The Other End of Leaving Home

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Susacadia

A high school classmate asked if I would be interested in contributing to a volume of advice and commiseration for parents whose kids were leaving home. Another friend was experiencing a first time departure and Pam, whose kids had already flown the coop, put out the call. My son was already halfway through college and my daughter was packing up to go. Since she’s graduating this spring, I know the request came nearly three years ago. I remember being pleased both for my husband and I to be at last on our own, and for a formal opportunity to reflect on this new transition. I’m not sure how much advice I’ve got, but there’s plenty of commiseration. So, Pam, this is for you. Use it if you want.

First, like childbirth stories, and Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each leaving is unique. I know that each of my kids left in a different way. My son, who had rarely spent time away from home, sticking with day camps with an occasional week long overnight experience on the Allagash or up Katahdin, didn’t quite drop out of sight. Andrew and I reminisced about our own college days and the required weekly calls – collect – that were required. Somehow we lacked the command of authority to impose this sort of regimen. One or the other of us would get a call on our cell phone depending, mostly, when he needed something, although occasionally it was just to check in. We Skyped a little, and pm’d a little. But generally he made it clear that once he decided to leave home that was it. I was confident that he was well prepared, he could cook, was generally polite, and understood that “no” meant “no” whether he said it or heard it.

My daughter, perhaps not oddly, was the opposite in many ways. She embraced overnight camp from the time she was seven. She was, in fact, ready to leave before that. The first year we limited her time to a single two week session. After that she spent at least half the summer away at one of two camps. One I had attended and where I had been a counselor, the other where her aunties had been campers. Certainly it helped that we were familiar with what she would be doing. When she left for college, we expected her to drop out of sight. Instead we got frequent phone calls, multiple times a week. She would pop up on Facebook messaging away. She, too, knows how to cook, and has a good strong “no” which is gradually becoming more tactful. She understands the difference between someone else’s “no” that they will not be coerced into doing what she wants, and the “no” that  is a barricade to her desires. The first she reluctantly accepts; the second she treats like one of Randy Pausch’s brick walls. She has become adept at deciding whether to go around, over, or through.

Both kids went to a university less than two hours away. Both are readers. Both, while contented with their own company, have become members of groups that reflect their interests.

Second, while I remember what leaving home was like for me, the world has changed. While I was limited to a landline for phone calls, and snail mail for written communication, I know my kids can contact me at will in a variety of more immediate modes. Although my son claims that cell phones, for me, have been more about my getting in contact with them than the other way around, when he went to England I was struck by how different our communication was than when I had joined the Peace Corps. Thirty-seven years ago an international exchange of personal letters took a month. I doubt my family received more than six letters a year from me and one phone call at Christmas. While I had been in college there had been the weekly mandated phone calls, and letters only when the mood struck me. Then, and later, my letters were rarely hand written, and never copied. My letters gave the appearance of being mildly redacted. So, I understand what it’s like to be off on an adventure, even just living a daily life, and feel no need to share that with anyone beyond the people you are with at that moment.

While I now understand my own parents’ frustration of not knowing if I was all right, I am aware that beyond a pat on the back or a hug, there is not a lot I can actually do to make things better. Years ago I was having trouble with a class of students. Morocco had a Conseil Pedagogique to help new teachers, even those in the Peace Corps. After an observation and a model lesson by the Conseil, she told me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my classroom content or strategy, I simply (yes, that is what she said) had not been teaching for ten years and the only thing that would fix that was time. I understand that is true about my kids as well – growing up, being independent, takes time, challenge, and being frustrated from time to time. Nothing can really short circuit that. I was not a particularly coddling, hovering sort of mother when they were small, and this doesn’t seem to be the time to start.

Third, when my daughter left home, Andrew and I did, too. We had bought property Downeast and built a house. I had been waiting for my daughter to finish high school; somehow it had seemed important that my kids enjoy living in one place, even though my own life had been marked by a series of moves between states and countries. So, rather than languishing in an empty nest, we changed nests. In moving, I felt less the absence of my children and more the void of friends left behind. I have learned that becoming part of a community both takes time and sneaks up on you. Until I got married and made the commitment to staying in one place for the children, I had always been a sojourner. My eye was always on the next horizon. This is not to say I did not experience my share of horizons while my kids were growing up, but they were more internal, or transitioning between different often overlapping communities, than the sort that require you to be able to pack all your stuff in a 50lb. back pack. In starting work at a new school, I learned the importance of having a history and being a known quantity. I had changed schools, for good reasons, and discovered that fifty miles is farther than a reputation can stretch. I discovered that for good pals, my true posse, fifty miles is nothing to travel, and that I can still see my friends just as frequently as I ever did; we just don’t share the same island any more.

When my nest emptied, and I went on to found a new one, I continued to learn and grow and mature and mellow. My kids, while off on their own, are still part of my community, and no distance is too far. We are just not sharing the same island any more.

I see enough of myself and Andrew in our children to know that, at their core, they are solid self-directed people who will make good contributions to their chosen communities. They will be able to support themselves and the families they choose to create. They are resilient enough to change but grounded enough not to sell out. What more could a mom ask for?

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Rafe-The Feral Sheep–pt. 2

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Susacadia

“This is a true story, one that happened to me. But first, let me tell you about the Feral Sheep. It is said that she is an old woman, always a stranger in town, and always in the marketplace. She is on the lookout for particularly nasty little boys and girls, to steal away, fatten up, and sell to the highest bidder, for whatever purposes they have for small, fat, ill-behaved children. It is said, she particularly likes those who are greedy, because it is easiest to lure them into her traps. She arrives in town, early on market day, parks her wagon and sits quietly in the shade and observes. She looks like any other old lady, in from the country. Hunched, with an apron and either a cap or a kerchief. She has curly white hair and chews spruce gum. It is said this is why she is called the Feral Sheep, because of the white hair and the chewing. But also because she seems mild mannered. And she never sleeps in town.

“After noon, she starts hiring boys and girls to run little errands for her. She gives them a penny, or some toffee divine, or some other little treat. And before they know it, they are bringing over friends to get a share of the Feral Sheep’s offerings. She sends them off to buy things for her, and she sits, chewing her gum and knitting, or crocheting, or tying knots in a cord — little things she can drop in a heartbeat. She watches the children, sees how polite they are, sees who in town likes them, sees if they are kind or mean, if they play dirty tricks. Then by the end of the day, she asks the ones she has picked, to come a little closer, just carry a little something to her wagon. And one by one, without anyone being the wiser, they disappear, under the hay, into the false bottom, made all sleepy and comfy by something in the toffee.

“We used to play this when we were kids, Jenna and Ducky and me. But this story isn’t about when we were kids, and it isn’t about the real Feral Sheep, because yes, she was real. This story is about the time I played the Feral Sheep when I was doing some spying for the King of Alorium.

“The King suspected he was losing tax money…”

“What’s ‘tax money’?” piped a small voice off to Rafe’s left.

Rafe had the questioner nailed with her glare in a heartbeat. “Makes no difference what that is. The King needed it and didn’t have it. And it was my job to find out why. That’s all you need to know.”

ac

The King was losing tax money, which he badly needed to press the war he wanted to start with Phelonius. Since he’d hired Rafe’s cadre to fight on his side, she was particularly interested in seeing he had enough money to pay them. And a little extra poking about on either side of a war was never a bad idea, so she started to prepare.

Rafe snagged the long-haired goatskin from the chair in her chamber as she headed to the encampment to get help from Zoral, trimming off a strip at the edge of the belly as she walked. The hair was yellowed-white from years near the fire, and not terribly coarse. She tied it around her head, covering her hair line, and concealed the cut edge with a kerchief. “What do you think?” she asked Zoral as she approached his cook fire. She adjusted her stride so elbows and knees stuck out at awkward angles. “Will I do for a little game of Feral Sheep?”

“The hair will do if you tuck it in a bit. But if it’s ancient you’re going for, stick your face in the smoke for a minute and let’s get you covered with the dust of ages.” Zoral got an egg, cracked it open, and let the white flow into a bowl, cupping the yellow center in his palm. “Now, let’s make some wrinkles.”

He held out his hand. “Do you want the yolk?” Rafe shook her head and Zoral slurped it down. He beat the white with a little water and started smearing it on Rafe’s face, stretching the skin taut before before applying the mixture. He dipped his hand into a different pot. “And maybe a little oatmeal to add some warts. What does this Feral Sheep look like anyway.”

“Who knows. What does any legend look like? She’s supposed to be old, and wily. Ugly enough that no one wants to look too closely.”

“Do you have clothes?” Zoral looked down at Rafe’s leather breeches, eyes traveling up to her jerkin and sweater held in by a harness filled with knives. “The sweater will do. It’s grubby enough around the cuffs. But you look somewhat dangerous to be masquerading as a gnarly old lady.”

“I’ve got skirts and a bodice and apron from the castle kitchen. Alorium said I should take what I needed.”

“Hence the mutilation of the poor goat.”

“Needs must. You’d better get the backs of my hands. I don’t think the Feral Sheep would put on so many airs as to wear gloves. I’m thinking she’s work-hardened.”

Zoral applied the goop to her hands and blew paprika on her. “That will darken you up a bit, and sink into the crevices. Make you look a little worn out. I’d rather use cinnamon. Better color but you’d smell too nice.”

Rafe hunched and hobbled around the cook wagon. Zoral looked at her and nodded. “You’re still a bit damp, but will wrinkle up well by the time you get to the market. How are you getting there?”

“I’ve got a dog cart I’ll use. I thought I’d take Snarge.”

“You won’t feel naked without your hardware?”

“I’ve got a staff. That will have to do. And a short knife up my skirts. And a hook knife for the vegetable basket. And I’ll take my knitting. I’ll be fine.”

Some time later Rafe had made her way past the customs inspections to enter the market and was sitting in the shade of her dog cart knitting. A small child ran up with three apples and handed them to her. Rafe made a great show of examining them, and pushing a grubby fingernail into a what might have been a soft spot. She took the hook knife and made a show of slicing into one of the fruits.

“You’ll need to pay me for that one whether you like it or not,” said the child mimicking the shrewd look his mother must give when she dealt with vendors.

“I’ll pay, no doubt. Don’t you worry about that.” Rafe took a small bite of the white flesh and sucked it from between her teeth. “That will do. Here’s your penny for the apples, and a hay-penny for your time.”

“You got anything else for me to do, old lady?”

“Cheeky bugger. Yes. And for two friends as well.” The lad was away and back shortly with another boy and a girl their same size. Rafe made a show of looking them over and testing their grips. “You want us to steal something?” asked the first boy.

“Not right yet, I want you to count some things for me. Quilts and two handled jugs. Maybe follow a person or two. See that man with the mustache? And that one with the gold tooth. Follow them. Can you do that?”

“How much do we got to count? Gel here runs out of fingers after ten.”

“That will be plenty.”

“And if we get asked, mum’s the word, right.”

“Mum’s the word the first two times you get asked, but after that you let them know that someone’s paying you for your eye skills. Two more asks and you can tell them it’s me.”

Rafe sent them out twice and had them following and counting different ones before they started getting asked what they were about. By then she noticed that she had competition on the edge of the square, on the other side of the orange tent. Another old woman was hunched over a pile of wool, working her spindle. Three colorful quilts were draped over the side of her wagon. She’d made a big deal about asking her neighbor for help un-hitching her horse. Rafe’s own poor pony stayed hobbled to her cart. There was a steady stream of small children running back and forth, bringing fruits, vegetables, and bread to her and storing it in the wagon behind the quilts.

By the time the noon rush was over, Rafe had gone through three sets of kids. Some of them, she noticed, were also working for the other old woman. Rafe tucked her knitting in a pocket and heaved herself off her stool. Slowly and painfully she shambled past the orange tent and nodded to the old woman sitting in front of the wagon. There were a couple of kids sitting near her sucking on sweeties. One had worked for her earlier in the day. Another, with eyes quivering to stay open, was climbing into the back of the wagon. There were no more children around, but Rafe wondered without letting the wonder reach her face.

She continued on around the market and hobbled back toward her cart, moving through the center alley still piled with potatoes and artichokes. The meat vendor had only a few strips left hanging from his hook, and a goat head, horns sticking out and brown hair shining between the buzz of flies. She felt eyes on her and saw a couple of men, arms crossed, paying more attention to her than their stalls. Rafe had collected some interesting news from her small troops and, she hoped, stirred up some interest from those she had followed at her behest. Her disguise was good but would not stand up to close inspections and that was what she was trying to give her targets on the walk. She hoped they would send someone to confront her when she was well outside town.

On returning to her cart, Rafe packed her purchases in the back of the cart and struggle onto the seat. The dog turned reluctantly and they headed toward the road back out of town. She noticed that the other old woman, now bereft of children, had found someone to hitch up her horse. Rafe admired the step stool fastened with a long rope handle which the other woman pulled up after herself as she settled in her own seat and started her horse forward. Rafe squinted. Surely this old lady was neither the spy nor embezzler Rafe was looking for.

The old woman’s horse was lively, however. He hadn’t been standing in his traces all day as Rafe’s dog had. As the old woman’s cart drew even with Rafe’s it was clear there was only one quilt left folded tidily in the bottom of the wagon among the baskets of produce. Then the wagon passed and Rafe was pulled aside to have her own cart inspected by the tax men.

“What about that one?” Rafe grumbled, pointing at the old woman’s wagon, now starting to cross the bridge. “She sold all her quilts and you didn’t even check her out. I came in with nothing and I’m only leaving with what I bought, and here you are pulling my cart apart.”

“The King will have his due, mum. You just settle now and we’ll be done soon enough.”

Rafe kept an eye on the old woman’s wagon and the people streaming out of the gate after her. She started to hum in annoyance. There went the two men who had been eyeing her at the end of the day. Rafe’s smile could be mistaken for a grimace as she continued to hum. The wagon bounced over a rock and there was a crack and a squeak as the bottom dropped out and three boys fell on top of it, sleeping in a pile. The old woman laid her whip on the horse as townspeople converged, some on the boys and others to follow the wagon. This was just the sort of mayhem that would make Rafe’s own departure most comfortable. She would meet up with those two men soon enough.

ac

“And that, my friends,” Rafe finished in traditional style, “is the story of when I played the Feral Sheep for the King of Alorium.“But wait a minute.” It was the same child who had asked about what taxes were.

“I had to wait more than a minute with those tax men, let me tell you.”

“No. Not that. Did they catch the old woman? And did you find who was stealing from the King? And what happened with those men who had been looking at you?”

“Ah. That. Well, it all got sorted out, and I found out what I needed to know. It’s late and time you were in bed. And time I had some tea.”

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Rafe–The Feral Sheep

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Susacadia

Rafe sat on the floor, feet stretched out, ankles crossed, leaning against a roof support polished by centuries of backs and shoulders rubbing against the stout wood. She passed her dinner plate to her niece for return to the Pig and Toad.

“You know, Ma would love it if you ate with us,” said Maud, looking down at her aunt. “Or at least the Old Soldiers back there on the bench. She says it’s bad for the digestion to eat alone. No conversation to help pace the food going down.”

Rafe shook her head. “She’s right. I am an old soldier. But a real one, not just someone gone walkabout and returned after a life of doing whatever it is they choose to lie about. And I’m not as decrepit as that that lot against the wall.” She didn’t need to turn around to see the bowls of soup in shaky hands or the feet propped on the warming bench near the line of braziers.

“Ma said you had a special name for that lot.”

Rafe chuckled. “I called them a grumble of geezers.” She looked up at Maud and reached to take the offered coffee mug. “I’m sure I don’t use the fancy manners I’m sure your ma expects.”

Maud rolled her eyes and headed back to the Pig and Toad.

Rafe faced the middle of the cavern that was Winter Home. Little had changed from her last season here forty-four years ago. A ring of twenty tree-sized roof supports defined the public space. Beyond those were the workrooms, defined by carpets, mats, and occasional screens or curtains. Tapestries lined the outside walls and framed the doors that opened into the private family quarters. Some things had changed. But the carvers had moved to the place next to the weavers, who still had the prime space next to the Pig and Toad. Maybe because it was easier to cart the chips to the fire, but maybe because Molly Preen’s grandmother had married outside her trade. The potters occupied the opposite side, with easy access to the fire from Jenna’s forge. The bakery was inside the Pig and Toad, kept away from the dust and traffic.

For now Rafe was relishing the solitude beyond the outside edge of the crowd. The fire pit was surrounded by the circle of family hearths. Neighbors were exchanging words and sopping up their evening meals with stone cooked bread. Camaraderie was the one thing about Winter Home that Rafe enjoyed. It reminded her of evenings spent listening to stories and songs. Every battle cadre she had known was the same. On campaign they would sit around a low built campfire, the light barely extending beyond the inner circle of heat seeking boots. Old habits died hard, she thought, flexing her own feet. Between jobs, when they were at headquarters, they would congregate in the great room below the dormitories, sconces lit with firebrands and hearths blazing just as they were here. This sense of nostalgia was unexpected, both for troop headquarters, and for her childhood. She saw Jenna looking her way and raised her mug.

Rafe would be inundated with children once dinner was over. It had been years since a sojourner had returned home, and some of the children had been hearing the same tales from the grumble their entire lives. The first of the tiny horde was on its way already. Jenna got up from her seat and sauntered over, arm in arm with Penelope. A few other adults joined the crowd. Rafe guessed that they were tired of the same old stories as well.

Rafe took a sip. “What will it be tonight then?”

There was murmuring and a couple of squawks as her audience tried to focus. “Remember the games we used to play when were were kids?” Jenna’s voice cut over the din.

Rafe smiled and nodded. “How about a tale of the Feral Sheep?”

“The Feral Sheep? What’s that?”

“That sounds dumb.”

“How can a sheep be feral?”

“Must be a sucky shepherd, let’s his sheep go feral.”

Rafe interrupted, “You don’t play the Feral Sheep any more? That was one of our favorite games when we were coming up.”

“But we don’t want a kid story. We want an adventure. A soldiering story.”

“Well, this is a soldiering story. But about the Feral Sheep as well.”

———————————————————-

This is a true story, one that happened to me. But first, let me tell you about the Feral Sheep. It is said that she is an old woman, always a stranger in town, and always in the marketplace. She is on the lookout for particularly nasty little boys and girls, to steal away, fatten up, and sell to the highest bidder, for whatever purposes they have for small, fat, ill-behaved children. It is said, she particularly likes those who are greedy, because it is easiest to lure them into her traps. She arrives in town, early on market day, parks her wagon and sits quietly in the shade and observes. She looks like any other old lady, in from the country. Hunched, with an apron and either a cap or a kerchief. She has curly white hair and chews spruce gum. It is said this is why she is called the Feral Sheep, because of the white hair and the chewing. But also because she seems mild mannered. And she never sleeps in town.

After noon, she starts hiring boys and girls to run little errands for her. She gives them a penny, or some toffee divine, or some other little treat. And before they know it, they are bringing over friends to get a share of the Feral Sheep’s offerings. She sends them off to buy things for her, and she sits, chewing her gum and knitting, or crocheting, or tying knots in a cord — little things she can drop in a heartbeat. She watches the children, sees how polite they are, sees who in town likes them, sees if they are kind or mean, if they play dirty tricks. Then by the end of the day, she asks the ones she has picked, to come a little closer, just carry a little something to her wagon. And one by one, without anyone being the wiser, they disappear, under the hay, into the false bottom, made all sleepy and comfy by something in the toffee.

We used to play this when we were kids, Jenna and Ducky and me. But this story isn’t about when we were kids, and it isn’t about the real Feral Sheep, because yes, she was real. This story is about the time I played the Feral Sheep when I was doing some spying for the King of Alorium.

The King thought he was losing tax money, which he badly needed to press the war he wanted to start with Phelonius. Since he’d hired my cadre to fight on his side, I was particularly interested in seeing he had enough money to pay us. I was quite happy to do what I could to see who was siphoning money from his coffers.

You all understand how the King collects his taxes, right? Farmers pay something for the right to grow crops, and crafters, what we call the trades here, have to pay a bit for each thing they sell. Some went to the market and some to the King. The King thought he was missing out on his share.

The question was, where was the money going, and who was getting it instead. That was my job, to figure it out.

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Einstein was right

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Susacadia

Lessons Learned in Morocco pt. 1

One of the bloggers I read has invited other people who have lived abroad to contribute to a “lessons learned” theme. I started a list of things I learned while living in Morocco. What I discovered is that most of the lessons, while learned, in part at least, while I was out of my “native” environment, had more to do with being in my twenties than they did from living abroad. What my experience did add, however, was an immediacy to the lesson, a quickness to the learning, that would have otherwise taken years to learn. In come cases this was because I had little else to think about beyond trying to untangle the snarl that was often my life in Morocco. In other cases it was the lack of cultural buffering that often obscures lessons learned at home.

Einstein was right, time is both flexible and relative, but maybe not exactly in the way he meant.

I took the time to walk more in Morocco. Part of that was necessity; there was no convenient alternative transportation to get from one place to another. It was a half mile walk to school, twice a day since teachers and non-boarders went home for lunch and an hour’s nap. Even after I had bought my moped (a Peugeot 103) I never used it for short trips. There is only just so much company you can have on a moped and the arrangement of driver and passenger precludes conversation. I remember having walked out with a friend to her aunt’s house, somewhat less than 10 miles. It was spring, the weather was warm. I was wearing a shirt and jeans, my warm woolen man’s djelleba Receipt Number 12432/1 Djellaba (man's robe), wool, made in Choceh, Ateas Mountains, Morocco. c1970. Shot for curator Christina Sumner. was packed away for the next winter. The sun was shining and the lentils growing in the fields were fresh and green. We browsed as we walked. Harvest was still more than a month away. We left early and arrived about lunch time, not particularly hungry, but willing to be polite. I spent the night, and in the morning my friend’s uncle lent us a couple of mules to ride back to the village. That was it. The sum total of the adventure. The big lesson I learned was that riding a mule was a lot harder, in the long run, than walking. Time was not even a consideration. I had not planned on a two day excursion when I headed out, but had nothing on my schedule except for needing to be at school to teach on Monday morning. We left in the moment and stayed that way.

Visiting friends in the village where I lived was a minimum of a three hour commitment of chatting, tea drinking, begging off dinner, helping to shell beans, or make buttons, or roll couscous. There were no private telephones; this was in the day before cellphones or laptops even existed. So chatting with anyone required either a visit to their house, participation in the evening walk, or hanging out in the public baths. Calling my family in the States required a several hour wait for a phone line. I would go to the post office and submit a request to use the phone. A small man, in function and looks a lot like Radar from M.A.S.H., took my information, the number I wanted to call, how long I expected to be, and the small fee required just to get in the queue, and I hung out chatting with people until my name was called. My calls were more private than most since I spoke English, but shouting was the custom and people waiting for their turn made a pretense of not listening to what was being said.

Little things took a long time. Bathing, for example, was a serious business. Some westerners clung to their showers or tubs, but I embraced the hammem. That, too was a half day affair. I’d gather my wash things and head to one of the few heated buildings in town. I’d get warm in the winter, but it was good any time of the year. The women in charge would hand out two or three black buckets made from reprocessed tires, and I would start shifting from room to room, slowly working my way to the hottest room, then backing off to one of the middle ones. In one of the cooler areas I’d talk with neighbors and eat tangerines that had been floating in cold water, and get scrubbed. I learned how to help out scrubbing children with a scratchy textured fabric mitt called a kis. I’d leave the hammem all warm and rubbery from the heat. I’d drink tea and eventually go to sleep. It was a well known fact that doing much work after having bathed was seriously bad for your health, so modest meals were prepared before hand, and someone was always left home to take care of supper on the day the women of the house bathed. In the States, we are advised to make time for ourselves, Calgon takes us away, and we are cautioned against trying to “do it all.” I will tell you that I have never felt so pampered, nor entitled to the pampering, since I left Morocco.

I don’t believe that there was any one thing I ever planned that did not take at least half a day. Traveling the 45 miles from El Menzel, my Peace Corps village, to Fes (see “Taxi Baby“) took at least half a day what with taxi connections, walking across Sefrou to get to the next taxi stand, and waiting for a taxi to fill up with passengers. Grand Taxi It was never a single day trip. I’d get to the only bookstore that carried books in English, shake hands and chat briefly with everyone there, and anyone who came in, and only then start browsing for books. I might go to the house of the PC Volunteers that were stationed in Fes, or to the home of a friend from the States who taught English at the American Center, or some of the teachers from the university. I would get a “broken” coffee, an espresso dumped in a glass of hot milk so that the border between liquids floated charmingly until a couple of hunks of sugar were stirred in. Or I would go down to the old city and get almond milk, regular cows’ milk blended with marzipan and orange blossom water. I would try to get an International Herald Tribune. This was my regular list while I was in the Peace Corps. It was long enough that I knew there were some things that could get done if I just happened upon them; others would take a bit of effort to accomplish, but I gave myself time. I would leave home early Saturday morning and make it back home late Sunday afternoon. If even half of this was accomplished, I felt it was a job well done.

Some years later, still in Morocco, but by then living in the city of Fes, another friend, a newly arrived American, was griping about not accomplishing her list of chores. She had wanted to get her green card stamped, her leaky pipe in the kitchen fixed, grocery shopping done, and purchase some clothing for her daughter. These were, in my opinion, heavy duty goals, things you had to try to do. Certainly not on the level of getting a coffee and hoping to run into some pals.

“You’re trying to do too much,” I told her.

It came out that she had interpreted this as meaning that she was trying to do too much for someone who had just moved to the country and didn’t know the local rules. “When does it get easier to finish your list?” she asked.

“What? A list like that? It never gets easier. You just get used to it. You plan less and quit worrying if you don’t finish. Your sense of ‘job done’ changes.” She called me the most cynical person she’d ever met.

I can’t say I let it go, because here I am writing about it after all these years, but it didn’t bother me so much that I changed my ways. I know I didn’t see her again until she needed help with translation services when her French wouldn’t hold up to the demand. I certainly didn’t start making long and complicated lists. Rather I continued to take my time wandering the city, being impulsive when opportunity arose, keeping my eyes open, and taking the time to chat and learn about the things I saw. I put this to good use giving tours, of artisans in the old city, to tourists who caught my fancy.

Now, I drive friends and family crazy by being late. I always think I’ve got more time than I need. I’ve drawn on this relaxed sense of time in the classroom. Students have said I’m one of the few teachers who actually works right up to the bell. I plan far more than I expect to accomplish. I have a few things in my pocket in case a miracle happens. I try to go with the flow. If I get stuck somewhere, or involved in an interesting discussion, I let it happen. I’m not rushed, or at least I try not to be. I sometimes need to remind myself that outcomes may vary, but you will never encounter surprising pleasures if you are a slave to a list or the clock. When you are enjoying where you are and what you are doing, in the moment, you have all the time in the world.

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Rafe–Tools of the Trade

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Susacadia

For my readers, as I plan my next moves with Rafe: Are there any particular questions you would like answered next?

“I’ll have a pint of Smutty Nose,” Rafe told Maud who was waiting on tables at the Pig and Toad.

“Anything to eat, Auntie?”

“Later, maybe. Is your ma around?” Rafe had not seen her at any of the tables, or hanging out at the looms.

“No, she’s still topside.” Maud nodded toward the depths of the public house. “She’s bringing down a kettle she just mended for Bors Pubmaster.” She took a mug from the rack and moved to the tap in the corner. “Still wearing your battle harness, Auntie?”

Rafe nodded and took a long pull at the lager. She reached behind her head and felt for the two thin metal spikes she kept skewered crosswise through the top of the harness mirroring the crossed scabbards that held her battle swords. They were fastened through their blunt ends with an arms-length of fine silk cord. “Fetch me a ball of that yarn, will you.” She gestured with her chin toward the basket of balls Fiona had discarded as too short to use but too long to toss.

Maud laughed. “Those look like the knitting pins Mam makes, but a bit different.”

Rafe nodded. “She made them for me the last time I was home. I asked for some modifications,” she said, taking a ball of wool from her niece. “That red will stand out a mile in this snow.” Rafe started to cast on.

“No more than all that dark brown leather you wear.” Maud watched her aunt for a minute and continued, “That would have been, what, twenty years ago, at least.”

Rafe finished her cast on and began to knit, looking at Maud. “Don’t you have tables to tend?”

Molly stomped up as Maud headed toward another table. The apprentice weaver sat in the opposite chair, with her back to the open public area. The girl, arms crossed, fists clenched, scowled at Rafe.

It appeared that the girl’s sour attitude was genuine, not just that of a child whose face had frozen when the wind changed. Rafe figured an afternoon swinging a maul at the wood pile would make at least one of them feel better about it. “Is there a ‘good day’ behind all that grouchiness? I would have thought you’d seen a woman knitting before.”

“I have. But you’re a soldier.”

“No law against knitting.”

“But you’re a soldier.”

“Look, girl. There is only so much weapon honing, tack mending, brass polishing, training time a person can spend, especially during the winter.” Rafe’s fingers kept rhythm with her words as she wound and stitched the yarn. “Story telling around the fire is only a participant sport for the one speaking. You’ve sung a song eighty times, you don’t really need to pay attention. And it’s drafty, even in the guild hall. A good sweater, woolly socks on the floor flags, a colorful blanket or two — we all have stuff we do to swap around at holiday time.”

“But I’ve never seen them attached together.”

“The things you haven’t seen in this world are legion.” Stitch, stitch, turn. “How about a question? One to stretch your knowledge rather than display your ignorance.”

Molly gaped and looked around to see who her audience was. The Old Soldiers were lined up against the wall, just as they had been above ground. She took a breath. “How are they attached? Is that, silk?”

“Not a truly excellent question,” Rafe said, “but at least a question where you’ll know more after the answer than before. Yes, that is silk.” Rafe turned the knitting and started on the third row, her hands working automatically. Not once had she taken her eyes off Molly.

“Why are they attached?”

“A better question. First, it stinks to lose one. I can’t drop one accidentally.” She demonstrated, dropping and retrieving the needle with a flick of her little finger. “Can you think of any other uses?”

Molly grinned. “I’ve seen my auntie use her needle to twist out a cork from a bottle or one of the thinner ones to truss a goose.”

Rafe nodded and turned her knitting. “You’re getting closer. They make an excellent shiv, and the silk cord and second needle are useful if the prick goes in too far. They also make a fine garrote.”

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Rafe–The Man in the Tree

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Susacadia

Note: You may want to read Being Born first.

Their chores done, Mam sent them out to play in the woods. “Just stay out of my hair. And out of trouble. I don’t want the neighbors dropping by with news about what you’ve been up to. I’m talking to you, Rafe. You’re older and you should know better.”

Rafe stood tall and still had to look up to meet her mother’s eyes. She hated being eight, old enough to take the heat of her mother’s tongue if things went wrong, but too young not to get saddled with babysitting. “They will not get into any trouble. I’ll keep them in line.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about.” Mam stepped back onto the porch and returned to warping her loom. “And have fun.”

Now Rafe, Jenna, and Ducky were out in the woods to the west of the river, playing “Feral Sheep.”

“You won’t have my child, you raddled old sheep.”

Rafe dodged and barely avoided Jenna’s alder pole, threatening to conk her on the head. The wig Jenna had provided slipped over her eyes and she shoved it back onto her head.

Rafe’s job, in this game, was to play the Feral Sheep. Jenna played either the mother (or father, Rafe had no idea which), who would defend infant Ducky to the death.

Jenna, full of five-year-old fury, shoved Ducky behind her and knocked an apple out of his hand.

“What would I want with that snotty little whelp?” Rafe paused. That wasn’t quite the right attitude. She waved what passed for a clawed hand, brushing away the accusations, and tried again. “The poor babe was hungry. See, he scrabbles for that tasty apple you wasted on the ground.”

“I know who you are, old woman. You’re the Feral Sheep, come to steal children from properly fearing townsfolk.” Jenna took another swing with her pole.

Rafe tore the wig and kerchief off her head and flung it on the ground where the apple had lain moments before. “No,” she said, shedding the guise of the Feral Sheep and returning to her role as older sister. “If you’re going to insist on playing ‘Feral Sheep’ you might just have the sense to stay fooled for a bit. The game is over as soon as I’m caught. If I were really the Feral Sheep, you’d never recognize me so soon.”

Jenna picked up the wig and handed it to Rafe. “Come on. Please. You’re supposed to be looking after me and Ducky. Ma said to have fun, and we can’t have fun if you’re not going to play the Feral Sheep.”

“She told us all to have fun. I can’t have fun if I’ve got no chance to fool you. How about hide and seek?”

“No. ‘Cause you’ll just practice sword fighting and never come look for us.”

They both looked at Ducky who said nothing and munched his apple. At three, he was smart enough to stay out of his sisters’ squabbles. “Never mind,” said Rafe. “He won’t be able to hide by himself anyway.”

Their dickering was interrupted by a scream. Rafe picked up Ducky and flung him on her shoulders. She and Jenna took off toward the sound, all at once joined in purpose. They headed up stream, toward the old quarry, both of them sure footed. Rafe hiked up the skirts that Jenna had made her wear. Already she was planning on how she might use them in case of a genuine emergency.

Unburdened by either costuming or a child, Jenna had snaked ahead of Rafe through the trees. Rafe saw her stop, skidding on the wet leaves and fall to the ground clutching her belly. It was a moment before laughter, and then cursing, though not, Rafe thought, her sister’s, came floating downhill. Rafe set Ducky on his feet and told him to follow.

At the top of the rise, she, too, fell to the ground in laughter. Bouncing from the end of a birch tree, was a stout man, long hair streaming toward the ground. Coins and bits of rubbage rained out of his pockets with every bounce, and he was swearing up a storm, shaking a fist at the two girls.

“What’cha doin’ up there?” asked Ducky when he came close enough to see.

“Trying out the newest Festival ride. What do you think, you little woods’ rats?”

“Nope.” Ducky stuck his thumb in his mouth for a solemn suck. “That’s Pauly George’s snare. It’s caught you.”

Jenna looked at Rafe and quirked her head in a question.

Rafe set her lips together, shaking her head. “Mam said I shouldn’t.”

“You know you do it anyway. When it suits you.”

“He’ll tell. And so will Ducky.”

Jenna looked at the man suspended above them. “If we get you down, do you promise never to tell how we do it?”

“Of course. Anything. Just run along and get some help.” The man moved more and bounced more, and was turning quite green.

“I’m not sure you understand. We’ll get you down now. Right now. But you’ve got to keep it a secret.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

“Swear on your hair. We’ll cut it off if you tell.”

The man quit moving and gathered his hair in his hands. “I swear on my hair. It will be forfeit to you if I tell.”

“Do it,” said Jenna to Rafe.

Rafe started to hum.

“You’ll want to start doing a sit up if you don’t want to land on your head,” advised Jenna.

Rafe opened her mouth. A small sound emerged, not quite a whistle, not a scream, and no longer a hum. The tree began to vibrate. She swiveled her head and aimed her sound at a knot in the tree. The tree popped and spit as if struck by lightning. The man and the branch hit the ground together.

“Well done,” said Jenna. “And you didn’t even break his glasses.”

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Rafe–Being Born

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Susacadia

Areana was drenched in sweat, fingers digging into the padded mitts on the midwife’s hand. “I’m done,” she snarled. “I don’t want to belong. Community of women be damned. You can have this dread begotten baby for all I care.”?

“There, there now, dearie.” The midwife didn’t even think about what she said any more. “Just breathe in and out. Slowly now. Like a nice girl.”?

“I’m not a nice girl. I want to go home now.”

“You are home, Sweets. Just breathe now. And don’t push.”

“My Mum’s home. This’s Wilf’s home. He did this to me. Let him have the baby, if you won’t.”

“Now, now, he’s your husband. Don’t push yet.”

“I’m not pushing.” Areana’s gritted teeth and strained voice would have revealed the lie even if her belly, heaving under the midwife’s hand had not.

“Ahhh, ye wee little liar. Ye’re almost ready, then.”

There was a whoosh, and the midwife neatly caught the little girl as she flew into the world. “What a fine little girl you’ve got then, my precious. Let’s just look at her eyes. Yes and there’s her first wee breath. What a…” But just then the midwife’s spectacles shattered.

Out in the main room, so did the glasses Wilf was using to toast the arrival of his firstborn. Wilf and the men watched, in bewildered silence, as the fine aged carak soaked into the floor board and the cloth of their trousers. They barely heard the cries of the new baby turned to sobs.

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In the Learning Zone

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Susacadia

I’d like to say “a number of years ago” but really it was back in 1985. Dad, who had been complaining about having to turn his lecture notes over to a secretary, said, “There comes a time when a man chooses what he wants to learn and what is just more effort than it is worth. I can do one computer program. That’s enough for me.” My jaw dropped and I gasped.

Maybe, rather, I’ll start like Sophia did in “The Golden Girls.”

Picture this: Orono, Maine, October, 1985. It was a new frontier and personal computers were just starting. The OS War was well under way. WYSIWYG was something more than a gleam in Steve Jobs’s eye. I was sitting with my dad in his office at UMO, trying to persuade him that C/PM was not the way to go. Word Star was already outmoded. He needed to regroup and get something new. But Dad was wed to both. He had bought a “machine” without consulting me, made the great leap to use this thing that a salesman had assured him would be good “forever” because a character based, non-graphic operating system was cutting edge. Now he was bitching because the 5 1/4” floppy disk he had used to store his lecture notes on could not be used in the University’s IBM based PCs even though they all used Word Star. To be fair he had done something similar years before when he bought a microwave that my mother didn’t want and then walked away telling her how easy it would make her life.

I told him he’d have to buy something else, that I would help him. Instead he shook his head and said he’d learned enough. That at age 60 he wasn’t prepared to learn any more. I was shocked. I had always believe that he was the consummate teacher and learner. He even had a contract to this effect on his wall that he made all his graduate students and advisees sign, that they would be both learner and teacher for the rest of their lives. And here he was giving up. I was aghast. I took him to task. He wouldn’t budge.

I’m here to tell you that at last I have a glimpse of what, maybe, Dad was getting at. I am  still a rabid learner. I ask questions, look things up, watch as others do – live or on YouTube. I like to at least get the gist of what is going on. But these days there is a depth of knowledge in some subjects, that I will no longer plumb. The stock market has always been one of those things. There has never been anything surer to make my eyes go glassy than to hear people start talking about hedge funds, puts, calls, bear markets, or all those other arcane terms used by the trading venues of the various money streets of the world. When I got my MBA I was forced to understand some of Mystery; I persevered only because it led to the greater goal. Economics is a different story, and what statistics can reveal is a thing of beauty. It may be that my disenchantment with financial Mysteries was a working class prejudice. I never saw myself having the kind of money where knowing about The Pit, The Bell, or The Street would make any difference. (Even now these phrases bring to mind “Bell, Book, and Candle.) Or maybe the risk factor is just too great; it is linked in my mind with such things as playing poker, snap, bridge, and Dutch Biltz, all games of speed, subtlety, bullying, and trickery.

Happily I have built a fairly broad knowledge base and can extrapolate like a fiend. But recently I came across an area that has challenged my initiative to dig deep. “What is Hannah’s field of study?” my sister-in-law asked. I’ve been explaining this in a cursory way for the past several weeks to people who knew her in high school. Hallway conversations don’t require much depth, but this seemed to ask for more.

I know that Hannah is working with math, and that pure mathematics has been her passion. Only just recently did she deign to find an application for her knowledge. (I was glad of this, because, after all, earning a living is something of a requirement in life; and frankly I can’t see many would pay to watch someone do math.) I understood much of what she talked about. I had done my share of calculus, becoming fuddled when we hit multi-dimensional analysis (the first 4 dimensions were fine, but I could not wrap my head around any concrete use for 5th dimensional equations might be good for). I use a fair amount of math in my knitting and cherish things like the Golden Mean, Fractals, Fibonacci series, Mobius strips, and Klein bottles. I say this as both a way of making a connection with my daughter’s work, as well as to show where my limits are.

I know that her research has something to do with fractal analysis of biological material. This makes sense to me, since we are made up of molecules, which essentially create crystalline structures. The logic of Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” demonstrated that in somewhat different terms.

I know that she uses computer programs to analyze digital images of biological material and create maps. But maps of what? How the crystalline structures hang together? How energy moves through those structures? How changes in the structures or energy patterns might indicate that certain other things are about to happen within that biological material? I know that she is working on mammograms and that has something to do with cancer. I know that her interest lies in brains, and that has something to do with migraines.

But that’s it. I understand more about cars, even ones sporting embedded computers, than I do what my daughter is choosing for her life’s work. What surprises me is that I’m OK with that. I can follow her when she is talking about what she does (I’m pretty sure she simplifies it for me and I’m not so OK with that), but I couldn’t take a test on it afterwards. Just like I couldn’t repair my own car, let alone build one. Just like I’ll continue to rely on other people to deal with the stock markets on my behalf.

Malcolm Gladwell in “Outliers” references the 10,000 hour rule. In order to become expert at a task, a person needs to put in that many hours of practice. At 8 hours a day that would be roughly 1,250 days or just under 3.5 years of daily practice. Even counting a moving target, like being a parent (just over 23 years for me), certain skills are bound to accrue. Give that, what have I spent that amount of time doing? Certainly poking around the internet. I started messing around with computers when I was 14 years old (yes, easily a bleeding edge adopter). I kept it up to the point I was working professionally as a programmer, instructor, and eventually systems administrator for a 13 year block of my life. Education has been both an overlapping field, and one that has been gained through personal practice and family tradition. I taught English for 7 years in Morocco, and again for 14 year in public schools.

There was certainly an overlap between my jobs in education and computing; language learning is important in both, as is communication facilitating between knowledgeable and novice practitioners. Understanding and explaining how things are put together, how a system is built from disparate parts is another crossover skill. Then there is knitting and spinning. I am surprised to realize that even with spinning, my newest skill acquisition, I have passed the 10K hour mark.

The thing is that as a programmer my focus was on language, systems, and communication rather than anything mathematical. My experience with images has been along the lines of storytelling, not to do with the formulas that render a picture digitally. Hannah, since she was a small child has looked as these things in terms of patterns, noticing similarities and differences, and interpreting the variations in terms of formulas. Looking through my educator lens, I can see that my way of viewing the world is not conducive to using Hannah’s glass; I cannot easily see deeply into her field of research without some serious practice.

Do I have 10,000 hours I’d like to devote to learning this new skill? It is at this juncture I understand Dad’s position. I realize he was telling me that he did not have that kind of time to devote to learning, what was for him, an entirely new field. How I differ from Dad is that I have anticipated this and built in some safety nets. I’ve learned who has expertise in areas that I lack. I’m neither afraid, nor ashamed, to ask for advice. I never rely on just one person, or one source. I also had the net, and a thousand opinions at my fingertips, something he lacked, and I know how to use it.

When my husband teaches a Bee School, he advises his students to build their own Master Beekeeper from the ranks of their cohort, someone they can go to for advice, bounce ideas off. This is his way of “learn one; do one; teach one.” The more people with mastery the better. This frees the teacher to go and learn new things, to be constantly improving, extending a knowledge base widely and wildly. I’ve learned about bees along with my husband, listening to him talk as he consolidates his practice and drawing on my own understanding of biology, communities, and business. After 14 years cheek by jowl, a lot of bee keeping management has become effortlessly familiar for me. I don’t have that kind of time with my daughter to understand the Math Mystery she practices. I am satisfied to understand her as she speaks. As far as giving someone else an equally deep review of what she is doing, well, they’ll have to ask her themselves.

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Packing Up Down Memory Lane

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Susacadia

So here we are, packing up the house we’ve lived in for nearly 25 years. There’s a lot to it. But I suspect you already knew that.

First are the things that we each brought with us when we moved in. There was the blender with a failing gasket, 30 years old. Gaskets for that model aren’t made anymore. Besides, we’ve gotten a food processor that lets me get all the pumpkin pie filling out of it, rather than losing a quarter cup, or so, to that sharp well underneath the blades.There are the five can openers, and, somewhat strangely since I’ve never used them for this purpose, three sets of lobster picks. I’ve used those for nuts, and to dig out garlic stuck in the press, but not for lobsters. This is the easy stuff, though. Which vegetable peeler, bottle opener, set of dishes do we like best? There are corks, spare spoons, tuna tins with both top and bottom removed – all waiting to be reused.

There are other, more personal things we’ve brought. Things saved in youthful exuberance, or because someone said, “You’ll regret tossing that away,” are still in our personal caches. Programs from school plays? Gone. Tassel from high school graduation? Gone. Shoe laces? Gone. Towers with unused read-writable CDs? Gone. We each had a Pentax K1000 camera. Those have moved on, one to a nephew and one stolen out of a dorm room last spring. But we still found at least a dozen rolls of 20 to 30 year old film. There are the blank tapes that went with the micro tape recorder. There are the balls of acrylic / nylon yarn from the days when nothing else was available and I hadn’t learned the difference quality makes. There are half used pads of paper, purchased when there was none to hand, but abandoned to linger in some nook, now uncovered. There is my driver’s license that expired back in 1991, the year after I got married back when I was “a babe, Mom. Look at those retro glasses. Who knew?!” My gosh, I was cute and perky. I don’t remember that at all, but there I am. Hmmmm. Maybe I’ll keep that.

There is the freezer, leaving tomorrow, that we took in trade for the sleeper sofa I had brought with me. Andrew’s naugahyde sofa went ten years before that. There has been documentation – my green card from Morocco, his PSAT scores – that we don’t need anymore, and frankly have little relevance to our current lives, but are still lingering.

I’ve found good homes for the yarn I will never use, and the science fiction magazines I’ve been carrying around since college. The magazines lived at my folks’ house for a number of years, but my mom brought down the last of the stuff that had been mine and left it with us. I should have gotten rid of a lot of that at once, but didn’t. There are craft magazines I feel I should give up and ones I won’t. There are magazines like Smithsonian and The Atlantic, that in all honesty I’ve enjoyed more online than for the paper copies I feel encumbered with. The same is true with the New York Book Review. And yet I still have them and need to deal with getting rid of them now.  I’ll continue to browse online, but no need to actually possess physical copies.

Maybe it was my mom’s voice in my head, warning of regret. More likely it was that sense of depression era frugality, the inheritance of my upbringing, grafted on to the rampant consumerism in which I came of age. It sounds snotty. Heck, it is snotty. That’s part of the problem. When I was in high school I used to make 3D paper models and paint them. These were geometrics. They were brightly colored, in many ways precursors for the zentangles people make now, but, as I say, 3D and decked out with little flowers, swirls, paisleys, the swooping lines of paint contrasting with the sharp lines of solid geometry. In later years I learned how to make these out of origami modules. As I fed the craft, I also amassed a huge amount of paper, glue that eventually dried in bottles, rulers, card stock, scissors, exacto knives. I look at this stuff and think of the waste, the unconscionable use of both money and resources. I feel myself slipping into a fugue state of immobility. Good Will can be my answer for only just so much. I feel shame.

While I can see how this could happen with the spinning and knitting fiber I have acquired, I think this is truly a life-craft. I know that people joke about going on “yarn diets” and use acronyms like SABLE (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy). And there is truth to it. One of the differences for me is that I am part of a community, both face to face and online. I will continue my practice of the craft because it keeps me involved with the people. And possibly because I’ve passed that magic 10K hour mark that makes me skilled, able to pass the craft on, while still learning new things. This past year when money has been tight I have found pleasure in shopping my own stash, discovering types and colors of yarn I had forgotten about. The few purchases I’ve made have been specifically to augment what I already have. I found myself relieved that my coffers were full and that I would not need to be champing at the bit, waiting to buy something I wanted to knit with.

Does this justify the consumption of fiber arts materials, as well as books, paper, magazines, clothes, food? No. It does not. The best I can do, beyond finding good homes for the stuff I am about to orphan, is to commit to being more aware of what I am bringing home in the future. This is different than hoarding against the day of need; I do that with twist ties, grocery bags, yogurt containers and the like. It has already stopped me from wandering, gape-mouthed, down the pen and pencil aisle at Walmart. It has kept me from entering Staples. Will it keep us from buying a pancake griddle? Or accepting a subscription to a magazine just because we can get a “good deal” on it? I think it might. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” is a great slogan. The real trick is not to let it come home with you in the first place.

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Rafe–Welcomed Home

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Susacadia

Rafe moved Blade, down the wide public road into the village. He clopped sedately, whuffling at the kids who dashed out from between the houses and nodding at the old soldiers on their bench, leaning up against the sunny side of the Pig and Toad. A few saluted her and she saluted back. Some she knew from one battle or another. There were more men than women, but whether that was because the men were more willing to warm their bones and trade lies, Rafe didn’t know.

Wilf would have made it back to the forge by now and broken the news to his mother. Rafe had not been looking forward to surprising her sister. Jenna liked things planned nice and even. Meals, chores, church, parties. If a horse threw a shoe, it was Boyer they’d better be asking and not Jenna. She’d put a job off until the next day, or the next week if she thought she could.

There Jenna was, standing in the road, outside the forge gate, arms crossed, hand gripping her maul, and Boyer behind her whispering in her ear. “Well met, sister!” Rafe saluted but stayed on her horse.

“Where in hell else would I be but home in my own door yard. You’re the one that turns up surprising people.” Jenna handed the maul to a daughter and reached up to take Rafe’s hand.

Rafe found herself flying through the air, her left arm still clamped in her sister’s hefty grip. Automatically, Rafe twisted mid flight and barely landed on her feet, knees bent and balanced. She turned to clasp Jenna in a hug, forestalling any further assault. The women were both of a height, although Jenna seemed to grow from the earth while Rafe was poised to take flight.

“I pulled that same move on my nephew, when I met him at the Parting Tree. You didn’t think I fall for it myself?”

Jenna clasped her hands behind Rafe and squeezed, lifting Rafe off the ground. “No need to fall for anything. I’ve mellowed in my old age. I roll with the punches now. Nothing puts a hitch in my swing.”

Rafe was afraid to let out too much breath for fear she wouldn’t be able to suck in any more. But Boyer stroked Jenna on the back and said, “Put your sister down now, dear. She’s just come home and I imagine you’ve plenty for her to do that she won’t be able to if you break her too early.”

“Quite right. I sent Maud in to set another place at table as soon as Wilf gave us the news that you were on your way. You will join us for supper, won’t you?”

“Trust you to be all etiquette while trying to kill me. Yes. I will. A bed would not go amiss either, although the forge looks pretty comfortable. At least warm and dry. I don’t suppose the horses will mind if I use the hay a bit first.”

Rafe turned and took Boyer’s face between her hands and gave him a loud kiss. “And you brother-in-law, how are you faring these days?”

“Glad to see you, too. We’d heard you had not fared well during the last bit of business up north. Even though your resurrection seems to have upset you sister almost as much as the news of your death did. At least she won’t be putting out the forge fire with her tears.”

Two girls had come out of the house and were standing near the water trough. Boyer gestured them forward. “These are Maud and Penelope, the twins. You’ll have met Wilf already. It is a puzzle, though, what he was doing at The Tree.”

The girls, like Wilf, took after their father. Their smiles turned up instead of down. Their hair billowed even without a breeze. Both were built like their parents, tall and solid as oaks, with muscles starting to bulge from days pulling the bellows and making work horses behave. Wilf, a couple years younger, looked more like Rafe. His stance straining for the skies. His hair was not short, but it was bound tightly at his neck in a well behaved club. Back on the hill she had noticed that his fingers were callused by not his palms. Maud and Penelope had the rough hands and strength of a laborer when they shook Rafe’s hand.

“What were you doing at the Tree?” asked Rafe.

Penelope glanced at her brother. “The inquisition will surely keep until later. The chicken is done resting and the rest of the dinner will be getting cold. No one wants to eat bread with the butter clumped up in a chill.”

Rafe followed Penelope indoors thinking of countless times when any bread at all, cold or not, would have been a welcome treat.

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