R is for . . .

remembering
Alan Bern
 
Washing my hands, I recalled a rat visitor years back. Unwelcome. At night she must have bitten at our fruit and chewed our bar soap. Named it “Lou.” One night we heard Lou skittering around the kitchen. I thought I’d cornered her. She was way too fast. Lou could flatten, then squeeze under doors to escape. Fast, agile, smart. We didn’t want any rats inside so we tried peanut-buttered traps. Lou just ate the peanut butter off the traps, escaped when the traps snapped. Frustrated, we called Clint at Rat Patrol. Clint examined our basement level, showed us all the spaces rats could enter. Clint’s solution: close every space with wire mesh, then trap the rats remaining inside. Rats lived out in the brush and came in for warmth and food. “What would happen to the rats in the brush once they couldn’t get into our house,” we asked. “They’ll go to your neighbors,” said Clint. Very happy to see no more rats and sorry for our neighbors. No rats were ever trapped in Clint’s traps so Lou must have gone next door. Not sure Lou was a “she.” And we’ve seen no rats in our house for thirty years.


racloir                    
Alan Peat

A racloir is a Middle Paleolithic flint implement used, we presume, for scraping and cutting hides. We mainly found waste flakes, the debris of flint knapping. They’re everywhere, but a tool, now they come along less often so my heart was racing when I pulled it from the riverbank mud, sharp as the day it was made. I shouted the others over and, excitedly, we handed it around. And there I stood, dressed in my wellingtons and waterproofs; the first person to hold it since the Stone Age. Driving home, I wondered what he or she might have looked like; what their hopes and fears were; what their life was like? I’ve held arrowheads, axes, blades, flakes . . . and once a racloir. And each of them draws me back, over and over again, to the filth of the Thames foreshore. Some days the pickings are lean but when we are lucky, there among the plastic bags and face masks, we find some fragment of a long ago life. And for a moment we hold the past lightly in our hands and the forgotten dead breathe once again.


round
Ann Carter

R is for round, as in the Round Circle. I don’t know how it started, calling it the Round Circle. But we did, everybody in the neighborhood called it that. I remember clearly shouting out, “I’m going up to the Round Circle,” probably on my bicycle to meet one of the neighbor kids. But mostly it stands out as a place we gathered when it snowed. A section of the street encircled a bit of land and formed a woodsy island at the point where Graystone Drive and Don Avenue met. The hill flattened out there and formed a natural gathering spot on the days when snow caused school to be canceled. In skimpy rubber boots and mittens, the neighborhood kids met there, sleds in tow, ready to challenge each other’s courage and endurance. Sometimes there would be four of us stacked on top of each other, belly to back, all facing forward, our sled careening down Graystone Drive. There were deep ditches on either side and a concrete culvert at the bottom, putting us close enough to disaster if the person steering was less than skilled at tight maneuvers. More often than not we were propelled off the sled as we flew around the curve between the Orell’s and the Stoke’s houses. If we were lucky we made it around the curve and coasted to a slow stop as the road gently began to rise. Piling off, we’d start our trek back up to the Round Circle, ride after ride. Sometimes the parents joined us, usually at dusk, and they would build a bonfire and make hot chocolate. I’m sure by then our toes were numb and little cheeks brilliant red from the cold. Years later I made a painting, those words, “the round circle,” painted lightly on an oval-shaped surface.


running
Anne Killian Russo

When it all began I was by myself, and actually walking, not running. And it was taking more time than I wanted it to. So, I challenged myself to try running.  Before I knew it, I ran two miles without stopping. I ran from that day on with a group of girlfriends, through all kinds of weather, in the quiet early morning hours before our work days began. People shooshed us from above when our laughter and voices shook them out of deep sleep as we passed under their darkened windows.  We ran mostly in New York, but covered other states on raucous road trips where shopping, eating, and sightseeing made the running seem secondary. We ran through joys and sorrows, growing children, jobs, infidelities, divorces, and even cancer. Through town, around the lake, in 5, 10, and 15k races, half marathons and full marathons. For days, weeks, months, years, and decades. And almost suddenly, we didn't. In one of our races, cancer won. In another, geographical change disassembled our gaggle of girls. These days, I'm on my own again, but with a knee that resists steady running; it enjoys and allows long luxurious walks that take longer, like they did when this whole running thing started. I miss the running. I miss the girls. But, I don't seem to mind the time the walks take. Things are different now.


ride
Antonia Matthew 

The Fair is in town. I'm six, here with my mother and Mrs. Castle. We look for a ride and see one called “The Moon Rocket,” with brass rocket-shaped cars on a track that goes round a model of the top of the world. Mrs. Castle  says, “Let's take this one.” My mother says, “Mercia, Tonia's sick on a bus ride, she won't like this one.” Mrs. Castle asks me, “Would you like to go on this ride?” I nod my head. My mother shrugs, “I’m going to the Coconut Shy” and walks away. Mrs. Castle buys tickets and we climb into one of the rockets. A man shouts, “all aboard for the moon.” The ride begins to move. It starts slowly, then speeds up, faster and faster. The ride goes on and on until, at last, it begins to slow down and finally it stops. We get out carefully. I'm feeling sick. Mrs. Castle looks pale. She takes my hand. We go round to the back of the ride and throw up on the grass. Then Mrs. Castle wipes both of our mouths with a handkerchief. We look at each other and start laughing. “This is our secret,” she says and I nod my head. She takes my hand and we walk quickly towards the Coconut Shy.


relaxing
Barbara Brazill

This is the quiet hour except for the constant rumble of thunder rolling in from somewhere in some direction and the buzz of the refrigerator motor keeping my ice cubes chilled and the frenzied whoosh of wind holding hands with the abrupt crackle of thunder and the ping ping of leaves hitting the side of the house and the splat splat splat of the rain pelting the windows and the swish of a car’s wheels spinning on the hot wet pavement and the squiggly scratch of my pencil sliding across the paper and the ahhh of my breath exhaling . . . yes this has been the quiet hour and it has been so relaxing.


religion
Barrie Levine

My son Max took off for a summer youth program in Israel after his junior year in college. He returned with a passion for finding new meaning in Judaism. We always belonged to a temple and observed holiday traditions, but my son took on orthodox observances and began dressing in the manner of religious men in a white shirt, black slacks, and skullcap. Many families become estranged when a child turns religious, even if in the religion of birth. But my son’s committed life is rooted in the grandfather for whom he was named and my grandmother who sewed her Sabbath candlesticks into her voluminous skirt for safekeeping on the journey to America. Max moved to Israel three days after graduation. Friends and family expressed concern that he was immersed in a cult, as the many rules about kosher food, dress codes for men and women, and thrice daily prayer services seem repressive through a secular lens. But when I visit my son and his family in their religious neighborhood, no one ever tries to proselytize me into becoming orthodox. Simply being a mother and grandmother elevates me to honored status in the community. I couldn’t feel more accepted.


ridiculous
Blue Waters

One of my special friends in grade school, Vera Unruh, had a hard time pronouncing words. One day during recess we were talking about our school’s stupid dress code. Neither of us appreciated being forced to wear a dress instead of the jeans we preferred. “That’s so ridiculous!” I shouted. Vera picked up on that and shouted “Yeah, that’s ridikkelus!” We both had a good laugh. I decided I preferred the sound of ridikkelus over ridiculous and imitated her with great joy. We decided that we would shout the word out loud together whenever one of us gave the “sign,” which was to point a finger to the tip of the nose. We started giving each other the sign as soon as we got back to our classroom. “That’s ridikkelus!” It was nice, for a change, to have someone with me when we both got sent to the principal’s office for “insubordination.” Whatever that meant.


rucksack
Carole Johnston

Once I was a rucksack wanderer, hitchhiking, like my hero, Kerouac. I owned nothing but the rucksack, hiking shoes, jeans, and a blue work shirt. I was 27, escaped from teaching high school, still in love with Beat writers. John and I meandered up the east coast from New York to Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto. In The Dharma Bums, Japhy Rider says “… I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution, thousands or even millions of rucksack wanderers …” I read the words and followed. Scent of pine trees and hot wind, hitching along sandy back roads to all the beaches of Maine, deep summer heat baking into us. Once, we stood in torrential rain under a bridge near Quebec City, got a ride with some drunk Quebecois teenagers who let us crash in their purple-lighted, aluminum, cave-like apartment in Montreal. We wandered for six months, the road stretching out before us like a mirage. Decades later, a therapist told me I must have had a death wish, putting myself in danger like that. Danger? Never thought about it. I was busy being a rucksack wanderer. Adventure was my middle name.


rainbow
Deborah Burke Henderson
 
Many years ago, perhaps inspired by the pet rock fad, my sister took to painting rocks a powdery blue hue. Paintbrush and acrylics in hand, she would depict a rainbow cropping out of and dipping back into twin puffy white clouds, centering the word “Smile!” underneath. She sent me one such memento maybe ten years ago, and it sits near Mr. Potato Head (one of my muses) on my writing desk. That rock has always been a cherished possession, but now even more so. My sister Robin passed away just a few months back, on June 24, the morning of the Strawberry Moon. I know that I will think of her every time I see a rainbow.


risk
Emily Johnson

Speaking those words out loud would be taking a big risk. She knew that. It could mean the end of everything. The end of their marriage. Of their family. Of the home she had known for twenty-three years. It could mean her children turning against her, blaming her, never wanting to see her again. And what about him? It would come as a shock, something he would never have expected. He might hit her — something he’d never done before. Maybe he’d cry. She’d never seen him do that either. And where would she go? With what she made as an adjunct at the college she could barely afford a motel room. And yet . . .  speaking the words could mean freedom. It could mean the beginning of a new life — a life in which she could make her own decisions. She knew some of them would be the wrong ones, but she’d learn from them. She’d grow! Not feel like the undernourished, stunted flower she’d become, dying day by day. She could do it. She would do it. She would look in his eyes and say the words: “I don’t love you anymore.”


reflections
Frank Muller

As a young child, I believed that reflections were doorways to parallel universes. I would stand in the bathroom staring into the mirror on the medicine cabinet for long stretches, hoping to catch my twin blinking when I had not, or glancing sidewards in reaction to my sister’s pleading to get in. I would tilt my head forward until our foreheads touched, imagining at that moment that we could hear each other’s thoughts. His were exactly the same as mine. As I grew older the rock-solid conviction in these beliefs waned somewhat, but never completely vanished. Sometimes today I still imagine that reflections are doorways allowing us to pass back and forth between our mirrored realms. Last winter while hiking in a snowy forest I came upon an ebony pool of standing water, stained inky black by decaying leaf litter. Not a single molecule of air seemed to move from its current position. The pool surface resembled polished obsidian, reflecting the moody clouds and bare treetops above. I leaned forward, and there below me was my twin, much older now, staring up into my soul. I quickly clutched a nearby tree trunk to refrain from jumping on top of him!


retirement
Jim Mazza
 
Be prepared, a friend advises, everyone will want to know what you are going to do in retirement. Sure enough, after the congratulations come the questions. What are your plans? What’s on your bucket list?  Much to their disappointment, my responses are vague and I have few specifics to offer. For the first time in my life, I happily have no plans! Will I write a little? Surely. Shoot photos? Most likely. Travel? My bags are packed! Finally learn Italian? It’s doubtful.  It’s about being rather than doing, I explain. Most just stare at me, flabbergasted. I have two simple notions in my mind for approaching the years ahead. The first is to nurture and care for those spaces and places where I find comfort, beauty, and connection — my home, garden, and community. The second is to live gently, yet with enthusiasm and curiosity. That is: walking instead of driving, lingering over good books and conversations with friends, and making space to learn, reflect and, whenever possible, celebrate. So, I tell the inquisitive: There’s no “bucket list,” it’s more of an “anything-is-possible list” . . . And that, absent the prix fixe menu of must-dos, is a thrilling view of the future.


reflection
Joan Leotta

Passing by a mirror or a shop window, I see an older woman who resembles me — then realize she is me, gray, drained of  brightness, diminished. Lately though, I remembered one of my favorite folk tales — about a young man whose task was to pull a golden vase from a pond. Others before him had tried and failed. He studied the area, noted a tree’s limbs spread across the pond. When his turn came, instead of leaping into the water, he climbed the tree. It was only the reflection of the vase that shone in the water. The solid gold vase was in the tree all along.
I realize this is true with my own reflection — in mirrors, store windows, the eyes of others. My reflection is only an imperfect imitation of the reality of who I am. My ability to love, to learn, to encourage others is burnished, not diminished by age. Now, when I pass a mirror, I am not fooled by the old woman who smiles back at me. My real self is deep within. I am not my reflection.


rob
Kath Abela Wilson

His closest friends called him that. His life was stolen suddenly, as if a large bird swooped down and took it like a sandwich or a fish. It was an elegant bird that was his downfall, though, his passion. Each day carrying heavy equipment, a camera with a large lens, to watch their mating dance by the river, their nest, their babies. “They're in love,” he told me. And so was he. After months, he started to feel more and more tired, falling asleep early before he could compile. Finally one night he fell in his studio. Next morning they found him and sent him for care. He called me and I said “What happened? I think those herons tired you out.” “Yes,” he said. A week later he was gone. His paintings and photos — a hundred herons line our walls. I still expect at any moment his cheerful return, his friendly slow gait and stories, if only, back to our home gallery, with new work . . . .


rattle-skull
Kathleen Kramer

If you’d heard him call her, my younger sister, “Rattle-skull,” you might have thought our dad an unkind man. He was not. But Suellen could try the patience of even the kindest of men with her misadventures and dramatics, such as threatening to throw herself down the stairs when she was denied some small request. And one of our mother’s occasional adjectives for Suellen was “slathery,” for my sister could scatter socks and training bras and mess up the neatest of rooms, especially the small bedroom we shared. Even her sweet, loving heart tended to be rattle-skulled as, one after another, she chose boys, then men, who were lost and, in spite of her earnest love, could not be saved. Then inside that very special brain, there was a rupture, and Suellen was left blind and paralyzed and often without speech. For four and a half years, she lived in a rehab home, where she would never be rehabbed. And our dad and mother came faithfully, though without much faith in a recovery, to that place, bringing treats and songs and love. Every holiday season, Dad would decorate Suellen’s room with posters — jack-o-lanterns, turkeys, Santa Claus. And he’d tell her about them, knowing she could see them in her imagination, inside that dear, damaged Rattle-skull.


regret
Laurinda Lind
 
R is for that, at least. Yesterday I picked up a stone from the shore of Lake Champlain and, due to the magic of years collapsing into one another, stood by Lake of the Woods, meaning to release it there. This also starts with R. But I couldn’t. Because as my thumb traveled the smooth gray grain, I stared into white calcite veins threading dark shale and somehow saw Renee, my now-dead friend, who was deposited with geologic force into my life in fifth grade. On both sides of the stone, ancient calcium carbonate sketches a veil across silt from an old ocean floor. That is Renee, another R word. Hidden front and back. For once in my life, as I looked into the waters of this much smaller lake gouged out by an ice sheet, Renee chose me and I knew that if I kept the stone in my pocket instead, she would finally explain those thirty years she kept herself inaccessible as a nun buried at sea. So far all she says is: she sees me now. As if a glacier finally lifted off and melted away north, it is a great relief. Which also starts with R.


roast
Margaret Dennis

My mother thought she was a good cook. When I mentioned this to my older sister recently, she scoffed and said “all she ever cooked were roasts!” That was partly true. My father owned a butcher shop and brought home fresh meat. Every Sunday we had a roast: pork, lamb, beef on a rotating basis. Never chicken; my mother looked down on chicken. Oh, we had side dishes:  potatoes, gravy, and a vegetable, usually canned (except on Easter when we had to have fresh asparagus). I actually liked Monday meals the best. Then we had leftovers and we also ate in the kitchen. Our Sunday meals took place in the dining room where we ate at a formal table draped in a white linen table cloth. There was a lot of silence then. Usually, all you could hear was our silverware clinking against our best china. The kitchen was a bit livelier, but not much. I don’t know how my mother decided to raise us in this formal, stiff way. She had grown up in a raucous family with eight siblings. She must have thought that her approach was better. It wasn’t! If she were here today I would never tell her that. I would never say she wasn’t a good cook. After all, her roasts were delicious!


roxanne
Pris Campbell

When I was a teaching assistant in grad school he was an undergrad in one of my study group classes and was sweet on me, always lingering after with some contrived question. Tall and attractive he was three years younger and seemed even younger in the cloak of his shyness. He had “Cyrano de Bergerac” on tape in French in his apartment, he told me one day, with a hesitant invitation. A borderline no no, for me to say yes, but I wanted to hear this magnificent play in French. “She creates grace in her own image, brings heaven to earth in one movement of her hand,” says Cyrano. The romance of it overtook us. By the end I was Roxanne. She realized he was the one she loved as he was dying. Too late for them, we made love in their place. The lovers had their time together, after all, through our bodies. Embarrassed, he never spoke to me after class again. Embarrassed, I ignored his averted eyes and was glad when the semester ended.


rain
Sue Norvell

Yes, I do feel uncomfortable grumbling, even just a little bit. So many parts of our country would be grateful for a tenth of our damp aggravation. Still, it has rained yet again: another persistent soaking that just won’t quit. It feels as if this has been the motif for the summer. Each week it seems we’ve again had to slosh our way through puddles to the Wednesday Farmers’ Market. In the backyard, grass has not dried to the usual late summer toasted-almond brown. Even now, the lush still-green lawn squooshes underfoot as I walk out to the bird bath. With rain so frequent, I haven’t had to refill that large terra cotta saucer often, but mosquitos are loving it, so it has to be emptied, cleaned, and refilled to rid it of the wrigglers. Today the hill trails were just dry enough for my husband and his friend to hike without too much muddy difficulty. An unexpected, glorious, generous patch of vivid yellow-orange chanterelle mushrooms bordered the trail! Each picked a share and left enough for some other lucky hiker. These beautiful mushrooms loved those warm, extensive rains! We have chanterelles for supper and they will be delicious, I’m sure. Perhaps I should stop my grumbling and start cooking.


roka
Theresa A. Cancro
 
Roka was an american kestrel — the smallest falcon — and my link to the wild, a glimpse into the soul of wildness itself. When Roka was a chick, he was knocked out of his nest and found by a teen. Roka imprinted on the boy who wasn't able to properly care for him. So he brought Roka to the local wild bird rehabilitation center. Later when I volunteered at the clinic, Roka was a “resident bird.” I was lucky to work with him on a biweekly basis. I took him out for walks on a falconer's glove among the tall grasses of nearby fields. I could sense that untamed part of him when his eyes focused on the distance, alert to all sounds and movement, crouching momentarily as if preparing to launch into the clear blue sky. In the evening as I left after my volunteer shift in the clinic, I'd call, “Good night, Roka,” towards his corn crib digs, and he'd respond with soft chirrups and trills. I looked forward to our walks and my peek into the heart of a wild bird. Roka later passed on to the realm of forever fields and skies where he now flies freely.


rockaway
Zee Zahava

My family leaves our sweltering Bronx apartment and moves into a tiny summer bungalow in Rockaway, just a short walk from the ocean. On Friday nights my sister and I go to the boardwalk and pitch nickels, hoping to win a goldfish or a stuffed animal. We spend a lot of nickels but we never win anything. I become friends with a slightly older girl named Shulamith. I tell her I’ll be learning French when school starts up again in the fall and she instructs me to practice rolling my r’s. You can’t speak French if you don’t roll your r’s, she proclaims, with all the authority of an 8th grader. Rrrrriver, I say, as we walk on the beach in our skimpy two-piece bathing suits. That makes her giggle. Rrrrradiator. Rrrrrailroad. Shulamith tells me I’m hilarious. Rrrrrotten. Rrrrringolevio.  She can’t stop laughing. Rrrrrazzmatazz. I don’t know where I get that from, it just pops into my brain. Rrrrrazzmatazz, Shulamith repeats, almost choking with delight. Rrrrrazzmatazz, she says again, practically screaming the word. She grabs my hand and gives my fingers a hard squeeze. We’re going to be best friends for life, she declares. But I never see her again after that summer at Rockaway Beach.