LINCOLNVILLE – A quick stop at Wentworth’s the other afternoon to pick up some dog food turned into one of those long conversations in the pet food aisle with a neighbor couple. It happens in Hannaford’s, in Megunticook Market, at French & Brawn. You go in for groceries and come out reeling with sad news about a neighbor, or full of the antics of someone’s grandchildren, or maybe just chuckling at the way life is.

The way life should be. Meeting people face to face, not on Facebook. Looking into their eyes, your hand on their arm, hearing their story, telling your own. These past months since losing Wally there’s often a long, warm hug for me, along with the heartfelt “how are you doing?” We all say it to the bereaved, and of course there’s no real answer; I dropped “sh***y” right off the bat. No one wants to hear that. Instead I’ve settled with “depends on the day.”

But the conversation in Wentworth’s with Connie and Richard was much more fun. We’ve already had plenty of talk about Wally; this was about their fridge. Their 80-year-old refrigerator which they just replaced this week. His parents bought it used in 1940 when they married. It still worked. Why get rid of it? Apparently, some unexplained leaking finally sealed its fate, but then what 80-year-old doesn’t have some, well, leaking?

This isn’t the only elderly appliance I’ve heard of recently. Cyrene has her parents’ 1936 GE, and she has no plans to replace it. These are the refrigerators with the little square freezer at the top that holds just two ice cube trays (preferably the metal kind with the lever you pull up to release the ice), maybe a chicken breast and a quart of ice cream. It becomes caked with ice, and every once in a while you have to defrost the whole thing. It’s fun when someone recognizes what it is and asks, “does GE know about this?”

I admire her dedication to her heritage appliance; she recently moved into a new house, the perfect opportunity to chuck the old thing and bring in a shiny, new one, but the idea never occurred to her.

The conversation with Connie and Richard quickly went in a direction I could relate to: cleaning out the house. He’s saved every piece of paper, receipt, tax return, cancelled check, etc. and who knows what else. She’s determined to throw it all out. He seems on board with the idea, but apparently she made it clear that her sewing room was off limits. His stuff out, her stuff stays. Is this a pattern with couples?

Another friend takes every opportunity, when her spouse is gone from the house for a few hours, to get rid of the stuff he’s been saving. I think some wives look at me with envy as I wantonly heave bag after bag of the stuff we both collected into the back of my truck.

If I thought cleaning out Wally’s room with its deer antlers, biographies, guns, pipes, and teaching mementoes exposed the limit of my endurance, I was wrong. This past week I ran into my stuff. Inside a trunk in the barn I found the last afghan my mother made, along with a blanket knit by a friend for our third baby, and the one Wally’s step-father crocheted as he aged at Togus so many years ago. On top of these treasures was a puffy little sleeping bag I’d made when our house was so cold I was afraid the baby would freeze in his crib.

At the bottom I found several tattered remnants of quilts, including the only one my mother ever made, Grandmother’s Flower Garden; it used to be on my childhood bed, and I thought the pattern looked like fried eggs. Something about things made by hand always draw me in. I will never know the anonymous makers of the bits of lace, scraps of handwoven fabric, carvings, random drawings that I save, but most likely as the title of a book I have says, Anonymous was a Woman.

The trunk hadn’t been opened in years, not since I’d so carefully folded and tucked away the handiwork of our loved ones. I took one last look and ruthlessly stuffed it all into the plastic bag I was filling. Destination: the dump.

It was joining, in spirit, if not in actuality, the collected letters and cards of a lifetime. Who saves every last personal note that comes in the mail? Besides me, that is. Turns out I’ve come across several folks in the last few weeks who admit to the same failing. Of course, then there’s neighbor Richard’s accumulation of every financial transaction; I’d already pitched mine.

The sight of all that bundled up correspondence made me vaguely uneasy. Could I, would I in any future time actually read it again? No, I finally told myself, you’ll never do that. So the bundles, each representing a year or two, are stacked near the woodstove to be my fall fire starters, a bundle a day until they’re gone. The ashes will go out on the garden, truly compost made from memories.

Another neighbor told me recently of her ceremonial bonfires, held out in the backyard, disposing of her stash. If it sounds like I spend a good deal of time these days just chatting with neighbors and friends, as if I had all the time in the world, I do – and I do.

Still, I’m not nearly as cavalier about this delving into my past via stuff as I pretend. Last Christmas, his last Christmas, we gathered on the couch, he and I with our six grandchildren, the classic photo. One saucy little girl is lying across the back behind us with her stockinged foot in the air, another girl hugs her little boy cousin. The youngest – a boy ­– and the oldest – a girl – are on the end. I have a very silly expression on my face, and Wally, smack in the middle, has his arms and his big, warm hands around me (yes, I can still feel them) and one of the 9-year-olds. In a month and four days he will be dead, but this Christmas Eve he looks happy and healthy, no hint of the sickness about to return.

I take apart a framed photo of his grandfather. Addison Woodward, c. 1930, has a pipe in his mouth, hat on his head, and arms around a calf. He looks a lot like a young Wally. I’d given it to him one Christmas, nicely matted, and the carved wooden frame gilded; one of my better efforts at framing, and I thought it looked good. It hung in his room for years.

Haven’t heard of them? This is the group of volunteer gardeners who’ve been busy around town this past season. There are 26 of them now, men and women from all parts of Lincolnville. They've worked on the library beds and maintain all the beach beds, help people with plant identification, sponsor speakers, go on field trips (usually to nurseries), and have recently taken on the beds in front of the Beach Post Office.  Anyone who'd like to get involved is more than welcome: contact Marge Olson.

The Gardeners are sponsoring a free talk this Wednesday, September 27, by Jan MacDonald of Barley Joe Nursery at the Library, 7 p.m. Come with gardening questions. Refreshments too!

Pickles, Preserves and Pies Harvest Festival

Boy, this one is timely: would you like to clean out your craft and needlework supplies or tool shed and also support the Lincolnville Community Library? The Friends of the Library are looking for these items for their upcoming Craft, Fiber, and Tool Sale.

They welcome donations of craft supplies, fabric, yarn, needlework materials, and accessories such as knitting needles, cutting devices, needlepoint frames, and thread. Organizers also welcome donations of building, woodworking, and gardening tools. They ask that all items be in good to excellent condition. Donations may be dropped off inside the Library during open hours or left on the back porch. Or, to arrange for dropoff, contact the Library, 763-4343 or by email.

The sale will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on October 14 at the Library and across the street at the Lincolnville Boat Club. There will also be an open house to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the day in 2012 when community members pulled the building that is now the Library across Main Street.  

Salute to the Sun

Dawn at Lincolnville Beach, and a handful of people are there: a guy in his pickup who often stops on his way to work, Erin walking her Samoyed, another guy with a tripod and camera, me with my head in a trash barrel, rummaging for returnables. And suddenly, silently, a thin line of orange light pokes over the horizon. We all stand, scattered up and down the Beach, as if at attention, watching the daily drama of the sunrise. No one moves, not even the photographer. Does he forget to take the picture? Behind me, I see when I turn around, a woman in a pink nightie is standing on the balcony of an apartment across the road, holding up her phone for a photo. We stand quietly until the full globe appears, and the spell is broken.

We live here on the edge of the east. Come down some morning and enjoy it with us.