FEISTY ELEGANCE

Harriet,  Aunt Harriet,  Nana,  Mum 

She once lived in New York City  Fashion District and modeled her very early feisty elegance to the boroughs.  She once lived in a city home with a Jewish family where she reinvented kosher culture. 

She once lived in a walk down basement apartment near the Arthur R. Gould Memorial Hospital and paid rent to a famous Maine State Trooper but we often suspected that she was somehow the landlady and he paid rent to her for classing up his neighborhood.   She left her keys in the car because Bud was always watching out for her and the garage bay was hers.

She once lived beside the fence that restricted access to the Presque Isle Fairgrounds and Harriet would annually create admission amnesty through her ivy covered fencehole for an elite guestlist of fairgoers.   

She worked at Sears for years but she thought she was on Madison Avenue and so did her customers.  After a fashion consult with Harriet, women would leave the department feeling like Julia Roberts.  Regional  Managers would seek her intimate understanding of retail detail and upon arrival at HER store would include Harriet in merchandising strategy meeting luncheons.   She remained loyal to the company throughout her retirement.   She accessorized life.

She accessorized Jimmy as a pilot,  Lynn wore  a CPA,  Vicki was an RN,  Terry had a chain of salons,   Denny was a Hollywood Producer and Gerri,  a dramatic starlet.   Abby and Lindsay and Brittany were super-youth with natural jewel like sparkle and promise who needed no accessorizing.  I alternated as a lawyer or a pharmacist.   She elevated everyone’s station  from within her prideful heart and generous spirit.  These enrichments were compliments,   her way to voice how special we all are.  Everyone got  the treatment.  

 Upon entering any room Harriet surveyed the perimeter and immediately began to befriend the nearest stranger by openly researching any common ground.  If you were in the room she was working you would leave with the very comfortable feeling that someone like Harriet knew everyone in your home town and they all liked you.    ”Your sister lived on Dyer Street just past Gouldville School, right?”  Someone you know,  knows Harriet.  God, for One.

 There was one room into which she walked that had Wally in it and two weeks later they were married forever.   Their marriage was thereafter accompanied by Wally’s automatic-ratcheting-machine-gun-laughter.  The stimulus for Wally’s magical song  was some highrolling Harrietcetera  and now Her call to assemble all of us here today means that she has lifted her spirit to a whole new level.   She wants be the very first to tell everyone in Heaven just who came to her funeral.

Her home on State Street was the center of the universe,  the fabric of Presque Isle’s social apron.  An Open house.  Her table was the centerpiece of life well-lived almost like being in a mural of it all.   In a Kennedy sense,  it was like Camelot.  It was an annex of the Country Club where brunch was first discovered in Aroostook County.

She cruised and bruised and wined and dined and swore and quit and prayed and fell and reeled and wheeled and dealed and healed and drove and pranced and shuffled and strolled and primped and scolded as needed. 

Harriet was socially gifted.  Whenever introduced to friends she had not met she would absorb the experience with gleeful appreciation of the new people and for weeks hence would share her special fortune with everyone.  “You’ll  never guess who I met!”   And she never slighted old friends.  Suddenly, she would make a phone call to reach out to someone she had not updated lately.   And most often the update would celebrate the latest winning of a new friend forever and ever.  Harriet called her friends out of the blue because she liked them and missed them and we should all do that more and more.  

She moved out of The County when her man surrendered to pancreatic cancer and built a beautiful life at Marcus Woods for the past 13 years.  We loved having her so close to us and frequent visits and conversations and celebrations and parties and Holidays and Wednesdays with Terry are the moments that make all our throats tighten as we think of being without her.  My tears are not for her; they are for me.  She knows everyone in heaven and loves her new place.

OREO

Two matching layers
Chocolate circles of concern
Contain a pure-white center
That urge a firm good turn

Reveal sweetened wisdom
Without broken promise crumb.

Outrageously Respect Each Other
The OREO rule of thumb.

Local Warming

  (Skiers’ Lament)  

Spring hath sprung itself upon us;

Flung its blooming promises into dull brown niches of lukewarm city-dirt,
Whilst it puts off ambitious foliation plans just long enough to coax
 Shepherds pie snow into barely holding its grip against the daffodiligence of the sun.          

Self Portrait

A Lot of nerve

And aggressive swagger

Not stagger mind you,  just verve

Vivacious and audacious

Gentle arrogant edge

With outrageous mental sway

I am here to swerve.

Portage Papparazzi

Steve floated to a position aligned with the horizon and tried to block the view of Portage sunset.  Since there was no shortage of sundown opportunities we posed his Tilley hat tilt and nose angle to make the photo more identifiable.  Stereo Theriault is truly in his element at Portage.

UPS FedX and USPS

Fore Street facing East during a crisp winter night in Portland.  This little city is beautiful and I don't recall any sirens which meant that there were no public emergencies during my stroll downtown.  We used this shot/thought for our annual Christmas card because we had used a stylized pinecone last year and wanted to identify more with the urban part of our lives in southern Maine.  The luminescent, transparent, color light spheres are festive and welcoming; the electric lighting poles are very convincing gaslight reproductions.  Peace was in the air this night and I pray that it spreads contagiously throughout the family to the neighborhood down and up 302 to Portland and to Bridgton on Prancer and Vixen to Alaska and Cuba and the caves of Afghanistan and back.  Its snowing tonight and the same street is jammed with skidding first-storm commuters compounded by last minute shopping crises.  We're home fireside and toasty with our coffee and plush Santa hat thanking UPS and FedX and USPS carriers for their skill and productivity and logistical mastery. Chestnuts are not roasting because we don't believe in chestnuts but there's some great homemade fruitcake calling. We wish you a very Merry Christmas if you celebrate Christmas and a very Merry Christmas if you don't.  The reality of Christmas is hard to escape if you breathe.   Peace.

The Snipe

The poke is a nudge without prejudice. It encourages attention without distraction and allows friendship without conversation.   Its like a postcard announcing that a letter is coming.  Or headlights flashing to say Hi but not warning of a speed trap.  Pokes can't warn and pokes can't opine.  But some have suggested that since the Poke Salad plant was used to paint the faces of Native American warriors that inkberry be used to mark the battle faces of the combatants in a Facebook Poke war.  I fear this movement due to the high risk of virtual bruising and I would rather negotiate a Poke Free demilitarized zone.  But lest I be branded as poke-averse I will most probably actuate the snipe, which is a focused invisible targeted action that will come out of nowhere and still retain the harmless humility of the POKE or even the POKE BACK.