'The House in the Forest'

My painting of the mountains after a storm.

 

Houses have personalities.

Our summer house at Fogland Beach stood empty, cold and neglected throughout the long winter months, yet welcomed us back with open arms.

Last weekend we flung open the windows, stocked the shelves and grilled chicken by the back door. Then we gathered around the old maple table, feasting and laughing for hours.

And the house smiled…

An unexpected invitation to stay at a timeshare property in New Hampshire’s White Mountains took us north last Wednesday.

Under darkened overcast skies, the Dodge Ram bounced violently as we travelled the last mile, climbing higher and higher into the deep forest.

I thought about the fairytale “The House in the Forest” by the Brothers Grimm:

“The next day the woodcutter was up before dawn. ‘Let Rose bring my dinner into the forest today,’ said he. ‘She has always been a good child. She will stay in the right path and not run after every wild bee’… But when Rose went out with her basket on her arm… she did not know which way to turn. She walked on and on, full of sorrow… At last when it grew dark, she came to the little house in the forest.’

Finally we saw the redwood-stained plank building clinging to the hillside shrouded by trees. Rough plywood stairs led to the door. A shovel leaned against the siding.

Opening the door, I noticed the sidelight of clear glass. Inside there was a living room, an eat-in kitchen, a small bedroom with bunk beds, a second bedroom and bathroom.

Then I noticed the dark green carpeted stairs. I found the switch, and the light at the bottom of the stairs hummed and flickered eerily as I descended.

The first thing I noticed in the basement master bedroom was the musty smell. A half-sized window over the bed let in little light and the master bath was windowless.

We knew that we could not sleep here. We retraced our steps and shut off the light.

After dining out, we returned to the house. When darkness fell, I closed all the blinds, and we watched the Bruins in the first Stanley Cup Playoff game.

I sat in the wingback chair, but as the night wore on and I began to tire as yet another round of overtime extended the game, I turned and shivered as I sensed unseen eyes (animal or human) watching us through the sidelight. We went to bed and shut the door.

There was no air conditioning so we turned on the overhead fan and fell asleep to its whirring sound.

The next day we left early. The sun finally came out, and we enjoyed shopping and dining in the nearby village. With dark skies threatening rain, we returned to the resort in the afternoon. On our way we stopped at the building that housed an indoor pool, as well as game and exercise rooms. No one was there.

Driving back to the house, my husband watched TV, while I read a lovely little religious book written by a medieval monk.

It occurred to me that although there were cars alongside the houses sparsely nestled in the woods, I had never seen a neighbor or heard the sound of voices since we checked in.
After supper in town, we returned to the house. My husband watched TV while I read in the bedroom.

During the night we both awoke hot and uncomfortable. My husband got up and left the door ajar. I saw the sidelight and once again sensed we were not alone.

I recalled the fairytale:

“At midnight a great noise waked her up. The doors slammed against the walls, and there was a crash as if the whole roof had fallen in. Then all became still.”

We heard howling, and my husband said it was just a dog. But I was not so sure.

When we awoke early Friday morning, we began to pack. We were scheduled to check out on Saturday morning, but I dropped the keys in the lockbox, and we drove away...

'In The Garden'

Driving through the dense fog and drizzle, I pass through miles of country back roads in Dighton and Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

But even under overcast skies, the vegetation is gorgeous. The trees, heavy laden with new leaves, bend across the road creating a tunnel into the Garden of Eden; and bright spots of fuchsia rhododendrons catch the eye around every bend.

The mist gives this isolated place an ethereal quality, and my slow speed navigating unfamiliar roads gives me the opportunity to pay close attention to my surroundings.

I begin to notice how many pre-Revolutionary homes sit close to the street with their barns and outhouses nestled close by. 

And I imagine colonists on horseback galloping by...                         

Arriving for the service at Reboboth Congregational Church, I climb the old wooden steps, and I am greeted by Pilgrims.

There is a Pilgrim with a musket over his shoulder and a Pilgrim couple on the seashore, depicted in two of the beautiful stained glass windows. Along another wall of windows, Jesus beckons. 

According to their history, the congregation has been entwined with that of the town of Rehoboth since 1643. The Reverend Samuel Newman, along with others, established the settlement and erected the first meeting house on the east bank of the Ten Mile River, and called the town “Rehoboth.”

A book enshrined in a glass case at the front of the church is open to this King James passage: “So he called its name Rehoboth, because he said, ‘For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.’” (Genesis 26:22)

Wanting to worship regularly, the Reverend David Turner, and ten founding members of the new congregation, completed a “new” meeting house on November 29, 1721.

The third meeting house, their present sanctuary, was completed in 1839 and was known as “The Church in the Barnyard.”

The stained glass windows were added in 1906.

A plaque on the wall commemorates the life of one of their members, a deacon of the church who was born in 1744 and lived for 98 years.

Sitting on the small hard bench, I pray silently, while I await the start of the service.

I smile when the lovely young minister takes the pulpit. What would our Pilgrim forefathers have thought of that?

Stepping out into the bright sunshine, I retrace my path on the winding roads; and this time I see the contemporary homes sprawled on acreage along the way.

As a New Englander, I am rooted to this land; and sometimes I feel I have one foot in the past and the other in the present.

I crank up the engine of my shiny blue sports car and glide along these now familiar roads with the words of the old hymn "In The Garden" still ringing in my ears:  

 

“I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses; and the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share, as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”

The sign

This past week we officially opened the summer house, the latest start to the season in memory.

Inclement weather and family commitments caused repeated delays, but when we finally arrived, we were greeted with a lovely surprise.

A stone wall separates our property from our neighbors’. On the other side of that wall is their potting bench and above it is a new sign that reads: “SEA SKY SPIRIT.”

Those three simple words painted in blue lettering on a green wooden sign map out an amazing adventure.

My parents bought this land in 1969, and I have spent a lifetime of summers here.

I wrote my college thesis “Fogland,” a collection of nonfiction essays, about this place. Shortly after, my mother gave it to a neighbor to read.

Without my knowing, copies of my thesis circulated throughout the neighborhood and beyond.  

Urged on by neighbors and strangers who somehow read the thesis, I envisioned that someday I would continue these thoughts in book format.

But in November 2010, I accepted a freelance writing position at a new online newspaper, the Tiverton-Little Compton Patch; and I began searching for a name for the new column.

It came to me in church one Sunday morning while singing a hymn. The words “sea and sky” seemed to jump off the page, capturing the essence of nature writing at our home by the Sakonnet River. The addition of “spirit” is the reason I embarked on the journey: to praise God and His creations.

Over the next year I would write more than 50 weekly columns, but when the newspaper changed its format, I did as well.

For some time my best friend had been urging me to write my own blog, and it seemed the perfect opportunity.

So I became a Google blogger launching “Sea, Sky and Spirit” in January 2012, and the newspaper published the weekly link.

Now 10,824 page views and 76 weekly posts later, I stare at my neighbors’ sign and smile.

How grateful I am to God for all those words and to my neighbors for their act of kindness!

Later in the day my parents and I walk to the beach, and my mother introduces me to one of our newer neighbors. We start talking, and before long she asks me if I am “the writer”.  I nod. She tells me she has read every one of my blogs and my thesis as well, and I give her a hug like a long, lost friend.

The adventure continues…

  

Tornado hits close to home

Whenever you drink a cup of coffee at a Congregational church function, you help desperately poor Latin American farmers stay on their land and support their families.

A theologian, economist, professor and prolific author, Rev. Dr. Stan G. Duncan initiated the United Church of Christ Coffee Project, a partnership between the worker-owned cooperative Equal Exchange and the UCC to promote the use and sale of fair trade coffee following Sunday services.

He currently serves as interim minister of First Congregational Church in Wareham, Mass.

I had the good fortune to meet Duncan last January, when I wrote a feature story about the humanitarian.

Raised in central Oklahoma in the Disciples of Christ denomination, he told me he received his call to ministry at age 6. He credited his vocation to a great mentor, Rev. Bill Alexander, who taught him that religion and God were not separate from the issues of the world.

In 1972, Duncan and a few buddies headed to Nicaragua to rebuild roads; and that’s when he saw little children begging in the streets.

Changed by the experience, he co-founded one of the first local chapters of the Christian hunger advocacy organization, Bread for the World, which today has half a million members worldwide.

Since that time, he has led delegations to visit small coffee farmers in third world countries. Six hundred million families lost everything when the price of coffee crashed.

This week I contacted Duncan after hearing the news about the deadly EF5 tornado that took a 50-minute 17-mile path through Moore, Okla., killing 24 people, including 10 children.

Recalling the interview, I knew that he and his family had lived in Oklahoma City, where he was pastor of Southwest Christian Church for five years.

“I did have some family members who were in the pathway of the storm,” he told me. “They are both safe but went through a lot. One cousin lost her roof and another lost her entire home. Both are now living with other relatives. They are all quite shaken up.”

Duncan had resided very close to Moore.

“We lived on the far south side of Oklahoma City, and all three of my kids went to Moore High School,” he said. “All of them reported back about friends of theirs who had their homes damaged. The amount of the damage is incredible – hard to believe.”

Duncan’s compassionate worldview is now focused on home.

He’s just an Okie from Moore.

 

 

 

Anticipation



In our front yard maple leaves unfurl in a backdrop of blue sky.

Planning a vacation to any destination can be just as sweet an experience as actually being there.

It is the anticipation of the journey that brings great joy.

When you have a summer home, you feel a heightened awareness in springtime and a delightful urge to relocate yourself.

Throughout the long winter months, I am landlocked and content to occasionally visit the seashore.

But come May I can no longer endure the long-distance relationship, and thoughts of my seaside home consume me. I listen to weekend weather reports with new interest.

During the weekly trip to the supermarket, I toss barbecue sauce, magazines, suntan lotion and bug spray into the grocery cart.

While at the library, I lose track of time, reading book jackets of contemporary fiction and checking out a stack of books.

I reread favorite parts of my annotated copy of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” “The Country of the Pointed Firs” by Sarah Orne Jewett, “Gift of the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and “Charlotte Fairlie” by D.E. Stevenson.

I start making lists of things to do.

I let everyone know that I will be unavailable on weekends for the next three months.

Then one May morning dawns that justifies the advance preparation. I open the trunk of the car and pile in all those books and magazines, bags of groceries, sweatshirts, t-shirts, shorts and swimsuits; and I finally satisfy the longing.

The wait is usually over on Mother’s Day when traditionally we open the summer house. But this year unexpected delays postponed the ritual.

God willing, we will officially open the Fogland season on Memorial Day weekend.

In the meantime, I turn to the pages of one of my favorite books:

“They set out to walk through the little village to the harbor,” wrote Stevenson in “Charlotte Fairlie.” “It was bright and breezy. The sea was very blue with crisp white caps upon the waves; the sky was paler blue and cloudless. The land was green; the beach was of pure white sand with piles of bright yellow seaweed. Far in the distance there were purple hills, their outlines softened by haze. All the colors were clean – like the colors in a brand new paint box – and the sunshine was so strong that the very air seemed to glitter. Charlotte took deep breaths of air and smelt the faint tang of the seaweed drying in the sunshine – that unforgettable smell…”

Driving to endanger: A young mother's escapade

This happened a long time ago, but it seems like yesterday...

A 1971 canary-yellow Mustang coupe and my husband’s prized possession, the sports car was fast and sleek, with its eight-cylinder 302-horsepower engine, tapered body and black sports slats that angled the low rear window. A shiny chrome horse at a full gallop detailed the grill. Black vinyl bucket seats, a two-spoke steering wheel and black dash panel with an electric clock made up the interior.

Three years of savings were handed over to buy the car, but my husband got his money’s worth. Behind the wheel he felt 17 again; he revved up the engine, angled the mirrors and peeled out of the parking space with smoking tires.

Every day my husband drove our other car, a metallic-blue Ford Econoline van, to the factory, picking up passengers-for-pay along the way; and I was stuck with the sports car.

A new mother, each time I left the house I had to squeeze into the tight confines of the back seat to strap my daughter into her baby carrier. I did contortions to secure the black straps of the belt to the seat. When I went grocery shopping, I had to jam the bags into the pint-size trunk, wedge diapers and bags on both sides of my daughter in the back seat and secure one bag in the bucket seat on the passenger side.

I stayed home a lot.

One morning I decided to bolt to destination unknown. I knew it was dangerous, but I easily strapped the baby carrier to the front passenger seat. I cranked the engine and cruised down the main city thoroughfare toward the highway. This was what this car was made for. The dazzling yellow vehicle attracted admirers like bees to sunflowers, and I basked in their gaze at every stoplight.

Bearing onto a side street, I waited in traffic, braking constantly on the steep hill that led down to the highway extension. On my right was a housing project, and I noticed a young man running directly at my car.

Grabbing the latch of the passenger door, he pulled with all his might on the handle. The lock held, and my daughter continued to sleep peacefully on the seat. He ran around the car and tugged at my door with equal force to no avail, and he grew angrier.

I screamed at him, blew the horn, willed the cars to move out of my way; but I was hemmed in. That’s when he jumped on the back of the low sports car, hanging on to those damned black slats for balance.

The cars ahead of me began to inch forward, and without thinking, I hit the accelerator and quickly slammed the brakes. He tumbled off the roof of my car in slow motion, landing on his feet. I stomped on the accelerator, and the engine roared. The Mustang careened down the street, and I watched him in the side-view mirror disappear from sight.

That night I pleaded with my husband to trade in the sports car for a larger family-sized vehicle. Over and over I listed all the inconveniences I endured, including the ill-fitting baby seat, lack of grocery space and the obvious fact that the neon yellow, ground-hugging sports car had attracted an insane carjacker. But he wouldn’t listen. I was still stuck with the sports car.

I stayed home a lot.

Then one day backing up and having great difficulty as usual seeing out of the black-slatted rear window, I heard the sound of crunching metal as the front grill of a Cadillac became permanently affixed to my bumper.

My husband bought me a dark green SUV.

I went out a lot.

A fish out of water

 

I have something in common with blueback herring: We have a natural urge to migrate to Tiverton in May.

Since childhood, I have always measured time by the herring run at the Nonquit Fish Ladder.

Scores of New England fish species spend their lives moving between salt and fresh waters.

Anadromous fishes, like the blueback herring, are notable for their mass journeys between marine and fresh water environments, living the greater part of their lives in salt water but spawning in fresh water.

Reaching a maximum size of about 16 inches, they are believed to live up to eight years. They also are capable of migrating long distances of over 1,200 miles.

But pollution, river damming and especially overfishing have drastically reduced their populations, and they are a U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service “Species of Concern.”

The Nonquit Fish Ladder is now closed; and I have to rely on my memories of the springtime ritual to recreate the local herring run.

In early May I drive to the summer house, turning onto Pond Bridge Road and inhaling the familiar earthy scent of freshly tilled soil and sea.

As I approach the Nonquit Pond Dam, I am sandwiched between the sparkling fresh water of the reservoir, the brackish water of the salt marshes and the ocean waters beyond.

Completed in 1943, the dam is 200-feet wide and 8-feet high.

Getting out of the car, I join the other fish-watchers who have come to the shallows where the great schools of migrating blueback herring may be seen.

Arriving in early May, schools of silvery herring go up the Nonquit Fish Ladder, jumping and splashing at the base of the dam on the final leg of their journey to spawn in the pond.

Climbing on the dam, fishermen cast their lines into the water at its base. Most of the buckets are already full of the morning catch.

But just as the fish are nearing their destination, so am I.

Returning to the car, I drive up the hill past the llamas in their paddock and round the hairpin turn that leads to Fogland State Beach.

Taking a left onto High Hill Road, I come to the end of my journey and gaze at the private beach that my family has held deeded beach rights to since 1969.

I am no longer a fish out of water. I am home.