Poking a Hole in the Sky

Kate Flora: In the summer, especially, I get nostalgic for the Maine I grew up in and my family when I was younger. It may be harder, or more present, this summer, because I’m in the process of selling the family woodland—which might well be called the ‘hundred acre wood’—to a land trust so it can be preserved as open land forever. First the family home, then the lots along the lake, and now the woods where we playing as children and even had ‘houses’ among the ledges and hid in the hollow oak. Time moves on, I know, but it still makes me sad.

So what’s this about a hole in the sky? Well, recently while my husband and I were driving and talking about family and growing up and how we miss our parents and still have questions for them, he suggested that what we need is one day a year when we can poke a hole in the sky and ask those questions.

Wouldn’t that be great? There’s hardly a day that passes that I don’t have a question for my mother. She knew stuff, and when she didn’t know it, she was endlessly curious and would go and learn about it. She was a columnist for the Camden Herald, editing the home and garden page. If I had a question about plants, I knew she’d either have the answer or know where to find it. The farmhouse was full of reference books of all sorts, some of which now reside on my shelves.

This summer, when the deer have eaten most of my hosta, the buds off the daylilies and roses, and munched the tops off the phlox, I know she’d have some interesting suggestions a) about deterrents, and b) about plants I could grow instead that the deer won’t eat. Yes, the nursery would have those answers, but it’s not the same as calling up my mom.

If I had that day, I would pull up the manuscript for her second, posthumously published mystery, The Corpse in the Compost, and ask her where she intended to go with the business about the vintage fabric. Was there a real house that fascinated her that she used for the model of the lovely, abandoned one in the book where the children found “treasure?” Were there reclusive citizens in town she used as models for the recalcitrant sisters in the book?

One of the things she taught me, by comments and curiosity as we drove around town, was how many people in small towns had secrets, and who knew about those secrets. The easily identified married man’s car parked by the house of an unmarried woman. The young woman who had to go away for several months to ‘stay with an aunt.’ The man who kept his beer in a shed because his daughter disapproved, who had to hitch rides to the next town when his supply ran out. Some of those stories ended up in her mysteries; some stayed secrets.

Poking that hole in the sky, I would roll out the giant ancestry map that she’d made by gluing some posters together, and learn what I could about the relatives who had been uncovered. She did her genealogical research back in my childhood by writing letters. Letters to older relatives to learn what they knew. Letters to towns and churches to see what their records had to say about long ago settlers. These days, people log into ancestry for the same information, but for her, going to the mailbox was like uncovering treasure.

There’s no doubt that it was her love of information, and the uncovering and sharing of lore, that has led to my own fascination with novels that teach about people and places and professions while disclosing the mysteries.

It’s finally beautiful here on the coast of Maine. Cool, pleasant, and sunny. I think, although a manuscript is calling me, I will go outside and do some cloud watching. And remember my wise and clever mother, who would answer my questions if she could.

Clark children: John, Kate and Sara

Draft application of Kate M. Burke, storekeeper in Bingham, Maine, to the DAR

P.S. Reading an essay in the NYT this week about AI, Meghan O’Rourke quotes a poem by Mary Oliver called “Sometimes.” It is the essence of what we writers do:

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.