Falling From Eden's Grace

FALLING FROM EDEN’S GRACE

A Short Memoir

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August 2^nd., 1:45 A.M. Bar Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Maine

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*

No, it’s not God’s Eden. Although many who pass through here and the neighboring Acadia National Park might see it as such, this is a place west of God’s Eden, east of John Steinbeck’s Eden and James Dean’s Eden. This picturesque seaport town in Maine was given the name Eden in the late 1790s.

Once the home of pioneers, sailors and shipbuilders, later the summer home of the wealthy elite, now mostly it shelters a few thousand people who live here year round. And, during the summer months, another thousand take up residence here because of the added work. The work being to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of tourists who pass through here from spring to fall.

**

Next to the user friendly Saint Savior’s Episcopal Church, leaning against the old stone wall, I am sitting in the town’s two hundred year old graveyard at 1:30 in the morning. Surprisingly well-lit by the nearby streetlights, this graveyard is a part of the appeal of this centauries old seaport town that now, for reasons that escape me, is called Bar Harbor.

***

Leaning against the wall, puffing on a real Cuban cigar brought across from Nova Scotia, I sit with a legal pad and pen waiting in my lap. But I am not writing anything. In fact, I’m probably not consciencely thinking. Just siting and absorbing. And this is not new to me. I have sit here a dozen times. Usually not writing. Silence is often a welcome alley for most writers.

****

At this time of the morning the sounds and movements given up by the night have become all too familiar. Tempered laughter and toned-down voices echo from across the nearby village green as the last of the tavern and night-club patrons amble towards their homes.

Because the tourists, with children in tow, have long since headed back to their hotel rooms, cabins or campsites, these late-night revelers are the college students who work in the gift shops and eateries until the usual ten o’clock closing time.

After ten the night belongs to the shop keepers, the locals, the artists and writers and the young at heart. And, except for the few serious or married or health conscience students, most of them head towards the flow of the alcohol and music.

*****

Tavern closing time sends the young out onto the street and as they head towards their beds several dozen pass by the graveyard. They pass by on foot because they do not drive. In a town this small, with tourists season parking at a premium, walking has obvious advantages.

Most passing by do so with acknowledgment. On this island there is no isolation among the residents unless you choose to force it on others. Whole dimensions separate this world from an island down the coast called Manhattan. Everyone acknowledges everyone else. And I heard and replied to a half-dozen "How’s it going, man?" or "Nice night." or "What you writing now, Doc?" greetings.

****

Towards 2:00 A.M. the last of the stragglers passed by. This group was comprised of three young men and two young women, all in various stages of intoxication.

One of these guys tells the others to wait, then he walks into the graveyard, passing me without notice, stops ten feet from me, turns his back towards his friends, unzips his jeans and pisses on the ground. The ground, in this case, being a grave site.

One of the girls giggles. One of the guys laughs. The third guy, a student named George, who I had talked to before, follows his friend’s lead and relieves himself the same way. The second girl senses something perhaps morally wrong and offers up a modest protect.

"Guys, this isn’t cool," she scolds them.

"Why?" the first guy asks. "It’s not like we’re waking the dead or anything.

The first girl, thinking this profoundly humorous, laughs loudly.

***

As George and his friend zip up and turn to step back onto the sidewalk they notice me.

"Sorry, Doc, but we couldn’t wait," George responds, upon seeing me.

"Yeah, too much beer," the first guy snickers.

"What you still doing up?" George asks me.

"Just sitting here thinking about Stephen King," I reply.

By now the third young man and the two young women had walked into the yard.

"Yeah, Steven King’s cool," the first girl adds.

"He lives around here somewhere, doesn’t he?" her boyfriend asks.

"No, up in Banger, ninety miles from here", the second girl, obviously knowledgeable about King's life, replies. "But sitting here could certainly make you think about him."

"No, I just started wondering about him now," I say as I rise from the grass. "I was thinking it’s too bad his powers couldn’t extend beyond his imagination, couldn’t take on a physical form like they do with his characters."

"Yeah, that would be so cool, creepy cool, but still cool," the first girl says.

"Yeah," I respond. Looking at George and his friends. "It’s too bad he couldn’t somehow have Carrie, with her boney arm, reach up out of the ground and pull you guys down into her grave."

They look at me and wonder what part is serious and what part is attempted humor.

"But that’s not Carrie’s grave", George’s male friend finally replies.

"But it was still somebody’s grave," the second girl, the one who had entered the mild protest earlier, answers.

Words are sheepishly mumbled, then the first girl takes her boyfriend’s arm and leads him out onto the sidewalk. With the other three close behind, they wander down the street. Several quick glances back at the graveyard are all that interrupt their journey home.

**

Alone, I stand for a moment looking at the headstones of the two graves.

One headstone read:

Albertina Nickerson

June 15, 1880

- 26 years old -

The second one read:

　

Anne Nickerson

June 15, 1880

- 28 years old -

Were they sisters? Cousins? One a sister-in-law to the other? How would they have died the same day? A fire? An accident? A plague? Certainly not a plague, nor could it have been by local Native Americans, not in 1880. Not in Maine. So, what caused  these young women to die on the same day?

Child birth? Women before our time faced so many dangers that we can only imagine how it must have been and difficult births often took the mother’s life. But not both young women giving birth on the same day?

Then I looked around at many of the other headstones. A few lived long, hopefully happy, lives. But so many of these people died young. Life in the late seventeen hundreds, through the mid eighteen hundreds, was not easy to live. It took most of these peoples’ energy and effort just to provide shelter and food for basic survival. These people were not blessed with the lives of the affluent.

*

Walking away from the graveyard the only things I could think to ask myself were:

How much more relevance would we put on the lives of others, on life itself, it we were required to work as hard just to acquire basic needs? Would our few possessions carry that much more value? Would our rare leisure time be more carefully cherished? Would our achievements resonate with more gusto? And would the aging process be held to higher esteem?

Reviews

[g.r.]

Bravo, my friend. All I could think, reading yr. work was that I, too am leaning against that old stone wall, taking it all in. I guess you hit the nerve, bringing in Stephen King into your necessary exchange. Thanx
fine job, g.r.

[Willys Watson]

Thank you. this was based on an experience I had several years back in Maine.