<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The art of silence?\u00a0 Do not hide, for when you are among siblings, out of sight does not mean out of mind, especially when an order is easily delegated.\u00a0 Prepare to be busy, not look busy. This is essential to survival.\u00a0 Plan your day, but do not hope for the best. \u00a0 I had several chores, the major one being the gathering of driftwood\u2013no matter what the weather\u2013I became the driftwood gatherer, and I planned my days around the search for driftwood.
The weather made me, I\u2019m sure; great gusts of wind, cutting sleet, rain in deluges, and heat that baked the sand to an almost dead white kept me in one piece.\u00a0 Never once did I ever hear an anxious voice from the house as I drug the driftwood from the shore to the door.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
This was my job. The others had theirs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
No one wanted driftwood gathering.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Annie, bless her heart, wasn\u2019t up too much.\u00a0 She was always sickly and kept close to Mother.\u00a0 We harried mother and busied her.\u00a0 She spent most of her life it seemed scolding my brothers and clucking over Annie, who stood still to have her tears wiped away in a rough but tender way.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I hated school but loved to read\u2013as most readers discover.\u00a0 School distracts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
They shunned me for the books I read, but I read them anyway.\u00a0 I was the driftwood gatherer, I could face the disdain of any long nosed librarian.\u00a0 When we went once a week to the library (my classmates in purgatory), I felt she only pretended to put on her worst face for me.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
As driftwood gatherer I felt it incumbent upon me to be observant.\u00a0 There were several old Bibles in the library\u2013thus and so Bible donated by the family Captain Daniel McGuire, a Catholic and thus and so Bible, a Protestant, donated in the memory of Captain Joseph Fenton.\u00a0 When the Librarian had her back to me I touched their leather bindings and sometimes gilded edges and wondered where the families of these old captains were now.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Selecting books by George Elliot, Jane Austen, or any of the Bronte sisters and ignoring the looks of disdain from the Librarian, I went back to the line of Bibles awaiting my class mates. A donated Bible meant shipwreck. It also meant leaving the big lakes that took down their loved ones and frankly being sickened by the whole idea of setting sail. They left the Bibles in memory of someone who wouldn\u2019t see dry land until God\u2019s kingdom came to this leaking earth. \u00a0 I felt that\u00a0I was connecting to the driftwood I found along our shores by touching those Bibles.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I was young when I was first sent out to gather driftwood.\u00a0 The shoreline to Huron was close to our house, and it was cold in the morning, any time of year. The mist was often low to the ground.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
One October morning lost for some time, trying to find my way back with driftwood, I despaired of seeing my house and mother again.\u00a0 The driftwood was water logged and worn smooth by the roughness of the fresh water waves.\u00a0 So many don\u2019t understand that fresh water has no plashy, saltwater softness to it\u2013ever.\u00a0 The ships wooden and even the new long boats take a beating within the sharp and hardened waves of Huron, Superior, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
My father found me first.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWell, at last I find my daughter hard at her chore.\u00a0 What has become of you?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cHuron was in every direction,\u201d I sniffed a little hardened in attitude because of the heaviness of my load and the ache in my shoulders.\u00a0 \u201cEven on shore Huron mists up and hides shelter.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cNah, not true.\u00a0 Huron is only along the east here.\u00a0 She sent the mist to confuse you.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t want you to leave.\u00a0 There is no harm in her.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWhy doesn\u2019t she want me to leave?\u201d I felt little regard for her at the moment, and I felt myself struggling not to pee.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWell, Huron loves all lovely young maidens.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I looked up in hope at my father.\u00a0 His hair was gray and his eyes a sharp sky blue.\u00a0 He seemed tall but not so tall among other men at church.\u00a0 Until that moment, I was not sure father noticed me \u2014 ever.\u00a0 I could feel a thin mucus crust along the edge of my nose and my eyes felt swollen and my shoulders ached with pulling the driftwood beside me, in what seemed to be all day.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cNow let\u2019s see what you have here.\u201d\u00a0 My father pulled up the driftwood I had gathered; gray and black, heavy and long.\u00a0 \u201cYes, yes, I knew you had it in you.\u00a0 This is from my ship, I\u2019m sure.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you see pretty girl, Huron loves you and wants to keep you near, and has given you a piece of what I worked so long and hard for.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cI think I should find Mother.\u201d \u00a0I told him.\u00a0 His fine blue eyes stared long and hard at the driftwood I had drug along behind me; he said nothing.\u00a0 So I started off again, away from Huron\u2019s shore, my shoulder\u2019s aching and my legs dragging deep within the sand.\u00a0 When I looked up again, the house was in view and I fought the urge to weep openly; a sure sign of weakness.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWhere have you been, you dolt, looking at rocks again?\u201d asked my Mother.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said, \u201clooking for driftwood like you said.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cI\u2019ve told you not to be so long \u2014 what would your father say if he could see you?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I thought of the Bibles in the Library and how ours remained on the shelf at home; mother wouldn\u2019t leave him, you see.\u00a0 I shrugged and went into the warm kitchen.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Nearly every day, I look for driftwood and wonder which sailors clung to the edges and then let slip away and which Bibles are donated, which remain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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The art of silence? Do not hide, for when you are among siblings, out of sight does not mean out of mind, especially when an order is easily delegated. Prepare to be busy, not look busy. This is essential to survival. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,3],"tags":[36,39,21],"class_list":["post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ghost-story","category-short-fiction","tag-amwritingfiction","tag-ghost","tag-shortstory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lydiaink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/the-Driftwood-gatherer.png?fit=1536%2C1024&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2223,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions\/2223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}