I love lights in the windows this time of year. Back in college, in Vermont one of my favorite things was a late afternoon walk up the hill from Middlebury to campus, when the yellow lights glowed in the windows of old white houses, the kind with pumpkins and mums on the porch steps, while imagining the busy kitchens. Homework on the table, apples and cheese, chowder in the pot and cornbread in the oven.
I made bean soup and cornbread last night for Chip and Papa Bob while they watched the Seahawks lose (recorded while Chip was at the lumberyard and Papa Bob napped by the fire.) We paused it to sit at the table and have a proper supper, with grace, talking and news of the day, and Papa Bob told the story about his favorite college football coach yelling at him to tackle someone when my dad was sitting on the bench right next to him. My father laughs until he cries every time he tells it.
It is funny what stays with him after what, 60 autumns? I wonder what stories will make me laugh and cry when I’m old? I never played football. But Dad and I did attend the same college, so we both can see those fall colors behind the field, the same windows and roofs. My stories will no doubt be about life here in Haines– of family, dogs, births, and deaths too–
A friend’s father died this week (much younger than Papa Bob) and she noted, correctly, that the end of life, if it winds down naturally, is very much like the beginning. There is a kind of labor and then release in dying, and the timing that seems so slow until everything changes suddenly with the cry of new life or that last breath. I don’t mean to depress you. I think the comparison is comforting in many ways. Plus, it is almost Halloween and All Saints’ Day when the spirits of the dead, or our past, hover close.
I have also been planning for the Lighting of the Library, a lively holiday community event on the Saturday evening after Thanksgiving. The first in two years. We’ve had no Covid cases for a few days so town leaders urged us to get back to our normal celebrations for the holidays. I am as tired of Covid restrictions as you are, but it is a little scary to dive right back in.
I know that this will be a story I tell years from now, how we stayed home and then went back out– and that I will no doubt mix in the Lighting of the Fort with the cannon blast and the times we sledded and sang carols in the driving rain knee deep in slush, or the way we stuffed that big spruce tree into the library and raised it in the tall window like a ship in a bottle every winter, and that crazy ratty old Snow Dragon with all the fireworks in the holiday parade. It will grow larger, scarier and more flammable in each re-telling.
I am looking forward to singing with the choir again soon. A Messiah sing-a-long would be great, but probably that’s for next year, as it takes more rehearsal time than we have until Christmas.
And taking the re-opening slow is fine. If the pandemic has taught me anything, it’s that true community life is the little stuff. What will restore me to social health are those kind of outside looking in at the warm light in the window conversations. Those cheerful goodnights in the moonlight when we leave choir practice, and the talks we have waiting for the kids to finish swim team practice or for a package at the P.O. Those chats that never choose sides. The easy, friendly, unhurried, random connections that used to mean nothing and now mean everything— How’s your mother? That new baby sure is cute. Did you knit that hat? I love it. I didn’t recognize you in that new truck. Sure, I’ll buy a raffle ticket. Did you hear it’s snowing at fifteen-mile? Won’t be long now… and yes, I’ll see you at the Lighting of the Library. Can you bake some cookies? It will be fun to be together again.