May 31, 2010

• Green Feet and Hamlet

  
  We planned to take our easels and a picnic basket out across the road, through the woods, to the small near-clearing that lies just before the swamp takes over. We wanted to draw and perhaps paint the ancient giant oak that is the only tree standing on that patch of grass.

  The tree is said to be the sole survivor of the Great Swamp Fire that took place during the Pequot Wars in the 1600s. It is also said to be the only tree left standing after the British landed on my grandmother’s beach during the Revolutionary War; the Redcoats burned Fairfield to the ground.

  The oak looks… well, like it has survived two major fires and a few hundred years of animals and kids climbing all over it. Its limbs are gnarled and stretched out in such a way as to look like arms warning visitors away.

  When Cousin Steve suggested we go out and draw it, I hesitated. When I told him how my three older brothers said that an angry Pequot Indian spirit that ate curious little girls for snacks inhabited the tree, he laughed and shook his head.

  “That’s imaginative,” he said, “but not true.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  He handed me the smaller of the two folded easels and said, “I am sure, Sweetheart. It’s just an old tree.”

  I put the easel beneath my arm, copying him. He carried the picnic basket in his free hand; my grandmother handed me a thermos of iced coffee to take along.

  As we walked out the front door, Steve asked, “Where are your shoes?”

  I gave a little shrug. “I hate shoes.”

  “Tch, don’t say, ‘hate,’ Sweetheart. That’s a low, ugly word.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I dislike shoes.”

  “That’s better,” he said. “You’re better than low and ugly.”

  He winked. “You sure you don’t want to go in and get them? I don’t want you to hurt your feet.”

  I shrugged again. “I’ll be okay.”

  “All right,” he said, taking a step forward. “Be careful.”

  I adjusted the easel under my arm. “I will.”

  Just as we crossed the road, Mr. G called to us. He and his wife lived in the house across the road (right next to where we entered the woods) since the house was built in the 1950s (their son and his family live there now). Mrs. G was a favourite of mine – she made candy! – And Mr. G was a friendly old man who often helped my grandmother: he mowed the lawn for her, picked things up at the grocery store for her, and when it snowed, he sent his son over to shovel her driveway and sidewalk. They loved Cousin Steve (Mr. G had taken up painting birds when he retired and he liked Steve to look at his work); whenever he was in town, they would call him over.

  We walked over to say hi. I put my easel and the thermos down on the driveway and played with their dog, Mutt, while Mr. G and Steve talked about cardinals. When they were done talking, we cut through their freshly mowed yard to enter the woods.

  When we got to the ancient giant oak tree, Cousin Steve opened the basket and laid out our blanket. He kneeled upon it and began pulling our supplies out of the basket  (there were always more art supplies than food in our picnic baskets). Suddenly he began to laugh.

  I put the thermos down on the blanket. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  He pointed at my feet.

  I looked down at them and began laughing, too.

  My feet were bright green: grass green. The toes were the darkest part; the colour faded as it reached the tops of my feet.

  “I have Kermit the Frog feet!” I exclaimed.

  I picked up a nearby stick and used it as a microphone: “Kermit theeee Frog, here… your frog in the street!”

  When Steve pulled his handkerchief out, I thought he was going to use it on my feet. Instead he dabbed at his eyes. I was surprised; he didn’t laugh that hard very often.

  “You’re entertaining, you know that?”

  I smiled big, pleased with myself.

  We set up our easels a few yards from one another. He began sketching immediately. I could not.

  I stared at the big sheet of paper for a minute, and then stared at the tree for a little while. Drawing never came easily to me (it still doesn’t); I never knew where to start. My thoughts began to drift away from the tree and the Pequot Spirit (I was not completely convinced that the spirit did not exist). They gravitated toward what I had been reading.

  Steve tapped me on the shoulder. “Are you trying to catch flies?” he asked. He always asked that when I stared out into space with my mouth hung open.

  I closed my mouth and grinned up at him.

  He pointed at the blank sheet of paper. “That doesn’t look anything like a tree, Sweetheart,” he teased. “What’s wrong?”

  “I keep thinking about Hamlet.”

  “Hamlet?” he asked. “The Danish Prince, Hamlet? That Hamlet?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Have you read it?”

  “Yes,” he said. He moved behind me and lifted my hand up, guiding my pencil.

  “I don’t really understand it,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Well, you’re… aren’t you a little young to be reading Shakespeare?”

  I giggled, watching my hand moving the pencil on the paper, magically creating a tree. “{The Wolfman} is going to be in the play at his school.”

  “Ah,” he said, moving my hand all over the place, drawing bark. “Are you helping him learn his lines, then?”

  “No,” I said, “Mom’s doing that. I just sort of started reading it. Last year, it was Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Did you like that one?”

  “No,” I said. “That was stupid.”

  He gasped. “Stupid? That’s a low word. Didn’t we already talk about that?”

  I bowed my head a little. “I’m sorry… but that was stu- … I didn’t like that one.”

  He laughed quietly and sneaked a kiss on my cheek. “No romance stuff for you, huh?”

  “Yuck.”

  I looked up at my still-moving hand and saw the ancient giant oak on paper. I giggled.

  “It’s cheating when you do that, you know,” I informed him.

  “Who says?” He kissed the top of my head and let my hand go.

  “{The Professor} said so, last time.”

  “Well, I don’t think it is cheating anyone out of anything, Sweetheart.”

  “No?” I turned and looked up at him.

  He was frowning. “No. I was just helping.”

  I smiled. “Do you like Hamlet?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Do you like Romeo and Juliet?” I asked.

  He shook his head and smiled. “I don’t like Shakespeare too much,” he said.

  “Really?” Everyone in my family seemed so enamored by The Bard. Cousin Steve’s “no” surprised me.

  “I’m more of a Moliere man, I guess,” he said.

  “Mole-ee-yay?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “I will send you a book of his someday. I think you will like him.”

  “Is he like Shakespeare?”

  “No,” he chuckled. “He’s funnier.”

  “Oh.” I liked the idea of a funny play. “You’ll send me one of his plays?”

  “Sure,” Steve said. “Maybe for your birthday.”

  I smiled big again. “That would be really nice. Thank you.”

  He poured iced coffee into a paper cup and handed it to me. I sipped some and asked, “Can I see your drawing?”

  He winked. “Not till I’m done, Sweetheart.” 

  He finished his coffee and returned to his easel. I went back to mine, and put up a new sheet of paper. I drew the tree on my own this time. It was not as good as the one he’d helped me to draw, but I wasn’t completely disgusted by it. I added a squirrel with an enormous head.

  I looked over and saw Steve painting (we had brought watercolors that day). I did not feel like painting. Instead, I sat on the blanket and stared out at the reeds beyond the tree.

  “Shall we eat?” he asked, walking toward me.

  “Okay,” I said.

  While we lunched on sandwiches, chips and more iced coffee, he told me about a couple of Moliere’s plays. I did not quite understand, but they sounded like fun to me. I again expressed interest in reading them.

  When the basket was emptied a little while later, he asked, “Would you like to see my painting now?”

  I smiled and nodded. I hopped up and followed him to his work.

  When I saw what he had painted, I doubled over laughing.

  It was a little girl with big green frog feet.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes!” I said, still laughing. “You’re very entertaining, you know that?”

  • 6:51 pm
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