The first of the August Quilt Scout columns for the mighty Quilts, Inc. is all about Washington Island.
You know, the place where musicians go to rehearse in the lake. And where I fell through the ice. The place where a certain wedding took place and where I played with my sister Hannah summer after summer after summer. (Note to self: Make summer Island play date with Hannah.) Oh, and there’s this. And… Well, just put “washington island” in the search box over there and you’ll see a slew of related material. There’s not much going on in the news or anything; what else are you going to read for heaven’s sake?
Anyway, over at the Quilt Scout column are some great pictures of the quilt studio, my mom, and our family and friends. So head on over, gang. The sun is shining.
Yours,
Mary Fons, Q.S., P.G.
p.s. Mom corrected me: The Little Boathouse is definitely not 600 square feet. Try 300, tops. I state in the piece that I’m bad at estimating distances. And I was telling the truth.
This (annotated) photo is a remarkably good facsimile of our property and provides a rough idea of the concert situation. Image: Wikipedia, with notes by me.
The picture isn’t big enough. I need an IT person. But nevermind that! There’s no time.
To begin with, if you haven’t read yesterday’s post, you must. You just have to. Go and read this, then come back. Trust me. Would I lead you astray? Are you back? Great.
So there we are, at the lake house. It’s like 2 p.m. on Sunday, smack dab in the middle of the anniversary of my birth. I’m already in a terrific mood because Claus sent me the most enormous bouquet of Door County field flowers and my sister Rebecca asked me before we left Chicago what kind of cake I wanted and I said “funfetti” (duh) so that Mother could make the cake before we arrived on Friday because, as she told us, and I quote:
“Why make a birthday cake on Sunday when you guys have to leave Monday morning? I figured I’d make it so we could have cake all weekend.”
Marianne Fons for president.
Okay, so it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m reading a book upstairs. It’s likely I had just had some cake, but I don’t remember. I do know that I was not planning to leave my comfy recliner until I was done with my book, so when Mom called up to me to “come downstairs for a minute” I was rawther displeased.
“Mom!” I yelled back. “I’m reading! This is vacation! I’m reading!”
La Marianne did not yield.
“Mary, I need you for five minutes. Come downstairs, please.”
In my best six-year-old whine, I replied, “Don’t make me dooooo anything! It’s my birthday!”
Then, from the kitchen, a firm, “Mary. Come downstairs.”After that, a pause — because the woman knows gifts are my love language: “It’s a birthday surprise.”
Greased lightning. Down the stairs.
Suddenly finding myself on the first floor of the house, my eyes darted around. What was happening?? Was someone coming to visit?? Claus’s flowers were there on the bar. A truly ridiculous thought popped into my head. I gasped and grabbed Mom’s shoulder.
“Oh my god. Is Claus here??”
My mother shook her head. “Come outside.”
She led me to the water and we took a seat on the table rock. On our beach, beautiful, wide, big, flat rocks separate the water from the land and you can run and leap across them and you can sit and bask in the sun on them and nature must love that line because she is always changing it, working with it, bestowing beauty on that line. We sat down on that very line and suddenly, I knew what was going to happen:
Charlie was going to play “Happy Birthday” for me.
And so he did. From far, far down the beach, almost too far to hear but not too far to hear at all, came the sounds of a world-class trombonist playing a world-class trombone.
I flapped my hands and jumped up and down and chased my tail and indeed, Chuck played on! The tune came once more. I didn’t know if that was because he wanted to make sure I heard it or what — I heard, I heard! Do it again, Charlie! Do it again. And now we know: If anyone out there has the ability to play “Happy Birthday” to someone on an island beach from a half mile away, take it from me: Play it twice. The first time you play it, the recipient is freaking out too much to even, like, understand her life. The second round is when it really lands.
When the second solo was over, I jumped up and down like a madwoman, waving like I was stranded on the rocks, hoping Charlie could see my flailing and understand it as ecstatic gratitude. Then, I scrambled up to the house to call the Vernon residence and thank them for making possible one of the most delightful moments of my entire life. I’m deadly serious about that. And if you think it’s odd to pair the words “the most delightful [moment] of my life” and “deadly serious” in the same breath, you have never had a Chicago Symphony Orchestra musician perform “Happy Birthday” to you across Lake Michigan on a perfect August afternoon on your birthday. (By the way, I know a guy.)
A few summers back, Mom was up at the lake house with Mark.
One perfect afternoon, Mom went down to the shoreline with Scrabble, who surely wanted to rustle up some seagull jerky. There at the water, from waaaay down the beach, at the bend about a half-mile south of our place, she heard what sounded like someone playing a horn.
Yes, it sounded to Mom like someone playing some kind of brass instrument, though she couldn’t place which kind. It wasn’t a trumpet. Maybe a French horn? This wasn’t the first time Mom had registered the sound, either. As she went to fetch Mark for a second opinion, my mother looked back once more and saw a golden flash of sun glinting off metal. It was a horn! But it wasn’t on shore. Was the player standing in the water?? Playing a horn while wading?
That’s how we met the Vernons.
You see, Mom was right. There was a dude out there practicing music in the water. But it wasn’t just any dude, and it wasn’t just any music, either. Our Island neighbor turned out to be none other than Charlie Vernon, one of the world’s most celebrated trombonists, a man who has graced the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) for over 20 years and counting. Charlie’s wife, the luminous, whip-smart, first-draft-pick-in-the-zombie-apocalypse Alison Vernon, is a musician, too. Her lilting soprano voice would stir even the iciest of hearts, and that’s when she’s singing on an actual stage. I haven’t heard her singing while standing in Lake Michigan, but I want to.
I tell you all this because the Vernons had a huge hand in this terrific recent birthday of mine. This post is in two parts because there are two equally terrific sections to share and I don’t want anyone skimming!
So.
Jack, Rebecca, and I arrived at the Island on Friday. Mom had made reservations for five at the perch fry at Findlay’s restaurant that night. It was pretty much non-negotiable when we decided we were coming “up Island,” as Mark likes to say; the perch fry is not to be trifled with. The longstanding Island dinner only happens Friday nights; you have to have a reservation; you have to tell Mrs. Findlay when you call if you want baked potato or fries; you get cherry pie at the end, and if you’re local (or close enough, like us) you know to ask for your pie a la mode. The Friday night perch fry has been happening in this exact manner since the Pleistocene era because if it is delicious, please do not fix it.
We had just been seated when who should walk into the dining room? Charlie and Alison Vernon!! We immediately scooted so they could sit with us and it was cozy and perfect.
Toward the end of the last platter of fish, Mom asked us kids if we had ever heard the story about how Alison and Charlie had been integral in the campaign to get Maestro Riccardo Muti, the world-class, virtuoso conductor, to come to Chicago and lead the city’s symphony. We sort of knew about that, but no, none of us knew the full tale.
Now, I’d like to think my family has a catalog of great stories, but Friday night we were delighted to be out of our league, big time. The story Alison and Charlie told of how a community of musicians in a major metropolis fell in love with a conductor and wrote him personal letters to get him to Chicago — and how these two dear friends of ours were so committed to helping the whole process because they believed, to their core, Muti was The Man — kept us utterly in thrall. Oh! That story is a tear-jerking, nail-biting, heart-swelling, gloriously triumphant tale and two of the lead actors were our personal storytellers. Heaven.
Anyway, the next day, there were more gifts from the Vernons. And you won’t believe what I have to tell you. You just won’t believe what happened.
A picture of a birthday flower bouquet with “Happy Birthday!” featured prominently…in German. Thanks, Wikipedia! You shouldn’t have.
My birthday this year was so good, it’s going to go down as one of the best in my life. I don’t make such a statement lightly. Birthdays can be just the absolute pits, some years. This one wasn’t at all.*
There were so many perfect things that happened. I think the first thing I’ll tell you about is the flowers. So there I was, sitting in my jim-jams and robe yesterday morning, reading a book at the kitchen bar, idly chatting with my family, sipping tea; you know, all that strenuous Island work.
There was a knock at the door. Deducing that we had company (it seemed logical) and that it was sub-optimal for me to receive guests in my ‘jams, I leaped up and scrambled into the shower.
Shower complete and dressed like a person should be dressed at that hour of the day, I peeked my head out of the bathroom to see who had come to call. But there was no guest. Instead, Mom, Rebecca, and Jack, the three of them there in the living room, turned my attention to an absolutely enormous bouquet of the most gorgeous flowers I have perhaps ever seen: Black-eyed Susans, crown vetch, lilies, tiny-purple-flowers-I-don’t-know-the-name-of, mini-cattail thingies, lush greenery, and more. In its generous vase, that bouquet measured about as tall as I am from my waist to the top of my faux-blonde head.
I was confused. What? How did —? Did they come from my aunt? That was nice of her, but… The peanut gallery flapped their arms and pointed and said, “Read the card! Read the card!”
Slowly, I turned back to the flowers and inspected. There, tied with a ribbon wrapped around the glass, a simple message on a small, white square of paper: “Happy Birthday, Mary — With Love, From Claus. xoxo.”
Me, I made a little squeak and blinked back the tears instantly springing to my eyeballs. I had a towel around my shoulders to dry my wet hair and I kind of pulled it up and over my head. I needed to hide for some reason. I still peeked out from the top of my head-towel burrito with big, wide eyes, scanning every petal.
“Claus sent me flowers?” I said, and a big, fat tear rolled down my cheek. I looked over at my family. My heart was like, foofing around, doing some sort of foofing maneuver.
“Nice guy,” Jack said, and went back to the newspaper. “I always liked Claus.”
“Rebecca helped him arrange it all,” Mom said. She kind of sing-songed it. “Flower delivery, on an island, on a Sunday morning. Not baaad.”
I looked back at the flowers. They just didn’t seem real at all. My sister Rebecca was at her laptop on the couch. I asked her if it was true, if she worked on this with Claus. She nodded and said, “Sure did.”
Later in the day, Claus and I skyped. We’ve been doing that a lot lately, video chatting across continents. It’s so hard to love a person so much and they’re not here and you remember the last time you saw them wasn’t so great but that person is great so then you think you’re nuts but then you just feel so sad when you’re in contact but have no semblance of any next step, exactly, except/and then you remember how this person is not perfect but then you remember you’re not, either, Mary Fons oh my good lord in heaven, and then you feel like throwing up your hands and then you just feel like throwing up and then you get flowers, on your birthday, across an ocean and a lake. And that person sent them.
What then?
There’s no florist shop on the Island. Claus and Rebecca worked with the lady who simply “does the flowers” up there. That means that all those perfect blooms and blossoms were culled from fields and gardens on Washington Island. They were all local. They were of — and in — the moment. Just like me. And Claus.
That’s the flower story.
*There’s even more birthday to come. Sophie, the World’s Best Birthday Celebrator, has plans for me on Friday. Zounds…!
Publicity photo of Patti Page, 1955. Image courtesy Wikipedia.
Two quick items of business:
Thanks to all of you, Mom procured the fabric she needs to finish her quilt. If this is the world’s first instance of crowdstashing, I am happy to report we are all batting 1000. It totally worked for Mom and me and it can work for you, too. (And yes, XX, there should be an app.) Thank you all for the tips, the boncourages, and to the lovely lady who is FedEx’ing the exact amount of the exactly-right fabric. Incredible. Everyone is magic.
Today is my birthday. I’ve had one of the best birthdays of my life. The day involved, among many other things, a trombone serenade, a special delivery from Germany, and a power outage. Those things are all true, though they are not related.
But the birthday tale has to come later. Tonight, it’s time to post a monologue. I worked on it on and off all day and I think I’ve got it right.
You’re about to read a true story which has been carefully reconstituted from the copious notes I took down last night at dinner. Mom, Jack, and my sister Rebecca and I were eating grilled pizza and drinking wine and my sister was (hilariously) expounding on the reasoning behind a certain wardrobe item in her possession. I grabbed my laptop and got down everything, pretty much word for word. (In case you don’t know, Nordstrom Rack is the discount joint run by the people behind the fance-schmance Nordstrom’s department store. It’s a magical place.)
Enjoy!
REBECCA
Two weeks ago, the “Clear The Rack” sale happened at Nordstrom Rack. “Clear The Rack” is a big deal for us ‘Rackies, a real affair to remember. You get 25 percent off the lowest ticketed price! It’s the best sale and it does not happen often. Maybe twice a year. So I go.
There I am, clicking through a rounder, and there’s this light gray, cropped cashmere sweater with a hood. This kind of garment — though it rarely looks like much on the hanger — is my jam. I see it, lift it up, admire it. But there was a problem. Even though it was hanging in the “M” section of the rounder, the tag said “XS/S”, though it was very roomy. It was a roomy Small. Still, I put it back and went off exploring.
By the time I was done wandering around, though, that gray sweater was still on my mind. What the heck, I thought, and I decided to try it on. Trying on clothes is a victimless crime. It’s like testing out a lipstick: No harm, no foul. That’s my advice: Whatever it is, try it on. Go to an expensive place! Try on a pretty gown! Do it! That’s what I say. I’m a modern woman.
Oh, and the sweater’s original price? It was something like 500 dollars, which was silly, but after a zillion markdowns, it was cha-eep. Cheap. Plus an extra 25 percent off?? I couldn’t afford not to try it on, in this economy.
So I take it back to the dressing room and pull it over my head, and as goes over my face, the most glorious, pleasant, feminine, like, parfumerie bouquet envelopes me. That sweater smelled so good — there just are no words. None. It was the smell that really good perfume takes in certain clothes, like sweaters, after a person wears it and then you put it on and it smells faintly in that perfect way. I was completely overtaken by this fragrance. I was like, “I’m buying this.”
It was so clear what happened. This girl, this woman, bought the sweater — full price — and took it home. She went for a swim at The Club, played tennis, took a shower, used her fancy creams, spritzed her perfume and everything, but she didn’t blow dry her hair. That’s important. Then she put on the sweater on and — well, it wasn’t quite right. It made her look hippy, maybe. So she pulled the sweater off over her hair, still wet and fragrant from her incredible hair care products. That’s important. She puts the sweater back in the Nordstrom bag and then, a couple days later, very much at at her leisure, she returns it. And it goes on the Rack.
I thought of this woman taking exotic journeys in foreign lands. She’s sitting in the airport and gets a chill, so she just casually dons her gray, cashmere hooded sweater. That’s the narrative I created.
All of this was instantly coming from the sweater. It smelled clean, and like new clothes, but it was more than that. This sweater smelled like…effortlessness. It smelled like someone who just…shows up. It smelled cool. The girl who had this sweater before just smells cool. If you went to dinner with her, you’d get a whiff of her at the bar or whatever and you be like, “This girl? This girl is cool.”
Look, I’m happy with who I am. I have my shampoo. I have my deodorant. But I always wonder how I smell and I wonder how I smell to others. You can’t ever know. Do I smell cool? That’s what you want to know.
Clearly, I bought it. And I’ll never clean it. I could spill a pizza on this sweater. A saucy pizza from the sky could fall on this sweater and I would not clean it.
[the end]
EDITOR’S NOTE: My sister brought this sweater up to the lake house this weekend and I can attest to the fact that no garment has ever smelled so good, ever, and we have been burying our faces in it intermittently for two days. That is, until Rebecca began to snatch it away, worried that we’d over-sniff it and the scent would be gone forever.
