People Seem Nicer Now (or, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”)

 

Here, the churches toll their bells every night at 8 — it is New England, after all! The tolling is loud, and long (video at end of post), and solemn. I think of “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” It begins: 

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...

It ends “therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls — it tolls for thee.” 

We are all connected, of course; but now I feel the connection more often, not just when those bells are tolling. Maybe other people do, too; people seem nicer now. Here in this rather chilly town, strangers smile at me on the street. It was not always thus. Once, when I came back from Scotland, I resolved to be as friendly to everyone here as I was there.

In the Hebrides, it's the custom to wave to everyone, “even tourists,” a hotelkeeper told me when I arrived on my first island. On Coll, even if you have just seen someone in the shop, they wave enthusiastically  — not just once, if they really like you they smile and wave excitedly several times — when they drive past you a few minutes later. So one year when I first came back I tried smiling at everyone I saw here, in Stonington.

Most people looked at me blankly or even suspiciously; perhaps they thought I was about to ask them for money (“a free handout,” Nixon called it). One walk smiling at them was enough. After that, I averted my eyes when I walked by someone, as they did. But now, people smile; some nod, too. Some even say hello.

That may sound like a small thing, but it's not, at least if you live alone. And the nicer-than-usual goes beyond saying hello to strangers, as I discovered when I finally got fed up with my old screen door jamming and went to Home Depot.  The new one wouldn't fit in my car.

The couple in the truck parked next to me got out and suggested that I put the back seat down. I didn't know how to, so the guy did it; and then they both pushed, while the young man from Home Depot and I pulled. I can't imagine people before the Pandemic having or making the time to help a stranger do that!  But they not only helped— they offered to put it in their truck and drive it to my house if we couldn't make it fit.

But, we did — almost. The trunk wouldn't close, but the young man said he thought he could tie it down and went inside for a rope. Only when he came back with it did the couple leave.

We chatted for a bit, and he told me he had been living on his own, but came home to take care of his sick father. He said he liked living at home more than on his own: “That was kind of lonely.” 

I thought about him, and my mother, as I drove carefully home — the Westerly, RI police love to ticket anyone from CT and they are no nicer than they were before. But, the door made it home 

and I got it onto its tracks in time for my birthday party, which was to be held on the porch.

There were six of us, all old friends. Two were room-mates at our boarding school in 8th grade. We were all so excited to be together, at a party  (or perhaps we are always this spaced out?) that almost every time someone went inside or emerged, he walked into the screen door, knocking it out of its tracks.

Barclay got colored magnets — a red pepper, a yellow taxi —  from the refrigerator and put one on each side; but  we still kept walking into the door and knocking it out of its track. Each time it clattered down, someone said,

“Don't worry. Barclay will fix it.”

He did — and that was no different from usual. He has always been kind, and clever. At 13 he made a rocket that really worked and blasted it off over the school. 

What was different was that we were all so grateful to be together, fifty-something years after we'd first met, and twenty weeks into the Pandemic. We're not islands! 

The church bells tolling, as they do every night at 8.