A Summer Evening

Last night we had dinner with New York friends, a sixty-ish couple, up for a month in her country house, off in the hills of Vermont; a beat-up two-hundred-year-old place with great charm. The wife's aged mother was there - a little bent bird, wearing flowered pants and a yellow fleece jacket, and silver Navaho combs in what was left of her wispy hair - and we lifted her into the front seat of the pickup truck, while the rest of us piled into the back, and drove nearly straight up, it felt, banging against each other, through the mown fields of the hill behind their house to the top of the pasture, where we set up chairs and had drinks and camembert, and spoke about the events of the year since we had seen each other. The mown hay was ringed by copses of thorn-apples from which deer no doubt watched, and taller maples and oaks; hawks cried overhead, and crows, and in teh far distance was the whirr of trucks on the interstate, but all you could see were hills solidly covered with green trees, and the far mountains, blue, and three houses in all of that expanse of green: their own and two others, white rectangles a long ways away.

The elderly woman had been an actress on Broadway in her youth, and then had a radio show of her own, before marrying and working with her husband, an architect and planner. They had been married more than sixty years, and he had been dead now for ten. She didn't speak much, but she listened to the conversation and followed as much as she could with her failing ears, and when she smiled you could see that who she was still strongly existed. The couple's son was there, too, a boy of 17. As the sun went down and the air became cool, we all realized we'd have to leave that place soon, and we fell silent. Then the old woman spoke, in a clear flutelike voice: "We are so fortunate to be together here in this beautiful place," she said, "with all the suffering in our world today."

Dinner was a milky fish chowder, with thick slices of homemade white bread and fresh corn. We ate at the solid, square farm table on the back porch, with candles and lanterns lighting our plates and an electric heater warming our feet. Just as W. brought out a warm blueberry pie, and ice cream, and a bowl of freshly-picked red raspberries, the moon suddenly appeared over the black hill above the pond: round and white as the old china dishes from which we ate. We sat back then, with the last of the wine, and talked about New York in the early part of the century, and the debates over the highways that now define the paths in and out of the city - concrete and steel stories written by strong personalities well known to the elderly mother - and we told stories about travel to other countries during gentler times.

It grew colder, and the heaters no longer seemed quite warm enough. "Is it time to go in, Mother?" W. asked, and her mother said she supposed it was. "Her birthday is soon," W. said, getting up. "September 7th. She'll be 99."

"It really doesn't seem possible that I have lived this long," her mother acknowledged, smiling slightly ruefully, slightly mischievously, as her daughter helped her rise to her feet. Her two bony, gnarled hands grasped the table. "It was a great pleasure to meet you," she said, looking first at my husband and then at me: this, I thought, was a lady.

"I will look forward to seeing you here next summer," I said, smiling back at her, and she graciously said she would look forward to that too, and, with her daughter's arms around her, disappeared lightly through the doorway.

Comments

[Teju]

Your writing slays me, Beth. Too wonderful.

If you get a chance, read John Berger's unexpected encounter with his late mother in Lisbon. It's in his most recent book "Here is Where We Meet."

Your lightness of touch in this piece very much reminds me of his.

[Beth]

Thanks so much, Teju. I bow in your direction.

[Rachel]

What a glorious slice of life. I feel I was right there with you.

[Dave]

A lovely post, very affecting. You have a gift for bringing elderly people to life.

[marja-leena]

Yes, a really beautiful portrayal of an admirably long-lived lady, Beth.

[mary mccloskey]

After reading today's headlines, this story was a wonderful gift, bringing me back to a sense of peace and goodness that the world still offers.

[Pica]

A beautiful portrait of a place, too, Beth, a place full of meaning and connection and the moon. We saw that moon too, but it rose yellow, almost red, through the smoke of grass fires. Though you don't mention what it smelled like, sitting there, I can smell it through your description, green and fresh and Vermont, a scent I start craving almost ravenously round about this time of year in California's Central Valley...

[anasalwa]

Beth,
You wrote so beautiful, I had to read twice to absorb all those heavenly arranged words.

[Dick]

A wonderful confluence of place & people. Such times are to be treasured. And may we all hope for such grace & dignity as we nudge up to the centenary!

[zhoen]

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.

Wondeful to know the greatness threads through. Thank you for this.

[blork]

Wow. What a beautiful day and evening, and very nicely described. I sometimes wish I knew more old people. There's something really special about someone who has lived such a gracious life and continues to do so.

[Siona]

Ai, Beth. I hardly know what to say at these generous slabs of grace. Your words weave those otherwise-passing events into a lasting holy richness and I'm so, so grateful for your willingness to share. Thank you.

[MB]

A particular feeling rose up in me as I read this. Thank you.

[Peregrine]

It occurs to me, Beth, that what you have done is to create a portrait of the evening. What you have written conjurs the scene just as a series of photos might also have done. As one reads it, what imprints the mind is a succession of images. Is that what good discursive writing is supposed to do?