Durmish Island

 ~Primroses~

I found the red caped woman in Durmish. She sells primroses of bright colors that remind me of pick-up sticks.

A scalloped sign hangs below her kitchen window, framed in red gingham curtains -

                                                         ~Primroses for Sale~

She is forever a single woman and works at a pipe and tobacco shop facing the shipyard where elderly men buy pipes in all sizes and shapes and sweet cherry tobacco. News and outdated papers are shared on the peeling wood bench. Conversation and stories are told each day.

The lady with the red cape lives in an attached cottage up the high hill which winds into the town’s tiny circle. One can usually see her late at night, sitting on her window box ledge reading and occasionally staring out the window.

She is a quiet woman, never saying hello but nodding with a fresh smile to the town’s people. She prefers her aloneness, along with her books. Beautiful books, bound in rich, red leather - old and worn.

The people of the town, especially the older woman who owns the vegetable stand accepts her mystery.

I was attracted to her lovely flowers and the smile they brought to me. They are among my favorite flower - the idea of their personal enjoyment of cool temperatures and at times blooming before the snow has melted is magic for me. Among Spring’s first, with my jacket still on, hands still in my pockets and the chill of my breath still showing as I breathe, there is the primrose. I call them ~Spring’s Promise~ with each bright color representing the promises of new beginnings.

This was how our friendship began - speaking of primroses.

It was lunch time and she asked me to join her in the quaint cafe across from the pipe shop. We sat and ordered croissants, filled with chicken salad, prepared with chopped pecans, on lovely pink plates. The tea was hot, warming me - the lemon puckering my mouth.

We both remembered meeting before, but not the exact place and not the exact time - perhaps it was at the bath house  … and so our conversation began.

I learn she stays in Durmish through the winter months. Her brother is a sailor and his ship anchors here. You see, they were born here and many ancestors have come and gone. It has been said their family was among the first settlers who sailed whale ships so long ago.

I tell her of my plans to go to the Island of Ancestors - she nods and says perhaps she to will make the trip one day.

We speak of books - our love of reading. The great authors of the 19th century are our favorites. Books, authors and reading and we are in agreement, somehow became our anchors. The stories woman write, are their gifts passed down.

Today is a day for walking and I am introduced to Durmish through the eyes and direction of the woman in the red cape.

~ by Patricia Hine Stewart on January 9, 2007.