Thursday, November 27, 2014

THANKS GIVING

A storm has just passed.
At the edge of what was once a nicely manicured suburban lawn, a man stands and draws his family around him. He is wet, somewhat disheveled; he wears a Notre Dame T-shirt which is slightly ripped and clings to his body from the rain. Inside his mind, he is constantly, incessantly counting the heads of his family. “All here,” he keeps reassuring himself, “All here.” His young daughter holds her favorite doll limply; the doll appears as dazed and listless as the little girl holding it. To him, his wife looks radiant and strong, but he can see just behind her eyes that she is ready to crumble. The dog runs around the yard blissfully, with what the man recognizes as part of a leg from what was once the dining room table in its mouth. A twenty-dollar bill lies on the lawn, flapping lightly in the post-storm breeze, rendered as unimportant and valueless as the rest of the debris around it.
Finally, he takes a deep breath and speaks. “We are so lucky,” he says.
This, to me, is the essence of Thanksgiving.
Most of us, when we think about being “lucky”, think about things like making the subway just before the doors close, or being narrowly missed by a flaming chunk of SkyLab as it drops out of the sky. There is very little that is lucky about your house being in the direct path of an EF-4 tornado. That’s actually quite unlucky, to be honest. And yet, we hear this sort of thing time and time again. Whenever our illusions of safety and control have been swept aside, people whose whole lives have just been turned upside-down gather what is precious to them and proclaim their good fortune.
If we have one another, if we have our very lives, if we have tomorrow and a chance to begin again, then we have what we need. All the rest is just “stuff.”
So, today, as you bow your head and pray, or meditate, or notice that your fly is undone, whatever it is you do on Thanksgiving Day to make it solemn, be thankful for the turkey and the green bean casserole, to be sure. But start here: Be thankful for what is really precious in your life. Gather it all close to you, throw a proverbial blanket around yourselves, and imagine that you’re all you’ve got left. Then remember how lucky you really are.
Give thanks for that.

Friday, October 17, 2014

“DUST IN THE WIND”

People my age might remember a band called “Kansas”, who came out with an album entitled “Point of Know Return” in 1977. I owned a copy, and just like every other suburban white kid my age, I can remember listening to it wearing those gigantic, padded headphones with the curly cord which we used back then, and thinking how cosmic and profound it all was. Upon further consideration, though, I found that there was actually no “there” there, so to speak. Their lyrics were more like meaningless or nearly-meaningless drivel written to complement electric organ and Moog synthesizer riffs and appeal to the bong-hitting 12 to 18 year-old demographic who found Loggins & Messina to be too folksy and Aerosmith to be too hardcore. 

“They say the sea turns so dark that

You know it's time, you see the sign
They say the point demons guard is
An ocean grave, for all the brave,
Was it you that said, "How long, how long,
How long to the point of know return?"

…Really? What?

So, today, as I was walking the dog and turned the corner onto a neighborhood street, I began to hear the strains of “Dust in the Wind” blasting from the window of a house down the road. Immediately that ironic, judgmental inner voice of mine, the one we all have (don't we?), began to chuckle and wonder, “Who is listening to that old schlock?”
Then I saw whose house it was.
It was the house of a neighbor who is currently battling cancer for the second time. A family who lost a son just a year or so ago to a drug overdose.

“Now don’t hang on
Nothin’ lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won’t another minute buy.
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind…”
And suddenly that little judgmental, ironic voice in my head shut right the hell up and felt kind of ashamed of itself.
All this just went to remind me that no matter how we see or hear this world, this day, this song on the radio, someone else sees it in an entirely different light. While we contemplate our weekend and worry about getting the car fixed, someone else is wondering whether they’ll live to see Christmas and is hoping, above all, that it won’t hurt. That 3½-minute, made-for-AM-radio hit you’ve always disregarded as musical tripe, someone else thinks of as a prayer.
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" - Ian Maclaren

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

"To Have My Bestest Friend Again"


Yeah, it's kind of maudlin and tear-jerkery, I know. But there was a soul I knew, named Buster. I miss him more than I miss anyone or anything that's gone in my life. I think about him every single day. 




Thursday, October 2, 2014

Song of the Open Road

Song of the Open Road

BY WALT WHITMAN
1
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

2
You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here,
I believe that much unseen is also here.

Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,
The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not denied;
The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,
The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,

The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town,
They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted,
None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.

3
You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.

You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!

You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,
From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.

4
The earth expanding right hand and left hand,
The picture alive, every part in its best light,
The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,
The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road.

O highway I travel, do you say to me Do not leave me?
Do you say Venture not—if you leave me you are lost?
Do you say I am already prepared, I am well-beaten and undenied, adhere to me?

O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you,
You express me better than I can express myself,
You shall be more to me than my poem.

I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all free poems also,
I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me,
I think whoever I see must be happy.

5
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently,but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
I inhale great draughts of space,
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.

6
Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me,
Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d it would not astonish me.

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

Here a great personal deed has room,
(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,
Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority and all argument against it.)

Here is the test of wisdom,
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it,
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.

Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.

Here is realization,
Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him,
The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.

Only the kernel of every object nourishes;
Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?
Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?

Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion’d, it is apropos;
Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers?
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?

7
Here is the efflux of the soul,
The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower’d gates, ever provoking questions,
These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they?
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood?
Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always drop fruit as I pass;)
What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers?
What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side?
What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk by and pause?
What gives me to be free to a woman’s and man’s good-will? what gives them to be free to mine?

8
The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness,
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,
Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.

Here rises the fluid and attaching character,
The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman,
(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself.)

Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old,
From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments,
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.

9
Allons! whoever you are come travel with me!
Traveling with me you find what never tires.

The earth never tires,
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first,
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.

Allons! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while.

10
Allons! the inducements shall be greater,
We will sail pathless and wild seas,
We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.

Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements,
Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;
Allons! from all formules!
From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests.

The stale cadaver blocks up the passage—the burial waits no longer.

Allons! yet take warning!
He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance,
None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health,
Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself,
Only those may come who come in sweet and determin’d bodies,
No diseas’d person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.

(I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes,
We convince by our presence.)

11
Listen! I will be honest with you,
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you,
What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you.

12
Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!
They too are on the road—they are the swift and majestic men—they are the greatest women,
Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habituès of many distant countries, habituès of far-distant dwellings,
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children,
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years each emerging from that which preceded it,
Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,
Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and well-grain’d manhood,
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass’d, content,
Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

13
Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys,
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you,
To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle of it,
To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,
To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,
To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go,
To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them, to gather the love out of their hearts,
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,
To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls.

All parts away for the progress of souls,
All religion, all solid things, arts, governments—all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.

Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.

Forever alive, forever forward,
Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,
Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,
They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,
But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.

Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you.

Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!
It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.

Behold through you as bad as the rest,
Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,
Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash’d and trimm’d faces,
Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.

No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession,
Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,
Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the parlors,
In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,
Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bedroom, everywhere,
Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,
Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers,
Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,
Speaking of any thing else but never of itself.

14
Allons! through struggles and wars!
The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.

Have the past struggles succeeded?
What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?
Now understand me well—it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.

My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion,
He going with me must go well arm’d,
He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, desertions.

15
Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain’d!

Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
Share this text ...?

Saturday, September 20, 2014

from Facebook, originally posted 9/19/14

Made it home yesterday afternoon. I did not go online once yesterday, which, as anyone who knows me will tell you, never happens. But, we spent the day "getting home", and once we got home we had Mom and Aunt Barbara here, so we spent the day chatting with them and looking at pictures and such. Then there were the animals: the dog was beside himself with wiggling, slobbering dog-joy, of course;  and once the cat had forgiven us and made us suffer for a bit, she needed all of her attention too. Mark left a while ago to bring the ladies back to Saugus, so the house is blessedly quiet for the first time since I got home.
Never did get around to writing that story. Not enough "idle hours" at the resort, and a laptop is hardly the accessory one wants while riding in an innertube. I thought I might try something on the trip home, but we ended up having the most extraordinary flight on Wednesday. 
The plane was a McDonnell-Douglas with a capacity of roughly 150-250 people, I would guess. There were 25 souls aboard that flight, which was probably the primary reason why the flight was so pleasant in the first place. Once we got past the torturous vetting process of being allowed back into the US, the entire process was not only painless, I might even go so far as to say pleasant. Everyone had their pick of seats, and once everyone was snack'ed and beverage'd, the flight attendants grabbed some food from First Class and relaxed in the rear, which was cool. The baby only cried once. The air was smooth as silk, hardly a bump from takeoff to landing, and we were ahead of schedule.
There are advantages to being someone, like me, who lives largely inside of his own head. This allows you to have almost transcendental moments in the most unlikely of places, even somewhere like on an airplane in mid-flight, where ordinarily you would be cramped, aching, quite possibly nauseous, and wondering if anyone has ever really ordered a $350 briefcase from SkyMall. 
We were flying due north, and Mark and I were stretching out in an exit row directly over the wings. The weather had been beautiful all day. I had finished my last book that morning, so my iPod was playing and I had been admiring the clouds and thinking how they looked like giant kernels of exploded popcorn from that angle. At sunset, the sun was exactly at the tip of the wing out to the west. I took some pictures but no matter how many megapixels I have, nothing could capture the magnificence of it. A mysterious landscape of white below, a blaze of red and searing yellow at the horizon, and sapphire blue above, fading into grayscale as night took over. Mumford and Sons was playing on my iPod as I watched the sun slowly dissolve away. Could there be a better band than Mumford and Sons for that moment? "Awake my soul..." At that moment, I could look below at the landscape. The pilot was flying us right up the coast of the United States, and when I looked down, I could see exactly where we were. I recognized the Chesapeake Bay and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and I knew that the cluster of lights to the west was Baltimore, my home town, and I knew my brother and his family were there, and the souls of my Mom and Dad. I waved. 
The iPod shuffled to James Galway playing a concerto for flute by Bach. As I looked down, I was able to see whole neighborhoods pop into view from the growing darkness as all their streetlights came on at once, crazy Lite-Brite pictures drawn by civil engineers. I had one of those moments when you remember how small and insignificant you really are. I realized how the guy felt when he composed the theme song from "Arthur": "caught between the moon and New York City."
And before I knew it, there it was, New York City, and we were landing at JFK. Our Dream Flight had ended. We all smiled and deplaned and re-assumed our roles as red blood cells in the throbbing circulatory system of Air Travel. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did, but I doubt they did. 
Anyway, so that's why I haven't gotten the story written.

It's nice to be home.


Sunday, August 24, 2014

DESSERT

a short-ish story based on real events


         I guess it was a morning pretty much like any other. Except this particular morning I was tying a tie, which is something I hardly ever do. I somehow feel like I never quite got it right, the art of tying a tie, that is. Somehow the finished product always seems to come out a bit lopsided and I’m lucky if the tie doesn’t end up hanging out four inches below my belt or halfway up my shirt, like an Oliver Hardy impersonator. That morning I was standing there in front of the mirror tying this tie, but I was actually looking at my face instead of whatever my hands were doing. I was looking at all the little lines around my eyes and around my mouth and how there’s hair in my ears and how I look so old. Not that it really bothers me or anything, but every once in a while you notice how much it all sneaks up on you.
      Anyway, I finished tying the tie and it only looked slightly cockeyed. My gaze focused on the mirror itself and the room in the reflection behind me. It was an old mirror, really old. It had come with the house and almost all the silvering had come off around the edges, and I liked to let my imagination run wild sometimes and picture all the faces and all the things that have been reflected in this very mirror. I thought to myself how much I loved this little house and about how life had brought me here in the first place.
      I grew up in a little town in Pennsylvania called Hazleton. I guess Hazleton is a nice enough place, except for the fact that there’s nothing there. Well, I suppose there is something in Hazleton, if you consider a Sonic, a Store 24 and a Residence Inn to be something. I worked at the Residence Inn.
      I guess it was a pretty decent job. We had good benefits and insurance, and the pay wasn’t bad, although you had to be good at budgeting your money because we only got paid twice a month. After six years I had worked my way up to supervisor, which really didn’t mean very much beyond the fact that I was a desk clerk who had to monitor when the housekeepers went on break and once in a while had to fill in for a shift manager when they went on vacation. That and like 25¢ more an hour. I could conceivably have stayed on with Residence Inn for the rest of my life, working my way up through the hierarchy and retiring with a nice Buick Regal and a 401(k). For the most part I was fine with that, especially considering that I had just barely squeaked by in community college and there weren’t all that many prospects in Hazleton. But a part of me was alarmed at the potential of a lifetime career of wearing a brass nametag and a phony smile.
      Then, my father died. 
      My mom died when I was only four and in all honesty, I have no memory of her at all. On my dresser I have one of those sort of idealized, soft-focus Olan Mills portraits of her and my dad from before I was born, so I try to imagine that face, looking down at me and singing lullabies and stuff. Although, sometimes I think I do remember her when I’m dreaming and in the morning before the cobwebs clear, I think I come the closest to remembering what she was like.
      My dad took good care of me, we got along pretty well and he always made sure I was fed and clothed and got to school on time. I suppose that’s really about all a child can ask from a parent in the end. But Dad had his life and I had mine. When we sat down together alone we just never seemed to have that much to say to one another. When I turned 21 and I’d finished at community college, I got my own apartment in Hazleton. I moved out of the house during the afternoon when my dad was at work so we never had that moment when we had to say goodbye to one another and then sort of awkwardly decide if we were going to hug or just sort of let it go. 
      Six years passed by, more or less. We only really talked a few times a year. I would go over on Thanksgiving and on Christmas. I took him out for dinner a couple of times for his birthday and he’d call me every once in a while to tell me that somebody from the office had just croaked, as he put it, or that the doctor had changed his Coumadin dose again. I had my job at the hotel and he had his poker buddies, and somehow I think it was easier for both of us to just not call rather than try to fill all the pregnant silences.
      But then the phone rang one morning and it was the Luzerne County Medical Examiner’s Office telling me that they regretted to inform me that my father had passed away. 
      “You mean croaked,” I said to the voice on the phone.
      “Excuse me, sir?” she said.
      “Never mind,” I said. “Inside joke.”
      Anyway, fast-forward a couple of weeks. Past the funeral, past the signatures and the estate appraisals and the billable hours and all of that. I found myself on the other side with a $750,000 inheritance from my old man. 
      For a while I just carried on like usual, going to work at the hotel and finding a kind of comfort in the numbness of the ordinary. 
      Then, I ordered take-out from the Golden Dragon one night. I was watching a movie on cable, some dystopian epic about the enslavement of the masses. When I had finished my Peking dumplings, which were delicious by the way, I cracked open the fortune cookie. The fortune inside read “Time for a change. Lucky numbers 3-17-23-46”
I looked up at the television. At that very moment a monochrome, downtrodden army of identically miserable workers was being marched off to the factories on the screen. I thought to myself that the grey of their factory jumpsuits was the exact color of the company-issued sportcoat I put on every morning at the Residence Inn.
      I looked back down at the tiny piece of paper in my hand: Time for a change.
      Long story short, I ended up moving here to New Sisily.
      New Sisily is a tiny town covering barely more than a square mile in the middle of Cape Cod. You’ll never find it on a map though. Technically it’s not even a town at all but a giant parcel of privately owned real estate allowed to exist because of some creative legislation in the 1780s which nobody ever saw much point in amending. As the legend goes, it was founded by a small group of people who broke away from the Mayflower Pilgrims and rejected their joyless, Puritan ways. They named it after the Italian island of Sicily, which to the 17th century English mind was as exotic and faraway as Bali Ha’i. It has since been the home of a few souls, currently about 150, mostly the type of people who have come here to be left alone and live their lives in peace. Like me, I guess. There is really not much here, a lot of old houses and one church-shaped building which was never consecrated. Nevertheless, everyone still calls it the church and nowadays people mostly use it for birthday parties and sometimes a cookout on July Fourth. Just behind the church is a huge forty-acre cemetery which was willed to the town by one of its founding fathers. Even after more than 300 years of history, only a tiny fraction of its land is actually inhabited, as it were, by the town’s dead. 
      I came across New Sisily by way of a real estate agent who was showing me this little house on Churchyard Road. Churchyard Road is an offshoot on the far side of the cemetery, more or less removed from the rest of the town, a sort of Victorian cul-de-sac. 
      The little road originally led to a single cottage built for the sexton, whose duty it was to look after the burial ground. It seems that at some point during the 1850s, the sexton converted to Mormonism, promptly adopted the practice of plural marriage and built eight small, identical homes, one for each of his eight wives. I’ve been told that my house was originally built for his fourth wife, someone with the rather melodic but unfortunate name of Prudence Apostrophe Motherwell. 
      As soon as I laid eyes on the house I knew that this was where I was going to live. It was a typical Cape Cod, 1850s four-by-four, but it looked as if it had been built by a master model-maker at ¾-scale. I had enough money to buy the place outright and still live for a few years without really having to work or worry about money too much. 
      So, that’s what I’ve been doing. I work now and then, odd jobs or a fill-in when someone needs help at their shop or what-not. But for the most part I sleep in, write a little bit, read a lot and go for walks. Plus like anyone else, a good portion of the day is devoted to stuff like cooking and eating and making sure the house is clean and that sort of thing.
      There was this woman who lived across the street from me, where the third wife lived originally I guess, whose name was Mrs. Chandler. On her mailbox though, which sat slightly askew at the end of her walkway, the letter C had long since worn away, so in my mind I always thought her name was Mrs. Handler. Even now that I know better, I still think of her that way sometimes. 
      Anyway, Mrs. Chandler was sort of an odd person, perhaps a bit of a recluse, but who isn’t in New Sisily? I know I could say the same about myself. People told crazy stories about her, that she had poisoned a few husbands down in Texas, that she had taken one too many peyote trips back in the Sixties, that she was a Holocaust survivor and was haunted by the things she’d seen. I watched her when she left her house to get her mail or make a trip into town. She was old but she looked strong. Her eyes were clear and she always kept her hair neatly done in a long, thick grey braid down the middle of her back. I did notice that her curtains were always closed. She could have been hoarding all kinds of ugly or unsanitary secrets inside of that house. But she always kept her yard and her little flower beds nice, so in the end I decided that she was probably just old and misunderstood. 
      Then one morning, May 13, five years ago to be exact, I was going for a walk. It was a morning when all of spring’s promises had finally been fulfilled. The Easter-egg colors of April had given way to the serious shouts and screams of the reds, oranges and greens of summer and the air smelled like cut grass and dandelions. I was walking through the cemetery when I saw Mrs. Chandler. She was dancing.
      She had on a beautiful dress, the sort of dress you would expect a woman of her age to wear to a niece’s wedding or a good friend’s funeral, but her feet were bare. She had spread a blanket nearby, upon which sat a bottle of champagne, two glasses and a small radio. I could hear a Glenn Miller tune being blown to me on the breeze. She danced, her back to me, her old body swaying gently as she shifted her weight from foot to foot, looking from my vantage point as if she were entranced. Then she spun around and I saw that her eyes were closed. Until she opened them and seemed startled to see me standing there. She let out a nervous little laugh and I remember feeling surprised because it sounded like the laugh of a young girl.
      “Oh, hello young man,” she said, smiling. She was blushing and I couldn’t help smiling back.
      “Hello,” I said.
      “Would you like to dance?” she asked me.
      My first instinct was to look around me. Looking for what? To see if anyone was watching? There was no one there. Was I looking for an excuse, a reason to say no?  
      “Well, OK, sure. Why not?” I stepped onto the grass with her.
      Sometimes it’s hard to let go of ourselves. We can sing like Pavarotti in the shower but wouldn’t dare sing out loud in the subway. We can write stories of epic bravery and be scared senseless of enclosed spaces. It’s hard to dance like nobody’s watching, as the song says. And so it was that day. I stepped up to dance in a graveyard with a barefoot old woman who may or may not have poisoned her husbands in Texas. For a few seconds it felt awkward, really weird, and I was wondering what in the hell I was doing there. But then I listened to Glenn Miller and held that lady in my arms and we did dance like nobody was watching, because nobody was. When the song ended we both laughed and then the awkwardness came back, but only for a second. 
      “Can I ask you a question?” I said.
      “Seems fair,” she answered, pouring two glasses of champagne.
      “What exactly are you doing out here?”
      “I’m dancing,” she told me. “I’m dancing on my own grave.”
      "OK,” I said. Then I said, “Why?”
      Her eyes flashed and she laughed again, like a little girl. “Because I can, young man. Because I can!” She handed me a glass. “Here, have a seat. Would you like to hear a story?”
      “Sure."
      We both sat down on the grass, on what I supposed would one day be Mrs. 
Chandler’s final resting place.  “What is your name, young man?” 
      “Victor Wallace.”
      “Well, Victor Wallace, have you ever heard of Evansville, Indiana?”
      In a way, I felt bad that I hadn’t. “Well, no, I can’t say that I have.”
      “Figures,” she said. “Third-largest city in the state of Indiana and nobody has ever heard of it.”
      “Sorry.” 
      “Yeah, well. That’s where I used to live, before I moved here to New Sisily. Evansville, Indiana.”
      We sipped that fine French champagne at 9:30 in the morning and I listened as she told me her story. She had been married to a guy she really loved, a guy she met the summer after graduating high school. They didn’t have any kids. He loved his Marlboros so much that he dropped dead of a heart attack when they were both only 43. She never remarried. Her family all died off and she was living her life as pretty much a solitary entity. That part of her story sounded pretty familiar. She was down to one good friend, a woman named Bernice May. 
      “No matter what,” she told me, “No matter what shit, pardon my French, had hit the fan that particular year, Bernice and I would take each other out to eat on our birthdays. Oh, how I used to look forward to those lunches!” She clasped her hands and looked off into the distance for a moment, remembering. 
      “Then came my 60th birthday. 1992.” 
      Her face clouded over and she took a big swallow of champagne. 
      “Bernice had called me the night before. 'We’ll have to make it for breakfast, Miriam,' she told me. 'I finally got in to see that sonofabitch doctor over in Henderson.' So, we made a date for JoJo’s, a little place attached to the Drury Inn in Evansville. 
      Oh, that breakfast was lovely. I had a nice cheese omelet with bacon and all the coffee I could drink. When I had finished my omelet, I grabbed the menu from behind the napkin dispenser on the table. I was looking at the ice cream sundaes and the cakes and things, even though it was only about nine o’clock in the morning. I looked across the table at Bernice and I said to her, 'Bernice, I know it’s early but I do believe I’m going to have dessert!'
      And that was when the world came to an end.”
      Mrs. Chandler went on to tell me how a C-130 Hercules military aircraft crashed at that very moment into JoJo’s Restaurant in Evansville, Indiana. Glass, noise, fire, dust, confusion and the next thing she knew, she was still sitting there holding that menu, alive and unscathed but her last remaining friend had just been vaporized before her eyes.
      I struggled to find something to say but couldn’t. 
      “Can you imagine?” she said.
      “No," I answered her. "No I can’t.” 
      “Not long after that, I moved out here. And not long after that," she said, patting the grass we sat upon, "I bought this here little plot. I mean, Jesus, if I’ve learned anything at all from all this, it’s that you never know when your number is going to be up. A plane, a goddamn airplane, can fall out of the clear blue sky at any moment and obliterate you. Or me. Now, every year on my birthday, which is also the day I cheated Death, I come out here and dance on my own grave. It’s my little tradition.”
      “And that’s today,” I said.
      “Yes, that’s today.”
      “Why two champagne glasses?” 
      “I always brought a glass for Bernice, or for Tommy, or maybe for Death himself. Maybe we have a standing date for today. But today they’re not here. You are. So today, I brought it for you.”
      I sat there and took my shoes off. We finished the champagne and talked a bit. She was a nice lady, she was just misunderstood. After a while, I put my shoes back on and said goodbye. I felt like she might need some time alone with Bernice and Tommy and whatever other ghosts she was visiting.
      The next year on May 13, I couldn’t help but go there again. And there she was, in her Sunday best with a fine bottle of wine. We danced. She laughed in that little-girl way of hers. We drank champagne and we talked.
      And then the next year I got dressed up too, and I brought some crusty French bread and some cheese and purple grapes. The year after that it rained, but we danced anyway in our best clothes. We danced to life and we danced with Death, and then we ran back to her house to drink the Veuve Clicquot.
      I had never been inside her house before. Part of me still half-expected to find a scary mess, but I was relieved to learn the real reason why she never opened her curtains. It was art, covering every available wall or flat surface. And it was beautiful. I don’t know much about what’s valuable or what isn’t when it comes to art, but I know something beautiful when I see it. She had filled her little home with splendor, moments frozen, unalterable, immune from unforeseen disaster. Her curtains were drawn to protect it all from the sun. 
      The next year, last year, I put on my suit and a brand new shirt and tie which I had bought especially for Mrs. Chandler’s birthday. I walked to the cemetery shortly before nine, which was the time when the airplane had fallen out of the sky in Indiana. She was not there. 
      I walked over to her plot and waited for a while. I sat down, listening to the persistent buzz of late spring insects. I kept expecting to see her walking around the curve in the pathway with her bottle of wine and transistor radio. She never came.
      I walked over to her house and I knocked on the front door. 
      “Mrs. Chandler?” I said. “Miriam?” 
      No answer.
      I walked around the back and tried that door. It was unlocked. I opened it and knocked at the same time. “Hello? Mrs. Chandler? Anybody home?” Nothing.
I smelled coffee. A cup sat half empty on the counter, still steaming slightly. On the table sat a bottle of French champagne and two glasses, a small blanket folded neatly and a radio. 
      I walked into the living room. She sat there on the couch, in a lovely dress that I had not seen before. On the coffee table in front of her sat an old, scorched menu from JoJo’s Restaurant in Evansville, Indiana. She looked OK. She was not breathing. She had kept her standing date.
      A few days later, only the funeral director and I stood at Mrs. Chandler’s plot in the cemetery.  He turned to me. “You know,” he said, “she took care of everything beforehand. All the arrangements.” He paused, looking at me. “Except for one thing. An epitaph.”
      “An epitaph?”
      “Do you think she would have wanted one?”
      I thought for a moment. “Yeah. I do think she would have liked one.”
      The funeral director’s face brightened, although his brow remained furrowed in a carefully cultivated expression of condolence. “Really? Would you mind writing it down for me?”

      Anyway, when I had finished tying my tie I grabbed the champagne out of the fridge, although only a split this time and just one glass. 
      Her granite headstone stood, new and proud and ready to face the ages. I opened the champagne, put my phone on speaker and found the Glenn Miller song I had downloaded especially from iTunes. I took off my shoes and danced. I remembered Miriam and my dad, and Bernice May and the mom whose face I can’t picture. I reminded myself that an airplane, a goddamn airplane could fall out of the sky at any moment.
      When the song ended, I sat down in front of Mrs. Chandler’s headstone. I wiped some morning dew from the words carved into the granite.
      “I know it’s early,” they read, “but I do believe I’m going to have dessert!”