On one of my first visits to Mark's house, I knocked on the glass door of his little A frame cabin and saw through the window that he was watching basketball on his T.V.. We weren't allowed to watch T.V. anymore, but I was so engrossed in other interests that I really didn't miss it. What surprised me was that he was watching it with the volume turned all the way down.
"I like to watch them", he said. "They're so graceful, they remind me of ballet dancers". I looked at the screen. They were graceful. I hadn't noticed that before. He didn't seem to mind my intrusion into his quiet world at all, in fact seemed happy that I'd come to visit. I observed my surroundings while he went to get me a soda, another item that I hadn't experienced in some time. The cabin was neat, spartan without seeming ascetic. The decorations and furnishings were just enough to lend interest without adding clutter. The earmarks of a careful, frugal person were everywhere. I don't remember what we talked about, only that I had an immediate affinity for the man. His presence was quiet and reassuring while maintaining that sharp edge of intelligence, yet it was all well peppered with humor and good naturedness. You could be silent without feeling awkward.
Mike knocked on the door, and with the addition of his impish company the conversation became more animated, and for me, more awkward. Mike was constantly making me feel stupid, and had picked up many of Denis's taunts and ridicules. Most of the time though, our new friend was more interesting than teasing me. We told him of our plans to catch a deer with some sort of trap so that we could train it to let us ride it. Mike and I had spent hours discussing just how to do this, because we both missed the horses in Naples. To our surprise, Mark shook his head sadly and said that the deer struggled enough to get by, that we should leave them alone. He countered this disappointment by asking us questions so that we told him how we'd ridden horses, the other animals we'd had, and so on. Mark liked animals, and seemed to have a soft spot for poor old Bruno, saying the the mere sight of the harmless old Saint Bernard would be enough to deter would be thieves and trespassers. We learned that because of his work, he traveled quite a bit, and had spent time overseas, a detail which made him even more fascinating to us.
The next time we went to visit Mark, he had a gift for me, a Horse Illustrated magazine. I was ecstatic; the cover featured a Palomino stallion, and Palominos were just the sort of horse I'd wanted to have someday. I read that magazine from cover to cover over and over again until I knew most of the advertisements as well as the articles. He took us to the sled dog races nearby, an event we wouldn't have been able to go to otherwise, and we got to help hold the dogs from running before it was time for them to start. He was fixing the fiberglass shell on his snowmobile, and said that once it was through, he'd take us for rides on it. He took out his former wife's skis and lent them to me, so that instead of walking everywhere through the snow, I could ski, gliding along silently. And whenever we went there, he had a store of just the type of soda we liked best.
Mark was more than a friend to us; he was a window into a world we'd never seen before. His presence was an escape from the complex, overbearing, and irrational belief system that dictated our every move, which isn't to say that we disobeyed our beliefs when we were with him. It was more like we could forget about them and just be kids again for a change, because life was growing ever more complicated at home. And then, in the middle of all this, we received word that my Dad and Uncle Charlie were coming to visit us.
There must have been a lot of stress relating to the visit, but I don't remember. We were expecting them one winter morning, and I was out walking on one of the small side roads that led to our house when a tiny blue car came down the road. The men inside it didn't look like locals, they were acting funny and smiling a lot for no apparent reason (as it turned out, they weren't used to driving a stick shift and were vastly amused by the small size of the car). I remarked to Mike that the guys looked funny, and he agreed. We watched the car as it went past us. It turned the corner and pulled in at our house! It was then that I realized that the men were my Dad and uncle Charlie.
Seeing him in the same space as my mom was truly surreal. He and Charlie seemed to like the log cabin, and admired it. I went to get my drawing to show them how my art had progressed, but they seemed only slightly interested in it, perhaps because I had handed them approximately a ream of drawings. The climate in the house was awkward, so before long we were invited to go out for pizza with them. We'd never eaten at the local pizza shack, and so this seemed incredibly luxurious to us. However, it also prompted the subject of our newfound religious beliefs, which were cause for concern in the Hill family. A debate over old testament food laws ensued, and the result must have been something of a truce, because we wound up eating a pizza without pork. Still, having to defend the beliefs that had been more or less imposed upon us was stressful. The only way to hold up under life with Mom and Denis was to commit to the same things that they did.
The visit went quickly. Charlie said he loved the area's beauty, that it reminded him of what the world of Narnia would look like. I was quiet...the CS Lewis books had been forbidden as Satanic, and I'd been forced to burn them. They met Mark, and he and my dad seemed to take a dislike to one another, especially after my dad asked questions that Mark considered personal. After a short cross country ski, they went back to Illinois. I hated to see uncle Charlie go. If there was one person who could have persuaded me to return to the Midwest, it would have been him; but of course, he was in college now and I would hardly see him. Instead, it would be the same old thing with my Dad and Marie trying to mold me into a perfectly feminine, ladylike, city girl.
"I like to watch them", he said. "They're so graceful, they remind me of ballet dancers". I looked at the screen. They were graceful. I hadn't noticed that before. He didn't seem to mind my intrusion into his quiet world at all, in fact seemed happy that I'd come to visit. I observed my surroundings while he went to get me a soda, another item that I hadn't experienced in some time. The cabin was neat, spartan without seeming ascetic. The decorations and furnishings were just enough to lend interest without adding clutter. The earmarks of a careful, frugal person were everywhere. I don't remember what we talked about, only that I had an immediate affinity for the man. His presence was quiet and reassuring while maintaining that sharp edge of intelligence, yet it was all well peppered with humor and good naturedness. You could be silent without feeling awkward.
Mike knocked on the door, and with the addition of his impish company the conversation became more animated, and for me, more awkward. Mike was constantly making me feel stupid, and had picked up many of Denis's taunts and ridicules. Most of the time though, our new friend was more interesting than teasing me. We told him of our plans to catch a deer with some sort of trap so that we could train it to let us ride it. Mike and I had spent hours discussing just how to do this, because we both missed the horses in Naples. To our surprise, Mark shook his head sadly and said that the deer struggled enough to get by, that we should leave them alone. He countered this disappointment by asking us questions so that we told him how we'd ridden horses, the other animals we'd had, and so on. Mark liked animals, and seemed to have a soft spot for poor old Bruno, saying the the mere sight of the harmless old Saint Bernard would be enough to deter would be thieves and trespassers. We learned that because of his work, he traveled quite a bit, and had spent time overseas, a detail which made him even more fascinating to us.
The next time we went to visit Mark, he had a gift for me, a Horse Illustrated magazine. I was ecstatic; the cover featured a Palomino stallion, and Palominos were just the sort of horse I'd wanted to have someday. I read that magazine from cover to cover over and over again until I knew most of the advertisements as well as the articles. He took us to the sled dog races nearby, an event we wouldn't have been able to go to otherwise, and we got to help hold the dogs from running before it was time for them to start. He was fixing the fiberglass shell on his snowmobile, and said that once it was through, he'd take us for rides on it. He took out his former wife's skis and lent them to me, so that instead of walking everywhere through the snow, I could ski, gliding along silently. And whenever we went there, he had a store of just the type of soda we liked best.
Mark was more than a friend to us; he was a window into a world we'd never seen before. His presence was an escape from the complex, overbearing, and irrational belief system that dictated our every move, which isn't to say that we disobeyed our beliefs when we were with him. It was more like we could forget about them and just be kids again for a change, because life was growing ever more complicated at home. And then, in the middle of all this, we received word that my Dad and Uncle Charlie were coming to visit us.
There must have been a lot of stress relating to the visit, but I don't remember. We were expecting them one winter morning, and I was out walking on one of the small side roads that led to our house when a tiny blue car came down the road. The men inside it didn't look like locals, they were acting funny and smiling a lot for no apparent reason (as it turned out, they weren't used to driving a stick shift and were vastly amused by the small size of the car). I remarked to Mike that the guys looked funny, and he agreed. We watched the car as it went past us. It turned the corner and pulled in at our house! It was then that I realized that the men were my Dad and uncle Charlie.
Seeing him in the same space as my mom was truly surreal. He and Charlie seemed to like the log cabin, and admired it. I went to get my drawing to show them how my art had progressed, but they seemed only slightly interested in it, perhaps because I had handed them approximately a ream of drawings. The climate in the house was awkward, so before long we were invited to go out for pizza with them. We'd never eaten at the local pizza shack, and so this seemed incredibly luxurious to us. However, it also prompted the subject of our newfound religious beliefs, which were cause for concern in the Hill family. A debate over old testament food laws ensued, and the result must have been something of a truce, because we wound up eating a pizza without pork. Still, having to defend the beliefs that had been more or less imposed upon us was stressful. The only way to hold up under life with Mom and Denis was to commit to the same things that they did.
The visit went quickly. Charlie said he loved the area's beauty, that it reminded him of what the world of Narnia would look like. I was quiet...the CS Lewis books had been forbidden as Satanic, and I'd been forced to burn them. They met Mark, and he and my dad seemed to take a dislike to one another, especially after my dad asked questions that Mark considered personal. After a short cross country ski, they went back to Illinois. I hated to see uncle Charlie go. If there was one person who could have persuaded me to return to the Midwest, it would have been him; but of course, he was in college now and I would hardly see him. Instead, it would be the same old thing with my Dad and Marie trying to mold me into a perfectly feminine, ladylike, city girl.
posted by chamoisee at
4:53 PM
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