Shedding...
By Gailmarie Pahmeier
The last trip my husband and I took was to Santa Fe last February, a birthday treat for me. We splurged, stayed in a suite at La Fonda on the Plaza where we had a fire in our sitting room every night, sat out on the balcony to listen to the bells of Saint Francis Cathedral. Don bought me a pair of stunning silver earrings with an image of Guadalupe in the center of a large heart. We ate blue corn enchiladas at Tia Sophia’s, the incomparable green chile stew at The Shed, and yet more blue corn, this time in pancakes at Pasqual’s. We make this pilgrimage with some regularity. Don’s father is buried in Santa Fe, the city he loved and lived in for many years. When we visit Santa Fe, we visit his gravesite, leaving a package of graham crackers and a prayer card.
We also ventured to Chimayo, another regular pilgrimage to the Santuario. Each time we’re there, I know a peace I don’t have in my daily life, a quiet. I always visit the Holy Child of Atocha Chapel, leave snapshots of my nephews, believing for a time that I’m assuring their health and a bit of joy. We also decided we would visit Las Vegas, New Mexico, having read about the historic Plaza Hotel and the newly renovated Castaneda, both known for exquisite meals and trip worthy sangria. While in Las Vegas, we wandered over to the local bookstore, Tome on the Range. I couldn’t get enough of its dollar table—treasures I took home were novels by Claire Vaye Watkins, Willy Vlautin, and Daniel Woodrell, all writers I love. I also found a book I couldn’t resist—A Field Guide to Tools by John Kesey. I told Don that I was going to get some poems out of this text, and although he was skeptical, he’s tolerant and kind, so he handed over our crumpled bills, carried the sack of books all afternoon.
Fast forward to March, spring break at the University of Nevada, Reno. We’re scheduled to fly to St. Louis to see my parents; we have plans to indulge in barbeque at Pappy’s, frozen custard at Ted Drewes, toasted ravioli on The Hill. My parents are, quite thankfully, alive and still living rather independently in a senior housing complex. Two years ago, they announced quite abruptly that they were selling the family home, taking the two-bedroom apartment that had just opened. Blindsided, we couldn’t get there quickly enough to help them clean out their basement and shed, distribute furniture and trinkets to family and friends, and assist with realtors. They sold the house to an outfit that buys “ugly houses,” and the deal was done in days. I tried to imagine what I might have wanted—Mom’s Tupperware? Dad’s tools?
Of course, we didn’t make that trip. Mine are a people who usually err on the side of caution, take only necessary risks. As Don is in his seventies and I have an autoimmune condition, travel right now is not something we can plan, but when will I see them again? Will I get there in time to say something meaningful while they can still understand? Will my next trip there be one during which I’ll spend my days packing up what little they have left? How can I thank them for their stories, for the many gifts of grace and patience, and how can I say I’m sorry if I didn’t pay enough attention?
These questions brought me back to that little book I bought in little Las Vegas, The Field Guide to Tools. This is from the opening pages:
Disclaimer: The world of tools is very large. While we’ve taken care to represent popular and useful tools, we cannot guarantee that this guide addresses every possible tool. Safety is of the utmost importance when using tools. We are not liable for any use or misuse of tools by the reader.
And this is what I’d say to my parents:
Disclaimer: While cleaning out your sheds, I tried to learn something about you and what mattered. I’m sorry if I didn’t pay the sort of attention you’d hoped for. Making things work was your life’s work. Making things up is mine.
So I’m going to make some things up. I’m going to call them poems, for now. Here in closing are a couple of these which take as their premise a narrative exploring the things someone might find while cleaning out the sheds of those she’s loved. What did they want to teach her and what did she carry away, if anything? And how do objects take us into memory, bring back those things both beautiful and brutal?
I don’t know where this project is going, only that we’re all going somewhere. My hope for all of us is that we get there whole, that we are surrounded by love and beauty and plenty of books, and that the food is good, worth the trip.
Clamp
General Description: a heavy, G-shaped apparatus that can be tightened on objects to fit between its opposed jaws.
Secondary uses: pressing garlic, gravlax, or flowers.
Operating Principle: The screw. The bigger the screw, the tighter the squeeze.*
Inside his mother’s Red Letter bible,
dust of a daisy chain, crown she wore
at her confirmation. And there in the paling
photo, the other girls wear bows the size
of angel wings, large enough to say something
of promise resides inside a Christmas package.
Everyone is smiling. His mother’s fingers
must have flashed in the bulb light, the blood red
nails, the V sign. Confirm. Clamp this to your heart.
At Johnny’s Little Italy in Reno, Nevada,
the sizzle smell of garlic, coming into purpose
in a pan of butter, is what we miss most
in the days of quarantine and caution.
We can see the parking lot from our bedroom,
imagine a sauce so blood rich we can taste
it in our dreams. At Johnny’s, some signature
dishes are named after dead politicians.
Few who dine here would know to use a clamp
for gravlax, would not know this Nordic dish
of cured salmon, its heart of dill and vodka.
At Johnny’s, the clamp is all about garlic.
How do we get from flowers to garlic
to gravlax to weapon? Clamp down, declare
those behind white fences, inside rose gardens.
Do see operating principle above:
bigger screw, tighter squeeze. This isn’t about
mystery or hard science. This is about
pressing. This is about breathing. Speaking.
Bucket
General Description: metal or plastic cup that’s bigger than your head but smaller than your torso…
Secondary Uses: dumping water abruptly (or mischievously) on a car, a dog, or a person. In social emergencies, a clean bucket can be pressed into service for ice (cover with aluminum foil) or for flowers (cover with gift wrap).
Operating Principle: gravity.*
Imagine being a contestant on Family Feud,
the clue given is bigger than your head,
smaller than your torso. Do you shout Bucket?
But if the clue is Bucket, List makes sense,
you have one, and it’s likely to loom
large in your imagination, even if
your heart is a small thing, fragile, immured.
Perhaps your list includes opening that
boutique you’ve always hankered for, call it
Books, Boots, Baubles and Booze, be honest
about what you at last have come to love,
time’s a wastin’, sang June Carter, let’s get
together and dream some dreams, or maybe
all you really want is a chicken salad
sandwich, eaten on a beach towel, North Rim
of the Grand Canyon, but this is possibly
memory, not dream, so how about a pickup
caked with playa dust, obvious emblem
of your days at Burning Man, or perhaps
you want to carry a cross from Santa Fe
to Chimayo, crawl on torn knees toward heaven,
where buckets of cut flowers and cold beers
await. Your dog’s there, emanates scent
of the mown, having found the promised farm.
Your mother’s there too, bucketful of suds.
Someone has to mop up the mess of your
life, someone who understands gravity.
* the italicized sections at the beginning of each poem are taken from Field Guide to Tools, by John Kelsey.
Gailmarie Pahmeier teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada and in the MFA Program at Sierra Nevada University. Widely published, she’s the author of three chapbooks and three full-length collections of poetry, the most recent being Of Bone, Of Ash, Of Ordinary Saints (WSC Press, 2020). In 2015, she was appointed Reno’s first Poet Laureate, in 2016 she was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, and in 2017, she was selected as Outstanding Teacher in the Humanities.
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