Taber, Gladys. The Stillmeadow Road. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
This was first published in 1962 and reissued in 1984. I like books that make a comeback. It is 1960’s quaint. Whimsical, even. Taber has a way of writing that is light and airy. There is no other way to describe it. Well, maybe it just seemed that way since I read it along side Annie Proulx’s harsh Close Range: Wyoming Stories. Whereas Proulx is arid and brutal and ugly, Taber is lush and sweet and pretty. Like, for example, I found it interesting that Taber glossed over everything involving her good, good friend Jill. They lived at Stillmeadow together. They did everything together. Yet, when Jill dies there is only a paragraph or two dedicated to the tragedy. It almost seemed as if Taber was skirting around her friend’s illness and death as a way to avoid talking about what Jill really meant to her.
Stillmeadow Road is a time capsule memoir about a homestead in Connecticut that Taber purchases with her friend, Jill. It’s all about country living, each chapter separated by the seasons. Month by month Taber lovingly describes life in a farmhouse by the weather, what’s happening in nature, how humans react to it all. Her observations focus on the trees, flowers, animals, and condition of the house throughout the changing seasons. Why do squirrels stay active throughout the winter? Why does it rain during dog shows? Why are storm doors so ugly? At the same time Taber injects social commentary about raising children, dealing with death, being neighborly, sorting out religious beliefs, remembering childhood…the story jumps between country-life observation and spiritual introspection.
A couple of favorite parts: “I do not know whether this happens to everyone, but I always have channeled great shocks into as many smaller ones as I can think of” (p 167), and “I have discovered if you take two steps forward and slip back one, you are sill a step ahead, which is a cliche but a true one” (p 169).
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Cozies” (p 57).
If it comes to you in ashes that means I burned it. Burned it, but sent it to you anyway. I am twisted enough that I would do something like that…just to show you my good intentions comes with an evil streak. I started this whole thing in earnest thinking I would, I could, build you a masterpiece. Something worthy of a bedside table as a good bedtime story..or maybe even a coffee table out in the open if I let myself dare to dream that big and ambitious and grandiose. Shopping for supplies was much like being a id again. I was drawn in by sparkly stickers, glittery borders, sticky glue, funky cutting scissors, colored paper of vellum and linen and cotton. So much to chose from I didn’t know where to begin or end. Embellishments aplenty. My credit card shook from exhaustion. I wish I could say my enthusiasm for the project held up through the piles and piles of purchases, pages and pages of printed out out-of-print pictures, the plethora of everything saved and once cherished. Suddenly, without warning I felt unworthy of the task at heart. Who was I to decide what to keep? What to exclude? How could I decide what was coffee table worthy? Every well-wished sentiment, every scrap of paper had something worth saving, keeping, holding onto. The insecurity grew and grew and grew with each passing page created until finally every page created became a page hated.
I think nine times out of ten people are cruel because they have something better to say…but they can’t think of it at the moment. Can’t think on their feet so they act like a heel. They have to be funnier than kind. Hurtful is hilarious and sweet is just plain silly. I think nine times out of ten people are critical because they are jealous. They don’t want to admit to being lacking or without. Just because they can. What does it take for someone to see the riches in life without making comparisons? It takes a tragedy to recognize a triumph.
~*LunaSea*~ 