…because his father asked
which way was west because his father found
the sea a way of life because his father met
in hannover a buxom peasant girl…
For over four decades, Jeanne’s been making gingerbread constructions, admired by the neighborhood. By now it’s a family tradition — but it all started by accident.
One of Robert Frost’s useful ideas is that a key to writing poetry is the ability to take advantage of happy accidents — those words and images that pop up from “the path less traveled by.” The importance of chance is underestimated in our society, especially by the well-off who believe those c-notes in their piggy banks are predestined because of their hard work and unflagging patriotism. But in discussions with friends, it’s clear that many of our major decisions — where we live, who we marry, number of children, “chosen” profession — wouldn’t have happened if not for some unplanned event: A flat tire caused a chance meeting that led to a happy marriage, a rainstorm made someone duck into a store that changed her life, a book found on a park bench led to another book that would never have been read — and a new world opened up. In 1968 Jeanne discovered Driftwood only because she noticed a car-pooling acquaintance’s car wouldn’t start, and offered to take her child home from pre-school. Later, Jeanne said, “I’ve just seen a magical neighborhood.”
Two years later, I was busy teaching at Florida Presbyterian College, a husband and father of four lively children, in no way thinking of leaving our newly found cottage in Driftwood. For one thing, we couldn’t afford to visit our relatives in New Jersey, much less fly to Europe to see Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower. Besides, we had comfortable routines; and one of mine was 10 a.m. coffee with German Professor Ken Keeton, after our 9 o’clock classes.
One morning I was in his office, waiting for Ken to get off the phone, and casually picked up a stapled booklet from his desk: the AMFC Newsletter (AMFC, I saw, stood for Association of Mid-Florida Colleges). Flipping pages, I spotted a small announcement because it was outlined in black: Wanted: Someone fluent in French to supervise 18 French majors at the University of Neuchâtel. Apparently, no French professor in the entire state had volunteered.
I stared at the notice, reading again the phrase “someone fluent in French,” and found myself murmuring (untruthfully, based on a few French courses in high school and college), “C’est moi!” I wrote down the address of the committee at Stetson College in Deland.
I won’t repeat the story of the ups and downs of how this came to pass, but because of an offhand glance in Ken’s office — because a student had phoned just as I walked in — the six Meinkes eventually found ourselves on the train from Geneva, staring wide-eyed at the slanted rooftops and elfin turrets along Lake Neuchâtel.
It was also accidental that about two miles away from our Swiss home was a small stone castle, with twin turrets. Jeanne’s Frostian inspiration was to look at those turrets and see them as made of chocolate — and remembering she had a funnel in her kitchen drawer exactly that shape. How did she get that idea? Maybe it was our new address — Quai Suchard 12 — or maybe the wind was right, blowing through our neighborhood from the Suchard chocolate factory above Neuchâtel, and suddenly the gingerbread castle above appeared to her as if already done; and all the others were to follow…
Maybe everything is by accident, but not all taste so good.
…down
. . we
whirl
the docketing hill all slanted on
our narrow sloping trace
chains of lowercase letters gone
before we reach what seems like space
when poles from frozen hands are flung
pens for stories in a broken tongue…
—Both quotes from “The Skiers” by Peter Meinke, in The Contracted World: New & More Selected Poems, U. of Pittsburgh Press 2006