“I found empty desks in the commercial sales office, but walked behind the building, and found Rachel, almost immediately. “I can help you”, she said, in such a lovely, ordinary way, I felt the friendliness in me like a puppy, over-anxious to ooze out over and on top of her unassuming demeanor. This is embarrassing to say, but I’m always looking for opportunities to be nice. And it was almost my lucky day, when I realized this gal had a speech impediment. Which would ensure that the next five minutes it would take for her to gather my details, I would not have to obsess upon my own lack of tonal fluency. As an ex-singer, this means everything. To be able to relax and speak freely, irregardless of the bumps, that became mountains. We talked Eastern Arborvitae, delivery cost, and planting operations. The nursery cat, Pickles, sat on the window sill behind her, taking in a few, autumnal rays. I was to meet Pickles later, while purchasing roses, and mums. He reappeared mysteriously, in a planting basket, next to the credit card station, into which I was inserting my card. I bent down to his level, as the electronics silently went thru their menus. “Pickles!” I whispered into his face. “You are the best. You remind me of my boy, D’Artagnan”. It took a while, to load the truck alone, but these empty week days of September are days no one wastes, for the lonely beauty, as summer dies, is intoxicating, and precious. Still warm, a bit cool, slightly ominous, wistful, and solitary. Driving south, I thought maybe I’d go home, but instead I kept going, turning west after Vergennes, to Mile Point, as a homing pigeon might. In my ailing Chevy truck, I passed many strapping fields of sharp tipped corn, and made my way, pulling into a dirt patch, under towering lakeside pines. I saw the station wagon pulled in backwards to the front door. Maybe it was my friend! I jumped out, and advanced, where I’d seen a figure. Where now? No one seemed to be near the vehicle. I decided to walk behind the camp, to view the flower beds I’d soon be renovating, and the poignant expanse of water, touching NY state, lapping hard rock beach. Such a joy, the end of summer, the quieting of idle play, and gentle shift into more contemplative activities. I sized up the beds, for soil amending, an intuitive calculation. But where was my friend? Coming back around, I became bolder, walking directly past the lifted back hatch, to the north side of the vehicle. Here, I found, a man. Crouching, and at first I thought, I was invading a private act of some unknown intimacy. No, just someone avoiding notice. A man, older, in his own ungainly frame, here to do a job, not expecting interaction. A plumber? Possibly, a jack-of-all-trades carpenter. “I’m the gardener”, I said, not knowing how else to frame it. “I’m not in your way, am I?” he spoke. “No, no!” I insisted. “I can pull the truck up over there. I’m just unloading plants.” That was the last of our talk, as he went in the camp, started his work, and I unloaded the rose bushes, watered them, and left them in the shade. Later, when walking to Button Bay Point, I found a man in the woods, leaning on a stump, rocking back and forth on a cane. He didn’t look up when I passed. I had a little wrestling to do with my mind, and slipped off trail, as soon as I could. Ah, loneliness. I started this blog with you, but edited you out. But here we are again, my friend, not looking for sympathy, but for comrades in isolation.”
