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Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks CHAPTER 11 CROE: LUTHIERS AND LOGGING Driving around the countryside getting to know that part of West Virginia shortly after our arrival, we drove south out of Philippi toward Buchannon. “Charles Mason, Luthier, Lap and Hammered Dulcimers,” announced a homemade sign complete with a lap dulcimer rendering. We came back around and turned into the long driveway to find out who was behind this sign. By the time we got to the house a man in his early 60’s with thinning hair and an angular weathered face hiked up his green work pants as he walked toward us greeting us in a friendly way. “Noticed my sign did you?” asked the mountain man. We talked about musical instruments, especially lap and hammered dulcimers. “Luthier has nothing to do with religion,” Charles kidded. “I’m not a Lutheran. A luthier is a builder of stringed instruments and I build mostly lap and hammered dulcimers.” I first fell in love with dulcimers in the large geodesic dome in Northern Ontario. Easy to transport and easy to play I wanted to build one and hoped today to find someone who would be willing to teach me. I was tired of not knowing things beginning to end. We chatted easily as if old friends. “C’mon inside,” Charles invited. I paused at the door, let my eyes adjust and looked around. A room full of music greeted us. The largest presence was a blonde hammered dulcimer about three feet wide and more than two feet across set up on a stand. Charles stood at it, indicated where we should sit, picked up his dulcimer hammers and started to play a snappy tune. I continued to look around the room finding eight lap dulcimers leaning against the far wall, a guitar case against the side wall behind a chair and a fiddle on a stool. We clapped for Charles’ performance and he grinned widely at the praise and started another tune. He seemed happy to have an appreciative audience. “Mr. Mason, where did you learn to play like that?” I asked over our applause. “Call me Charles or Charlie,” he said with a wide warm grin hiking up his 61 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks pants again. Suddenly the atmosphere turned cold. A dark haired woman with wary eyes walked into the room, wearing an apron over her cotton dress. “I’d like you to meet my wife Suzie,” Charles said never losing his enthusiasm. Suzie offered us a generous helping of icy cold mountain hospitality. He tried to warm her with his smile and a soft touch on the arm, but she bristled at his attempt. Susie’s frosty stares were a stark contrast to Charles’ warmth and kindness. She never said a word, turned her back and returned to the kitchen where we heard water running and the clanking of pots and pans. “Never you mind her,” confided Charles, “she just don’t take lightly to outsiders.” Charles played several of his instruments for us with joy and enthusiasm. We applauded with delight. He was quite the showman. We chatted with an ease typical of a long–term friendship and eventually I felt comfortable enough to say what I really wanted. “I would like to have an instrument that I know from beginning to end. I’m tired of knowing only beginnings and endings and not knowing the middles. Would there be any possibility of building a dulcimer with you?” “Waaaaaallll…” Charlie reflected, stroking his chin and looking toward the kitchen shifting from leg to leg. “Right now probably not, but maybe someday.” We exchanged names and telephone numbers before we left but I had little hope he would ever call. I knew it was a lot to ask, and Susie’s frigid attitude stood like an iceberg in the way. I let it go. If it were meant to be, it would happen. We left glad for the experience of hearing Charles play and speak. ***** “My wife’s gon’ an’ killed herself,” Charles’ steady voice reported immediately after I answered the phone. “I’m going to be lonely, and if you still wanna build a dulcimer, it’ll be time when I have my affairs settled.” “What happened?” I asked astonished at his announcement. “My wife’s an epileptic – crushed her skull on the basement ceeement stairs in a fit. She’s in a coma to Morgantown. They don’t expect her to live.” Who was this man who was arranging for his life after his wife’s death before she was fully declared dead? He sounded so down to earth and realistic about his feelings. He knew he’d need time to mourn and transition, but also knew loneliness would set in and he would need company. His children and their families lived many hours away. I was intrigued by 62 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks his practical attitude. He was not an uncaring man. He just cared for himself and took responsibility for his future in a most down to earth way. I respected that and was a bit in awe. ***** After two weeks of exacting wood and metal work, stringing up an instrument is magical and far different from finishing a cabinet, a table, or a chair. My first white walnut lap dulcimer had just been strung, and now I would play it for the first time. “Bringgggg,” sang the strings and I was hooked. It had a lovely voice. Charles had already taught me a few simple tunes on one of his dulcimers. It is magical to hear the voice of something you built. Charles stood behind me smiling as I played. He tapped me on the shoulder with a dulcimer hammer (a light wooden mallet) and said, “Gurrrl, you could be a Luthier. You have the talent. I’d like to offer you a partnership.” “You mean an apprenticeship,” I corrected. “Nope, don’t believe in them. When you do the work, you get the pay. That’s fair,” Charlie looked me straight in the eye as he said this and continued doing so after he stopped speaking. “Oh, yes, yes…” was my eager reply confident we would work out the details. I started working with him immediately part time. In spring, I left teaching to study with Charles full time. Later Don started working in the shop and we both became accomplished Luthiers. I loved this business: collecting wood, building instruments, playing music, attending arts & crafts festivals and county fairs. Most of all I enjoyed getting to know Charlie, the grandfather I never had. ***** “Lucy has a big sugar maple tree that needs cut. It’s good dulcimer wood, and I know a sawyer who’d rip it for us. Do you know anyone with a logging truck?” Charles never really asked, he assumed we would take down the tree. I was strong and buff from all the farm and construction work and it never occurred to me to say no. Steam rose from the moist pavement as the rising sun started to penetrate the foggy morning. Ricky’s half–ton logging truck creaked over the bumps in the dirt road just a ‘fur piece’ from Charlie’s place. The truck groaned to oblige the unexpected stop for two fawns and a doe frozen in the middle of the road. They stared at us with their big glassy eyes. Don had the presence of mind to turn off the head lights to break the spell. They still stared at us dazed for another minute. Then they turned their heads and meandered in no hurry. They knew it was not yet hunting season. We heard their hooves 63 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks crunch the thick carpet of leaves next to the road. We watched as they disappeared into underbrush beneath a canopy of birch, cedar, pine, oak, and a gigantic molting mottled barked sycamore tree. Another quarter mile down the road we were grateful the skunk disappeared into the mountainside without spraying. Flashes of color lit our path as male red, blue and indigo bunting birds dashed across in front of us, trying to divert our attention from their nested mates and “youngins”. Doors open, Charlie’s car stood on top of the hill alone. He soon emerged from the house hiking up his Sears & Roebuck’s green work pants. We waved, and he pointed to the sugar maple tree towering over the house to the right. It would have taken two of us to ring the bottom of that trunk. He indicated felling it into the empty lawn in front of the tree. From down here it seemed big enough to allow the tree to fall forward without hurting anything. With a bit of an angle, the upper limbs should clear the house. The lawn gently sloped until it met a precipice before a drop–off too steep to support plant growth. I backed the truck through the ditch while Don directed until the truck bed was snug against the hillside. We had a plan: we’d roll the tree trunk pieces to the edge of the lawn and then let gravity do the rest of the work, landing them on the truck bed. We hiked up the steep driveway carrying our tools. The smell of good coffee quickened our steps. The neatly kept country home’s back door was open to the kitchen where Lucy was putting plates on the table. Bacon, sausage, eggs, grits and ‘biscuits and gravies’ made for a full meal to start a hard, physical work day. Charlie had already mapped out how to “fell” the tree and had marked the tree trunk at the level Lucy wanted for a table to be left. There was enough open space, no wires in the way and we determined that the house was not in jeopardy of being hit by falling branches if it was properly notched. We all agreed ropes were unnecessary. After breakfast, I brought the sunshine yellow Husqvarna chainsaw over, and Don started it up. “Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm,” rang the chainsaw, echoing off surrounding mountain sides. Don, the expert, made the first cut at just the right angle. The chainsaw roared louder with the effort to finally get the wedge out on the second cut. Don paused for water and breath before making the third cut from the other side directly opposite and above the wedge. The roar of the chainsaw rose and fell as Don rocked it to get through the huge sugar maple tree trunk. It was some time before the tree started to creak and tip. One more roar of the chainsaw, and we all got out of the way and watched as this gentle giant tipped forward in the silence and thudded to the ground exactly as planned. 64 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks “Swoosh…crash,” repeated the echo before still returned to the air. Our deep breaths were audible, relieved to have it on the ground so smoothly. Don and I took turns cutting and hauling the upper branches into the woods. The first ten trips were easy and fun. Then the heat of the day moved in with the rising sun and we needed to change out our sweatbands during hydration breaks. By lunch, we had the brush removed and the firewood stacked. ***** After lunch, we were down to the trunk logs. We wanted to keep as much of the bottom as we could because that would give us our choice of the best dulcimer wood. The truck bed could handle a 15’ log, so we cut the trunk into three lengths, the widest part being the longest. I placed my leg on the log and ran the chainsaw through a little at a time. Don took a turn and then I completed the cut. At the widest, the trunk was slightly higher than my knee. Charlie shook his head in the way that meant he was proud of me and surprised by my abilities and willingness to do ‘men’s work.' Don and I took our places on either end and rolled the biggest trunk log one careful revolution at a time. We wanted it on the truck first. It settled into place with a thud with each revolution. We took our time moving it toward the drop point. We stayed in front of the knee–high 15-foot long log to keep it from getting away from us. We stopped it about five feet from the precipice. Don was concerned for the truck bed if the log built too much momentum, so he wanted to control it as long as possible. I stopped and got out of the way when I thought it was time to just 'let ’er roll.' Don walked to the edge, intentionally kicked a stone and watched it tumble clinking off rocks on its way to the bottom. It hit the truck bed with a thud. “Now’s when we should have cant hooks,” said Charlie, the sidewalk supervisor, hands behind his back. Unfortunately, we had not thought ahead to borrow some. “Don’t need ’em,” responded Don confidently. “We can roll it one more time before the hill takes it. It’s best to control it as far as we can,” Don said with authority. “No, we can’t,” I protested quickly looking at him as if he were crazy. “Yes we can, just one more roll,” he said, nodding his head trying to convince me it would work. Charlie stayed out of the conversation. “No way!” I protested, and we continued to argue back and forth. Several situations had shown Don knew my strength better than I did. I was stronger than I ever thought I could be. Eventually I gave in to his confidence and his Aries the Ram insistence. “OK, let’s do it,” I agreed and took my place slightly left of center, downhill of the log. Don moved to his place right of center, and I waited for 65 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks his signal. “Go!” We rolled the log one more revolution with the intention of stopping it. When I realized gravity had it, instead of immediately jumping free, I took a split second to see if Don was safe. He, of course, jumped free, and the horror on his face as he realized I was pinned underneath the log branded in my brain. I was headed down the mountainside, and, there was nothing any of us could do. I actually remember feeling sorry for Don when I saw the helplessness written across his face. The log bounced on my legs as it dragged me down the rocky mountainside. Baba Ram Dass says the greatest thing about an accident is that you have nothing to do but pay attention. He’s right. I did. Grateful for the yoga I’d practiced I relaxed staying remarkably calm and focused. Unaware of pain I let the log roll me without resistance. Hyper aware, I watched and rolled with the log. Where it pushed I went – resistance was truly futile! Everything moved into ‘slow mo’ with the volume turned up on colors and details. I waited for the log to roll onto the truck bed hoping it would free me. I have no memory of feeling fear as we bounced and tumbled together – me on my back, legs under the log, but when it reached my right hip, I felt the first pangs of resistance, “Don’t get my vital organs.” I thought. I was so focused on the log and what it was doing that I didn’t even notice the rocks cutting into my backside. Soon after, I felt the pressure lift, and I rolled immediately hard and fast to get under the truck bed. The log, not centered on the truck, bounced back and forth violently hitting the ground right where I had been seconds earlier. I stopped under the truck, relieved to be alive. The log came to a stop with one end on the ground and the other in the air. The midpoint rested on the front corner of the passenger side of the truck bed. A cloud of dust made me cough, and coughing was not comfortable. Astonished and momentarily relieved and probably in a state of shock, I looked into Don’s eyes as he bent under the truck and intensely asked, “What do you want to do?” Without hesitation, I answered his searching and apologetic look, “Take me up to the couch and help me heal this,” I said with soft firmness. He gently scooped me up, strode smoothly up the driveway to the house and placed me on the already sheeted couch. Both Charles and Lucy chased him, pestered and badgered him with questions about taking me to the hospital. I don’t think he wasted time answering. He placed towel draped pillows under my feet to elevate my legs. Perhaps adrenaline kept me from knowing how badly I was hurt. Perhaps faith kept me hopeful, or I recognized a life contract deep in the recesses of my soul. The back of my 66 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks shirt was torn beneath the denim shirt jack and my legs were covered in scrapes and blood. I turned quickly from outer to inner sight. I had already run the hospital scenario through my mind and rejected it. Wasted time and energy arguing with hospital personnel over unhelpful procedures and policies would have slowed healing. There was plenty of energy reverberating in and around me and I preferred channeling it immediately into healing. How I knew we could transform that energy into healing if we were not distracted, I cannot explain. I just knew deep inside this was the better way to go for me. The miraculous healings of the past two years encouraged me and Don seemed hopeful. Don held his hands over me, prayed for and allowed healing to flow through us. I sank back into meditation and gratitude. Lucy’s friend, Mary, had been there since lunch. Mary was my definition of a ‘mess’. We had visited her house once at Lucy’s request to help her move some things and it smelled so awful that I had to hold my nose and use a bandana to filter the air. She was five foot nothing, weighed over 350 pounds, had a chin and neck full of amazingly long untended facial hair and the stains on her chin indicated she chewed tobacco. She smelled of cigarette smoke, alcohol and coal. Who would have known she had a gift of healing? Perhaps it was because of this gift that she drank. She laid hands on the soles of my feet, lowered her head without a word and stayed right there – all night long. I could feel the energy running through us. I don’t remember her even getting up to go to the bathroom before dawn. This was a large lesson in not being judgmental. I worked internally with angels in what I call my ‘upper room’: a place where my everyday awareness doesn’t need to know details. Most of my consciousness was in the upper room and very busy. In this state, I was able to transcend pain. The job of my wakeful conscious mind was to relax, to allow and to believe. I was distantly aware that we were working with spiritual beings to heal bones and tissues. Occasionally detailed images of bones knitting together surfaced like looking at the living cellular level through a stereoscope. I was conscious all night and astonishingly peaceful and focused. Mary and Don were also completely focused on healing. We did not speak; we just did the work. First light accented the sheer white curtains flowing in the open window’s breeze when Don took a bathroom and cigarette break. I had felt her presence before I saw her – Lucy swaying in the doorway, an empty brown bottle of booze in one hand and the other holding onto the door frame keeping her mostly vertical. Lucy’s blue chiffon nightgown mimicked the movement of the curtains. Suddenly she staggered forward, her nightgown eerily following her 67 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks dangerous movements. The first flare of fear flowed through my stomach. The swinging bottle, an ominous extension of her right arm, sent whiskey wafts on the breeze. I turned my head to avoid breathing them in and tried to pretend to be asleep. She stumbled to the couch, pulled a pillow from under my legs and slurred, “If yer awe raaaght and don’ need no hospital, git up ’n walk,” Lucy stumbling backward, jerked her empty hand in a gesture meant to make me get up. I gasped, acutely aware of pain for the first time as my legs fell on the sofa with one thud. I held my breath and my tongue and rode the waves of pain. Don appeared in the doorway wondering what to do. Mary, at my feet, never flinched. When no one responded except with stunned silence, Lucy stumbled back to bed and passed out. We didn’t see her again until breakfast. I’m sure she felt responsible and worried. When I heard her snoring, I relaxed back into deep meditation and started to work on healing again. Don replaced the pillows under my legs with exquisite care. Mary never looked up. Her breathing was shallow, but not hollow like someone asleep. Don took his place standing over me running energy through his hands again. The first rays of daylight streamed through the lightly moving shear curtains when I finally fell asleep. ***** Sizzling bacon brought me to wakefulness in full sunlight. I felt surprisingly refreshed and free of pain. Charles’ voice in the kitchen indicated he had returned and somehow Lucy was lucid enough to make breakfast. The place Mary had held at my feet was empty and I heard Don talking with Charles in the kitchen. “How’s she doin’?” “She’s fine,” I answered Charlie’s question. Charlie entered the living room with a pair of crutches and tried to smile. He looked me over with a wince and extended the crutches to me shaking his head. I must have been quite a sight. I perused my legs and found the scrapes were well scabbed like they had happened a week ago rather than yesterday, but they were not pretty. Don helped me rise up on the crutches and I smiled when I found I could walk surprisingly well with their help. I maneuvered around the furniture into the bathroom. In the kitchen I accepted the steaming bacon, eggs, grits, apple juice, toast and muffin breakfast, gratefully eating my fill. We didn’t talk much and avoided the subject of the accident altogether. After thank you’s for the breakfast and assuring Lucy I’d be alright, I crutched to the truck, pulled myself up and in. Thank God, my arms were still working well. 68 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks We had scheduled a party for the next day and most of our friends lived without telephones, so we just went ahead and had the party. I changed my shirt, but left the cut offs on, unwilling to try the weight of any fabric on my ninety percent abraded legs. Don ever so gently patted a soft cloth soaked in warm water to remove excess blood. I was surprised to find the scratches were not as deep as I thought and most of the blood patted away easily. Despite this, I had to assure each new arrival that it looked much worse than it was. “I’m really fine.” I assured each guest group as they went through their shocked response. “Really, I’m fine now, please have something to eat and drink,” I pointed to the buffet table and those who brought refreshments added theirs to our repast. This ritual had to be repeated for each new group but eventually everyone settled in. People ate, drank and made merry. We played dulcimer music and I told some of my famous ‘shaggy dog’ stories which were met with rolls of moans and groans and we even laughed about the logging incident though I knew it was not funny. The party was a great distraction for me. I don’t even remember taking aspirin. I was back to teaching special education at the local high school within the week. Filled with gratitude that I could walk at all, it took many therapies and many years to get my legs back to complete health, but I walked without help in less than six weeks. If I had gone to the hospital, I suspect I would have never walked again. They would have X–rayed my legs and said, “You will never walk again. The damage is too extensive.” Either I would have believed them and spent my life in casts and wheelchairs, or I would have wasted a lot of energy fighting their opinions. Instead, I applied that energy to healing. Today most people cannot see my injury in my walk. ***** Don held his hands over me from midday to dawn running healing energy through me with concern on his face. He did all he could to help me heal that night in the WV mountains. Don did his utmost to care for me. He cooked, cleaned, gently bathed my legs with herbs and tenderness that repeatedly brought tears to my eyes, my heart overflowing with gratitude. We were very close, in love. He hovered nearby every time I crutched my way to the outhouse or truck to make sure I didn’t stumble or fall. Where was that man now? How had he become so callous? Who was this white gorilla yelling at the top of his energy about me interrupting his DM calls? What happened? What stimulated such a 69 Thirsting for a Raindrop Lyneah Marks dramatic change? Midlife crisis yes, but what was this midlife crisis? I did not know. It was nothing like the ones my friends’ husbands had – he didn’t run off with a younger woman or give me an STD and I am grateful it did not take that shape. Rudolph Steiner defined the midlife crisis as a time when we revisit the unresolved issues of adolescence, providing an opportunity to heal. Others say it’s a time when we have a choice to deny or face the facts of aging. That explains the running away with younger women, but it did not explain Don’s version. I longed to know what had turned him into someone who could coldly leave me alone in our Carolina log home with questionable broken bones thirsting for a glass of water, thirsting for companionship and love, thirsting to make sense of my current world. What had taken me from a strong liberated woman to a broke and broken mess on the couch like a desert plant thirsting for a raindrop?