Choose a pleasing image.
Dump all the pieces onto a table.
Don’t let the similar shapes and jumble of color overwhelm.
Every tab has a perfect slot.
Eventually it will make sense.
Begin anywhere.
Take it one bit at a time.
Spread all the pieces printed-side up.
Form a team or go solo.
Refer to the big picture.
Get a strategy.
Assemble the border,
Or piece together a section.
Don’t force connections.
When the shapes are compatible the keys fit the locks.
Attend to details.
Be patient.
Persist.
Give it time.
Everything you need lies within reach.
Don’t lament a missing piece.
Puzzles will envelope the space and preserve a silhouette,
The absent member remains integral to the whole.
Success increases as the picture forms.
Enjoy the satisfaction of a puzzle solved.
On the perimeter of our property in Pennsylvania clumps of dried ornamental grass needed to be trimmed before spring so they will regenerate. Lighting the pampas grass with a match proved to be the quickest and most efficient way to accomplish the task. I don’t even know what year it became a ritual, but in late February we would burn the grass to ash. The dramatic whoosh and flare of the fire felt like our own personal firework display. On some occasions we had just the three of us and one of our Labs, Pike or Musky, present. I remember a year Grandpa Findlan watched from a nearby lawn chair. Other times, if the ground was snow-covered, a visitor would spectate from our dining-room window. Burning the pampas grass became our unique way to kindle anticipation for spring.
My dad’s couch is always ready for me. He has sheets and extra blankets within reach. I don’t need them because the thermostat never drops below 70. Dad gives me the tour of the bathroom, showing me which towel is mine, and how to plug in the wall heater. He adds an extra scoop of coffee grounds and two cups of water to his pot every morning. During my stay I only hear phrases like the following: “Whatever you want, Honey.” “That’s fine.” “Just let me know.” Or “Have some fun.” This is better than any spa.
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
Hallmark movies with my dad between events. Dad and I mingled with loving spirits briefly at the cemetery. I ate, drank, and made merry at two breweries, a dive bar, a café, a restaurant, and a winery. Every day I admired Franklin’s holiday sparkle and stunning Christmas tree.
Exercise. I renew my fitness center membership for six months. Haven’t we heard repeatedly that exercise reduces stress? Exercise creates chemical changes in the brain negating the harmful effects of the stress hormones that surge through the body in response to worry, anxiety, or trauma. I need a serious rebooting of my body and head.
Speak Up. To be safe, I stick with my figurative voice. I vote in the midterm election. Of the 13 offices on my ballot, 8 candidates are women who share my political view. I leave the polls feeling slightly more empowered.
Try Self-Help. I re-boot Psycho-Cybernetics in my car’s CD player. I have played and heard the entire book no less than six times. I never fail to discover a significant point that applies to any current challenge or adverse situation. Even when things are going great, Dr. Maxwell Maltz serves as a reliable life coach. Whenever I drive his voice dispels anxious thoughts.
Channel negativity. Movies are a great escape. Hunter Killer sounds like a film that matches my emotions. When I check times, I find it’s not showing. I settle for The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Probably even a better choice considering the protagonist, a righteous, vengeful woman.
been pulled off the river and awaited shrink wrap or storage. The newspaper announced the first round of closings, the ice cream shops, a few tourist attractions and souvenir shops. All of that expected in a seasonal community, and once school starts those with children return to their permanent home. Most of the restaurants that remained open reduced their hours. By October we saw neighbors shutter their homes and head south. Restaurants closed.
Migrant birds flew in. The squirrels and chipmunks race to and fro all day, frantically gathering seeds and acorns. We better get cracking. The target for Pa. winter preparation was usually opening day of hunting season, the first Monday following Thanksgiving. When the first snowfall arrives here on October 28 I see the necessity to institute an earlier deadline.
Because I protected those original diamond windows from replacement, the house was a bit drafty in winter. We handled the winters with a hibernation procedure. Once the warm September days ended we closed the sun-porch. By that I mean, I closed the sun- porch door, and we didn’t go on it any more. No furniture needed to be stored, the room was under roof and enclosed by glass. As October flowed into November and the temperatures fell below freezing, we gradually retreated from our spacious living room, sealing the French doors. We still used our dining room, but spent the evenings in our den, where we had a sofa big enough for Paul, Musky, and me in front of the television. When single-digit temperatures arrived, we closed the door to the den, ate in front of the television, and ran our EdenPure heater.
Application of our winterizing routine required some serious adjustments in northern New York. Even though we don’t heat 100% with wood, our wood-burner saves us through the predictable power outages. So we haul and stack wood. Never did I expect to become a pioneer in my later years. All of the furniture that used to occupy our sun-porch now sits on one of our three outdoor areas. Those chairs and tables must be hauled to the basement or stacked and covered with tarps, tightly anchored. We secure our gas grill to the deck railing. Last year a windstorm pushed it across the deck.
In western Pa., we expected January and February to be the brutally cold months, but after St. Patrick’s Day signs of spring appeared. Paul and I would expand our world in reverse, moving back to the dining room, by April opening the living room, and by May we returned to the sun-porch for summer. We had a seasonal rhythm. No matter how early we hope for spring here in the north, I see that it refuses to arrive until mid-May. Just as I was warned, we can expect the final snowfall around Mother’s Day.
I was just hungry enough to start wondering about lunch when the road twisted and turned among foothills. Just past the first village in the park region, a run-down three-story home, white-paint peeling, came into view. As we passed it we both noticed a faded neon sign in-congruently towering above some overgrown trees, Twin Lakes Hotel. Paul stepped on the brakes and pulled into an empty lot to turn around to appreciate the scene from a past era. In a front window, a neon beer sign glowed. However, no other clues indicated that the establishment was a commercial enterprise. Spindly geraniums drooped on the porch steps. Abandoned chairs and a table blocked the front porch entry. All windows appeared draped in faded curtains, assorted knick-knacks lined up on interior sills. We drove into a packed-dirt driveway that led us to the back of the house. A rooster, chickens, and a bandy hen scuttled out of our way.
rooster, climbed a set of rickety stairs, and entered a dim, but warm room. A long bar was just to the left, one patron leaned on the end by the door where we stood, our eyes adjusting. We had stepped back into 1958. We could not navigate our way to a stool at the bar without circumventing a slumbering cream-colored bull-dog, stretched out on her side across her sheepskin bed. The bar maid, gave us a greeting and I asked if we could pet her. “Of course, that’s Bella.” Having befriended Bella, we stepped past her and took high stools at the bar.
We ordered light beers and studied the front of the menu. Before even perusing the choices, our hostess told us the specials, fish sandwich, ham and bean soup. Paul ordered the sandwich and I the soup. While waiting for our food we explored the rambling first floor. The large unfurnished room behind the bar appeared to have been the dance floor, the hardwood boards now dull and gray. Instead of potential dance partners, cartons of restaurant supplies lined the perimeter. At the end where a band might have played, pots of root-bound house plants and stacked tables assembled.
A wide doorway led into an adjacent dining room. At least thirty might be seated at rectangular tables, seasonably decorated with skull-printed table cloths. Apparently, Twin Lakes had a busy dinner trade. Two wooden hutches and other family-like heirlooms gave the room a homey atmosphere. From the dining room, one can circle back to a narrow doorway into the bar or step into the family kitchen, seemingly where all the cooking takes place. Paul and I both flashed back to a similar house-turned-restaurant in Fryburg, Pennsylvania, the Wayside Inn, also known as Hitler’s.
While we ate, the first patron nursed a drink and a second came in to sip a beer at the corner spot. Our bar maid discussed local politics with the men. Paul asked her about the hotel’s history. We learned she operated the place for twenty-three years, her mother before her for thirty, and before that another woman, but her grandmother has always been involved with the hotel. She believed the deed dated back to the late 1800s. Open year-round, she recounted how the cycles of patrons come and go with the various seasons, fishing, snowmobiling, tourist, and hunting.
I studied my map to confirm we had driven all the roads that surrounded the High Peaks region. The only way to get closer would be to actually hike, not part of our sojourn today. New York has carefully protected this wilderness region. Back into Lake Placid, where the sidewalks swarmed with visitors, I spotted a couple Adirondack-themed hotels for a future visit. Without saying a word, Paul and I had both reached the same conclusion. We would return to our cozy quiet cabin just three hours away.
Just outside Carthage we spotted a roadhouse, at least two-dozen cars in front, Belva’s Sahara Restaurant. We stepped into the late sixties, family dining to the left, grill and bar to the right; we had another flash from our past, the Carriage House. We took seats at a Formica table, our chrome chairs covered in naugahyde. A large horseshoe bar bustled. The barmaids mixed all kinds of cocktails and balanced them on trays. I ordered a wine, no measuring here, fill the glass to the rim; we call it the Sugar-Lake pour. Waitresses hustled in and out of the kitchen with plates of Italian pastas, steaks, and fish dinners. Once when the swinging door opened I saw a large quarter of beef deposited into a cooler by an aproned man. Belva strolled out of the kitchen and sat at the end of the bar with a 
highball. The peculiar display of dolls in an abandoned cooler in the lounge must have been hers. Paul and I both regretted ordering full dinners, only because the pie and dessert list was extraordinary, but we had no more room.
In her inspirational book Gift from the Sea (1955), I found nuggets of universal truths applicable to my life sixty-three years since its publication. A mother of five, a busy community figure, and wife of the accomplished aviator, Charles Lindbergh, Anne’s pursuit of her writing career must have been waylaid from every angle. Her first successful publications recounted historic flights she and her husband completed. Later many of her published writings are those of personal letters and diaries. Despite that success, Lindbergh felt the distractions of life’s “multiplicity.” In Gift from the Sea Lindbergh recounts her solitary vacation on Captiva Island, Florida where she retreated to write and reflect. Her search for shells on the beach revealed five of special significance: a channeled whelk, a moon shell, a double sunrise, an oyster bed, and the argonauta. Each shell provided her with a pattern for a more contemplative life. For anyone open to the deeper meaning that exists in all things, I recommend the book.
The Resilient Willow
plants along the path evoke memories of teaching and the annual search for monarch eggs and caterpillars. No elementary classroom met the rites of seasonal passage without an aquarium of very hungry caterpillars munching their way into a chrysalis. I walk on to notice a brilliant red vine encircling the gray bark of a double trunk. I can’t take my eyes off of it. Just a common weed, yet it adorns the bark like a brilliant accessory. If I hadn’t been intent to see the gifts I may have walked on past and never given this vine its moment of recognition. I think about how the days come and go and I don’t always attend to the small fleeting beauty of insignificant things.
Around the bend I am rewarded. Two glowing maples radiate in the sun, one luminous yellow, the other blazing orange. After a season of wearing humble green to coordinate with the surrounding forest and grass, the trees have their week of glory. On this section of the island, all roads loop around or dead-end. Not many foliage viewers will admire these trees. No matter, the trees participate in this grand finale of the growing season, wearing their most elaborate costume. All days cannot be a glorious culmination, but every so often we should reveal our hidden talents, even if no one else sees.
During a heavy rain this past week water dripped from a doorway between our bedroom and bath. Against all good judgment, Paul climbed onto the roof to see if he could identify the exact location of the problem. He found a roofing nail sticking up from a shingle, leaving a gaping hole. He tapped it down, sealed it with roof cement and we waited for the next rainfall to test the fix. The very next day a driving rain fell, and it wasn’t an hour before water ran over the door frame and onto the floor. Drat. I checked previously leaky spots… damp. Paul ascended the ladder again. I thought, “This could turn into a disaster worse than leaks.” He found nothing and returned safely to the ground.
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