Teas of the World come to Gloria's

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Charles Darwin

I suspect there must be a tool, a skill, for self-preservation, something that might be called Darwinian, protecting us from knowing the magnitude of change that is rocketing in our direction.  In repose - which for me is a state of blankness not far from sleep - I sense the multitudes at work, running and engine-gunning and rearranging cars like valets at a Hollywood soiree.  Roustabouts continually dismantling, transporting and re-erecting the circus in a new town.  It seems that things were/are afoot,  the smallest portion of them knowable, visible, fathomable to this human mind and I am glad not to have been granted the long-ago wish to know what comes next.  I can barely absorb what is here now.  Once in a while, however, there are glimmers.

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Mr. Guscott felt the sun on his generous forehead as he stepped out of the rental car, his sample case in hand.  The sun's warmth, in spite of winds so insistent they created whitecaps off shore, caused him to consider his good fortune, the warm hand of blessing upon him as he traveled the world seeking and selling fine teas.  Today, uninterrupted good fortune, it was the day to call upon Gloria.

While a man of his time in many ways, Mr. Guscott had built a safe inner chamber where he protected, like a premature, orphaned mouse,  the suspicion that he missed the era for which he'd been intended.  There was still adventure and discovery in his work, though not on the scale once known to those who sailed for the East India Company or its competitors.  The long voyages would likely have left him queasy, rubber-legged and underweight, but in his imagination, in his reading, the romance of it all would have been sufficient to encourage him through hardship.  Thus he was a representative of a construction that encompassed traditions, intrigue, the power of the British Empire, the real-world commerce of tea and a good deal of time spent in moments that were not presently occurring.   A man with feet in two worlds.

As he reached the shop's door, Mr. Apotienne had just turned onto the entry path and followed Mr. Guscott into the fragrant, surprisingly chatter-free room, moving in the direction of his delightfully unoccupied favorite table.  First to appear from behind the scenes was Fiona, welcoming The Reading Man, smiling her acknowledgement of his table being empty and quiet.  Next arrived Gloria, untying her apron to leave on a kitchen counter, grasping Mr. Guscott's free hand in both of hers, calling him by name and asking if his travels were treating him well.  "It is always fair weather," he said, "when I am on the road.   Though I have seen a monsoon in Sri Lanka, which I continue to think of as Ceylon," he added as a bashful, time-warp aside, "that I wasn't sure I'd survive.  Still," he said.  "Still."

The Reading Man, being the only other guest in the shop, of course heard this exchange while attending to the menu card for the day and bringing out his book, though it did not seem quite the time for reading aloud.  While Mr. Guscott seemed to be an American, no precise accent from elsewhere, there was a cadence, almost a audible patina to his words which anchored him, he would have been thrilled to know, to another place and age.  He was without pretension yet it almost seemed as though he was traveling incognito but making a rather unsuccessful job of it.

When Gloria had seated him and he began to rummage through his sample case, to which order would need to be restored, she stepped closer to The Reading Man and said, "Perhaps you would like to meet our visitor.  Would you mind joining us here?" as she indicated the round, window-lit table where Mr. Guscott and his tea samples were establishing a base of operation.  The Reading Man nodded and stood, Mr. Guscott stood and, before Gloria could make introductions, proclaimed himself to be "Jack Guscott.  Teas of the World."  To which The Reading Man, shaking his hand, said "Robert Apotienne, tourist."

Take-away goodness - We hear from Gloria

(This is the on-going, episodic fiction about Gloria and Mr. Apotienne, aka The Reading Man.  It began on April 22 and today's is, I believe, the 21st installment.  Give or take.)

Of course there was no reading that day, not aloud, not for the undiluted pleasure of it.  No, there was no reading.  It would have been all wrong.  Mr. Apotienne already felt like a minor sideshow attraction, a specimen, when he sat down with the four women.  He was determined to go no further into performing-seal territory if he could help it.  He imagined one Sherlock facing four Moriartys.  Holmes could do this, he thought, and so can I.

When the attempted, though seemingly benign grilling was over, when Mr. Apotienne had escaped into the sky and sea and air followed by just a whiff of roses from the cottage climbers, he carried a packet of leftovers in one of his deep pockets.  He could play the role of affable, not-exactly-brilliant man-person as well as anyone but the doing of it took a toll.  It made him wary, triggered his instincts for self-preservation, squelched his appetite and, in general, spoiled his favorite part of the day.  As he gallantly though gently insisted on paying the bill for all of them, to thank the women for including him - though everyone knew exactly what was really going on - he remained at the table a few moments after the others left.

He expressed silent, passionate gratitude that he had never been one to sweat under pressure, that he had learned to control his facial muscles - other than smiles which simply burst forth - and that he may have managed to hold on to some fraying fibers of privacy.  When Fiona brought his change - oh, her tip was generous that day - she handed him one of the shop's recognizable paper bags which held a portion of shirred eggs wrapped in foil, warm but not runny, a biodegradable fork, one cellophane pouch of orange peel/pecan shortbread cookies and another with a fist-sized bunch of red grapes.  Next to it she placed a take-away paper cup of what he knew was Earl Grey tea with milk and a hint of Belinda's honey.  "A bit of picnic for later," Fiona said.  Gloria did not appear, which surprised him not at all.

As his steps took him from the shop, he looked along the coast and saw the rock on which he would sit to enjoy his bit of picnic, to ponder the events of the day thus far and to let the ocean, the wind, the gulls' cries and his own long-cultivated capacity for stillness bring him back to himself.  When he arrived at the rocky perch and opened his treats, he found a slip of paper on which had been written, "For remarkable sang-froid.  Please enjoy.  (signed) G."  He thought he might be the happiest man in the world.

Shirred eggs for five - Gloria thinks quickly

When Gloria experimented with a new recipe, which is to say invented one, she served the result as a sample to customers present.  It was a tactic from the school of maneuvering on two flanks,  market research and good will.  That there had never yet been a dud or anything close to it did not cause Gloria to become over-confident.  Each dish was a voyage into terra incognita, though she could be reasonably sure of the result.  On the morning Mr. Apotienne encountered and pulled up a chair with some women of the Cove, Gloria had been puzzling whether shirred eggs could be prepared with a bit of toasty bread in the ramekin, along with, perhaps, asparagus and an enhancing cheese.  She was ready to pop the whole business in the oven, as Fiona waited tables, when the hubbub began and Nancy extended her invitation to The Reading Man.

Egg

Mollusk

This could be a real crap sandwich, Gloria thought, knowing how capable those four women were of prying information out of a mollusk.  Her heart and spirits sank, thinking of TRM, not exactly running but stepping smartly away from the table, the shop, the town and, mostly, her.  And before they'd even actually gotten acquainted.  Berating herself for not heading all of this off by steering the group to a different table with an explanation she knew would  have caused her to light up like a tilt sign, she realized her only choice was to act as normal as possible, giving no good reason for the drawing of conclusions.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Fiona gather the teapot, cup and saucer for Mr. Apotienne, arranging a most appealing choice of pastry.  Fiona, too, found him rather captivating, wished he would be there reading until she grew old and, generally, liked to put the shop's and her own best feet forward when he was around.  She was never indifferent or, unthinkable, rude to any customer, with generous tips as proof if any were needed, but we all have things or people we like better than others.  Fiona liked the way Mr. Apotienne seemed to make her feel more like Christmas morning than she had in a long time.  Before she returned with his order, Fiona heard Gloria call to her softly.  "Ask them if they want to sample a new recipe in about 15 minutes," she said.  "Shirred eggs.  Just a taste."  Of course no portion at Gloria's was ever "just a taste" but that left less room for refusal.  Who could say no to a wee bit of this or that.  Gloria thought back to a crossroads moment in her younger days.  I could have joined the Coast Guard, she recalled.  Yes, it would have been a terrible choice and not the best use of my gifts but it would have kept this moment from happening.  For a second she forgot how fond good fortune was of clothing itself in elaborate disguises.

The tables, so to speak, are turned - Gloria waits offstage

Within our own atmospheres the planets and constellations need not actually collide to produce shock waves.  A square here, a conjunct there and one is giving another the stink eye while we're left holding the exploding dye pack of plans gone shockingly awry.  If those drifting orbs have taught us anything it is how to remain limber.  A facile mind is money in the bank.

Mr. Apotienne arrived at the tea shop on a blustery yet bright Tuesday, allowed time for his eyes to adjust to the more subtle interior light and stepped toward his usual table, only to find it claimed.  It was occupied, filled with chatter and, had he been feeling more charitable, pleasingly uninhibited laughter from a quartet of women whose tousled hair and wind-pinked cheeks he'd come to associate with Billington's Cove.  Wanting above all else to keep from looking like a trapped ferret ready to gnaw off his own foot rather than sit at another table, The Reading Man retreated into his breath and quieted his grumbling mind and clanging heart.

Plan B, he thought, one must always have a Plan B.  In a general way, The Reading Man was a highly adaptable creature, as unlikely to start a fracas as a clam would be to grow legs.  As the women looked up to see him there, they smiled and nodded greetings for they all recognized him from his coastal rambles and his steadfast presence near Gloria's kitchen.  "Oh, please," said the one whose name he thought was Nancy, "we still have room here."  To prove it, they all moved, for a moment in the wrong directions, to make space for him among them.  He was about to arrange his thank you, but no, face and began edging to an empty table when maybe-Nancy said, "We'll even be quiet if you want to read.  It would be a treat for us.  Do say yes."  Though he didn't shift his eyes, his mind looked skyward and silently said, not this, not today, and in equal silence the answer came.  Yes, this, today.

From his reservoir of good manners aided by panic now somewhat stilled, he answered that he would find that delightful and thanked them each with fleeting eye contact.  The one he thought might be Ruth had a wariness in her glance that didn't escape him.  I shall have to be very alert, he thought, no falling asleep at my post this morning. I shall be, for this time, the perfect stranger, in spite of his certainty that they gossiped about him regularly and wanted to turn over the rocks under which, they assumed, he kept himself hidden.

Great books

Surprising benefits arise from not having read at an appropriate time the books one ought to have read, of having saved them for a time when they may have more meaning, when we may be smart enough to keep ourselves nourished on them, page by page.  I am just reading SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut, not half-way through its brittle pages yet, and Billy Pilgrim keeps breaking my heart.  In turn, Billy Pilgrim breaks my heart for all of us, which is to say, Kurt Vonnegut breaks my heart or reminds me that it has been broken for a very long time and it is not the worst thing I can think of.  How much worse it would be to think everything was fine.

Great books, those we haven't read, those we don't even know about, those that haven't been written, are the (non-explosive) helium filling the airships as they line up to carry us away.

A ballad for Billington's Cove

Swift is not life's only pace.  Some in Billington's Cove dart on scurrying feet.  Others undulate to this, which they've taken as their theme song.  (Thank you, Mike.  How did I not know this?)

Lyrics by Donovan for "Epistle to Deroll" from the album, A Gift From A Flower To A Garden.

"Epistle To Derroll"
  Come all ye starry starfish

living in the deep blue sea
crawl to me i have proposition to make thee
would you walk the north sea floor
to Belgium from England
Bring me word of a banjo man
With a tattoo on his hand.

The spokesman of the starfish
spoke as spokesman should
"If'n you met our fee then
certainly we would,
If you cast a looking-glass
upon the scallopped sand
You'll have word o' this banjo man
with a tattoo on his hand."

"Come ye starry starfish
I know your ways are caped
maybe its because your astrologically shaped,
Converse with the herring shoals
as I know you can
Bring me word o' the banjo man
with a tattoo on his hand."

The eldest of the starfish
spoke, after a sigh,
"Youthfull as you are young man
you have a 'Wisdom Eye';
Surely you must know a looking-glass
is made from sand?
These youngfish are fooling you
about this banjo man."

"Come then aged starfish
Riddle me no more,
for news I am weary
and my heart is sore;
All on the silent seashore,
help me if you can,
Tell to me if you know
of this banjo man."

"All through the seven oceans
I am a star, most famed,
Many 'leggys' have I lost
and many have I gained,
Strange to say quite recently
I've been to Fleming Land
And if you are courteous
I'll tell you all I can."

"You have my full attention"
I answered him with glee,
His brother stars were twinkling
in the sky above the sea
So I sat there with rapt
attention, on the sand,
very anxious for to hear
of the banjo man.

"I have seen this tattooed hand
through a ship port-hole,
Steaming on the watery main
through the waves so cold,
Heard his tinkling banjo and
his voice so grand
but you must come to Belgium
to shake his tattooed hand."

"Gladly would I come oh
gladly would I go,
Had I not my work to do
and my face to show,
I rejoice to know he's well
but I must go inland,
thank you for the words you brought
of the banjo man."

I walked along the evening sand
as charcoal clouds did shift
revealing the moon shining
on the pebble drift
Contemplating every other word
the starfish said
whistly winds they filled my dreams
in my dreaming bed.

Updated re-post from May 28, 2011 - By our rags you will know us

Boro Japanese textile shown here, with photo credit kimonoboy.com.

In an email yesterday, my friend Lynne wrote about a community-wide tag sale going on in her Hudson Valley town. Today she added to the narrative, sharing what she had put aside to purchase. One item she mentioned but did not buy - as we on her mailing list wonder how it was priced - was described thus: We also found a very tiny slim volume, with a rubber stamp inside that read "From the Library of Anais Nin". Well! If you visit Lynne's site, please click on Fine Art and look at the paper quilts.

Paper quilts seque into fabric arts, as revealed in new wonder by Denise who just gave me the word "boro" which is Japanese for rags. The worn, the discarded, feel like extensions of my thoughts.

---

The California deserts, in the late 1950s, early 1960s, had not yet been over-run by anyone with off-road capability. They were, with few exceptions, places only real desert rats would seek out. In our forest green, new-to-us Jeep station wagon, my family had access to the previously unreachable ghost towns whose sirens sang to our father. Most of our trips, out and back home in one long day, were made with older friends whose experience in that unwelcoming country, and whose winch, saved us...from being stranded, from being sealed in with the angry tension that always traveled in whatever car we took. They brought cake and humor for our picnics.

The unexpected made a cozy home for itself among the rocks, steep dirt roads and flat expanses of Death Valley or the Mojave...the surprise of coming upon the fellows who gathered in the desert because they liked to shoot at stuff or the recluse with the alarmingly disfigured face who helped us find the highway late one Sunday afternoon, our father alternately thanking and apologizing to the man who clearly just wished to be left alone.

Too much quiet still causes me unease, empty quiet that is the sound loneliness makes. I wonder at childhood hours transported from our well-behaved and frequently silent home lives to the solitude, even with five of us together, of so much nowhere. I wonder what energies, what spirits, may have lingered near the ruined towns, the shells of homes, the abandoned mines of unknown depth; what emotion clung to the discarded egg beater or cup, the faded shreds of wall paper in rooms that once held such promise, the sink, the bedstead, the iron-fenced cemetery.

We carry our boro packs, bound with twine. Rags are remnants, not useless, not at all. I see my life as a series of compartments, not always connected, not always a common thread to tie one to those before or after, other than whatever has been salvaged from each leg of the journey. Our rags, fragile souvenirs, evidence, sometimes held only in the mind. We are each the quilt, the patched scraps of all our moments, all the places, all the hearts and hands, bleached rectangles of loss stitched next to moments of bright triumph.