Life Stages

by Liz Ciampa

Today I walk through the city's common, which,

When I was a little girl walking back and forth

To Catholic elementary school, was a forgotten playground

Of dust and dirt left over from a public school

Of crumbling brick:  a school that soon would close.

But today, its pruned walkways and lush grass surround me

As I walk to our library with some overdue books on poetry.

On my way, to my left, I notice a boy of barely one.

It's clear he just learned to walk.  He toddles uncertainly,

But with increasing speed, towards me.  His father watches

From a nearby bench.  I look straight again and see a bearded man

Of inscrutable age:  he could be twenty-five, he could be forty-five,

Strange though that sounds.  His slanted gait allows him only to hop

And hobble down the pebbly white walkway in my direction.  I look

To my left and see the still-toddling boy in his tiny baseball cap.

He halts and stares, waiting to see what I will do.  Of course,

I wave and smile, smile and wave, as I walk.  I wait to see

The inevitable slow grin widen like a tiny rubber band on his little face.

Dad approves.  He waves too.  Now I look straight, and the man with the beard

Has seated himself on a bench to my upcoming right.  He stares as well.

I think:  there is a lot going on inside that head that is not of this world,

But he is harmless.  I wave at him too, not wanting to exclude him.  Then I wonder if

Anyone has said hello to this man today, or this week.  Now he is alert,

His brown eyes wide, focused.  He acknowledges my wave with this:

"There are good days, and there are bad days.  You know?"

I walk, nod my head, and say, "Oh yes.  I know."

(Ciampa, Liz.  Good for Everyday Use.  Boston, MA: Big Table Publishing Co., 2012. Pp. 14-15. Print.)

Awake

By Law Hamilton

Slumber, removed from me.

As you roll me over,

Positioning me to a balance

On top of you.

Your warm hand on my face, sweeps hair and sleep away

“I've had my ugly days… But I have also had days where I have been beautiful, too.”

Your reassuring kiss placed on my forehead,

Needed much energy.

You were too drained to move.

I slip off, resting by your side.

Light from the coming dawn

Sets your profile apart from the darkness.

My hand caresses your face, asking

“Are you awake"?

Uncle Peter's Garden

By Mary Higgins

Whenever I pass by a garden surrounded by a white picket fence, I’m transported back in time to childhood visits to my Great Uncle Peter’s garden. My grandmother’s brother-in-law, Peter, owned the most magnificent garden of three levels right in the middle of the city. Entering through the gate below a rose arbor was a heroine’s task. Blue-as-the-sky morning glories and bright yellow flowers danced through the pickets on both sides, attracting bees and hornets like flies to an open jar of honey. If you got through that area, paved with flagstone, and then turned right, you’d be safe from the most feared of the flying insects. Huge dragonflies, which we called “needles” in those days, buzzed over with their compound eyes to take a closer look at a terrified human child. It was August when we visited. Always dressed in shorts and a sleeveless shirt, I became a landing pad for scary insects.

Turning left, one saw beds of tall and short flowers - lavender and orange irises, purple snapdragons and magenta and golden pansies. There was no place to bounce a ball or toss a frisbee. Turning right, the path gracefully descended in a gentle curve.

Here on level two flourished apple, pear, fig, chestnut and crab apple trees. Roses rambled in pastel hues as well as velvety reds. I recall a Rose of Sharon that all the grown-ups made a huge fuss over and I looked everywhere for a Rose of Mary. Not to be found but there is an herb called Rosemary. Confusing to a little girl newly turned eight. My great uncle Peter, grew evergreen trees that he carved into shapes, some being sofas and chairs - not designed for sitting.

On the middle level, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and white as well as red raspberries waved in the wind. What was a paradise of berries was lost on this child. I was the one who eschewed any food containing pulp or seeds.

Descending three concrete steps with its white wrought-iron, a railing brought you to the bottom where it was always cool and my mom told me I “grew” goosebumps. Pole beans staked to wooden rods wound their way to the sky; the pink beans for the pasta fagioli flourished here; tomatoes and cucumbers, both of which I loved, dangled from vines; zucchini squash branched along the damp earth; and radishes and rhubarb sprang forth.

The round heads of lettuce and cabbage filled neat little rows and multiplying everywhere were leafy greens that my grandmother loved to cook: chicory, mustard greens, swiss chard, and spinach. Open beds of herbs including sweet mint, peppery oregano, fragrant basil, and sage, perfumed the air. Squatting down to tie my sneaker, the charcoal black earth smelled like mushrooms. Pink earthworms wiggled along freshly tilled soil. Looking up, I’d see the wall of the potting garage lined with long handles of rakes, shovels, and hoes all neatly hung on pegs. Down here, garden hoses, coiled like snakes, sat next to enormous bags of peat moss. My mother told me that we were visiting Peter Rabbit’s Garden (my uncle’s garden attracted rabbits) and I dutifully searched for that rabbit. No luck with that either.

Is it any wonder that my mother encouraged me to become a nutritionist? The list of vegetables I actually enjoyed eating was short: iceberg lettuce, tomatoes. cucumbers, raw carrots, eggplant and canned, not fresh, asparagus and corn. While everyone anticipated the corn on the cob from Uncle’s garden I preferred to eat kernel corn sweet with sugar - from the can.

Why I Write

By Lauraine Alberetti Lombara

I come from a creative family. Both of my parents were excellent cooks. My father, Antonio, a chef by trade, was king of soups, roasts and Italian specialties of the cuisines of Emilia Romagna and the Piedmont provinces of northern Italy. My mother, Laura, was an accomplished pasta maker and rustic baker. Also, she was a gifted seamstress with a discerning eye for fine fabrics and interesting details. My eldest brother Joseph has an engineer’s mind and was an electrician, designer and draftsman by trade. My older brother Robert is a professional fine artist and a semi-retired professor of art.

I always loved to write. My family and a few teachers in school complimented me for it, especially Professor Clara Siggins at Boston College School of Nursing, who thought I should have studied literature and writing instead of nursing. I did not switch electives.

My writing mainly consisted of letters and brief notes as I pursued my nursing career, married, and raised three children. I put so much energy into my roles of wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend that I never opted to take time to do anything “creative” except for a sewing class and two sessions of Italian Language classes sponsored by Beverly Adult Education.

Through the ensuing years, I did what needed to be done: housework, shopping, and cooking, which was my only creative outlet. I enjoyed seasonal outdoor activities; swimming at the beach, snowshoeing, walking, canoeing and kayaking. Listening to music of all kinds and dancing were other pastimes I favored.

Reading has always been my great escape and my passion. I can lose myself in fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose. I have just begun writing again—a few poems, a few memoirs, mainly anecdotal stories about family.

To test the waters, I joined “There’s A Story There!”-- the Beverly Public Library’s new creative writing workshop--in January, 2013. I found that I have another creative outlet to add to my love for cooking. Also, now I know that I write as passage to inner fulfillment. I am so proud to be a member of the Winter Street Writers.

Martha...from Act III

by Elizabeth Aharonian Moon

Author's  Note

 ACT III, a work in progress, is a collection of cameos, short literary sketches
which define a character in a dramatic moment in time, and a novella. 

The themes of  Endings, Beginnings, and Musings connect the cameos, while

the novella, yet untitled, explores the ties that bind and the ties that break between parents and their adult children.

Martha is one such cameo.

She found him dead in the chair. She knew it—the swollen silence, the slanted shadow of the afternoon sun on the oriental—he was clammy to her touch, deaf to her question. So this is shock, she thought, so this is being stunned, stilled, unable to move from this spot of her discovery. And yet she did. Shaking her head , ruffling her graying hair , she reached for the phone, pressing 911 hard and then calling the adult children, their work numbers already programmed in (in case of an emergency, Ma).

In that next instant, she had to go to the bathroom; there she saw the knobs every which way on the counter, the screw driver in the sink. Had he finally gotten around to the painting project that she had nagged him about for weeks? Quickly she shoved the knobs aside, lifted the screwdriver and covered it with a towel and noticed the unopened paint can in the corner. 

 Life interrupted. A still-life.

  After the 911 people—the firemen, the police , the EMTs and the ambulance (what for?)--after her sons’ arrival and departure, all in such a hurry of duty , she sat in the chair and tried to invent the sequence of the day: how did he get to this chair to die in it? What had he been doing before the knobs or after the knobs? She hadn’t been gone long, maybe two or three hours in Monday’s routine: deadhead the petunias at the railroad station flower boxes, stop at the market, pick up a birthday card at the dollar store for the grandkid, end up at her downtown community garden to pull weeds and water what needed watering.

 Her mind flitted; she had been gone two hours, maybe. If that. She didn’t think it would be like this. Often, she worried that he would fall down in the wooded preserve he walked almost daily, whatever the season. He’d have some stroke and lose his sight completely, and maybe the use of his leg or his arm. They’d find him on the path and this would be how their lives shifted. Other times she thought they would have at least ten more good years, what with his ailments and her family history of heart trouble. How she had imagined it was not how it was. Dead in the chair. 

 The quick and the dead.

 Had he been filling the bird-feeder? Got dizzy? Came in? Why was that nearly filled glass of water on the kitchen table? Did he get thirsty from the knobs and then suddenly get tired, exhausted..I think I better sit down.... Where did his mind take him as he walked to the chair? Did he walk? Did he just close his eyes for a nap? 

 Is that how he died?

How long she sat in the chair, she did not know: not an hour, probably just minutes, because suddenly the racket in her head stopped and there were real, out-loud voices in the room. The sons had returned with the funeral director (why would they call him that?) She knew he was the undertaker, and for an instant she totally and ironically comprehended the meaning of that word. He undertook everything, and she was left to the task of asking Father Leary to say a mass for this, her very dead, Protestant husband.

And, what would she wear?

   

An Excerpt From: 

A Cuban Caper 

(Bowling, a Strange Request, and a Visit to Havana's Police Station)

By Ken Roy

 


  It was Wednesday, New Year’s Eve 1959. We still had a great deal to do and see in

Havana before heading for home the next day. Early that morning we ran into our friend

Freddie and his pals, who had rented a car for a road trip. Since we all had been to local

beaches the day before, we decided to join them and stretch the adventure further, out into

the Cuban countryside. With nothing particular in mind, we headed east along the shore.

After passing through several small poor towns, but really, in a way, quite beautiful and

peaceful, we stopped for the necessary refreshment: beer.

Continuing to drive for a couple of hours, we ended up somewhere beyond Varadero

Beach and came upon a bowling alley with absolutely no redeeming features but for two

alleys, and a rundown bar. As we bowled it became apparent that it was quite easy, with

some speed on the ball, to make the pins fly wildly. Since the pin setting was a manual

operation, it took considerable skill on the pin setter's part, jumping all around, to avoid

getting hit. Suddenly, we became the “Ugly American”* as we concentrated on him, rather

than the bowling score. Looking back now, I cringe at the callous disregard we showed for

his safety and how our actions could have been lethal to us. The alley management and

associates, if so inclined, could have taken us out back and buried us. After bowling, in

order to soothe any hard feelings, we bought a few beers for all parties, assuring a friendly,

happy and best-case scenario for a quick exit back to Havana.

As we were leaving a couple of bearded guys in green khaki came out of the back room

and joined our group at the bar. (As I learned later, green khaki was the revolutionaries

uniform, worn exclusively by Fidel Castro when he appeared in public.) I remember their

sudden appearance as being quite unsettling since we had no idea who they were or why

they were there. They spoke broken English and quickly identified themselves as rebels

with the 26 July Movement. We didn’t have a clue as to what this meant. They had been

involved in the nearby Battle of Santa Clara and filled us in about the coming revolution.

This battle was a decisive turning point in the Cuban Revolution when then president

Batista’s army was defeated by Che Guevara led guerillas. Their next stop was Havana.

Looking for recruits, they asked for our help. At the time, this didn’t seem like a great

idea, so we declined. However, one outspoken bearded guy became somewhat upset as he

assured us, the cause was just and 26 July would soon be victorious. It now became clear

to us that this Cuban revolution was dangerously close and moving quickly.

A few hours later, in mid afternoon, we had returned to Havana. By then, the alcohol had

seized control of Freddie and he decided to take the car for a spin around the city. The

“Ugly American” reared up again. We whipped around several blocks, tires squealing,

pedestrians leaping out of the way and the rest of us rolling around in the car laughing.

Eventually we came to a stop at our hotel and before we could exit the car, a Havana cop

was there with a change of plans. He told us to stay put, then slid behind the driver’s

wheel. Our next stop was Havana’s Central Police Station.

* a pejorative term describing American pretentious behavior in foreign countries. Please see William

Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1958).

    

I Am A Writer

By Beth Alexander Walsh

My name is Beth and I am a writer.

While this statement doesn't propel me out of a dark closet, or have me searching for a twelve step program, I reveal it with some trepidation. Sharing with strangers, family and friends that you are a writer, launches countless questions tinged with judgment, all without the benefit of reading your work! Those who know me best, of course, have been supportive; encouraging me to expand my writing horizons. Others remark, in a head-patting condescending tone, “Isn't that nice”, as if to say: you are the cutest thing ever for wanting to write. Some are even slightly hostile, pronouncing your goals unrealistic. Strangers of course just want to know if you have been published or received a paycheck. 

My personal truth, I have come to realize, is that I have always been a writer.

In the third grade, when other children were passing in their two page essays, I would deliver a ten page short story. My teacher was supportive of this most of the time. The next year, our class put on an entire play based on my rewritten lyrics to “Puff the Magic Dragon”, (my apologies to Peter, Paul and Mary). When girls in junior high discussed what they wanted to be when they grew up, most of their answers were a nurse, a veterinarian, and Mrs. Scott Baio. My goal was to be the next Erma Bombeck!

High School dreams were in the form of poetry and song lyrics, while the reality of becoming an adult loomed ahead. I dropped the writing ball in my college years and promptly forgot who I was by majoring in business management. That choice was made for all the wrong reasons and I never completed my degree.

 I did not write purposefully for many years, caring instead for three small children and a mother suffering from Alzheimer's. There was a lot of soul searching during that period, and a lot of reading from Oprah's Book Club list. My writing mostly consisted of emails to my closest friends. I am forever grateful for those women during that time and am happy I had the foresight to save those emails, as one of those friends is no longer with us. I look back at her words on occasion, just to hear her voice again.

Words are powerful. They can convey pain and misery, joy and triumph, and every emotion of the human condition. Nations have risen and fallen on the words of their leaders. They can inspire hate as well as love. To those close to you, the right words can mean everything. So here I am, in my fiftieth year, ready to share my words. I cannot guarantee you will always like what I have to say, but I hope you appreciate my compulsion to share, along with my fellow Winter Street colleagues, because after all...I am a writer.