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Reaching Tree: An Homage
By Mary Armao McCarthy
For over a decade I have photographed Reaching Tree at Pyramid Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. The tree's low curve over the water stretched farther each summer, reminding me of Browning’s poetry that “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” Blueline magazine published one of my photographs of the tree as it defied the laws of gravity, stretching west with lingering sunlight gilding its green branches. This year when I arrived at Pyramid Lake, the branches of Reaching Tree were brown and bare, a rusted skeleton.
“What happened to the tree?” I demanded of Neil, Director of Pyramid Life Center. He looked puzzled, attentive but not answering. The tree had been my emblem for striving and endurance. Its position was a spunky reminder of the little girl who lived across the street years back. Forbidden by her mother to step off the sidewalk, she instead perfected the art of leaning forward off the curb at an angle so low it would be the envy of any limbo dancer. Reaching tree had a ballet corps of evergreens standing tall en pointe behind while she reclined beneath. She was a ballerina in a pose of grace that required extra strength, beautiful but vulnerable.
“The reaching tree,” I told Neil, thinking it impossible that this loss would not have resonated with everyone, “What happened to it?”
“We lost a lot of trees,” Neil answered gently, “It was a hard winter.”
I thought of the final pose in the ballet, The Dying Swan, with the ballerina on the ground with arms outstretched, head down, feathers folded. Its famed choreographer, Mikhail Fokine, described the dance as “the symbol of the everlasting struggle in this life and all that is mortal.”
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Mystery at the Museum
By Mary Armao McCarthy
Were you the man at the museum?” I started to ask, then stopped myself. The man walking up the aisle at the store had a distinct, self-assured bearing. I took a moment to consider why he reminded me of the man at the museum and if the similarity were enough to ask about now. He was tidy, I reflected, in his fully buttoned suit jacket, with a pleasing posture and neat brown hair. Not large, but then knights of old were not always large. And then I noticed the man’s shoes. Spats. He was wearing spats, bright white cloth that covered all but a border of his brown shoes. Unusual, non-traditional, and from another time. He moved smoothly by me. I debated, then decided I would speak to him. But he was now too far past, with his back to me as he leaned into a conversation with the clerk at the pharmacy counter under the sign Consultation. My moment for a spontaneous question slid by.
Was he the knight from the museum? I thought about him as I wandered out of the drugstore. Several months earlier my husband and I had gone to an evening open house at the Albany Institute of History and Art. We were standing by ourselves in a side room, talking in hushed museum tones about the special meaning of the space for us because our son’s work had been displayed there once in a ceramics exhibit. I was musing hopefully to my husband that perhaps some energy from Michael’s pottery lingered. As we talked, another museum visitor entered, and he strolled through the current exhibit
The man wore a tailored suit, and as he moved about I realized that beneath his buttoned suitcoat he wore not a shirt and tie but a metal breastplate, so well fitted that it did not immediately stand out. It was the beams of display light from above striking the metal that drew my attention. And then the man raised his arm, and I saw he had a metal glove and gauntlet on one hand.
Possible reasons for his costume flew through my mind. Was he a research scientist doing a study on how others would react to him? Was he badly scarred and hiding it, like the burned woman with the veil on the old soap opera The Secret Storm that I used to watch after school with my Great-Aunt Nellie? What other explanations might there be?
In addition to his armor, the man was remarkable for his composure. I tried to assume a mature attitude, worthy of any museum patron. In spite of this resolve, as the three of us moved into a larger room, I took advantage of the first opportunity to whisper to my husband without being overheard. “Yes,” Kevin replied, “I noticed him.” Kevin was far less intrigued than I was by this mystery in the museum—although when we got home and talked about the exhibit, neither of us could remember what was on display in that first room.
The museum was sparsely visited that night. My interest shifted away from museum items to fixate on the classic gentleman. His medieval metal glove was a deserving museum piece, with each finger closely fitted, each perfectly hinged and articulated. I was consumed with watching without appearing watchful. I noticed other people noticing him, but no one spoke or asked a question. My own mind was scrubbed clean of any overture that might be appropriate as we drifted through rooms in the same general flow. Thinking back, I could have asked what he thought of a painting or of one of the flapper costumes in the main gallery. Maybe I could have transitioned into a question about his own costume.
But I was stopped by something about the stillness of the museum and his own calm manner. Perhaps I did not want to break the mystique that his presence brought. We exited the building together, and my last sight of him was of metal covered fingers turning the steering wheel of his car as he drove away.
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Prompt
By Mary Armao McCarthy
“It’s a prompt,” a friend said today at our writing group, giving the final word extra emphasis as she shared a song title that might serve as inspiration. My mind stuck on that last word. “Prompt,” I mused. It is not a term I usually relate to. “Late” is my word. At times I wrap it around my shoulders like a cloak that shoots me into a superpower of high gear activity because I am, well, Late. There is sometimes an added layer of Desperate.
Friends tell me I believe I can teleport myself, since I leave one location at the time I’m scheduled to arrive at another. When teleportation becomes possible, they say I’ll be the first to go, since I already think I can do it. I read in Science magazine that teleporting may be physically possible, but it is uncertain if you will arrive at your destination as the same person who left. It seems molecules have a tendency to shift around in the process. Or something like that. I guess improved planning on my part would be a better option.
I take comfort that one of my heroes, Abraham Lincoln, was not always prompt. He wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope while riding the train on his way to deliver the speech. My husband points out that responsibilities of a wartime president are a tad greater than mine in justifying last minute preparation, but I counter that the pressure of a deadline sometimes improves the effort.
I have tried over the decades to break my tardy habit, and I’ve pondered over its cause. Arriving late at meetings and parties can be a safety net for introverts like me who are not good at small talk or think of a great line of banter an hour after arriving home. Over the decades, maturity had diminished this aspect, so I am still seeking a Why. I was wondering about it just this morning as I barreled down a side street on my way to a dentist appointment five minutes away from my house. Maybe my procrastination is a genetic trait inherited from an obscure late ancestor.
Sometimes running late has a practical benefit. The adrenalin surge of Late definitely helps get me moving and thinking and acting and doing. In Late mode, I grow extra arms and legs. Multiple hands scoop up tons of otherwise un-liftable objects and transport them where needed. Knees that no longer like to bend suddenly rotate into action. A recording starts, coming from my mouth and directed at my husband or friends. “Sorry I’m late,” it parrots. “But happy to be here,” I silently add.
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