2-6
“She
died in her chair right there.” she continued gesturing to another 1880’s oak
rocking chair that was a near match to her own in the kitchen. “I spoke with her and went to the
kitchen. When I came back I
thought she was asleep; just sitting there. An hour later I realized SHE’S DEAD!”
I
was looking at the chair at the side of the room beside the window where a
sitter could …look out. “How old
was she?” I heard myself say while still wondering WHAT to say.
“Ninety-three.”
said Alice softly.
WELL
NOW WHAT DO I SAY? I didn’t have
to say for Alice continued after the silent pause.
“YOU’VE
SEEN IT NOW and it’s NOT FOR SALE!”
“Seen
what?”
“BLOOD
FARM. MY FAMILY. IT’S NOT FOR SALE!”
I
didn’t dispute that. I didn’t do
anything. I just stood there. The house was full of antiques. And they were not for sale. That didn’t surprise me. In fact I didn’t care.
Alice,
she had demonstrated, obviously was fully aware of ALL the antiques in the
house. She obviously knew they
were “good” and “valuable”. She
knew ALL of the things in her home very personally and had for a very long
time. Sure she didn’t know the
exact collector super facts about each iota of every object. She didn’t know the detailed detail
that probably the finial on the top of the banjo clock was replaced by a family
member in 1889 to suit their personal taste, that the old tall clock
(grandfather clock) lurking in the dark behind the door of the far front room
had an English brass movement in a coastal Maine or New Hampshire
cabinetmaker’s Federal style case or that the china service on the dining table
had an age disparity of the plates being gold trimmed porcelain from the 1870’s
while most of the serving pieces were Chinese Canton probably purchased by a
family sea captain for his still highly regarded by Alice wife… And ever more USELESS antiquarian IOTA
of NO sense to the … WHAT DID I JUST WALKED THROUGH?
I
got it.
ALICE
GOT IT. And evidently she had got
the got it for a long, long time.
She got it from her mother… who died in her chair. The MOTHER got it and SHE got it from
HER mother… who died somewhere in this house. Two mothers before that THAT mother died in the house giving
birth.
After
that they redecorated?
NO!
They
didn’t touch a thing and just put more of that generation’s “my things” ON TOP
of the past generation’s “MY THINGS” and… kept on going until… the farm ran
out, the money ran out and THE FAMILY RAN OUT.
I
STOOD IN THE END MOMENT OF Blood Farm.
Or did I?
“Nothing
is for sale” Alice said again.
“All of this: NO. Margaret
says she will sell the house and move us out. No. I will not
leave. No one can make me”.
I
understood the direction now. I
had been brought in to be shown Blood Farm because Alice knew from watching me…
and from Mrs. Ardsley… that I WOULD KNOW.
Know
what?
That
I WOULD KNOW that… the antiquarian all of “all of this” was NOT the single
select objects here and there within the family homestead. Certainly selected objects were
selectively valuable to the antiquarian market but in fact even those were not
absolute stand alone finery. No,
even those were a part of a larger wholeness; a hallow ringed box of an old and
decrepit HOMESTEAD on a river in the middle of nowhere Maine. And:
THAT
I WOULD KNOW TOO that …this was NOT a museum, never would be a museum and WOULD
DIE TOO when the LAST BLOOD DIED and…. THAT did not matter TOO for… then …and
only then would the “THIS” I was standing in END and that then IT DID NOT
MATTER… and never would… even if each antique collector had each object they “rescued”
from Blood Farm in climate controlled protection, digital photographic on site
identification and scholarly enunciation and dissertation. AND THAT IS BECAUSE BLOOD FARM as I
stood in it now… IS GONE. Then.
Then it IS gone.
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