By Detlef Wieck
I had not been sleeping well, and during the day, I found it hard to concentrate on writing. I seemed to have emptied my creative well. No stories or ideas found their way to the paper. It was as though, after the doctors’ diagnosis, there was an impediment, that was there, in spite of my many false starts. As I sat in front of the screen, reading what I had just written, my mind would turn back to my diagnosis. A wave of unrest swept over me. In frustration, again, I abandoned the effort. I had to free myself from the anxiety that was clouding my thoughts.
Filling my water bottle, and tying on my hiking shoes, I drove to an ancient, weathered farm stead about four miles from town. There were legends about the place, and of course, every Halloween, the local teens would take their dates to the old house for a bit of spooky fun. But, today was a bright sunny and breezy day, red, orange and brown leaves blowing off of the oak and maple trees that inhabited the property. It was not a day for ghosts, I thought, and, at that point, I had no desire to venture into an old house, likely, with a leaky roof and moldy interior.
I parked just off the road, near the rusty mailbox, its flag gone and the door hanging open. I put my water bottle into my day pack, locked the pickup and started to walk up the road, overgrown with tall grass and dandelions, to take advantage of the extra distance to lengthen my walk. The dandelion fluff, drifting on a light breeze, carrying next year’s new life, contrasted with the multicolored dead leaves on the road. Their season over; they had drifted on the wind from the grove surrounding the farmstead. They rustled and crunched as I walked, a pleasant and restful sound.
The promise of new life, and the memory of past life, reminded me of my own mortality. The leaves, beautiful, in death, their role in life fulfilled, lay in repose, to be reclaimed by the earth. I wondered, then if I would be so lucky, so beautiful in death, never sure of the rightness of my own life, never having had offspring like the dandelions that stood tall between the fallen leaves and yellow grass.
The old farmstead, host to a family with seven sons and two daughters, seemed in harmony with the trees and the tall grass. The land had nourished the family, responding to their hard work, producing almost all of their needs, including fruit from the orchard that they had planted. Some of the trees, long untended, still bore apples. I stood among the old trees for a moment and thought about who the people were that picked those apples and pears.
I bent down and picked an apple up from among the grass and leaves. I examined its red and yellow striped skin pierced with a couple of tunnels made by wasps, where they had ended their productive lives after the queen had stopped laying eggs. One still there, I shook out and bit into it where there was unblemished skin. All sourness had gone, leaving only a slightly fermented, sweet flavor. The sugars had started to turn into alcohol, creating a greater temptation for those animals that would eat the fallen apples and transport their seeds to a new location, a new life. It was good. Evidently, the wasp thought so too, since it didn’t fly, but fell to the ground, perhaps drunk.
The wind whispered around me as I gazed at the old house, wavering increasing sunlight dappling it’s weathered clapboard surface, its rays sneaking though the wind rustled, remaining, leaves. The front door was open, beckoning, in a friendly way, with the sunlight playing around it, kissing it like an open mouth. How could I refuse. I took another bite of the apple, enjoying the alcoholic sweetness, then stepped across the worn threshold.
Leaves had been blown in, accumulating on the floor of the room which had been the kitchen, adding a festive air to the place. As the wind rattled the old building in secret places, I imagined that I could hear the happy laughter of the past inhabitants, the family that had planted the fruit trees, the fruit of which I had just enjoyed a taste. It was as though the walls, had absorbed the energy vibrations of the family like a tape, or disk, would. The kitchen seemed to radiate a kind of happiness that was infectious. I carefully took another bite the apple, avoiding the spots with the wasp holes, then tossed the core out through the sunlight filled open door. On a whim, I picked up a couple of the largest, brightest maple leaves, sticking the two stems under my hat band, one on each side, then walked stepped across the threshold, into the parlor.
More dimly lit, from the light entering from the kitchen and an east facing window, the room had a more somber feel about it. A faint odor of old wallpaper and cold wood smoke greeted me as I stood, just inside, past the entry way. In a dark corner, an upright piano loomed, many keys without their ivory. Crossing the worn board floor to the piano, I struck middle C. The note rang back to my childhood and I remembered sitting at my mother’s piano, pounding out the simplest melody that was a repetition of that note.
“Left, right, left, right, the soldiers march,” my mother in the kitchen, urging me not to falter, to be like the soldiers, sitting on that hard piano bench, in that cold room, pounding out that dreary dirge. “Left, right, left, right, they march to the fore. Left, right, left, right, my butt is getting sore.” Left, right, left, right, I don’t want to play this anymore.”
I imagined, then the family, gather around the piano after Sunday church, the adults, still pious, the children ready to get out of their Sunday clothes to go outside to play, instead, standing behind their mother as she played, singing a simple religious tune. Laughing to myself, I took my two leaves from my hatband and placed them on the piano’s music rack, then left the room, like the children, to go out in the sunshine again.
The sunlight warmed me as I walked out, on to the stoop, then down the stairs. A gentle breeze caused falling leaves to dance through the dappled sunlight as they fluttered on their way to the earth, their final, beautiful, act after a short life of utilitarian function. It caused me to think, again, of my own life. As an old man, in my eighties, the end of it seeming near. I, too must dance, when I may, in the sunlight, adding grace and beauty to my last days. For like the leaves, my passing would only be mourned until the new spring buds appeared on the branches and new babies born, new life replacing old, the eternal cycle for us all.
Having lived a life of adventure and creative endeavors, including gold panning, boat building, commercial fishing, historical interpretation for the NPS, water color painting, all for a living, and now writing, Detlef lives with his wife of 50 plus years, on San Juan Island. Three of his stories have been published and are on the internet. At the age of 85, he has a treasure chest full of experiences to draw on. This story is the result of many experiences, including being raised on a farm, living in a house that was rough and worn from the many years it had been filled with a homestead family, tasked with clearing the land, piling stones and boulders removed by hard labor, and building all of the rough buildings, and with the realization of his own mortality.
Detlefs’ published stories are: “Mrs. Juhl”, Cut Leaf, 02/2024, Eastover Press, “Our First Night in the Country”, Academy of the Heart and Mind, 10/2023, “Ben Alone”, Academy of the Heart and Mind, 05/2024. “A Secret Too Well Kept”, Lost Treasure Magazine, now defunct.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 