen but sixty years later, when I hear the soft purring hum of an old gas mower, like Proust and Shakespeare, I summon up my own remembrance of things past….

What a rich repository memory is…….like a movie-tone reel rewinding through my mind. A summer morning in 2014— far removed form 1963…and suddenly I’m a girl again…in my heart…and memory.

Everything is slowing down…even the droning of the bees is slower, more sonorous.  I can almost hear each breath between buzzings as they perform their slow acrobatics in the field.    The cats are languorous and lounging wherever there’s a bit of shade, under grasses or on top of shady arbors.

Cottontail on top of the arbor

Miss Lightning, chilling in the grass

Hydrangeas are blue as an October sky, and SummerTime is all around me.

The roses are in their second bloom and sweet new buds are appearing….There’s Peace in my little Valley………

But always, too, there is Danger.  Always one must be wary……

Though I love to skip over the river rocks and splash into the water…so, too, do our resident reptiles……It seems everybody wants to soak in the sun’s rays….like this long, wiggly black snake, the rest of whose tail was hidden under the rocks behind him….

or this Big Boy Rattler!!  who was spotted right after the landslide and flash flood of last August.

Yes, it’s beautiful up here in this mountain valley, but one must never be complacent.  One must always be prepared to show—and share—respect for all God’s living creatures. So, when I slip out to smell the roses or admire the blue globes of the hydrangea bush, believe me, I whistle a little tune and peer closely under the lush green foliage…for anything that wants to get out of my way as much as I want to get out of its!