THE STILE

The Stile

Its another bitterly cold winter morning. I get in my car to go deliver a job application. I know it’s a stretch and I know I won’t get it, but I try. On my way to work I realize I do not have my cell phone.

I pull up in front of my house. The shiny icy snow mound covers the entrance to my sidewalk and home. I cannot jump over it. The snow and ice glisten in the sun. I feel its cruel certainty.

I try. And then get down and go by another route.

Another busy day at school and yet I keep pestering people to tell them my winter tale of obstacle and frustration. People roll their eyes as I badger them. Winter is in its ruthless faze and we are already tired of it. Everyone has their own story of survival and we are sick of it already. There are three more months of it. The temperature hovers at zero.

Later in the day it comes to me. My need to tell the story of trying to climb over the snow mountain. That moment has triggered a very deep memory for me. One that I have not examined before. Yes. The tale I have to tell is of jumping over the stile to my cottage on the island. It was the only way to get there.

So now dear reader come with me as we approach my old cottage. Jump over the stile. Leave the twentieth century behind. It is deep winter now. I have tales to tell. Come with me. Now

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So, the island was small, there were hills and bumps. Unpaved roads. I lived up on the top of a hill. There was a natural resting place at the bottom of the lumpy hill. There women rested on their way to mass, while waiting for others to come from the farthest village. There, the lads gathered at night on their way to the pub. Their lit cigarettes, the only punctuation of the dark, dark night. There. There I would look out to nearby County Clare or over to Galway…or gazing farther south to the Connaught Mountains. Yes, it was all there before me. Distant places, dreams. In winter there might be snow on the faraway mountains and I would think of home. All those faraway places and there I was on that tiny island.
The old school teachers house was to my right as I started up the hill. There and empty and it not knowing nor me that it would hold me and my husband a decade later.
And old Peteys house to the left. The hill had an odd bulge to it. First one walked up and there was a plateau. There one could rest again, looking out to sea. There one could rest with the other women of the village and hear the latest gossip, or be the focus of it.
There by Josephs house.His eyes were as blue as the sea and his wife Delia had a silvery voice that rang out at the Old Folks Parties year after year. Farther up was my little village. There in that fine gray house to the right was the house of Mike ned Pole.The man all the islanders wanted me to marry. The road curved on up to the enigmatic castle with its faces of mystery all around it. Yes, there it was.
And then the two houses facing each other. People who befriended me and people who were so unceratain of me.

Then the house of Tom and Mary. If you walked up the driveway my old cottage was right behind it.

The Stile. All the fields of Aran were bordered by stone. Solid stone walls that had particular openings. The wall was set and where you went through was a loose gathering of stones that one climbed over. Some times there were stones set in the wall to get a foot hold on.

My stile had stones and some boards. I climbed over it going and coming from my cottage. I left it each day as I went to get water from the well and I carefully set the board in place at night. Sometimes at night I would hear the clattering of stones as a donkey came near….one night I heard the clattering of hooves out there. I looked out through my tiny window to see a white horse….as if out of a dream or old Joe’s storytelling. It was then and at other moments that I knew I was living in a dream.

The Next Day
It’s snowing and icy. I drive down the slippery alley and bump over the frozen lumps. Winter is eternal here on the Minnesota tundra. My memories enliven me. I jump over the present moment back into the past.