I had many tea sets: solid pink, pink and white stripes, white with pink flowers, white with blue-purple flowers, solid lavender… all plastic, of course. I spent hours making “doilies” with construction paper and little scissors. My mom and I would bake teeny tiny (“ladylike”) cookies, usually peanut butter or chocolate chip; they were placed atop the doilies. When I got an E-Z-Bake Oven, little cakes were added to the menu. My mother would make real (iced) tea and pour it into whatever teapot I was using that day (the teapot always matched the cups and saucers, of course!).

When I think now about the conversations we had at those tea parties, I cannot help but smile. I especially remember one tea with my Auntie V in attendance. The main discussion was Everything That’s Wrong With Boys. Some of the more serious points of the conversation were: “Boys never wash behind their ears; there’s always crud back there,” “They are more likely to get cooties than girls,” and “Boys don’t stick their pinkies out when they drink tea; they’re piggies.”

At one point, my mother joined the party. She said, “But boys are cute!”

My aunt and I fell all over each other, squealing, “Ew!” and “Gross!” and “Yuck!”

My mom, laughing at our antics, added, “Well, your brothers are boys… and they’re cute!”

I answered that with a horrified scream. Everyone knew that my brothers (all four of them) got more cooties (and got them more often) than anyone else, and that they never washed behind their ears (My dad used to joke that Whoville was actually a place behind Brother #3’s left ear.).

Some time after that, I had another tea party, and my father was able to attend. He sat between Esther (my big white stuffed bunny with the pink hat) and me. Before pouring the tea, I stood up and inspected my father’s hands, and behind his ears.

He laughed, ducked his head and asked, “What’re you doin’, Little One?”

I said, “Just checkin’ for crud, Daddy.”

He snickered and asked, “Well, did you find any?”

I said, “No, but I think you might have the beginnings of the cooties.” I sat down and poured the tea, giggling.

My father chuckled and picked up his cup. I tugged on his pinky and said, “No, Daddy… The pinky goes out. Like this.”

He wriggled his pinky out of my grasp and said, “Only girls do that!”

I sighed, “Men!”

He nearly fell out of his chair laughing.

The swamp takes up a fairly large piece of “my” end of town. It nearly reaches the beach at the end of the road, and going in the other direction (east to west), it nearly reaches the Post Road (Route 1). Going north, the rectangle of swampland reaches the town center, the Old Post Road, the oldest part of Fairfield.

I believe it was in 1637, during the Pequot Wars, that the swamp, along with most of the town (then known as Uncoway, or Unquowa, “The Fair Fields”) was burned. I am no historian, but I believe the Pequots were on the run from Mystic (also known as Missituck), where the British and their allied tribes (I believe the Narragansetts and Mohegans) set their village on fire, not sparing women and children. The Pequots ran all the way from Mystic (Mystic is about a 2-hour drive from Fairfield). The Sasqua helped them. About 300 Indians altogether tried to hide in the swamp, but eventually, the British and their allies found them. Sasquas, women and children were allowed to leave, but the Pequot warriors stayed and fought. Sassacus (their sachem, or leader) and a few escaped (only to be brutally brought down by the Mohawks, in New York, later on), but most were killed in the battle with the British, who burned the swamp.

The oak tree survived.

In July 1779, the British landed on McKenzie Point (which is MY beach, now called South Pine Creek Beach). British General Tryon met some resistance. The rebels fired on them from Fort Black Rock and later destroyed the Ash Creek Bridge, thwarting the General’s plans to go into Bridgeport. Tryon was so pissed off that he burned Fairfield down.

The oak tree survived.

It is a big old tree with thick, twisted limbs. It is black in places. When it starts to get dark, or just before it gets light, or when there is fog, it is the scariest-looking tree in the world. Real Halloween material.

Some say that the Pequots who were there burned in 1637 haunt it. Others say that the women, children and old men who hid there and were burned in 1779 haunt it.

When I was a little girl, “The Scary Tree” marked as far as Grandma and I could go. I was certainly never allowed to go out that far unsupervised. My brothers and other boys from the area went into the swamp and built forts… boys’ business. Cutting and hammering.

Apparently, The Boogey-Man, Monsters and Ghosts (also known as “Evil Swamp Spirits” or “Indian Ghosts”) only eat Curious Little Girls. Oh, and Nosy Little Girls, Smart-Alek Girls and Little Girls Who Should Mind Their Own Business. You know… girls’ business. Dolls and dresses.

For a while there, I was scared. Then, my grandmother and I met The Boogey-Man, who was really just a grumpy old man who preferred to live outside of society. I do not remember what his real name was; Grandma and I called him Mister Man. We brought him food sometimes and he was not scary at all, but thankful.

Mister Man told us stories about the tree and the spirits that lived inside of it. I think the tales were supposed to spook us. They did not. As a matter of fact, those stories about the fires and the ghost sightings afterward made me (and my grandmother) more enamoured of the old oak.

We brought food to the tree: Usually, just a piece of bread and an apple or something else from Grandma’s garden, and salt. My grandmother said that the salt was, “for flavour, and for life.”

Grandma said that when spirits/ghosts were hungry, of course they were grouchy, just like regular people get when they do not have enough to eat. “A spirit only needs a little bit of food, so a piece of bread and fruit can feed a lot of them,” she told me. “A little food makes them happier.”

Grandma really did like to feed everyone.

Years later, the summer before I turned thirteen, my mother, my younger brother, Tadpole and I moved into my grandmother’s house. The Meadows (condos) were just being built. The woods across the road had been thinned out considerably.

One morning, I woke up early – it was still dark out – and put an apple, a piece of bread and the saltshaker into a small paper bag. I walked across the road and through the trees, expecting the clearing and the oak tree to be gone, with all of the “development” going on.

The oak tree survived, and it had big green leaves (I had never seen it with leaves before). It still had little flecks of black here and there, but in general, it looked healthy. Happy.

I laid out the bread and the apple by its trunk, and sprinkled both items with a little salt. I could no longer remember the prayer my grandmother used to say over the food – it had been years, and my Hungarian was rusty – so I just gave it The Lord’s Prayer (in English).

When I told my grandmother that I had seen “The Scary Tree,” and it had big green leaves on it now, she smiled. She was ill then (dementia) and didn’t smile as often as she used to, so it really made my day.

Every so often, I would go and give the tree and its inhabitants a little something to eat.

When I brought my friend Cochise there, years later, I thought he would laugh at my little ritual: bread, a piece of fruit or a vegetable, some salt and The Lord’s Prayer. He didn’t laugh at all. When I told him the tree’s history, he said that it was right to offer food and a prayer to those folks who died so horribly.

Last year, I went to visit “The Scary Tree” in between services being held for my mother. I went alone, and parked in a visitor’s space at The Meadows. I brought a piece of bread, a plum and a packet of salt.

My first thought when I saw the beautiful oak, with its big green leaves fanning the breeze in a sort of lazy way, was, “You are the least scary tree I have ever seen.”

I placed the food near the trunk and emptied the packet of salt onto both items. I whispered The Lord’s Prayer. I stood up and took a few steps back, still looking at the old tree in wonder.

“Well, look at you,” I said. “Look at us. Survivors.”

Some things happened to me. I did some stuff. Some of it I blog about and some of it won’t ever be written. It happened, I did it, and sometimes I think about it. When things around me are… dark. When things that once mattered to me begin to seem less important or less reachable. When something big goes wrong or just never comes to fruition. When I cannot sleep at night, or my sleep is filled with bad dreams.

It is at those times that I think of all of this bad stuff, and I ask if The List of Bad Things is related to the You Can’t Have These Things list. Am I a bad person? Do I not deserve [insert wish here]? The questions, the thoughts, last for a minute or two. I suppose I could make them last longer. I could batter myself with a million little visuals, memories of past events and behaviours. But I don’t. Not anymore.

Instead, I sit on the couch with my notebook and pen, or in front of the computer. Sometimes, I end up not writing a single letter. I don’t think about the naughty things I have done, or the harm others have thrown my way…

I think of how lucky I am. I try to recall how I survived everything, but that gives me a headache. I think about all of the good things I have done. I think of people, some still with us, some gone, and I realise how lucky I’ve been with friendships and love. I think of all of the wonderful gifts that I have been given, the miracles I have been fortunate enough to witness.

I recount these things. They may seem like nothing to you, but to me, they are special. Seeing a whale out in the ocean. A flock of yellow butterflies landing all over me while I was out walking. A giant dog bringing me a rabbit. Deer nibbling on a plant just above my head. The ducks that live in our complex’s pond, parading their little ones back and forth on the front lawn. Doves nesting on top of the lamp outside my apartment’s front door…

“And here I am,” I think. “I’m still here.”

I do my best to be good, to do good things, and to do as little harm as humanly possible. To “keep the evil down to a low roar,” as one of my favourite men in the universe would say.

The dark times will come. I will think until I have a headache. The little things will come, too. And I will think, “And here I am. I’m still here…”

Still here to write about it, if I want to.

I usually want to.

That evening, on the way home from Holyoke, I told Ken that I was concerned about Old Harry (Yes. I named the tree). You see, usually, he’s the first tree to turn red and gold.

Ken said, “It’ll change when it’s ready.”

He sounded so serious. I didn’t expect that. “Okay,” I said.

The tree, in our conversation, became me. Apparently, both Harry and I are stubborn. I will change when I am good-n-ready. I didn’t argue; Ken is right.

It’s one of those true things that gets buried in the dark fog that surrounds me at times. You know, the truth that it is “me” that is keeping “me” from doing the things that I want to do. It is easy to forget who is in charge, and it is easier to find some way to deny that it is YOU when you’re depressed.

Hm, I thought. I think I need to grab the reins back. It’s MY life, after all. Ken’s right. I need to flip this stubbornness over, against The Black pit. Hm.

I yawned, pulling into our parking lot. Maybe tomorrow. I’m too tired to think about it right now.

Yesterday morning, I stepped outside and saw Old Harry:

“Not at all,” I said. “I’ll change when I am ready… Just like you.”

Ken came up behind me and said, “You talkin’ to trees now?”

“Yup,” I said, turning to my husband. “Just Old Harry, here. Isn’t he pretty?”

Ken shrugged.  “Told you it would be fine. Everything in it’s own time, Honey.”

He grabbed my hand and kissed it as we walked to our car.

I love that handsome, patient man of mine.