On, In, and Around Mondays: Her Biography

After the storm, walking.

At 5:30 a.m., when the sky is silver and the moon is adrift in a swath of clouds.

Or, having had my caramel apple tea, walking in the still-fast-moving air, seeing the sun peeking through and then being pattered by rain.

Five days later, up the hill where power is still failed, around the corner, and down the hill, I meet Adam McCrane. Never met Adam before. We are both watching the big white trucks and peering at the snapped electrical pole.

"They say 1,000 poles snapped and need to be replaced," he says.

I like the roundness of that. It is probably not exactly true, but it sounds good in the mouth. 1,000. I learn that Adam has been without power—today, at 10 am, it will be five days. Never been without for so long before, he says. I like the specificity of his tellings, even as that specificity has surely been altered by time and misremembering.

We continue to share stories on the road. He extends his hand to shake mine, which makes me smile.

I think of the book I am still slowly making my way through: The Old Ways.

MacFarlane finds that roads, and paths, and seaways have stories. That a relationship with the land becomes a relationship with people, through words and shared imagination. At one point, on an ocean trip with an old sailor, he gets to hear the story of the boat they are sailing.

"He knew her biography as well as that of any long-term lover, and he told it to me as a story," says MacFarlane.

I am ready to walk back up the hill now, my morning passage barred by the white trucks. "Nice to meet you, Adam," I say, and begin to turn. "Laura, yes," he says. "Nice name. Laura."

He has the beginnings of my biography. Maybe he will go home and tell his wife a story. But for now I am happy to hear my name, so lovely from the mouth of the old man on the hill.
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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)



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This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...