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As I sit here at the edge of the lake, I am trying my best not to be distracted by the game the children are playing. Normally, these kids would be at the above ground pool and I would be able to write near the relative peace of the lake. Sure, there would be some bird calls and the splashes of a paddling canoe, but I am not so picky as to let those things bother me. It is much harder, however, to tune out the shrieks of children about the fictional rules of a game I am sure they are making up as they go along.
As I’m sure many of you know by now, the kids are not in the above ground pool because Allen and Tom poured a load of salt in it believing that it would make the pool more buoyant (like the Dead Sea, apparently). When I finally tracked down Allen and asked him where he got such an idiotic idea--I am a journalist, after all--he told me that Syd Walliams over in Waverly said it had worked perfectly at his pool. But of course Syd also claims that aliens are studying him from a distance. I don’t know why they would. If I were supposed to do a book report and the book I picked out was as dull as Syd Walliams, I’d find a new fucking book.
Ultimately, adding salt to the above ground pool did not work “perfectly.” Instead, it made everyone who got in smell like chemically pasta. I believe they are draining it today, so hopefully it will only be a few days until the kids are able to return. I don’t want to sound like I am opposed to children. I understand their necessity. I am just not someone who can watch a child try to butter and eat a paper plate and think, “ah, what a beautiful future we all have.” I tend to feel that hope when I see a sixteen year old--a whole decade after the paper plate incident--make an eloquent point at a town meeting. But, until these children reach that point in their development, I am happy for them to have the pool and for us peaceful and quiet fogies to have the lake.
My complaining aside, as I sit here at the side of the lake, I am reminded of my first weekend here in Eastie. That first Friday, there was a late drunken night at the community center. I was grateful because I’m always so much better at meeting people when I’m a little tipsy. My first husband would tell me that I shouldn’t say that because it’s true of everyone. He said it was like making small talk by commenting how cold I get in the snow. He might be right. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t still a controlling ass.
After hours of dominoes and singing and long repetitive stories, they took me out to Ballou Lake. Normally, I don’t like to swim in lakes because lakes are where murderers leave bodies and I don’t like having to wonder whether I’m swimming in an active crime scene. That night, luckily, I was drunk enough to forget to worry but sober enough to swim.
I dove off the dock with a borrowed pocket knife and someone held a lantern over the side so I could carve my name in the wood. Even all those years ago, it was hard to find an empty space without a name. I assume by this point someone must have already carved over my old signature. And if you are reading this now and thinking, “I think I actually might have carved over her name,” keep it to yourself. If I find out, I will never forgive you. It’s not something I like about myself, but I’m too old to stop holding grudges now.
After I carved my name, we sat on the beach and passed around a joint and everyone told me how they ended up at Eastie. So many of them had stories similar to mine. No, none of them opened a failing art supplies store in Omaha. And no, none of them drunkenly slept with someone who said they were in T. Rex (only to remember the next morning that that band is British). I am unique in many ways. What we had in common was that we all had felt washed up and run down while we were still young. They promised me that everything starts to make more sense once you are part of a community that cares about you.
When the sun started to escape over the top of the forest, we decided to decamp and trek back into town. Sobered by the sunlight peeking through the trees, I found a new hope in seeing how much of my life I still had to live.
Of course, new starts are often tied by the tail to endings. Now, I imagine that some of you are thinking, “Tied by the tail? I would never tie something to my cat’s tail. They’d have a fit. They’d run around in circles, fuck up my couch, and then sulk in the corner.” Well how appropriate, because that was pretty much the response of a lot of older people in town when it was proposed that we should make changes to the community center classes. After quite a bit of scratching and sulking, we older folks finally agreed to make some changes to offer some broader and more diverse options. Most notably, those already teaching agreed to take on half of their normal course load, creating opportunities for new curriculums and new blood in the evening classes.
I’m taking the new digital art class and we’re even learning how to 3D print things. At first, I wanted to print pancakes, but apparently that’s a different machine entirely. So instead I made myself a ring that says “Farts.” I miss that dog more every day. New technologies aside, it was nice to take an art class again. I had sworn never to take another class from Charlotte after she said that my self portrait needed “a lot more neck.”
The book club, now being led by Tessa, started The Lonely City by Olivia Laing. The book focuses on the connection between twentieth century artists and loneliness with an emphasis on the queer community of New York. I decided to use this as a chance to take a brief break from the book club because the writer is British and I don’t care what some boiled Big Ben humper has to say about Andy Warhol.
Only six months after the decision to introduce new classes, I’m already seeing a shift in Eastie. New points being raised in town meetings. New plants in the community garden. More young people helping with our summer mural. It’s only one step on a journey, but it’s left me feeling pretty hopeful.
The most hopeful I’ve been all summer was the Big Solstice Bash. We were all hoping it would still happen after having to cancel last year, but with a relatively low vaccination rate in the county and the spread of the Delta variant, we didn’t know if it was going to be safe to let alumni come in and visit. Eventually, with only about two weeks until the event, we all voted to take the risk.
With so little warning, the Big Solstice Bash didn’t have the pomp and circumstance we are used to. There was no show from the theater club, no hay rack ride, no pie bake-off. We all just spread out on blankets and drank and caught up with old friends who’ve left our little commune for the larger world.
As the sun set, we waved off most of our old friends. A dozen or so agreed to spend the night in town falling back into old friendships and old habits. The youngsters stayed out in the forest playing flashlight tag, but the more mature set--those of us for whom a fall in the dark woods is a lethal threat--returned to town and sat out on the patio behind the library.
While passing around someone’s weed pen, Mary Timmons told us about Robert dying last May in that first wave of Covid cases. She’d moved in with her daughter Helen because she couldn’t stay in that house anymore and because Helen needed help with her sons while they were learning from home. If Robert had died at another time, she could have started going to the Wednesday night dinners at the church or joined the library’s quilting club. At another time, the widowers in town would have brought her cookies they bought at WalMart and put in a little tupperware to make it look homemade. But, as it was, Mary was trapped inside with a daughter who could only talk to her like some cute old grandma. Most embarrassingly, after a particularly acute horniness crisis, she’d had to hide a sexy book under her mattress because of the parental controls on the wifi. We begged her to come back to Eastie. We made hyperbolic promises of weed and pornography and Wednesday night dinners. She promised us she would think about it once the kids start back at school full time in the fall. But, promises made in the middle of the night aren’t worth much.
We sat silently for a while before Colin broke the silence by telling us about the road trip he was planning with his brother. That’s the beautiful thing about being the highest person in a group; you can forget that the silence you’re sitting in is an awkward one. And if you’re just sitting in a normal silence, then why not talk about driving to Utah? Somewhere in the discussion of driving snacks, the flashlight tag players returned from the forest. I could hear them laughing and shouting before I could see them, but then the lights started flickering through the trees. From the library patio, they almost looked like a rising sun.
As I’m sure many of you know by now, the kids are not in the above ground pool because Allen and Tom poured a load of salt in it believing that it would make the pool more buoyant (like the Dead Sea, apparently). When I finally tracked down Allen and asked him where he got such an idiotic idea--I am a journalist, after all--he told me that Syd Walliams over in Waverly said it had worked perfectly at his pool. But of course Syd also claims that aliens are studying him from a distance. I don’t know why they would. If I were supposed to do a book report and the book I picked out was as dull as Syd Walliams, I’d find a new fucking book.
Ultimately, adding salt to the above ground pool did not work “perfectly.” Instead, it made everyone who got in smell like chemically pasta. I believe they are draining it today, so hopefully it will only be a few days until the kids are able to return. I don’t want to sound like I am opposed to children. I understand their necessity. I am just not someone who can watch a child try to butter and eat a paper plate and think, “ah, what a beautiful future we all have.” I tend to feel that hope when I see a sixteen year old--a whole decade after the paper plate incident--make an eloquent point at a town meeting. But, until these children reach that point in their development, I am happy for them to have the pool and for us peaceful and quiet fogies to have the lake.
My complaining aside, as I sit here at the side of the lake, I am reminded of my first weekend here in Eastie. That first Friday, there was a late drunken night at the community center. I was grateful because I’m always so much better at meeting people when I’m a little tipsy. My first husband would tell me that I shouldn’t say that because it’s true of everyone. He said it was like making small talk by commenting how cold I get in the snow. He might be right. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t still a controlling ass.
After hours of dominoes and singing and long repetitive stories, they took me out to Ballou Lake. Normally, I don’t like to swim in lakes because lakes are where murderers leave bodies and I don’t like having to wonder whether I’m swimming in an active crime scene. That night, luckily, I was drunk enough to forget to worry but sober enough to swim.
I dove off the dock with a borrowed pocket knife and someone held a lantern over the side so I could carve my name in the wood. Even all those years ago, it was hard to find an empty space without a name. I assume by this point someone must have already carved over my old signature. And if you are reading this now and thinking, “I think I actually might have carved over her name,” keep it to yourself. If I find out, I will never forgive you. It’s not something I like about myself, but I’m too old to stop holding grudges now.
After I carved my name, we sat on the beach and passed around a joint and everyone told me how they ended up at Eastie. So many of them had stories similar to mine. No, none of them opened a failing art supplies store in Omaha. And no, none of them drunkenly slept with someone who said they were in T. Rex (only to remember the next morning that that band is British). I am unique in many ways. What we had in common was that we all had felt washed up and run down while we were still young. They promised me that everything starts to make more sense once you are part of a community that cares about you.
When the sun started to escape over the top of the forest, we decided to decamp and trek back into town. Sobered by the sunlight peeking through the trees, I found a new hope in seeing how much of my life I still had to live.
Of course, new starts are often tied by the tail to endings. Now, I imagine that some of you are thinking, “Tied by the tail? I would never tie something to my cat’s tail. They’d have a fit. They’d run around in circles, fuck up my couch, and then sulk in the corner.” Well how appropriate, because that was pretty much the response of a lot of older people in town when it was proposed that we should make changes to the community center classes. After quite a bit of scratching and sulking, we older folks finally agreed to make some changes to offer some broader and more diverse options. Most notably, those already teaching agreed to take on half of their normal course load, creating opportunities for new curriculums and new blood in the evening classes.
I’m taking the new digital art class and we’re even learning how to 3D print things. At first, I wanted to print pancakes, but apparently that’s a different machine entirely. So instead I made myself a ring that says “Farts.” I miss that dog more every day. New technologies aside, it was nice to take an art class again. I had sworn never to take another class from Charlotte after she said that my self portrait needed “a lot more neck.”
The book club, now being led by Tessa, started The Lonely City by Olivia Laing. The book focuses on the connection between twentieth century artists and loneliness with an emphasis on the queer community of New York. I decided to use this as a chance to take a brief break from the book club because the writer is British and I don’t care what some boiled Big Ben humper has to say about Andy Warhol.
Only six months after the decision to introduce new classes, I’m already seeing a shift in Eastie. New points being raised in town meetings. New plants in the community garden. More young people helping with our summer mural. It’s only one step on a journey, but it’s left me feeling pretty hopeful.
The most hopeful I’ve been all summer was the Big Solstice Bash. We were all hoping it would still happen after having to cancel last year, but with a relatively low vaccination rate in the county and the spread of the Delta variant, we didn’t know if it was going to be safe to let alumni come in and visit. Eventually, with only about two weeks until the event, we all voted to take the risk.
With so little warning, the Big Solstice Bash didn’t have the pomp and circumstance we are used to. There was no show from the theater club, no hay rack ride, no pie bake-off. We all just spread out on blankets and drank and caught up with old friends who’ve left our little commune for the larger world.
As the sun set, we waved off most of our old friends. A dozen or so agreed to spend the night in town falling back into old friendships and old habits. The youngsters stayed out in the forest playing flashlight tag, but the more mature set--those of us for whom a fall in the dark woods is a lethal threat--returned to town and sat out on the patio behind the library.
While passing around someone’s weed pen, Mary Timmons told us about Robert dying last May in that first wave of Covid cases. She’d moved in with her daughter Helen because she couldn’t stay in that house anymore and because Helen needed help with her sons while they were learning from home. If Robert had died at another time, she could have started going to the Wednesday night dinners at the church or joined the library’s quilting club. At another time, the widowers in town would have brought her cookies they bought at WalMart and put in a little tupperware to make it look homemade. But, as it was, Mary was trapped inside with a daughter who could only talk to her like some cute old grandma. Most embarrassingly, after a particularly acute horniness crisis, she’d had to hide a sexy book under her mattress because of the parental controls on the wifi. We begged her to come back to Eastie. We made hyperbolic promises of weed and pornography and Wednesday night dinners. She promised us she would think about it once the kids start back at school full time in the fall. But, promises made in the middle of the night aren’t worth much.
We sat silently for a while before Colin broke the silence by telling us about the road trip he was planning with his brother. That’s the beautiful thing about being the highest person in a group; you can forget that the silence you’re sitting in is an awkward one. And if you’re just sitting in a normal silence, then why not talk about driving to Utah? Somewhere in the discussion of driving snacks, the flashlight tag players returned from the forest. I could hear them laughing and shouting before I could see them, but then the lights started flickering through the trees. From the library patio, they almost looked like a rising sun.
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