I took the day off. I wanted to see swans. But it’s cold in January, even with the rise in temperature of late. I wanted to connect with Margaret, not just by reading her letters, but by enjoying the things she enjoyed. There are only a couple of letters left. I will miss her when I am done reading them. I will feel more alone than before I found them. I wish I had a friend like her, even a lover. So I have not read her last letters yet. I am not ready to say goodbye.
I wander aimlessly around the pond, thoughtless. The sudden sound of crushed branches behind me brings me back to the woods. I turn around. I imagine it’s a deer. Too late. I stand motionless, hoping to see it come back. I feel empty.
I toy in my head with the idea of writing letters to a future friend in order to fill my emptiness. What would I write? Not much. I much rather listen to Margaret’s love for her garden and for humankind. That feeds something in me. I am not much of a talker. I fix pipes and faucets. I work with my hands. It was easy enough to help Dad with the nettle roots. That was an extension to what I know; a little stretch I could get into. But that little stretch and Margaret’s letters opened me up to other people. And Mel’s and Chris’s help too. We created something together that would not have existed without each one’s participation.
Before, I wasn’t aware of others in the same way. I was aware of other people in terms of what I received. My parents provided a roof over my head, and meals, and caring while I was growing up. In exchange, I helped out around the house. Then I was asked by neighbors to help out with their plumbing problems. It was a natural extension to what I was already doing. I got jobs then and money to get along in life. I didn’t concern myself with the needs people have within them before Dad told me about his need for nettle roots and before Margaret’s letters. That’s what’s new for me: the realization that I am interested in the personal world that lives inside people. Compared to this, plumbing is like spinning my wheels and not getting into what really matters.
Coming out to see swans was a way to connect with Margaret’s personal world. And it was also to connect with life, with the personal world of something alive. Wanting to see the deer running across the woods to the sound of breaking branches under the clear blue skies was a way to be a part of his world, and, through him, to feel a part of the entire world.
I am alone, not because something has changed around me, but because I am aware of more than I knew and don’t know how to be a part of it yet. There is a beauty in the simple act of living, of breathing, of sharing one’s needs and one’s thoughts with another person.
Back home, I’ll be listening to the crackling of the fire I’ll build in my fireplace, and it’ll take me back to the woods where the burning logs come from. I’ll be sipping coffee and cream from my largest mug. I’ll read Margaret’s last letters, taking in every word she wrote with her heart and desire to connect. I wonder why she stopped writing. Did her parents become ill and pass away? Did she then decide to join the Sisters in Quebec City? Perhaps she chose to finish writing her letters here in New Hampshire rather than in a foreign country. Or did she get an incurable illness herself and had to stop writing these letters earlier than anticipated? I wonder how she said goodbye.
Tomorrow I’ll go back to the old stone house where I found Margaret’s letters. I’ll ask to check if everything is working alright. I’ll have with me the stack of letters tied in the same hemp twine and with her note on top, as I found them. I’ll place them back where I found them originally, within the bathroom wall, now covered with a metal plate that the bathtub faucet is attached to.