WOW! No place to park! I’m heading down the highway with my blinker on to turn into the 4- 5 vehicle gravel pull off when I realize its fully occupied: by 2 HUGE trucks. They are parked across the area, taking up the whole space. Why?
For some reason, I thought it might be to clean up the fallen tree Peaches and I find another space to pull over and then notice 2 guys who just traipsing into the woods. We follow them, past the tree (still uncleared) across the plank walkway over the swampy stream and up the hill. At the top, we catch up with them: standing, looking out over the beaver pond.
Slung over their shoulders: rifles.
Okay!
Peaches and I scurry back along the trail.
Next time out:
You can see her now!
She’s so much more visible than before
Even when it was foggy out.
(My art lies in pieces. CT business took all my time this past week. Grrrrrrr.)
Jan and I don’t walk in the woods anyway. We are chatting up a storm on a nice gravel road where we can walk side by side. And still have quiet.
On today’s blessed weekly walk with Jan, she asked me if Mrs. Moore was the person i mentioned when we were first getting acquainted (12 years ago? Yes! Both are deeply caring people. Jane/Jan – and such similar names to match !
But that brought me back to Mrs. Moore again.
As background, when I was small child, my father would come to Maine for at least a portion of the summers we spent there as children Then he stopped. When I asked why, he said:”Too many strong women”.
I held Mrs Moore out as a contrast. Southern. Soft spoken. Delicate. And I thought that I knew her. Until near the end of her life when we became closer. These are snippets that reveal her “fuller self”.
It was the summer after Bedford’s death that I wrote about earlier. I was visiting Mrs. Moore with Nika, Hunter, Ariella and Samsun when their age ranges were from 8 (Nika) to 3(Samsun). She had brought out some irresistably delicious snacks and we were perched outside on the edge of a nicely mowed gentle hill. She then came out with a notebook – she had been through Bedford’s papers for the courses he taught at UVA. I expected some dull information…
But no. In amongst them, she had found these ridiculous notes/letters from students:
Professor Moore: So sorry to only turn in the first page, the others must have flown out the window on my drive to school. It fell in my cat’s food when I was feedling her…
One after another. Nika understood them, Hunter might have, but once any of us started giggling, we all were soon rolling down the hill – laughing and rolling.
Another time I popped in on her. It was winter and we were inside her impeccably clean house. On the side of the dining room table there was a glass encased cabinet with plates and fine china. I was ooohing and aahing when she slyly reached in and brought out a porcelain figure of a small boy. It took me a minute. He was naked. He was peeing. She chuckled as she delicately set it back in.
In 1998, she handed me a book to read: Making the Gods Work for You, by Caroline Casey. In my mind, southern women of her age went to church. But knowing astrology?
Mrs. Moore (like dear Jan), was tiny. And short. Once Bedford wasn’t around, if she wanted to go somewhere, she needed to drive herself. But in her car, she could barely see over the steering wheel. She got into accidents, bumping into another car. Who knows how many. They must not have been too terrible – she would get out of her car, hurry over to offer to pay any damage to the other person’s car. She did NOT want anything reported to insurance or to go on her record. That way, she could keep her freedom.
And where did she want to go? Aside from the routine trips, every year she looked forward to the day that immigrants were sworn in as Americal citizens. She would drive out to Monticello, up the steep hairpin turn road that now you have to take a bus on, to sit in the audience and get tearful, watching the ceremony and noticing how many countries were represented.
Oh Mrs. Moore. Jane. Southern woman? Yes. Strong willed?
Hmmmmmm.
.
