Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Review of Down to a Sunless Sea Review of Words of a Feather Creative Nonfiction Burning Men By Gerard Sarnat Integration By David Caplan Hands Across the Sea By Jennifer Mazik Poetry I Can't Wait Until the Resurrection By David Halliday Dashing With You By Mick Joyce Island of Hong By Mick Joyce Fiction The Price of Shoes By Sandra M. McDow Jeux d'Esprit By Julio Peralta-Paulino Feed Me, Pet Me By Stephen Dorneman The Lovely Peasant By G. David Schwartz About the Contributors © 2008, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Kenneth Weiss, Ed.D Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Senior Editor - Patti Kurtz Editor - Elizabeth Murray Copyeditor - Kathy Skaggs Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/subs.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit VolunteerMatch. |
Hands Across the Sea By Jennifer Mazik My Aunt Ella was turning 80 years old on January 31, 1995. We could not see each other because she lived across the Atlantic. Perth, Scotland to be exact, located northeast of its capital, Edinburgh. I always wanted to thank her for sending me British Pound Notes for holidays and an occasional childhood doll via airmail. Why not show her my appreciation for her thoughtfulness? So, my creative juices were flowing and designed a card for her at 11 years old. I scoured into a deep cardboard box of old family photos. Finally, I managed to retrieve a slightly pastel tinted photograph of her from the waist up, dated around the 1940s. There was something about that photo that spoke elegance. Ella’s face, cocked to the left-side with a relaxed smile. Her attire consisted of a grey-blue nylon dress with white polka dots, while her hands are clasped, adorned in knitted white gloves. Her black hair was gracefully turning white, pinned and curled under the wavy layers. Fashioned like Cate Blanchett who played the role of Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator. Satisfied with my finished design, I slipped the card into the white envelope and licked the adhesive shut. A couple of weeks later, I received a thank-you card from her. She was impressed, but most of all I received some truth to the photo I sent. “I’m wearing that dress in a photo taken at a wedding in Glasgow around 1948. I remember it well,” Ella wrote. She could have just written me a brief note, but Aunt Ella took the time to acknowledge me. As I learned that personal fact about the former life my aunt had, she left me wanting to learn more about her. Ever since then, we began a pen-pal relationship. We may have not been able to see one other like other aunts with their nieces in tow, but we brought life through our words. Ella kept me in touch with my Scottish heritage while I let her relive her youthfulness. Although I had been to Scotland when I was 6 months old, what do you remember as a baby? Desperately, I wanted to travel to my mother’s beloved hometown of Perth nestled in between the green hills and the glistening River Tay. Thank goodness for my aunt. Ella’s whimsical script supplied me with vivid images of her “Bonnie Scotland.” My aunt’s writing style was comprised of journalistic, opening scenes that transported me from my room to her wandering the local streets: “Well it’s 10-30 AM Thursday 9th July & I’m sitting here in the British Home Stores in the Mall in the High Street – having a ‘cuppa’…,” Ella said. As I read the letters, I felt her nostalgia. My aunt used to live her early life in an apartment situated on the High Street, the shopping and eating Mecca of Perth. For instance, Ella had once sent me a postcard of the modernized High Street. “Jennifer, my favorite street – can just see the windows of my house above the trees marked ‘x,’ ” Ella wrote. The ‘x’ drawn in black ink gave me the assumption that my aunt had purposely gone over the ‘x’ twice. The postcard is filled with Perth folk strolling down the pedestrianized street getting their messages (groceries or personal items), but the ‘x’ boldly stood out. I grew oblivious to everything else in the pictorial, including the historic Fair Maiden statue carved in bronze, located in the lower right-hand corner. Silently, she requested for me to appreciate my youth because time ages like people. The ‘x’ symbolized the phrase, “You can never go home again.” Of course, one can revisit home, but nothing stays the same. Her place was a small apartment, but it was her home where she raised two sons as a single mother after her husband was killed in World War II. Ella no longer lived in the one-bedroom apartment, but my aunt’s heart lingered there as she looked up the second floor windows. Throughout her writing, I learned the Scottish lingo and dialect. For my 15th birthday, Ella wrote, “I’m sure your birthday cake will be delicious but if you were here it would be the ‘Cloatie Dumpling’ & hoping to find a 3 penny bit or even a six pence which in days gone by would be a fortune to us!” I learned about a traditional Scottish birthday dessert and what my aunt’s childhood was like in the early 1920s all in one sentence. Most of all, I got the sense that she wanted me to reflect, take time to stare at the clouds, not concerned with time. “Tommy (Ella’s eldest son) has just left after a blether (conversation) & a cuppa but I like to take my own time downtown to stop & stare & watch the world go by,” Ella wrote. My Aunt Ella traveled to various regions of the world, but her skill for people watching radiated simplicity. Occasionally, Aunt Ella would send me black and white photos of my ancestors. On the back, she wrote a tiny narrative explaining the significance. For example, I came across a photo of her maternal grandparents, dating around the late 1800s. She wrote, “Be proud of your Scottish forebears for they were the ‘Salt of the Earth.’ With those powerful words, it is as if she wants me to be the keeper of the flame. For six years, we corresponded until 2001 when her health deteriorated into dementia. The last writing I received from her was another postcard, a night view of Perth lit up by fireworks in a monochromatic color scheme of orange and pink. This writing was different because she had Tommy write the message for her: “Hand too shaky (I am dictating).” The telltale sign was the way my aunt had signed her name. I could tell that she had some difficulty. The ‘Ella’ was faintly written. If the pen continued, the blue ink would have dragged on into a scribbling fashion. The ‘a’ in Ella was not wrapped around her name as she always signed. At that point, our writing relationship was coming to a close. Later the following year, she died in a nursing home with her family by her bedside. To this day, I miss receiving a letter with my aunt’s famous script written on the envelope. Her writing made me feel as if it was just for me to see. Interestingly, she was a globe trekker. There are some photos of her riding on a camel and a snake wrapped around her neck in 1969, Morocco. No matter where she was in the world, she always brought her loved ones into her journey through a photograph or letter. “Off on the road in Morocco, wait till I tell you about the trouble I had getting’ up there. I even think the camel’s smilin’,” Ella wrote on the back of a photo that showed her atop a camel amidst the desert landscape and a man in Moroccan garb. Another round of my aunt’s wittiness played on the back of another photo with the wrapped snake in Tangiers: “Its not everyone who can have a “real” snake necklace & “carry” a camel at the same time. (I was the only one “brave or “daft” enough).” That must be where I get the travel bug from. Oddly enough, Aunt Ella usually ended her letters with ‘Hands across the Sea’ before signing off. Her words echoed off the waters from the River Tay across to the Atlantic Ocean, all the way to my bedroom. Our language in written form was our time spent together. Her hands and my hands were spiritually joined for those minutes reading letters. We understood each others’ insights. A costly plane ticket for a 7 to 8 hour flight just to meet each other was not needed. Those written words that we shared for six years stayed forever within us, unchanged. Art comes in many forms, writing is one. That is where the real beauty lies. |