"THE TRIP TO THE GROCERY STORE"

by Alexandra

The old woman reached for her coat. It was fairly new; she found it at the thrift store. It felt good, this coat with someone else's memories and the woman wondered about the memories and why the coat had come to the thrift store in such a new condition. Oh well, it was her luck to get it and this coat was soft, and warm, kept out the rain and wind. It was her favorite color and would become her favorite coat in time, she was certain.

She looked into the mirror and saw how the coat brought out the color of her eyes. Her lover seemed to agree from a corner where his picture had been stuffed into the frame. The old woman smiled, she was seventeen again, a young woman in the first bloom of romance, the light dancing in her eyes smiling above smooth flushed cheeks. Then she saw the light reflecting off some cracks in his picture and remembered her lover wasn't there anymore. The woman looked again at her image in the mirror and suddenly it grew older and she could see the lines in the sagging face, the graying hair. Time to go, she thought. The woman looked for the hound that usually accompanied her on her wanderings. He was fast asleep, wrapped in his favorite sunbeam from the large kitchen herb window. Another time, perhaps. She let him sleep.

The woman picked up an old umbrella, her mother's. She inherited it when her mother died. There was the old broken spoke. Her mother said she had broken it over a would-be mugger's head. She never had it fixed. The umbrella worked ok, kept the rain off. The old woman could still hear her mother explaining about the broken spoke. It seemed like yesterday, but then yesterday was so far away. The woman set out for the grocery store a short distance from her home.

Spring was in the air, with scents of dew kissed early flowers, sounds of insects buzzing about their daily business and the feeling of things being born. Yes, definitely Spring.

She passed the playground and looked up at the tall backstop bordering the dusty field. It all came back to her. She could hear the crack of the ball as she hit her first homerun. The wonder, the elation, the cheers. The smell of the freshly mown lawns mingled with the dust of the well-worn paths between the bases as she triumphantly jogged toward home plate and the fleeting fame of the moment.

The backstop hadn't been there then, nor the formal playground with its childproof equipment. Just a vacant lot where the neighborhood kids played their pretend games. "Tomboy" the mothers called her. However, she had fun, she was good at the rough, and tumble games the boys played. They had always asked her to play. Later, when her children played the more formal Little League baseball, the parents all chipped in and bought the backstop to make the play safer and easier. Less chasing the foul balls, more parental involvement. Nevertheless, the old woman had enjoyed that too. Her daughter won trophies in front of that backstop. She could still hear the cheers and smell the hot dogs sizzling and the spilled soda pop. It seemed like yesterday, but yesterday was so far away.

The woman walked by the butcher shop and waved to the elderly man inside. Her mother used to buy meat there from his father. She didn't need meat today, bought that last week. The old man had been in her kindergarten class. His son usually ran the shop now days. The elderly man's grandchildren were about the same age as her grandchildren. She watched them play. She had seen her grandchildren only once before they moved away. However, the old woman held them tightly wrapped in a sacred place in her memory. She could still hear their soft, contented "coos", see their small faces and smell the baby powder. She remembered when they were born. It seemed like yesterday, but yesterday was so far away.

Next, she cut across the paved parking lot adjacent to her old grade school. A grade school still. She heard the class bell ring. As she walked on the pavement, the old woman could feel the way the lumps of grass felt on her bare feet when she used to wander there when there were trees, an old orchard and a large field. The woman could still smell the cut hay and the horse that used to pull the hay cutter. She rode on that horse once when she was small. The man lifted her up and gave her a ride after the field was cut. It had been her first horse ride and she loved it so much she made a career out of riding horses. The old woman could still feel the coarse hair beneath her fingers as they grabbed the mane that time so she wouldn't fall. It seemed like yesterday, but then yesterday was so far away.

She rounded the next corner and came face to face with her old school bus stop. Directly in front of the old movie theater, where she and her friends used to wait for hours in line to see the latest cowboy movie. As a young girl, the old woman had tried to lie about her age once, she couldn't remember whether it was to make herself older to see a movie not intended for children, or younger to take advantage of a discounted ticket. What she did remember was that she stumbled over the birth date her friends had decided on and the ticket person refused to believe her. That was long before she attended High School and thought it funny that the school bus stop would be in front of that very theater where she had attempted her very first public lie and failed.

The Catholic high school, attended as a teenager, was so far in the country that almost all the students rode buses to and from the school. Nevertheless, it was beautiful there at her high school. The woman hadn't seen it since graduation. She remembered one day when the school bus had a flat tire. Of course, her group hadn't known that. They only knew the bus was late enough they could be excused for thinking it wouldn't arrive at all and that meant they had a 'free day'. As they rushed down the alley away from the bus stop, the school bus arrived and the driver yelled after them that he saw them and if they didn't come back, he would tell Mother Superior. They didn't, he did, but they, miraculously, didn't get in much trouble for their stolen 'free day'. Mother Superior just seemed disappointed in them and told them that their education was a valuable commodity and they themselves were more responsible for it than any school. The old woman could still hear the bus driver calling out to them and smell the fumes of the school bus. It seemed like yesterday, but then yesterday was so far away.

There was the flower shop, with daises in the window even. The old woman crossed the street, stopped, and looked at them. She remembered her first bouquet. Sent to the house where she lived by her first ever-real boyfriend. Oh she had boyfriends before, but they were just pretend. Not real 'dates', just boys she knew and went to the movies with. However, these flowers were from a boy who asked her to a dance, gave her her first kiss, and later married her. There was a picture somewhere of the bouquet and the dress she wore and there were pictures everywhere of the boy she had married. The flowers were hung to dry when they withered and then pressed into a book somewhere. She'd have to look for it when she returned home.

Later, when they were older, her husband used to bring her daisies and sing her the song "A Daisy A Day". She put daisies on his grave every day for a long time, until the prices went up and she couldn't afford them anymore. Of course she grew them in her garden for awhile, but couldn't bring herself to cut them. He'd just have to enjoy them there, she had told herself. Now the daisies in her yard were wild and all over the place. They were pretty that way. She could still hear her folksinger husband singing her that song. She could even smell his aftershave mingled with the scent of the daisies he brought her. It seemed like yesterday, but then yesterday was so far away.

Next to the flower shop was a candy store and she stopped in for a sample. She had been doing that for years. She rarely bought any candy, however she and her husband had been such very good customers for so long that she was always greeted with a smile and "Sample for you?" as one of the clerks handed the latest creation over the counter. The confectionery scents were very overpowering, and the woman didn't linger long, just enough for pleasantries. There were so many memories they overlapped, intertwined, and followed her as she threaded her way between the cars in the large parking lot. The memories faded only as the old woman entered the supermarket where she had shopped for years, chose a basket and started down the updated aisleways.

After wending her way through and around the store displays to the cereal aisle, she searched for her favorite, the old standby, the one that was good with fruit on top, or not. Yes, there it was on sale. Luck was with her today, she hadn't read the ads, she just needed cereal. Although she was on a strict budget, she felt rich. She had made good memories throughout a full life to see her through her less active later years. She was still making memories, but they were fewer now that she didn't get around quite as often as she had in her youth.

She remembered standing there in that same cereal aisle with her young daughters. "Mommy let's get this one, the one on TV, the one with the toy." "I can buy you a toy easier than I can buy you a new body." The woman had answered. Then she began to read the ingredients out loud. By the time, she reached the middle of the ingredient list and paused for breath, her daughters were two aisles away denying they ever knew that crazy woman reading ingredients in the cereal aisle. The old woman chuckled to herself. In her mind, she could actually hear her daughters voices. It seemed like yesterday, but then yesterday was so far away. Still smiling, the woman put her choice of cereal into her basket and went on.

She'd better get some milk now that the goat had died. The old woman loved the morning and evening milkings with her head against the old goat's warm, soft, woodsy smelling flank. "Wishh-wishhh" went the milk; "ping-ping" the first squirts hit the empty pail while the doe ate her sweet grain. The old woman thought about getting another milk doe, but the store sold goat's milk from the dairy where she bought her first goat. What would happen to the goat if the woman died in her sleep one night? What would she do with the kids? The old woman decided to buy the milk and maybe help out sometimes at the dairy. She remembered getting her daughters up in the middle of the night to help with the kidding. They didn't even grumble. The new life was so wondrous to them. The old woman could still see in the small pasture, the kids were bouncing as if they had springs on their feet. Her daughters were jumping around trying to imitate them and her husband was laughing so hard he was doubled over. His laughter rang in her ears as the fresh Spring scents mingled with the pungent aroma of barnyard in her nose. It seemed like yesterday, but yesterday was so far away. The old woman put the milk into her basket and moved on.

She chose some bananas next and then went to the checkout. So different were these new checkouts, all computerized and leaving no time for daydreaming or remembering what you forgot to put in your basket and would want or need later. However, computers were wonderful things, the woman had learned to use one at the library and she surfed the intricate web like a pro. As she waited in line, the old woman reached in her purse for her wallet and came up with a school picture of her best friend. She found it lying on the floor that morning, dropped out of an album the woman had moved while dusting. The purse was closer than the album and so...there it was. As she waited the old woman thought about her friend and read the note on the back. The picture was a graduation picture from high school and the only one she had of her, then, best friend.

The inscription read "To my very best friend in the world. You will go far on horseback and marry a knight in armor. And when you do please remember me always. Luck, Love and Lollipops..." The friend had gone on to college in another city. They wrote for awhile, but the old woman was busy with a new husband, a horse career, and then children. She couldn't remember when they stopped writing to each other. She remembered attending her friend's college graduation but vaguely, as if it was another life entirely. It must have been shortly after that they stopped writing. The old woman had heard at a later high school reunion that her friend went on to gain more college degrees and then into research. She wondered what had become of her friend. She remembered the occasion of the photograph much clearer. It was a beautiful, sunny, early June Sunday...Graduation. Most of the Senior class had exchanged pictures earlier that week, but her best friend and herself missed each other somehow and it was on Graduation day they came together. Next to each other in line, Sister Amabalis had to shush them more than once as they waited outside the church. Inside, Mass was ethereal, with the Novitiate choir singing the Gregorian chant like angels. She could feel the excitement, and smell the incense competing with the beeswax from the burning candles. The sound of the choir still rang in her ears. It seemed like yesterday, but yesterday was so far away. "Will that be all?" the cashier woke the old lady from her reverie. She nodded, paid, and left with her purchases.

The old woman was still smiling when she almost ran into the oldest daughter of a dear friend and neighbor. "Want a ride? I'm going your way." "No dear, I'll walk. It's such a lovely day and I only have a very few things in my sack. Thanks anyway, and say 'hello' to your mother for me." The old lady answered.

She started through the parking lot, back the way she had come, changed her mind, and turned toward the path that led through the woods. It wasn't much longer than her original route, half a block at most, if she entered her yard from the alley.

The woman passed behind the drive-in theater. A very popular place in both her and her children's youth. Now it was semi-deserted and would probably be torn down in the future. She couldn't understand why. Maybe it was all the video movies and VCRs. 'Oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles.' She said to herself as she remembered how they used to sneak pizza in to the drive-in movie. With the pizza underneath the children's feet in the family pickup truck, no one could see the illicit food, and when it was dark enough they would partake of the contraband feast. Somehow the food tasted better when you snuck it into the movies, as if it were some kind of trophy. The old woman remembered the time their girls were so very excited about the movie they were going to see and the line was 'parade' long, that their daughters had literally 'danced' their feet all over the steaming hot pizza. When the feast was finally opened all the toppings were mashed and stuck to the top of the box. The sound of her husbands laughter and her daughter's wailing's mixed with the pungent scent of the mutilated toppings stuck to the hot cardboard. The woman laughed aloud. It seemed like yesterday, but then yesterday was so far away. She entered the cool shade under the protecting canopy of the woods.

As background music for her journey, a violin sweetly played her favorite Baroque melody while a popular new dance tune rocked from a boom box farther away. Both competed for the old woman's attention, the Baroque melody won. She loved to dance in her youth, but now she enjoyed the melody as she focused on how the notes from the violin played with the soft sunshine that found its way through the tree tops and danced with the bird song so plentiful in these woods. The old woman was very glad she had chosen this way home. 'How happy I am.' She thought, 'How rich I am to be able to enjoy these things. Heaven cannot be greater then this, if it is I shall not be able to stand it.' The scents of an early Spring filled her nostrils as the colors of a vibrant ecology caressed her eyes. The old woman wiped her face with her flowered handkerchief and leaned heavily on the old umbrella she used as a cane.

She thought she'd sit on a nearby bench for a few minutes and enjoy the scene. The bench faced the water of what was either a large pond or a small lake, depending on the viewer's perspective. The woman sat for a few minutes and then went nearer the water to sit on a large rock, her package forgotten on the bench.

She looked out over the pond, glad that its citizens were busy with their morning activities. She hadn't brought any bread for their breakfast.

Over there, she'd almost missed it. The old swimming hole had been cleared of so much vegetation it wasn't the secluded carnival it used to be with its varied branch swings, protruding 'diving board' roots and zigzagging slick mudslides. Now it was just part of the rest of the park. The swimming hole where all the kids learned to swim and match wits with the natural denizens living there. All the generations of children that played at the 'hole' used to sing in its depths. The vegetation was so thick it was like another world entirely where only children were allowed to enter. So many memories of the carefree time of her childhood rang in her ears, drowning out, for the moment, the other music in the park. It seemed like yesterday, but yesterday was so far away. A young boy drowned in that place last year. That must be why the park people had destroyed the secrecy of the antique swimming hole.

The violin music again followed the old woman as she returned to the bench, retrieved her package, and continued on her way along the winding path.

Finally, she broke out of the secluded woods into the bright sunlight of an open area surrounding a large gazebo. New memories of a later time in her life now surrounded her senses and flooded her emotions. Her husband used to play in the gazebo's small musical group. Summertime with its hot demand for ice cold lemonade. The sultry evenings forcing streamlets of liquid down the sides of the glasses making them look like an advertisement for the beverage inside. White and flowery dresses, T-shirts with blue jeans ripped off at the knee to form shorts, but all she ever saw was the handsome man making music just for her. She knew that it was just for her because he never stopped looking at her and it was her he took home to his bed. This was where she spent most of her summer evenings after the accident. That last jump at the world famous horse show, where the grass was just a little too wet and it was nobody's fault that it was her last jump ever. Pain shot through the injured hip and back. The old woman forced her remembering onto a more positive track. It wouldn't do to make oneself miserable over past tragedies. Better to remember the joys and gaiety of pleasanter times. She gazed again at the gazebo and then spontaneously burst into laughter as she heard what sounded like a small firecracker.

The evening was darkening, almost enough for the firecrackers, but not yet enough to really see what they could accomplish. The day had been hot and bright, a typical Fourth of July. Her young girls were at her side as close to the gazebo as they could get to watch Daddy play and so he would know their applause was the loudest of all the crowd and just for him. The firecrackers were piled around the feet of the musicians.

No one knew who started it. Who flicked the burning cigarette into the innocent looking pile of cardboard cylinders? The rockets were pointed outwards into the crowd except for the one small one that was the first to signal the craziness to come. That small one took out a good bit of the gazebo roof and alerted the crowd which scattered like dandelion fluff in a high wind. She never looked back, just hit the dirt in front of the railing with the girls underneath her. The woman had known she couldn't run and was afraid her daughters would try to pull their mother out of harm's way, so her training in fast solutions to dangerous problems received at the horse arena pushed her down next to the protecting rail with the small precious bodies underneath her own. When the noise and smoke cleared and she tried to rise, there was a weight on her. Then a familiar voice asked softly in her ear. "Alright Hon?" The devoted husband had covered them all with his large body, his valuable instrument forgotten and left to fend for itself on the gazebo floor. No one was seriously injured, that in itself was a miracle. The smoke bombs had followed the one small rocket and then the lesser 'crackers'. The larger rockets had gone off last, chasing the stragglers and moving them to achieve speeds they previously thought impossible. The ground 'snakes' had kept several people dancing and high stepping like a retreating army through enemy land mines. One or two adventurous guys were taking movies from a safe distance and kept taking them as the celebration went from pastoral to pandemonium. People enjoyed them later from a safer perspective. The rest of the property did not fare so well. Most musicians grabbed their treasured instruments as they dived away from disaster. Two musicians were found hanging from the small rafters on the ceiling of the gazebo and just when they thought it safe to return to the floor, return they did with their saving rafters in their hands and pieces of the roof to boot. The floor immediately gave way underneath their feet, but, like the actor in "Faust", hell was full and they only sank up to their beltlines.

The old woman could smell the acrid smoke, and could hear the laughter, swearing and surprised crying of the small children. After everyone was found to have only small injuries, people laughed, and no one harder than herself with her children, all in the arms of her devoted husband. There was no Fourth of July picnic zanier than that one. It took days to clean up the park, repair the gazebo, and clear the paper plates from the nearby bushes and trees. The resident fur and feather gang took care of the scattered culinary delights. It seemed like yesterday, but yesterday was so far away.

The old woman turned toward home, her eyes bright with laughter.

As she rounded the last corner and turned into the alleyway that led to her yard, the woman heard the soft splash of a small backyard fountain. Her grandfather used to have an outdoor pond complete with goldfish, lily pads, and frogs. His pond was surrounded by a beautiful rose garden. She used to play there as a young child. She remembered his stories about when her mother was her age on his farm. Her mother loved to climb and was always getting into trouble either climbing a ladder left against the garage, while its user was in to lunch, and balancing on the peak of the garage roof, or walking the tall fence between the pig pens. "Your mother should have joined the circus." He used to tell her. "She had the talent." She could hear his laughter and smell his aroma of sweet pipe tobacco mixed with peppermint lozenge and freshly pulled weeds. His gruff voice gently reminded the young girl to stay out of the fishpond and that roses had thorns. It seemed like yesterday, but then yesterday was so far away.

The old woman continued down the alley, turned into her yard, and wound her way among the neglected vegetable beds. She was careful to close and lock the gate to the ancient once white fence that protected the old-fashioned acre yard.

In the house, she put the cereal away in a cupboard, removed her coat and propped the umbrella against the kitchen wall. Then the old woman retrieved a few strawberries, picked only yesterday from her 'wild' strawberry patch and popped them into her mouth. "I'm really hungry after that walk." The woman said to herself as she searched in the dim, cool pantry for homemade bread and peanut butter from the health food store down the block. Her mouth watering in anticipation, the woman sat down to her feast of beer bread thickly slathered with naturally crunchy peanut butter and mayonnaise washed down with the goats milk, now somewhat warmer than when she bought it. Hunger almost satisfied, she sliced a banana into the rest of the strawberries and continued eating until she felt full. The old woman placed the leftovers in a bird feeder outside and poured a bowl of milk for the feral cats who made her home a regular stopover on their rounds. As she bent to put the bowl on the porch floor, the old injury complained bitterly and the woman had to grab a nearby chair to right herself. "It's not the age, it's the mileage." She reminded herself and went inside.

The faithful hound was still dreaming on the floor, his nose twitching, and an occasional paw padding the air beside him. Putting the bottle of milk in the refrigerator, she thought how much her companion would enjoy a cold bowl of milk in the warmer part of the day.

After the fullness of the meal, the old woman felt sleepy. "A good time for a nap myself." She said, brushed her teeth, took off her shoes, and lay down on the sun fresh quilt covering her antique bed.

The hip was right. Impromptu early spring raindrops danced on the roof and window lulling her into a deep and restful sleep. The woman dreamed of herself as a young woman dancing in the arms of the handsome lover from the picture stuffed into the frame of the mirror hanging in the hallway while the scent of daisies lingered in the air. She smiled, Now was the best time of all.

For a fun visit with another 'old lady' left click on the tree.