The Big Flea Market

On impulse, I snapped this photo through the windshield of our truck on our way to the Big Flea Market. This is a road that runs beside our house. Sometimes when I'm riding in a vehicle, I look at the Northwest Ohio landscape and it seems surreal. This happens especially when the roads are bathed in a certain kind of yellow light. It happens also after it has snowed and the wind is blowing snow across the road or when the blowing snow makes patterns on the road like writhing snakes. The flatness of the land, the perspective created by electrical lines and poles, and the vastness of the sky speak strongly to me of destiny. But where am I going, and why?


Yesterday, in the boiling heat, Allen, Buddha, and I went to a big flea market in a city very near us. It's a 3-day celebration that people look forward to here every year, but I can't remember it ever being this hot when it was going on.

What I remember most from yesterday:

1) Item: A cast iron mermaid (about 3/4 life sized)
2) Item: A pocket Bible with a delicate picture of Mary on the front, circa 1800's.
3) Place: The low part of the field, soggy from the previous day's rain. My sandaled feet wet from sinking in the cool water covering the grass.

I bought three books, paying for them $2.25 and two pair of pants for Allen, totaling $4.00, grand total: $6.25.

The books:

1) A college edition of Art History, for making my collages.

2) The Works of Oscar Wilde, copyright 1927. This book looks identical to the Checkov volume I purchased in Vermont and is published by the same company, The Walter J. Black Co. The Checkov volume is worn, due to heavy reading and handling from being in the public library. However, the Oscar Wilde volume looks virtually unread.

From "Rosa Mystica" by Oscar Wilde:

To drift with every passion till my
soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds
can play.
Is it for this that I have give away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere
control?

3) The Best American Short Stories 1943. I own several volumes of the best American Short Stories, but this is the earliest edition I've found so far. The inscription inside reads: "Belated Birthday Wishes to Frank from Andy." The book's dedication is to:
"Irwin Shaw, Private, U.S. Army" and "To All Writers Enlisted in a Great Task."

Isn't that wonderful? What is my "great task"? What is yours?

Authors of a few of the best stories of 1943 include: William Faulkner ("The Bear"); William Saroyan ("Knife-Like, Flower-Like, Like Nothing At All in the World"); Eudora Welty ("Asphodel") and James Thurber ("The Catbird Seat"). Who doesn't remember "The Catbird Seat" from highschool or college freshman comp.?!

I like to study authors' first lines. Here are a few from The Best American Short Stories 1943:

"The smell around the training farm was compact like a wall, rising from the ground which was muddy with yesterday's rain, and surrounding the chicken coops huddled white in the muffled dark night." --Vicki Baum, "This Healthy Life"

"Ora Larrabie stayed still as long as she could hold the wonder to herself." --Rachel Field, "Beginning of Wisdom"

"Eunice looked at me across the table and said: 'I've a corking idea for a novel.'" --Vardis Fisher, "A Partnership with Death"

"The Isle of Man is a very small fragment of the British Commonwealth of Nations and a place you never hear much about." --Grace Flandrau, "What Do You See, Dear Enid?"

"Last May you were married, and now this morning your widow is wailing." --Peter Gray, "Threnody for Stelios"

And my two (so far) favorites:

"As they all knew, the drive would take them about four hours, all the way to Weed, where she came from." --Paul Horgan, "The Peach Stone"

"One evening when Ellen Goodrich had just returned from the office to her room in Chelsea, she heard a light knock on her door." --John Cheever, "The Pleasures of Solitude"

I think Cheever's is my favorite of all. What is better than starting a story with a knock on the door?

Any story I have ever loved has been like a experiencing a knock on my door. It has been an invitation to mystery and transformation.

After the flea market we came home and cooked hotdogs, bathed, and went to the hospital to visit someone we love.

Treasure! The collection of Anton Checkov's works, bought at a library sale in Stowe, Vermont.

This book was an incredible find, yet there is something sad about seeing such a treasure stamped with the word, DISCARDED. This edition of Checkov's works was published in 1929.

Checkov, a graduate of medical school, wanted to write stories that looked at people and situations somewhat objectively. His lack of personal commentary (and judgment) combined with his keen insights into the human psyche made him a great storyteller.

My favorite of his stories so far is "La Gigale." It is about an artistic, although flighty, young woman named Olga who marries a man of science, Dymov. At first Olga sees beyond Dymov's meek demeanor and recognizes his greatness: his dedication, intelligence, and compassion. Later, she tires of him and has an affair with one of her artist friends. Dymov knows of the affair but wants to keep the marriage together. In this pivotal scene, Olga has the opportunity to make things right, but she fails to recognize the potential for transformation:

One evening when [Olga] was preparing to go to the theater, she was standing before the pier-glass when Dymov, clad in a dress-coat and a white tie, came into her bedroom; he smiled meekly and as formerly he looked his wife joyfully straight in the eyes. His face beamed.

"I have just been defending my thesis," he said, sitting down and stroking his knees.

"Defending?" Olga Ivonovna asked.

"Ogo!" he laughed, and he stretched his neck in order to see his wife's face in the mirror, as she was still standing before it with her back towards him arranging her hair. "Ogo!" he repeated. "Do you know it is very probable I shall be offered the post of professor's substitute on general pathology. It looks very like it."

It was evident by his delight and his beaming face that if Olga Ivanovna had shared his happiness and triumph he would have forgiven her everything, the present and the future, and he would have forgotten everything, but she did not understand what the post of professor's substitute or general pathology meant; besides, she was afraid of being late for the theatre and said nothing.

He sat for two minutes, smiled culpably and then left the room.
.........................................................

He sat for TWO MINUTES! That's a long time to sit silently, waiting for someone to respond favorably to a grace extended. He has been direct, looking her staight in the eyes and expressing his intimate joy. But she keeps her back to him, experiencing his presence obliquely, through the mirror. I love the detail of his stroking his knees, the part of the body that most strongly, I think, suggests humility (as we get on our knees when we pray or give homage to another). Also the detail, "...he left the room," a physical and psychological distancing.

I look forward to reading all of Checkov's works. How strange that I had to go all the way to Vermont to discover him.

The library in Stowe, Vermont where I found my fantastic collection of works by Checkov, as well as Anne Morrow Lindburgh's Diaries and letters. Looking through Lindburgh's writings later that day, I was saddened at how she accepted that being a woman was something less substantial than being a man. This was particularly evident in an entry about a discussion she had with the author of The Little Prince while waiting for her husband to arrive: "I am feeding the dogs when C. finally appears--it is almost 10. I drop back in relief, I am so glad he is there. We (St. -Ex. and I) both leap at him with the relief of thirsty travelers needing water. C. blows in like a sea breeze. But he is tired, driving all day in traffic. However, he takes his supper on a tray and over the tray carries on the torch of conversation, which immediately goes up a level, takes on a higher, less feminine tone." I sometimes wonder if what she thought of as "feminine" was really her more quiet, introspective nature as opposed to her husband's more extroverted personality. I know that often I feel inadequate during conversations because my thoughts are vague, diffused, like looking through a glass darkly. I've often wished I was more lively and able to carry the torch, like Charles Lindburgh.

Sterling Pond, at the top of a steep mountain trail, near Stowe, Vermont. A tough climb, but worth it.

In the lean-to at our campsite, near Stowe, Vermont.