D
epending on your point of view, January and February are either the best two months of the year in New England or the worst. Probably more people would opt for the latter than the former but, personally, I love this time of year.
Yes, it can be bone-chillingly cold, so cold that a lot of people book flights to Florida or the Carolinas and don’t come back until March. And if it’s an especially hard winter, they might not return until April or even May, kind of like the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, who pokes his nose out from his cozy winter burrows on February 2 and, depending on where the shadows fall, either heads back inside to hunker down until the signs appear more favorable or waddles out into the open and declares that spring has arrived.
Chilly winter weather tends to have an equally chilling effect on New Bern commerce. There are fewer people around to buy things, and those who are here tend to stay close to the warmth of hearth and home rather than brave freezing temperatures and the snow-heaped sidewalks of downtown New Bern, credit cards at the ready. Some stores, like the ice cream shop and the pool-and-patio store, close up for the entire winter. Most of the rest shorten their hours and stay closed an extra day or two during the week.
But that’s exactly why this is my favorite time of year: It’s the only time I can take a little time for myself.
This winter, I’m not opening the shop until eleven and I’m not opening at all on Sundays or Mondays. Charlie is closing his restaurant, the Grill on the Green, on Sunday nights, Mondays,
and
Tuesdays, and I couldn’t be happier. Sure, it means less income for both of us, but after the spring tourist rush, followed by the even bigger summer tourist rush, then the fall foliage rush, and the holiday rush, it’s nice to spend a few weeks of the year
not
rushing. This last year has been especially busy.
My best friend from Texas, Mary Dell Templeton, now the host of a very popular quilting show on cable television, decided to do a live broadcast from Cobbled Court Quilts during our third Quilt Pink event to fight breast cancer. For weeks leading up to the broadcast, the cable channel ran promotional videos about it and Mary Dell never missed a chance to plug it on the show. As a result, foot traffic in the shop quadrupled and our online sales went through the roof. It was a great event—hundreds of people participated and we made scores of quilts that will be auctioned off for breast cancer research—but it turned out to be more work than any of us could have imagined. I’m happy we did it, but I’m not sorry that things have calmed down a bit since then.
There’s nothing much happening in New Bern now. Not a single charity auction, concert, or festival is scheduled during January or February—not a community obligation on the calendar. That suits me fine. Not that there’s anything wrong with those kinds of events. During the rest of the year I participate in all kinds of community celebrations and I enjoy them. But I also enjoy this quiet season in Connecticut’s quiet corner. It’s like a long and lovely Sabbath rest, a day when there’s plenty of time to read, to think, to plan and reflect, to finish up all of my UFOs—those Unfinished Objects that are the bane of every quilter’s existence—and spend unhurried, unscheduled time with the people I care about, as long as they are among the hardy souls who choose to hold their ground and tough out the New England winter. Fortunately for me, most of the people I care about are very hardy souls indeed.
And then there’s the weather.
I grew up in Wisconsin, so I know all about winter weather. When I was a kid I simply couldn’t wait for winter. As soon as Halloween passed I’d polish up my sled and keep vigil in the front yard until the first snowfall. Sometimes the snow would come even before the end of October. One Halloween, I had to wear snow boots and a parka over my glittery fairy princess costume, which kind of spoiled the effect.
Lots of people born in cold climates like it as kids, but once they grow up and have to shovel driveways, pay heating oil bills, and jump-start frigid car batteries, the thrill of winter wears off. Those are the people who are first on the planes to Florida, the ones who don’t even stick around for the Christmas and New Year’s parties but get into formation and fly south the day after Thanksgiving. Not me.
The more it snows, the more I like it. After I married my husband, Rob, and moved to Texas, I didn’t see a snowflake for the next twenty years. I missed it. Maybe that’s why, after we divorced, I instinctively headed north—like a Canada goose making a beeline for the border—found my way to the village of New Bern, Connecticut, and never looked back. This is home now. Spring, summer, fall, and even in the depths of winter, this is where I belong. The way I see it, shoveling driveways is good exercise, and as for the rest of it? Fortunately, my two-bedroom cottage on Marsh Lane is so small that even when the oil prices spike in winter, the bill is still manageable. And living so close to downtown, I can walk to the quilt shop, which makes driveway shoveling less of an issue for me.
Today, the first Monday in January, I waded through a fresh fall of ankle-high snow, plowing a path between my house and the post office, where I picked up my mail and stopped in the lobby to say hello to Gibb Rainey.
Every small town has its share of eccentrics. Gibb is ours. I don’t know how old Gibb is, but he’s at least well into his seventies and possibly a lot older. He’s friendly, likes college sports, and wears his UConn Huskies cap wherever he goes. He’s also a loyal member of New Bern’s Veterans of Foreign Wars post.
Years ago—no one has ever been able to tell me how many years ago, but many—near Memorial Day, Gibb was given the job of selling those little paper poppies the VFW uses to raise money for disabled vets. Because there are no mailboxes in New Bern and everybody has to go to the post office to pick up their mail, Gibb figured that would be a good place to sell his flowers.
He loaded a lawn chair into the trunk of his 1968 Chevrolet Corvair, drove downtown to the post office, and set up shop, parking his chair on the sidewalk, right by the post office door. Not only did he set a new VFW post record for money raised during the poppy sale, he had a great time chatting with the people who passed by. So much so that he returned with his lawn chair the next day, and the next, and every day after. You can’t go pick up your mail in New Bern without stopping to talk with Gibb. In warm weather, he puts his chair on the sidewalk. And when it’s cold, like today, he moves into the lobby.
A few years back, a new postmaster came to town. He said that Gibb couldn’t loiter inside a federal office and made him leave. That lasted about a week.
Word of the postmaster’s treatment of Gibb got around town. People started calling the office of the First Selectman, New Bern’s version of a mayor, and even their congressmen. Before long, Gibb was back in his usual spot.
After talking to Gibb about the possibility of more snow the next day, I headed down the street to the Blue Bean Coffee Shop and Bakery, stomping my boots clean before going inside, happy as a kid on a snow day. After our usual early morning coffee date, Charlie and I are headed up to the local ski area to hit the slopes. I’m so excited!
But Charlie? Not so much.
“Remind me again,” he growled as I came in the door and pulled off my gloves, “why it is we’re going to go out in the freezing cold, strap two pieces of wood on our feet, and then plummet down a mountain until we reach the bottom, fall, or run into a tree? If we wanted to kill ourselves, wouldn’t it just be easier to take off all our clothes, roll around in the snow, and wait for frostbite to set in?”
“Good morning, sunshine,” I chirped and leaned over to kiss the top of his head. “Nice to see you too. Did you order my coffee yet?”
He shook his head. I looked over at Cindy, who was standing by a table, filling the sugar dispenser. “Can I have my usual?”
“Large skim latte coming right up, Evelyn. You want an English muffin with that too?”
“Hmm.” I eyed the goodies behind the bakery counter. “Can I have one of those maple scones instead? And some butter? I can afford a few extra calories today. Charlie and I are going skiing.”
Cindy grinned and screwed the top back on the sugar dispenser. “So I heard. He’s been sitting here for ten minutes griping about it. I don’t mind, though. When my husband gripes, it sounds like a band saw cutting through a piece of alder, but when Charlie gripes, it sounds elevated, almost musical. There’s just something about that brogue. Everything he says sounds like poetry. It’s that gift of gab, that’s what. All the Irish have it. Charlie, Robbie Burns, and all the rest.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Robert Burns was Scottish.”
“Really?” Cindy deadpanned. “Well, in that case, I take back what I said before. You do sound like a band saw cutting through alder.”
“Don’t you have some muffins to burn or something? Where’s Evelyn’s coffee?”
Cindy winked at me and headed off to the espresso machine.
“I wasn’t griping,” Charlie declared after she left. “I was just pointing out the inherent dangers of the sport and wondering aloud how I let you talk me into this.”
I pulled up a chair and sat down next to Charlie. “Stop fussing. It’ll be fun and you know it. Besides, you were the one who said we should learn each other’s hobbies, that it would bring us closer as a couple.”
“Yes, but that was before I realized how dangerous your hobbies were. What I had in mind was
you
hanging around the kitchen with me, learning how not to over-poach a salmon, or you snuggling next to me on the sofa while we watch the complete James Bond film collection on DVD, or you taking up my interest in massage—”
“I didn’t know you knew how to give massages.”
“Strictly speaking, I don’t. But I’m deeply interested in getting them. Now, if you’d just learn how—”
I clunked him on the head with a wet glove. “Very funny. So when you laid out your grand plan for us exploring each other’s hobbies, what you really meant was
me
doing the things that interest
you?
”
“Not entirely. I reckoned you’d want me to try my hand at quilting, and I was willing to give it a shot. But once you saw how hopeless I was, I figured we could leave off and turn our attention to more interesting interests.”
“In other words,
your
interests.”
“Just so.”
I put my elbow on the table and rested my chin in my palm. Cindy was right. Charlie did have the gift of gab, or at least the gift of repartee. He always kept me smiling. “You’re a mess, you know that?”
“Yes,” he said seriously and slurped his coffee. “You’re not the first to point that out. So what do you say? Shall we go back to my house—or yours, I’m not particular—and work on our massage technique? I don’t have any massage oil just now, but olive oil would serve, don’t you think?”
“Sure, it would, if I wanted to smell like a Caesar salad
and
if I wanted to skip the ski date you promised me. Unfortunately for you, I don’t want to do either of those things. Man up, Charlie. We are going skiing. You’ll love it.”
He groaned. “No, I won’t. I’m an Irishman. We’re more cerebral than physical, at least I am. The only sport I really enjoy is horse racing, and by that I mean betting on horses, not riding them. However,” he sighed, “a deal’s a deal. If you want me to ski, I’ll ski. Not happily, but I’ll do it.”
“Good. We’ve got a beginner’s lesson scheduled for ten-thirty. That leaves us plenty of time to eat and get to the mountain. Do you want to drive or shall I?”
“I will. I’m parked behind the Grill. Beginner’s lesson? I thought you said you’d skied before.”
“I have. Often. Mother and I used to go skiing every winter. She was really good,” I said wistfully, remembering how trim and athletic she used to look in her tight black ski pants and bright blue parka, a white knitted headband holding back her thick mane of brown hair. In her day, my mother had been an expert skier and gave me my first lessons.
I remember how, when I was little, her arms wrapped strong around mine and how my skis were sandwiched between hers as she helped me catch hold of the rope tow that pulled us to the top of the bunny hill. In my mind, I can see her gliding down that gentle slope, effortlessly carving a path of wide, arcing turns across the mountain and calling back encouragements to me as I tried, haltingly and with considerably more effort, to follow. When I was older, we used to race to the bottom of the intermediate hill. Sometimes she would win and sometimes I would, though now I suspect that when I won, it was because she’d let me.
What a long time ago that was. How young, how strong, how agile she’d been back then.
She still lived in De Pere, Wisconsin, in the little house I’d grown up in and that she’d refused to leave when my father was killed in a car accident eleven years ago. I talk to her every Sunday night. She’s as sharp and funny as ever, still my mother, but her voice is weaker now and sometimes sad. It seems she has less and less news to report every week, and when she does, it’s usually news of another friend who has fallen ill or passed on.
Mother was one of the founding members of her church altar guild. They’d started with eight women, eight close friends who, like my mother, were experts with a needle and enjoyed serving the church by sewing new altar cloths, making needlepoint cushions for the kneelers, and keeping the church linens clean and in good repair. There are only two of those original eight left.
“Evelyn? Hello, Evelyn?” Charlie waved a hand in front of my face. “Anybody in there?”
“Oh, sorry, Charlie. I was just thinking about…nothing. Anyway,” I said, shaking myself out of my reverie, “it’s been a long time since I strapped on a pair of skis. It won’t hurt me to have a refresher. Trust me, Charlie. You’ll be fine. And I’ll be with you the whole time. I imagine we’ll both be on the bunny slopes for a while.”
Cindy returned carrying my latte and a plate with two warm maple scones dripping with butter. “I heated them up for you. They’re good like that. Brought an extra one, just in case. If you’re going skiing, Charlie, you need to eat a good breakfast.”