Flowers of the Heart Eighteen January 28, 2018 For Arja Holm She delivered the mail when I lived four months on the island of Maxmo, Finland, in 1996. It was often bitterly cold, well below zero. The birch branches would turn pink in the heavy frost. I tried to be awake by eleven when she usually brought the post to our Gistskatavagen Street. I read late into the night. It wasn’t light in January until nine, but the sun was steadily taking over more of the dark. My island neighbors were Swedish, but Arja was Finnish, married to a Swedish fisherman. She spoke Swedish and English, was pleased to have an American on her route. Over time we became friends. She invited me to her home for a meal, and I met Roger and her two young sons, Henryk and Petrie. In 2004 she visited me here. She was enthusiastic about everything. We picked sugar snap peas in my garden. I was secretary of the Chatham Coalition, trying to elect better county commissioners. For our party, my neighbor Robert roasted a hog. He and Tuddy stayed up all night to cook the hog. Then they pulled the roaster to the farm where we gathered. Another neighbor, Bertha Thomas, took Arja to her Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church for a Sunday service. Bertha was one of the ministers.. Jeanette, one of our Moncure mail carriers, let Arja ride along when she did her rural route. Arja was eager to do everything, and we had long talks about our life here and hers at home. In 2016 her husband died of cancer. Years before that, she had written to me about his treatments. Cancer is a hard road, and it was hard on her, but she saw him through it all the way. I send her interesting American and Russian stamps. Her boys have outgrown collecting them, but she still enjoys the stamps. The Finnish ones are the most Beautiful, but she already has those. We keep track of each other’s lives and have for twenty-two years. She no longer carries the mail, but her delight in communication hasn’t changed.
My night-blooming cereus in full bloom in 2014 *** Flowers of the Heart SeventeenJanuary 21, 2018 For Larissa Bavrina We met on my first journey to Russia. Who would think I’d make a friend in the huge city of Moscow? I’d been given the name and phone number of Mr. Isachenko of the Soviet Copyright Agency by an American publisher. Larissa worked for him, and she gave my son and me a tour of Red Square our last day in Russia. At the end, when she left us at the Leningradsky train station, I promised to send her paperback books. She said when I asked for her address, “You’ll write to me?” I said, “Yes.” Over the next two years we wrote steadily; she, about her life in rapidly changing Russia, and I, about my life in an American village. We sent each other books. I was learning Russian and she gave me tips. She was one of the few Russians trained in English. A few letters were lost, those with feminist content. I’d resend those letters, and leave out the women’s issues, and she’d get them. In 1992 I went back, this time to two Houses of Creativity for writers: Komarovo and Peredelkino. Then I stayed with her until I went to meet Mikhail and his family in Sharya. Larissa told my seatmates to take care of me. By then I knew a little Russian. I could speak to them. They made my bed, showed me how to get hot water for tea or coffee, asked many questions. I was with Larissa again in 1995. I was returning to Kostroma to teach at their university. This time Mikhail and his son Aleksei drove to get me and my friends Sharon and John Ewing and took us back to Kostroma. We met at Larissa’s apartment. She and her friend Valeri had collected the Ewings and their luggage at their Moscow Hotel. All these twenty-seven years we have kept letters flowing. Sometimes we used mail pouches for joint-venture companies Larissa worked for or email, and now we’re back to the regular post. She went to Spain for several years, worked as a companion, helper to an elderly woman. Always she nurtured me, took me on outings. When I caught a bad cold in 1995, she applied all her home remedies: sage tea, nose drops, hot milk with honey and butter. She visited me twice, in the late nineties. I’d drive to D.C. to collect her from Aeroflot. We stayed with John and Sharon. She was an easy houseguest. We talked of children, grandchildren, books (she loved to read). She is one of the most open-hearted people I have known. Her life has not been easy, but she has taken it in stride.
Three Cliffs Bay, Gower Peninsula, Wales. Photo by John Ewing *** Flowers of the Heart Sixteeen January 14, 2018 For Helen Atwood I met Helen the first time I visited England in 1981. She and her husband Dave were friends of a new friend of mine. Dave was American and reassured me when I found the British politeness intimidating. He claimed they weren’t all that polite. I began helping old ladies with their luggage, giving up my seat to them, and felt better. Helen was rather quiet. Her baby Hannah had her full attention. By 1985, when I returned, she and Dave had separated, and she was eager for me to visit. I found their home before she got back from work, bought myself a drink in a nearby shop, and waited on their lawn. I believe I was asleep when they arrived. Hannah was very surprised to find an American in the front yard making herself so much at home. Helen and I had good talks, and after that short visit, I often returned. We’d go to a pub and catch up on each other’s lives. Once I stayed longer and helped care for Hannah. I met Helen’s parents and later her new man friend, Mike. Helen had grown up in Wales, and once she arranged for me to visit her parents there. Mike liked to ask me hard questions. They invited another couple curious about this American who went to Russia and Finland. In recent years Helen and Hannah visited me here. Hannah now has babies, and Helen loves being a grandmother. Much of her life has been difficult. She has never complained, but I know she has suffered. She writes me more often now, and her life has settled into an easier rhythm, and I’m
Iris in early spring in my backyard *** Flowers of the Heart FifteenJanuary 7, 2018 For Tracey Brocker As I age, I make friends more slowly, sometimes not realizing it has happened. Often we choose our friends, but sometimes they choose us. Tracey was cautious at first. She joined my poetry class. I’d seen and said hello to her husband Bill in the post office, but not met her. She found me there, and I welcomed her to join the class. The other students were more experienced in writing poems in the contemporary way, but she followed all my suggestions, and learned from the others, too. She’d drive to my house in her big truck and always bring a treat for my dog. She’d have worked on revisions, and at the break, I’d let Wag in, and Tracey would talk to her as if they were old friends and hold out an especially delicious treat that made Wag want to join the poetry class. Her poems got stronger, and she revealed her feelings in them more and more. Last summer I made several unexpected trips to the Emergency Room of UNC Hospital. In October Tracey learned ambulances had been seen in my yard, and she came over to investigate. She saw Wag in the backyard. She called the hospital. They said I was released. I was in the waiting room until my daughter picked me up. Tracey’s concern led me to put her on my emergency list and give her my house keys. The next time I had to go, I called her and asked her to feed Wag her supper and and to give me a ride home. My daughter had another commitment. Wag is shy, but she knew Tracey well because of those delicious treats and that persuasive voice. We got back in time for a snack, and then it was poetry class time. Tracey always asks how I’m doing. My little episodes have gone away or are only shadows of their former selves. I don’t understand what set them off, and neither do the doctors, but they’re gone now. Tracey made herself my friend. She lives in a very different way, in a large house with extensive grounds. She and Bill travel the world so he can hunt big game in Africa and Australia. She always goes along. They work together on house improvements, and she manages a large garden She gives me my own corner of her life, keeps my list of phone numbers handy and my house keys. In one day she made herself my friend.
