ON FRED LEAVING

October is one of my favorite months. It's a colorful, sensual time beginning with the chill in the air, the smell of damp decaying leaves in the woods, the crinkle of dried leaves underfoot and the incredible freshness of the Maine mountain air. The clouds change and you are more likely to see a mackerel sky when there are contrasting air masses. This October came with a rough opening...a flu hit me that left me breathless and weak for about 15 days. Then, I turned 60. Talk about a chill...I guess it is hard to avoid the natural inclination to conduct a life review at the beginning of each new decade, and with the magnifying glass in hand and the questions pushing my gaze further and further back, I look back in hopes of discovering a new path for this stage of my life. I sometimes imagine myself as a brightly colored leaf drifting on the wind. Where will I land? And when I do...what growing process will begin? The sunny warm days push back against the cool windy days and frost nights. The wrestling match of air masses begins in earnest but the cold won't win out until November. October sunshine is special...golden, honey colored light that slants through the windows in the late afternoon. It has a dual nature like bittersweet...the parasitic plant that pops out bright yellow berries that burst into orange berries when the yellow jacket pops. Driving up the North Road the other day, we encountered a weasel. He seemed ambivalent about crossing the road and we got to watch him for a bit while he acted like he couldn't decide if he wanted to be on one side of the road or the other. The bracing chill of loss has visited several times so far this fall. There is a far away look as I gaze out the window and write...a bitter to the sweet. Lately, we have been experiencing a noticable increase in the number of folks our own age that are passing away. Most recently, a dear friend was taken after a motorcycle accident left him brain dead. This week we heard about a dear old friend from our past life in Marblehead who passed away day before yesterday out of the blue. All I know is, his brain started to bleed and he died Wednesday night. That was Fred. He was a good friend beginning in 1973-74...a jeweler who worked hard and steadily for all these years. I can see him now wearing his head gear eye piece that let him work on tiny things up close. He liked to smoke a cigar that, years ago, was a pipe. He loved to visit when I went in to his shop and we often talked about philosophy and the nature of life on this planet Earth. He came from a Jewish background, and I was brought up Unitarian and occaisionally we would discover big differences in the way we perceived what we believed to be our spiritual responsibilities as human beings alive on this planet. There was a quote that became our nugget of shared truth..."God loves an idle rainbow no less than a laboring sea." We talked about work ethic, duty and responsibility and I was taken by the image of God loving a rainbow because when we were first becoming friends, I was unemployed and exploring art...but feeling guilty about it. My puritanical roots just wouldn't let me have fun and Fred helped me to see the value in doing things that don't make me any money. Years later, when I left my first husband and just had to get out of Marblehead, Fred helped me escape by purchasing jewelry for a good price. He was kind and smart and a warm man who could also play a mean fiddle. His demeanor was humble and he always had a twinkle in his eye. The most juiced up I ever saw him was when he was working on some sacred Jewish artifacts...or a gorgeous sterling siver chalice that was for a local temple.

I let Fred into my heart. He put a few of my small dreams into jewelry reality. He made me a heart pendant that I designed when I first met my soulmate, Stephen. I had an idea and he made it a necklace. He also made our wedding rings. And when I had a sense that we would be leaving Marblehead, I had him set three small diamonds into my wedding band as symbols of my 3 men; Stephen, Sam and Will ...the loves of my life. That change in my wedding band was an effort to replace my grandfather's ring that was stolen from me when I moved to New York City. It made me feel whole again. But when my beloved father died in 1995, Dad gave me a sterling ring with thunderbirds on it. It was too big for me and Fred suggested I make it into a pendant. It has since become a sterling silver drum that holds a pinch of my fathers ashes inside. I was all nervous about making something with dad's ashes but after hammering things out with Fred in the realm of conversation, I made peace with my own odd request and love that pendant to this day. Fred took the time to know me even as he sat at that bench with his day's work ahead of him and his eye piece on his forehead.

Now he is gone. His life is a crisp orange leaf riding the wind to a distant strange ground and I will never again get to hug him. This losing of leaves is happening more and more frequently reminding me that I am now in the autumn of my life. The sacred wind is blowing...and some of those dancing leaves swirling in circles are members of my circle but only for a time. Every soul that leaves life on this Earth is another reminder that all we really have is today...this one wild moment in our one wild life. So...enjoy the wild ride on the winds of change and when your last leaf drifts slowly to the ground...let there be a field of garlic patiently awaiting the blanket of dying leaves to sustain it's growing once the bitter cold of winter is passed. Glory be. May you labor no more as you rest in peace FRED FINKEL...and may I count my blessings, my loves, my days as gemstones in a necklace linked by love.