Guest Quarters at the Continuing Care Retirement Community

Abstract

Guest Quarters at the Continuing Care Retirement Community Ruth Moose (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. "Someone, sometime / must have made biscuits. . ." Photograph courtesy of the Collections of the Library of Congress. It's a birthday party for an old friend, mentor and I'm staying overnight in an impartial place, decorated in pinks and gray, bed, sofa, bath, closet of a kitchen. One would almost think someone lived here once; in the kitchen a domed glass [End Page 76] cake stand, green kettle, assorted mugs and teas, a white table and chairs for two. The cupboards hold a few plates, bowls, but mostly empty as new. The dainty stove has the cleanest oven ever, and the small refrigerator has never seen food. Or drink. Only lonely ice cubes in a bin. In the last cupboard a flour sifter sits silver and meshed, wears a red wooden handle. Of all things a guest kitchen needs, it's not a flour sifter. So why is one here? In this place of temporary, in and out lives. Biscuits. Someone, sometime must have made biscuits for somebody they loved and remembered. Biscuits. Ruth Moose Ruth Moose has published several collections of short stories and poetry, including Making the Bed: Poems and Dreaming in Color, as well as numerous stories and poems in publications such as Atlantic Monthly and The Nation. A member of the creative writing faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Moose is the recipient of five PEN Awards for Syndicated Fiction, a Robert Ruark Award for Short Story, a North Carolina Writers Fellowship, a MacDowell Fellowship, and the Oscar Arnold Young Award for Poetry. Copyright © 2005 Center for the Study of the American South