caroline washburn wells

this is the story of my great-grandmother, caroline washburn wells.

my great-aunt virginia told me this story two summers ago, so i don't have all of the details, but i hope it's true enough, because i love this story. the story is this: all my life, growing up on mt. riga, and at home in brewster, there were dozens of paintings hung on the walls of every cabin, and they were done by my great-grandmother. all my life i have been surrounded by them. beautiful paintings, some portraits of the family, but many more of the mountain itself, sweeping landscapes of the fields, glimpses of the still lake through a netting of curved tree branches, vivid flowers, and one of my favorites which hangs on my wall: her own cabin, with the famous "h. h. wells" sign displayed proudly in front. she liked to sign these with her name in block letters, or else, which i liked much better, with her initials layered on top of each other in boxy lettering: two big "C"s on top of an even bigger "W." it was an impressive statement.

these have been so much a part of the fabric of my childhood and of the mountain, that i always just assumed that they had been done over a half-century, part of a longtime legacy of mrs. caroline washburn wells. well, they were not.

my great-aunt virginia says this: great-grandmother never painted until the last part of her life. she never knew, in fact, that she could paint. when caroline was growing up, she had a sister who was the artist of the family, whom i believe went to an art school in fact (this sister is the one who married into the lippencott branch of the family, if i'm not mistaken–can anyone verify?). caroline did not go to art school, and did not think she could paint.

well, she was married to my great-grandfather, henry hubbard wells I and they had six children and they lived in brewster in the big casino house at the top of wells street. then at some point in her life, she went through a mental collapse, and went to whatever they called mental health clinics in those days. and it was there that she decided to take an art class. from that, the paintings just poured out of her. landscapes, still lifes, portraits, everything. she also did beautiful pottery, i believe, but i don't know when that began. but the point is, at that moment in her life when she probably felt like she had nothing left going for her, she discovered this amazing capacity for creation. so much so that the art she created was so prolific that someone of my generation felt it had been there all along.

i find it incredible that even through all of her anxiety and suffering, these images were inside her all the time, perhaps struggling to find a way out. we think we know ourselves fully, but her story reminds us that we only begin to understand the scope of our own potential.

so that is the story of my great-grandmother. if anyone knows any more about her, or about this story, please share with me so i can correct/add on to it.

the mountain, and my little boat

the other night i dreamed that i was in a boat. i almost feel that i've had this dream before, but i'm not sure. there is something about the environment of feeling and setting that is so familiar.

the setting is mt. riga, but it's both familiar and new from the mountain that i know. there are new paths in the woods, new streams, trickling between grassy banks, which feed into the lake. i know this is a dream-conglomeration of the mt. riga of my mind, but these visions are so real that i sometimes think that i'll come across them one day on the mountain–there all along, but previously hidden from sight. these are good places, magical places, full of sunlight and content.

my boat isn't much to look at; in fact, it's little more than the size of a one-person raft. but it's a sweet, sturdy little row boat with one short paddle, and when i see it waiting for me in the shallows of the lake, i feel proud to call it mine.

part of me, i must admit, is a bit dubious about paddling around in this thing without sinking, but i'm also so pleased to be able to hop in and paddle myself about the lake. and it's so convenient, really, to have it so small–it's light enough to fit down those narrow streams, and i can easily pick it up and take it with me, so that i can virtually go anywhere.

at some point in the dream, i even take it out onto the great ocean, but there i am slightly less sure about being out there on something so tiny, so i'm not out there for long–or perhaps that was the part of the dream where i woke up.

maybe i was remembering the little toy boat from the film ponyo, that gave the two children such freedom to roam. or maybe i am remembering the dream that i had of being on a ship, in control of my own destiny.

or maybe i am remembering the journey that reepicheep took to the End of the World, the Utter East:

"they helped him lower his little coracle. then he took off his sword ("i shall need it no more," he said) and flung it far away across the lilied sea. where it fell it stood upright with the hilt above the surface. then he bad them good-bye, trying to be sad for their sakes; but he was quivering with happiness… then hastily he got into his coracle and took his paddle, and the current caught it and away he went, very black against the lilies. but no lilies grew on the wave; it was a smooth green slope. the coracle went more and more quickly, and beautifully it rushed up the wave's side. for one split second they saw its shape and reepicheep's at the very top. then it vanished…"

yet these places on the mountain are curious too–what are they? what part of my mind are they, that i continuously come back to them?

pittsburgh-mt. riga alumni club

i had a great evening last night with what i've decided to call the pittsburgh-mt. riga alumni club, which is kind of like the pittsburgh-gettysburg college alumni club, except we don't get awarded degrees…yet.

at any rate, our branch of the mt. riga alumni club consists of frank and debbie, their friends greg and nancy, the many dogs, and, in spirit, doug and his girlfriend carrie, who were not in physical attendance but who were in our thoughts.

we met at frank and debbie's house, which is a pretty, rambling sort of place that sits at the top of a hill, on the outer bend of a curve in a the road, and looks as if parts of its architecture range from the middle of the 19th century through the 1930's. the walls, furnishings and decor are all in warm, earthy colors, and it was very cozy. parts of the house were in some need of repair, but nothing really major; their house, like them, is sort of casually elegant, pretty enough to not care about perfection. they also have a garden in similar condition, lovely and slightly wild, that falls steeply from the back of the house where they grow some veggies and the dogs like to tumble.

the evening consisted mainly of what any evening involving members of the wells family includes: copious amounts of wine. we also had some great conversation, of course, and talked extensively over family matters, the content of my courses, how nancy was liking her first taste of life outside of new york city (a "novelty" was how she put it), etc.

at some point, someone (ok, frank; these things are always brought up by frank) called us all to remember the ritz crackers-styled 'mock apple pie' that used to be advertised for years on the packaging of any box of ritz crackers. the curious thing about this pie was that it did not contain apples in its list of ingredients, and frank could not get over this, nor let the matter pass until we had dissected the origins and reasons behind such a recipe, with the final mandate that we will eat mock apple pie the next time we get together, which i deeply fear.

guest books, language, and evidence of faeries

i'm back from my month of blissful stillness on the mountain. it was so good for my soul to be still. not still physically, mind you; i mean, still in my heart and in my head. i ran, swam, hiked, and played with small children and many dogs, so i exerted no small amount of energy; but for one month i was able, for the most part, to push out thoughts of the past, thoughts of the future, and to live in the day to day of mt. riga.

it's so easy to do that on the mountain, when your days consist of easy conversation and books, and when your body naturally slips into sleepiness at sunset and wants to wake with the morning light.

how do i describe what it is to be up there with my family? i love to read the guest books at various families' camps with a real tender sympathy, because everyone tries to write what they feel without sounding clichéed ("lovely time up here...a little slice of heaven...our stay far too short...") but of course it's like trying to describe the light from a star: the real thing is far more brilliant.

language is funny; we pride ourselves on possessing words that run the gamut of describing everything we know of in the universe, and yet... as soon as we begin to put into words what we experience, it's already lost something of the original luster. does that make sense? sometimes, on very rare occasion, you'll say something to someone and it just clicks, but this happens rarely, i think. when it does, i'm always struck that what was said wasn't necessarily said using the fanciest, most erudite language; rather, it was just right.

like, when you glance into someone else's eyes and you have that momentary flash of seeing right into them–most people only let you see a moment of that before they close up again and the connection's gone. but it reminds me of being a little girl and standing in the twilight in my yard, and thinking again and again that, out of the corner of my eye, i've seen faeries.

days of beautiful nothingness

i can't believe it's already getting near the end of july. i suppose that's a solid testament to the relaxing and care-free month i've been having on the mountain. i don't seem to do a whole lot, but the days slip away and i'm having a great time just reading, swimming, catching up with family, and doing not much. right now i'm down at the salisbury library with my aunt olivia and uncle dick, while we run our daily errands, and the routine of life on the mountain has been just what it ought to be: slow and rather uneventful.

examples of this are the fact that the most inane stories get repeated to everyone who already knows them, and are avidly recounted to any new person who comes up the mountain. this must be what it's like to live in iowa, except not as flat.

here is one of the stories that have no real pressing interest to anyone, but which have been widely circulated: aunt olivia has been having uncle dick turn on the generator every day so that she can blow dry her hair. somehow everyone knows about this. we went down the mountain to visit chauny and crosby, and the first thing chauny said was "so i heard you've been blow drying your hair."

i have much else to reflect on, but just as i'm not doing much this month except relaxing, i have no desire to tax my brain right now into deeper reflexion about my mt. riga time. that'll be for august, i expect.

mt. riga: and this should be about it

so monday came and i rose at a leisurely pace in the storey camp, shivered extensively until i made up the fire, ate some breakfast, showered, and wandered down to the lake to sit on the dock and watch the current of the water twist back and forth with the breeze.

aunt olivia and uncle dick had left early on monday morning to pick up uncle dick's sister and her husband from the hartford airport, where apparently they had caught a redeye flight from oregon, and were tired and famished. we had a nice lunch, and then took a walk together down to virginia and ken's again to sit and talk with them and with chuck and elizabeth, who were planning on heading down off the mountain later that day, to return to their home in vermont.

great-uncle ken had some interesting stories about world war ii which i had never heard, namely involving the fact that he worked on the coast guard out on a sailboat to monitor invading german u-boats. did you know that there were u-boats off the east coast? i had no idea, but apparently that is the intelligence he had to relate several times back to the mainland, except they never attacked harbors because new york harbor is so shallow, that the damage would have been a wasted effort.

he also once owned a sailboat that had been jfk's. talking to him made me miss my grandpa, my mother's father, who was also in the coast guard during world war ii, and who loved sailing. it also made me wish i'd known my other grandpa, virginia's brother. great-aunt virginia kindly told me some things about my grandpa, that he was also something of an engineer, that he built real mini motor cars for my dad and for my cousin will when they were little. that he drank too much, but he loved children, and was so, so kind. i almost wish, sometimes, that i would see his ghost on the mountain, to know that he's still around.

then aunt olivia took us on a tour of the other camps nextdoor. there's the wells camp, which belongs to my grandfather's brother frank's children, and their children. and next to that, my aunt dinnie and uncle rick have the blaker camp, and next to them are great-uncle crosby wells's camp and outbuildings, and next to him is cousin conrad, who raised a big camp against some protest by my aunt dinnie, who said it was too close to the other camps (there are rules on the mountain of how closely you can build), but there it is. he also has a self-rigged 'hot tub' which is basically a water tank that he lights a fire under. and next to conrad is great-uncle tom's camp, what we call "the treehouse" because it's built so high up into the trees, but he doesn't come up much anymore because it's too strenuous for him. and then way down from him is cousin alice's camp, but we didn't walk that far.

so you see, despite the fact that we only spend roughly a month at best on the mountain, we still manage to be a family of inbred mountain people.

the next day, tuesday, was the day i was leaving. aunt olivia and i decided to take a walk, stopping in first to see viriginia and ken, who invited me to have lunch with them, and then we continued down the road toward the dam to see fran and pete miller (the same fran who jumped off the dam house at 70 years). only pete was there, but we chatted with him for awhile, walking down with him to the lake so he could show us the contraption he'd built to pull his dock up out of the water for the winter. he built it using lawn mower tires he'd had in his workshop for a good fifteen or twenty years and had never found a use for. we have some clever, creative engineer-like minds up on the mountain. i am not one of them.

other than the brief drama of me stepping on a green garter snake, and subsequently screaming and making an impressive leap of several feet across the grass, aunt olivia and i continued our walk unscathed, strolling down to sit on the platform of the dam house to watch the water, and then walking down the mountain road to look at the waterfall. i like those meandering, easy-paced walks. my aunt says that when she and uncle dick were first married, they had "nothing to do but take long walks" :). but really, there is a very tranquil pleasure in taking a walk, whether you have an envigorating conversation constantly, or whether you walk in easy silence.

mt. riga: i'm still talking about it

the long and short of it is that fran jumped all right, and in fact her son rob gave me his flip camera to capture the moment. the best part was when she finally climbed through the skylight in the roof and was sitting up there ready to jump, but found she couldn't find the strength in her legs to push herself up. so rob climbed up there and gave her a helping hand...right under her butt. it's all on film, and i desperately hope it will be up on youtube soon, spreading joy to the masses.

after the party, i walked back towards the storey camp with chuck and elizabeth, and as they dropped me off at the foot of the trail leading up to the cabin, they invited me to dinner with virginia and ken. which of course i said yes. because otherwise i would be eating alone, not sure when aunt olivia and uncle dick were to be back from their day trip, and who wants to do that on the mountain? so it worked out perfectly.

the only thing is, when we finally all got in the car to head down the mountain for dinner, we passed aunt olivia and uncle dick coming up the mountain road, but they said it was fine, so i had dinner at the woodland, some little restaurant in lakeville that had yummy food, but weird service. great-uncle ken asked if he could have corn in addition to his meal, and the waitress said that corn counted as a starch, so if he ordered it, they'd have to substitute out his pasta from the chicken parmesan. what is she, his nutritionist? since when do restaurants forbid you to have two starches? i would have thought they'd be happy making any money they could on charging it as a side, but whatever. it was a nice evening, and then i came back and went to bed.

mt. riga: being the second chronicle

my dad, who is paranoid, began to worry that i, at twenty-four years in age and having traveled all over the country singly, could not be left alone for so long a period as six hours. actually, i do not count the time when i was asleep, nor the time after i showered and walked down to the schwartz camp to hang out with virginia and ken, so we're looking more at two hours of total "alone" time. my baby cousins could be left alone for two hours and would probably be fine.

so at any rate, i got up that morning, ate cookie crisp and took my stuff over to aunt olivia's, showered, puttered some more, and then went down to have a chat with everyone at the schwartz camp. they gave me a tour of their cabin, which i'd never really seen in detail as a child, which was pretty cool, because my great-uncle and his other son, phil, are both engineers, and so there are all kinds of contraptions in the camp. they have a solar panel that charges the batteries that run the water pump on-demand (other camps usually get gas-run motors), counterweight-balanced gas lamps rigged up to the ceiling in the main living area, and my uncle's very interesting little creation hanging on the mantle, a hand-made 'betty lamp' as was used up through the 18th and possibly 19th centuries, to burn any sort of fat or grease in a small dish, the precursor to oil lamps. his burns bacon fat with a wick made from shoe laces twisted together into a short pipe.

so after this little rendezvous, i was just leaving their camp when i saw a silver toyota carolla drive past and park at my aunt dinnie's camp, just down the road. i wondered who else on the mountain had a car like that, when the driver door opened and my dad jumped out, looking dishevelled and breathless. with a sense of forboding, i turned my steps towards him and called out "dad, what are you doing here?"

here is the crucial part. dad had driven down only several hours earlier. rather than say something like "i know you weren't expecting me" or something along the lines to justify reappearing so suddenly, he cried "well there you are!"

"where should i be?" i replied in confusion, and repeated my initial inquiry. at this point we were quite close to aunt dinnie's cabin, and i could see my uncle rick on the deck so i thought it better to not stand awkwardly by without greeting them, and began to walk down to the cabin.

"i worried about you being alone," he said anxiously, following me. sigh. i don't remember how i responded, but at any rate we went and chatted for a bit with aunt dinnie and uncle rick, after which i made my escape and headed back up to aunt olivia's camp to get ready for a surprise birthday party for fran miller, whose camp is just down by the dam, and who had turned 70 in march. they were going to try to get her to jump off the dam house in honor of the occasion, because that's what people on the mountain do to the elderly.

mt. riga: the first chronicle

and so the summer draws to a close. i think i spent the near-end of it well last week, taking one last trip for the year up to mt. riga to be with my family.

i feel that i can't get enough of this mountain. the drive up through connecticut, the views, the sounds and smells of the earth and the air, the wind on the water...at night, looking up between the leafy covering of trees to make out pieces of casseopeia, orion, the big and little dippers...and lying curled up in my sleeping bag up in the loft, listening to the sounds of the fire crackling below, and the breeze rustling the branches outside, above me. i used to be afraid at night, because it was so dark, but now i can listen as i didn't before.

on saturday afternoon of last week, i drove up to conn. and arrived at my aunt's cabin at about 8:00pm, just as everyone was finishing dinner. inside, the flood of hellos and questions began and did not cease for the next twenty minutes. i was greeted by my stepsister, who unaccountably had grown another six inches in height, and in gorgeous dark, ringlets that trail down to her waist. i can't beleive she wants to be a blond.

then my dad, and stepmother, and aunt and uncle all were greeted and hugged in turn, and then i was reintroduced to several familiar faces at the dinner table who i could a little more than vaguely recollect: my great-aunt virginia, my great-uncle ken schwartz, and their son and his wife, chuck and elizabeth, my first cousins once removed. as you may imagine, everyone was still talking at once and so i was sat down at the table to take part in a very agreeable conversation about how i was doing, how they were doing, news relating to other relatives and to the mountain, and a general discussion on the virtues of the dessert: two pies from the local market.

i do not think i'd ever seen my cousin and his wife before that evening--or rather, if i had, i do not remember it. i could remember great-aunt virginia and -uncle ken pretty well enough, but it was possibly the second time we had ever had a chance to sit and talk together for an extended time, and it was gratifying to get to know them in a way i hadn't as a little girl. they are very active, considering their age, and my great-uncle has a very dry sense of humor, which he employs frequently. great-aunt virginia is very sweet and good-natured.

i'd arrived late in the evening, for mt. riga time, so the rest of that evening was quiet, and shortly after dinner, i went back to our cabin with dad, kornelya and jalom. they were going to bed early, as they would be getting up the next morning very early in order to go back to brewster for a craft fair in which kornelya would be selling indonesian jewelry (which is very cool). they planned on staying in brewster sunday night, so that the agreement was that i would spend sunday night back in my aunt's cabin, and they would return on monday to the mountain (brewster is only about an hour away).

my aunt and uncle, however, were also going to brewster on sunday, but planned on returning in the evening, so i was free to please myself as i wished, puttering about and amusing myself until they returned. essentially, there would a window of several hours in which i would be sleeping on my own in my cabin, and then waking up and heading over to hang out in my aunt's cabin. why am i giving you these inconsequential details? well, the backstory is necessary becuase of what followed.