I have been on a kind of purification jag since the end of my term on the assembly and the completion of the book. Three full weeks of housecleaning, painting, and organizing (the entire downstairs is all fresh white now) — books have been emptied from the shelves, dusted, and organized, and boxes of old musty paperbacks have gone out the door. (Okay, a few were grabbed and brought back. We couldn’t help it.) I think Chip is so weary of my sudden concern for cleanliness and order ( all the lights have been polished and LED bulbs installed. The windows washed, so have slipcovers, quilts, and curtains. Rugs and rug pads have been shaken out. Antlers dusted!) that he’s ready to have me back on the assembly. I piled even more stuff in my office while the downstairs was topsy-turvey and couldn’t even see my desk.
Before 
After 
I had wondered if I would ever feel the old lightness of my happy life in Haines again after that rather brutal term on the assembly, and am pleased to report I do. Last week I laughed a lot. For starters, right in the middle of the home improvement chaos, while we were watching the World Series surrounded by book piles and dropcloths, a bear showed up at the back door. A baby bear, but still, where there is one, there is a mother, and I’m pretty sure two more cubs if it’s the same family that has been hustling by on the beach regularly. That was exciting.
The Hospice Board had a surprise retirement party for our adminstrator, Beth, in which we actually gathered all the gifts and food and hid in the office and the grief counselor pretended she needed Beth’s help with the computer and so we waited, so quietly, and when the door opened jumped up and shouted Surprise! Beth almost had a heart attack and cried good tears. There were a lot of good people in that room who are committed to doing good things for their neighbors- friendly ones and not so friendly ones- left, right and center. Politics doesn’t matter when you are sick or when you care for others on a more fundamental level than today’s headlines.
Then on Halloween the post office crew dressed up as holidays— My kindly neighbor Greg who has always been an animal lover and partime farmer, was of course Thanksgiving, in a full Tom turkey costume. I’ve also been working on John Hutchins’ obiturary. The retired magistrate’s big heart stopped suddenly. (He was just 73.) John was compassionate and unflappable, a former Navy nurse, he taped this note to himself behind the courtroom bench: “What people really need is a good listening to.”
Yesterday was the Feast of All Saints at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church with Vicar Jan Hotze presiding. I love the Episcopalians. Our titles are bigger than our congregation. But boy we can sing. Nancy played all eight verses (or was there ten?) of For All the Saints Who From Their Labors Rest on the piano and when we ran out of breath over on our side of the aisle we caught the giggles. It was crazy, and so much fun to belt out that old hymn as if the fifteen or so us were the choir at the National Cathedral. Nancy even trilled out a soprano descant. Jan reminded us to be grateful for all the saints “ known and unknown” who are all around us, as guardian angels, all the time, if we would only pay closer attention, and if that weren’t enough to renew my faith in humanity, and this small town I call home and the people in it, the gospel lesson was the big one: love your neighbor as yourself. If a man asks for your coat, give him your shirt too. Be good. Do good and keep an eye out for saints among us.
(My old dog, now Saint Forte. He was some dog, as they say.)
