GOING TO BEAVER POND
I’d written the directions on the back of an envelope and remembered Liz telling me, Two turns, Ruth, that's all there is, two turns. She was wrong of course. But I was prepared and left well in advance. I had to gas up which is not easy. The tiny swing door on my gas tank requires assistance from someone. When I pulled into the huge Hess gas station I swung my eyes across the dozen gas pumps to see who might help me. As I walked up to a Hispanic truck driver filling up his gas can I realized he may not speak English. But he did. Ah, he said, when he came over to my car, you need help because the door is smashed in.
Yes, I laughed. Thank you so much.
I kept the radio off while I drove down two-lane highways toward New Hope the better to concentrate. There was the bed and breakfast nuzzled in between green rain-drenched farm fields, there was Bryan's corn and tomato stand pitching fresh vegetables. You see, I’d gone to Beaver Pond before, several times, always arriving late because I’d gotten lost. Was it actually possible I could find it correctly this time?
Passing through the resort town of New Hope I detoured onto Waterloo Street where my sister once lived for many years. As I entered her former street I saw the wide Delaware River flowing swiftly from a month full of rain. The river gleamed brown with tiny wavelets streaming endlessly by and I thought briefly of pulling over to watch the river roll and smell the fish.
As I passed their house I saw the wooden frame was beginning to crumble but the brick in the drive held fast its pattern. Who lived there now?
Back on the road again, I remembered a small motel at the end of the town and braced myself to look for it. I couldn’t quite remember the details but I had loved a man who stayed in that motel, at least I thought that was correct, that was why, wasn’t it, I had an attachment to the Studio Motel, but what would he be doing in the motel? He was a carpenter and wanted to take me out, that I do remember, but by then I had become engaged to my ex-husband.
I reached over and opened up my water bottle and drank a few sips. It was fresh from the refrigerator and very cold.
The hairpin turn was just ahead. I reveled in the athletic feat of turning my wheel just so, remaining in my lane, and facing oncoming traffic who swerved slightly but not dangerously into my lane. “202 Bridge Ahead” read the sign. I pulled over and studied my notes. This was where I always went wrong. I had to select the correct lane.
Off I went. No sooner had my little Nissan with its windows open for the cool breezes traveled a few hundred yards than I saw the church on the left. It sat among tall grassy fields, all alone, its fieldstone masonry firm and steadfast, built in 1862, its spire piercing the sky as if to say I have survived all these years and so shall you.
I was early. No one was there. I backed in my car and took another sip of water. Getting out of the car I smoothed down my fancy black lace skirt, slipped on a jacket and began walking around the church. Liz, a landscape architect, had planted a garden. I walked on the flagstones and let the leaves of her plantings tickle my hands. Further down, a small tree shaped like an umbrella had been planted in memory of a woman with three names who died at age 34.
A strong sound rose up from a neighboring field. A huge boing! Then another one. The bullfrogs were singing. I moved from the remembrance of the young woman whose memory still reigns in the people who knew her as I tried to find the pond that held the frogs. I longed to see their bulbous throats.
Their noises had stopped. And so had I. The pond was beyond my reach. I should never see it. And now the first car pulled into the drive. I caught a brief glimpse of the driver. It was not Liz. It could only be Carole, a woman I had not seen in a year. These are the people I would always remember, the people of Beaver Pond.
*
Beaver Pond, of course, is St. Philip's Episcopal Church a mile north of New Hope, PA. Liz is the keeper of her flock of poets and writers. When I spoke to her on the phone she said, "You know, Sandy Bender will be there with his banjo."
"Good," I said, "I just may try to make a fool of myself and sing my poetry while he strums behind me."
Ya know what? When you mention something like this to someone, you are fortifying yourself to do it. I just about always sing when Sandy is there. It's tough tho cause I never sing in between. I don't practice. When I'm by myself, which is most of the time, I only think, not sing.
A little group of us gathered on the stones outside the red door of the church. I met so many new people. Some of them shake your hand. I met a fellow named Alan. His last name, I remarked to him, sounded like halibut, the fish. When we were taking seats inside the church, I said to him, "Alan, can I sit next to you? I must have someone I can whisper to."
He had a huge smile. His friend was filming the occasion. Liz announced that we would all rise to read our work when the spirit moved us, just like the Quakers do. I was about the fifth one to rise and amble toward the podium. Many people had come just to listen, like they were watching a play. The readers themselves were very dramatic. We had all learned to read our work like actors. It was expected here. Liz brings out the best in each person. It's a gift.
I remembered when I invited many of these same folks to a party right here in Willow Grove. I felt so privileged to have these people in mine own backyard, even Sandy the banjo player. I whispered to Alan that Sandy's wife left him for another woman. I am probably the nosiest person - and the noisiest - in the whole group.
What is it with poets, I asked David Mook. You're always getting divorced. This of course also includes me who divorces herself from one bad boyfriend to another. Boyfriend Scott, says my daughter, is her favorite boyfriend of all. Mine too!
Before I met Scott, there was a man named Lincoln I met right here at Beaver Pond. He was short like me and had a small white beard, just like me. He liked me and I looked forward to meeting him again at Beaver Pond.
What happened to Lincoln? I asked poet Bob Muller one time.
"Oh," said Bob, "he had a heart attack and died."
They loved the poem I read about my ex-husband and I also dragged out an oldie called Lakota. That was the one I sang. Altho I didn't mention this to the group, as I began singing, I imagined I was soprano Eleanor Steber singing Knoxville Summer of 1915 set to music by Samuel Barber. I tried to emphasize the important words by pausing on them like Eleanor Steber. Here's Lakota:
LAKOTA
I was in the company this evening
of people who take death seriously.
Until then, I hadn’t realized
I was not the only one.
We sat at a table in Houlihans,
the noise level was excruciatingly high,
but you got used to it.
There was Judy and her grown son, Michael,
a mountain climber visiting from
Boulder where he lived with his wife Tory and
their faux son, Lakota, a large and
handsome dog who looked like a domesticated wolf.
The three of them lived in a trailer
while they saved up money
to buy a house.
Each had a job. Tory was a food broker,
Michael a cabinet maker who carried
a business card
with a picture of a silver hammer.
“How's Tory doing without you?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s missing me,” he said with that
glittering smile that must have disarmed her
right from the start.
His bright eyes didn’t for a moment
flag from the knowledge that the
presence of death bound us all together,
making everything important.
I was spooning into my mouth
the special baked potato soup they had
with the fresh-cut chives,
while his mother was sipping from an odorless
martini with four olives skewed onto a toothpick
set across the top of the glass.
She was getting on in age,
not terribly old,
newly collecting retirement funds,
but getting forgetful.
She wouldn’t lie and told us she left the
burner on once and had gone upstairs.
“It’s when you do it five or six times!” she shouted
pounding her fist on the table,
“that they throw you in the old age home!”
We were not as yet picked off, none of us,
none of the three, four, if you count Tory,
struck down
the way you might imagine a lone bowling pin
waiting in its station while a well aimed black
ball – or maybe it was blue with white streaks -
came hurtling down the shiny runway
with velocity unrivaled.
It was dark on the way home and
I stopped at the Wawa,
the one I used to go to when I worked in Bensalem.
They’d changed the place around.
The new arrangement had a large
open feel to it,
fluorescent lights spilling down almost like
the sun.
The same woman was behind the deli counter,
making someone a sandwich. A lovely woman,
who I noticed quickly looked older than when I
used to come in. Older people, I thought to myself,
look older quicker.
“Hello, Louise,” I said,
and watched to see if her face lit up
and she remembered me.
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