Page 8 - WTP VOl. XIII #2

What I encounter says more about me than what’s encountered.
A woman precariously balances her laptop on a sink in the campground bathroom. Her phone and watch perch behind the faucet. “I just need to get some work done,” she says. Another woman enters, says, “there you are,” and gives the working woman a hug. “I love you,“ they say to each other. I stand off to the side, not knowing where to look, just wanting to brush my teeth.
A parade of rose mallows rise tall and full of blossoms against marsh grass behind which a dozen swans paddle under a hovering osprey beside an elm that escaped the blight. It’s almost too much, but isn’t. This is what I was looking for, I think, when I left
the campground this morning, not really looking for anything.
The NY Science Times reports a fad where people walk a whole half hour without checking their phones or listening to podcasts. No texts, calls, or music. I have a hard time understanding why this is such a
big deal. I walk two hours every morning without a phone, and hike another two in the afternoon. Why would I want texts when I have a forest and river? A kestrel soaring overhead.
Hiking by the river, I right a young red oak choked by grapevine and revel at how wonderful it feels to snap the vine off the slim trunk, rip off its leaves. Though the oak doesn’t exactly bounce back, it will in time. It’s an oak tree; time is what it has.
“I recognize you walking because you always wear a hat,” the librarian says, “not that hat, specifically, but a
hat.” I don’t tell her it’s basal carcinoma, the summers I sat hatless for hours, all day, every day, a biologist counting migrating sandpipers, plovers, and dowitch- ers on a cobblestone shore crazy with sun. I took into account the role of sunlight on the birds’ behavior, but not on me. I was in my twenties, getting deeply tanned, all the time in the world.
It’s crazy how rotaries are the rage here, supposedly to stop road rage because there are fewer lights, but really four in a row are a pain, as is getting a mam- mogram, squeeze squeeze, don’t breathe. I have to remind myself I’m privileged to be able to drive here and get this procedure. Not lucky, privileged. If Mom had got one earlier maybe they’d have caught the cancer sooner.
Paging through a cookbook I find a recipe in Mom’s handwriting: Bette Johansen’s Hot Fudge Sauce. I love it because there’s a list of ingredients but no method, because mom didn’t need a method. I also love that this isn’t just anyone’s hot fudge but Bette Johansen’s. Bette’s husband worked with dad at the papermill in Woodland, ME, so the recipe is from the sixties. Mostly I love seeing mom’s handwrit- ing, cursive with abbreviations, from when she was still healthy, happily making hot fudge sundaes. She wrote this, I think, her hand on the pen. There’s no replicating that.
It’s your birthday so we go out for ice cream sundaes. They wait on the people in front of us, then the people behind, then those behind them. Eventually
a server asks what we’re waiting for. “We’re wait-
ing to be waited on,” I tell her, a little pissed off that she isn’t doing her job; “you skipped us.” But it’s the server who’s angry, finally taking our order, giving us only one spoon. Later we go out for dinner. I begin eating what the waiter places before me, then realize it’s what you ordered, so pass it to you and you begin eating. Then the waiter says the meal is for another table, and wants to take it away. “What’s going on in this town?” I think. Yet the next day I say, “That was fun.” Not my definition of fun, but still fun.
A student tries to persuade us to support her busi- ness. “This tea will reduce toxins,” she says. “What specific toxins?” I ask; “if you’re in Flint, MI, it won’t clear your blood of lead.” “No,” she says. “So how are you defining toxin?” I ask. No idea. She’s stumped.
I know she’s just parroting “wellness” sites. “When persuading, it’s best to be specific,” I say.
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Encounters VIII: Stumped
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