The Lake

Sunset, Great Pond

I have not spent much time on lakes except to be invited to go "upta camp" in the summers with friends who have camps on the various lakes in Maine.  I love the feel of swimming in fresh water .. it's silky flow through the hands, it's bathwater temperature and the fact that you don't have to shower after swimming in fresh water; there's no salt, stickiness to flush away down the drain.

When I was young I would go to the lake with the family sometimes and delight in leaping off a dock, inspecting the outrageously huge dock spiders and cringe thinking there were snapping turtles somewhere beneath me.  Times when a boat would pass by close to shore the other kids swimming would leap up shouting, "A WAVE! A WAVE!".  I would stand up perplexed ... where was the wave? This was a young girl who had learned to body surf before she learned to swim.  I'm sure in today's world this could be considered some kind of child abuse, but the fact was, my dad was an amazing body surfer and taught all 5 of us the joys of catching that wave and riding it all the way to beach .. until your nose scraped the sand!  So when the wake of a passing boat went by I found it a tad difficult to get excited about "the wave!".

Sunrise on Great Pond

This fall we have been living here at the camp on Great Pond, and I am gaining a whole new awareness of the changes of this landlocked body of water and all it's flora and fauna.  The sun climbs over a distant hill and ignites the sky in the early  morning with fuchsia colored clouds, while the tall pines on the distant knoll stand  back lit and silhouetted by this amazing morning light.  In the evenings we get the reflection of the setting sun behind us bouncing off those hills with the pines turning bronze and gold.  There have been more than one time when in mid-conversation with someone on the deck I have had to stop and just proclaim, "OH! WOW!"  and  all conversations would stop while we all  looked out over the water and watched the day recede in a brilliant display of changing colors.

Unlike the ocean the surface of a lake is not in constant motion; it's at the whim of the wind.  Yesterday I looked out and saw white caps on the water and realized the wind was blowing a gale.  In this little inlet the trees weren't really moving much, but the white caps told me there was a mighty wind out there.  A few hours later the caps were gone and the lake's surface was calming down.  By the time the sunset the water was like glass and reflected the rising moon as a perfect mirror image.  I have loved watching the moon through her cycles on this lake.  With no streetlights here or neighbors who must "light the night" with their porch lights burning all night long the moon's silver light flows across the water and seeps onto the floors of the cabin.  I wake frequently, just to see the moon dance.

I wrote about the Loons call in my blog, Wildness, on June 11.  Spending three seasons on this lake I have come to appreciate the many voices of the Loon.  Their communication system is as intricate as my family of Crows that I fed, observed and loved down in Falmouth.  Last spring Dave and I came up to the lake to open the camp for his mother's arrival.  We decided to spend the night, a little get away for us back then.  Late that night I was unable to sleep so I hauled pants over my sleeping shorts and walked out to the point.  I sat gazing at the reflected image of the stars in the lake; tiny fire crackers of light above and below me ... and I heard it ... a Loon?  But it sounded so different, the call was not the lilting, octave break of a Loon.  It was deep, guttural, masculine and aggressive.  The males come in to the lakes first in order to establish territory and wait for the ladies to arrive later.  This was the males territorial voice I was hearing!

During the summer there is that haunting sound as the mated pair talk to each other through-out the day and night.  And I now recognize how that song becomes a warning screech if a boat comes too close to the nest or the young one is separated from the parent.  Late summer we began to hear the call over head, not from the surface of the lake!  It appeared that the Loons were testing their wings and helping the fledglings get stronger for the winter migration to the sea.  They would fly past the camp for short distances at first, lengthening this flight over the course of a few weeks.  I could swear the call of the Loon over head as it passed was joyous as this water bird took to the air and spread it's wings .. literally .. again.

This morning the lake is steaming, warning of the colder air temperature as winds from the North begin to descend on us, bringing winters first frosty breath.  We will be moved out of this cabin by the time the lake has frozen.  Moving to a small and intimate town in the mountains.  I'm looking forward to this next step.  It's time.  It's time to take on this whole new life.  It's time to be in the mountains that will become my back yard now.

Sugarloaf Mountain

It's time.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Comparing

I've found myself thinking a lot about this transition I've leaped into and how it has me experiencing life in three distinct ecosystems ... all beautiful but very different; the ocean, the lake and soon, the mountains.

THE OCEAN

Having grown up on the beach there are sounds and smells that instantly take me back to the care-free days of being a little girl in the summer.  The cry of a seagull that ricochets  off the buildings and careens down streets of the Old Port in Portland.   Storms on the ocean were never just wind and rain, there was always the background noise of crashing waves against the rocks or the sucking and tinkling sound of those storm waves receding from the beach as they drag sand and beach stones with them.

After these big fall or winter storms the beach would be carpeted with  Surf, or Hen, clams that had been hauled out of their deep-sandy holes just off shore only to be thrown up onto the beach and abandoned as the tide pulled away.  At those times my siblings and I would head down to the beach with plastic white and blue buckets banging against our shins as we picked these clams, the size of a diary farmer's hands, from the sand, inspecting them for their liveliness (if they pull their shell closed tight when lifted they're still very much alive) and drop them into our buckets, leaving the dead ones for the gulls who skittered ahead of us.  Taking our prizes home we'd wash them as best we could, dad and my brother would shuck them and mom would make them into clam chowder.  This is a very big, tough clam so they are only good if chopped up fine and put into that stewing broth of milk, butter, and potatoes.  

The Maine coast has it's own unique smell.  The west coast beaches do not have this ripe, salty-brine aroma to them.  I don't know what it is, the cold waters harboring more life and thus more decay at their low tides?  Maybe.  But that smell of rotting seaweed is so sweet to me,  so much a part of beach combing, body surfing and long walks on the beach.  Many years ago my good friend from Boston, who went to acupuncture school with me, moved up to Portland to begin her practice in the same office suite with me.  Rather than being competitors we were a wonderful support system to each other as we learned how to market and grow a private practice.  Nancy found a little cottage on "my" beach  where we would frequently meet to go for walks together.  One day after a big storm there was a lot of detritus left rotting after a particularly low tide.  Nancy gagged and said, "God, that is such a horrible smell!"  This might have been the first time I realized that not everyone likes the smell of rotting seaweed! 

Or the time she and I were walking that beach in a pea-soup fog, unable to see more that 2 steps ahead of ourselves.  With the tide low we couldn't see the houses that sit high in the sand dunes, nor could we see the waves that we could hear lapping somewhere off to our left.  There were no landmarks of any kind.  I told her how much I have always loved walking in the fog on a beach at low tide, without the ability to see forward or backward it was really a moment of being very present; unable to see the future or what lies ahead and equally blind to where we had just come from, thus no past behind us.  The only thing that existed in the gray mist was just her and I and the next step taken in the sand.

I'm trying to be present like this now as Dave and I work on renovating this big, old house, as I enter into an established practice that belongs to another acupuncturist, as we live beside the lake and commute thirty minutes to and from our small town in the mountains.  Unable to see the future we keep taking steps without any land marks to guide us, just our own knowing that this is the right direction for us to be going in.

Loving you all back,
Mary

To be continued ... THE LAKE

A Wedding

Dave's niece made our wedding cake.

The wedding was September 13th.   A Friday.  Yup, Friday the 13th.
But as my good friend, Eva, told me, "NEVER be afraid of the number 13!   One plus three equals four and four is the most stable number in the Universe; 4 legs to a table or chair, 4 compass directions of our earth."
I liked her reasoning ... and the fact that she was one of a few people who didn't make a negative comment about this date.

Besides, it's my sisters birthday and she has had several Friday birthdays in her life time and she's not an unlucky person at all!

Though, it did rain.  Poured actually!

For those of you who don't know Dave, he's a very accomplished outdoors man.  He has the ability to make everyone camping with him comfortable at the campsite, so the boy is fabulous at putting up a good tarp.  He is known in his circle as "the tarp master".

So, with the help from his brother, Steve,  Dave put a tarp over the deck where we were to be married and we had white umbrellas for those who couldn't fit under the tarp.  It was actually pretty sweet.  And quite honestly, Dave and I never really noticed the rain.  Our reception was to be the next day.  With, possibly, 200 people attending.   I felt that if it had to rain it was far better that it happen on the wedding day and not on our party day.  And it was beautiful on Saturday September 14th.  Thank heavens!

Dave and I had agreed we didn't need the traditional maid of honor or best man.  We just wanted the ceremony to be us, our friend (who is a minister), Bill Gregory, and witnessed by our families.   But, between the two of us we have five grandnieces,  so we decided to have five flower girls!  I spoke with the families about our wishes and everyone agreed that this would be wonderful.  The girls could wear whatever was their favorite dresses, there was no color theme.  My oldest grandniece, Linnea, wore her "flower girl" dress to the family Easter gathering last April and let it be known that this wonderful white, full-skirted-satin-sash dress was her flower girl dress.  It was sweet and I was surprised that she was already considering her role for the wedding five months away!

Linnea is Jerry Sanders granddaughter, and at Easter Jerry was very ill with the cancer that would consume him within a very short month.  Linnea understood all that was going on and told her mother she understood about cancer and death because of Uncle Jim.

Last May, when Jerry passed, friends and family gathered for the weekend for making dinners, being present and participating in the grieving process with the Sanders.  It was a time with lots of tears, laughter, sharing good food, singing and dancing and honoring the loss of the wonderful energy and spirit that was Jerry Sanders, or, Bee Bah, to his grandchildren.

Linnea had been gifted with one of Jerry's favorite caps that he had brought back from Alaska.  Every so often she would take the cap off and, with tears in her eyes, offer any of us to "smell it, it smells like Bee Bah."  I did this with Jim's hats too, quite honestly, it seemed to be the only clothing that had maintained any sense of his smell, so I totally  understood what Linnea was doing.

It was one of these evenings that Linnea called me over and said, "Aunt Mary, what do you think of my being a bridesmaid instead of a flower girl?"

"Wow! Linnea, talk to me about this."  She looked up at me and from under the brim of that cap and said, "Well, I've been a flower girl a couple times already but I've never been a bridesmaid." Then she sat back, waiting for my reply!

Linnea

Here we are mourning the man who,  for this little girl, the sun rose and set on and yet she was thinking about this upcoming wedding.  I realized that if this was something she could look forward to, be excited about and perhaps help in some tiny way to get through this difficult time .. then of course she could be my bridesmaid!  When I told her, "yes, I would be delighted to have you as my one-and-only bridesmaid" she leaped up and ran over to her mother to tell her my answer was yes!

So,  we had four flower girls who danced and bounced out ahead, throwing flowers ... over the railing into the water, at each other, or just up into the air.  And I had one bridesmaid, who stood 4 feet tall, wore white, looked absolutely adorable,  held my bouquet for me, and was very grown up.

It is one of the many cherished memories from this weekend long celebration when Dave and I united our families as well as our large circle of friends.

Loving you all back,
Mary

PS ... we also sang Happy Birthday to my sister, Jayne.

A New Book

Many people have turned to me lately and said, "Mary, it's a whole new chapter for you".

I say, "Hell, it's a whole new book!"

I've always seen my life as being in chapters; there was growing up in Maine in a small town with a minister for a dad and spending glorious summer days on Scarborough beach.  After high school graduation I bolted from that small town and entered a new chapter that took me to the mountains, first Vermont to work and ski, then to Colorado for the same thing but with higher adventures to match those higher peaks.  The next chapter I went back to Maine to nurse a broken heart, eventually meeting Jim and a series of new chapters began with adventure, love and becoming an adult.

But now ... holy cow, now!  Let's see, there is a new house, in a new town, with a new office with all new clientele, with a new husband and a new family and starting to meet new friends.

Yup, I would say this is a brand new book entirely! And it's been an incredible whirlwind that has lifted me and my old life into that spinning cyclone and deposited it all in a new world, with my things spread all around in different places, still in boxes, not really organized anymore, and impossible to find something when you actually need it.  There's a lot of sorting out to do in the next year!

But the dust is settling now as I sit in this wonderful house on Great Pond, our interim spot until we can get the house in Farmington ready for us to move into.  As I write this I listen for Loons and their changing songs that speak to each other of moving on before the lake freezes.  And with these calmer moments I have time to reflect and actually take in all that has happened in a very short period of time.  And it's all good.

Dave's mother, Joanna, asked me after the wedding if I felt any different?  I thought for a minute and responded that yes, yes it does feel different to now be married to this man ... her son.  Many people in my life wonder "why marriage?" ... and without going into my list as to why, I just say it is different.  Joanna said, "I feel different too.  You are now my daughter-in-law and part of the family.  Before you were just a girlfriend."  My mother greeted Dave last week with, "Well, it's my new son-in-law!" ... and thus he feels he is now part of the Lello clan as well.

A very important difference .. being brought into each others family.

All the differences that are now becoming a new book are important for me to embrace now.  I wasn't ready to end the old book, but the Universe had plans for me and Jim.  For whatever reasons Jim was not going to be hanging around long enough for us to grow old together.  So I was thrown into change that I did not initiate ... and yet I realize that this new man, house, town, life is completing the circle and it's OK to close the last cover of the old book and to open into this new one.

Does this mean I no longer remember?  No.  I think of Jim frequently, but not everyday now.  I miss him often, but not every day now.  I will love him forever .... but I am finding the human heart is capable of expanding and loving another equally as deep and completely.

This new book started out fast and furious and swept me into it very quickly.  I've always been a sucker for a love story laced with high adventure ... it might just prove to be an amazing book!

Loving you all back,

Mary

Home

As we pack and move things out of this house a song written by my brother-in-law, David Mallett,has been going through my head these days.  The opening line especially:

I knew this place, I knew it well,
every sound and every smell,
And every time I walked I fell
for the first two years or so.

David's song is about the family farm and being a boy growing up there.  Not quite the same scenario for me and this house I've been in for 22 years, it's more the lure of this big body of water that I've watched the changing colors and seasons of my entire life.

As we embark on our next journey and move this new life to the mountains of Maine I am slowly getting hit with the reality that I will no longer have summers by the sea.  I grew up in the foothills of these mountains, went to school there, spent the winters in the snow country in this small town in Oxford County.  But summers were always back to the ocean and long, lazy days spent on Scarborough beach body surfing or exploring the tide pools.  Except for the few years I lived in Colorado I have always spent summers by the ocean .... and "every sound and every smell" ... is deeply rooted in every cell of my being.

This is going to change.

People ask me if I'm excited, if I'm feeling sad, if I'm ready?  Quite honestly this has been such a whirlwind that I haven't had time to stop and feel anything.  This may be a good thing, but maybe not!  I know I'm tired of packing and moving boxes, a tad worried about the disorganization we will have to live in for the next  few months with all our stuff stacked high in the barn of the house we are moving to.  I know that last waxing moon caught my breath as I was hit with the reality of just how much I love to see the moon on the water ... and this will no longer be my view.

One evening when that moon was full and spreading her silver light across the bay, spotlighting the boats in the harbor, I sat staring out at this amazing scene and started to cry. I turned to Dave and said, "we won't have this view in Farmington" ... "no", he said, "we won't.  But I am going to build you a beautiful house on a hill that overlooks the mountains and we will be able to sit and watch the moon dance on the snow capped peaks."

And with this I knew that this man loves me beyond this earth and all the way to that big moon!  

And maybe home is where the heart is, in which case, with all this turmoil, all this upheaval, all these boxes and uncertainty ... I am home regardless.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Here are the lyrics to David Mallett's song if you choose to read.  He is truly one of the best poets I know.

I knew this place, I knew it well,
every sound and every smell,
And every time I walked I fell
for the first two years or so.

There across the grassy yard,
I a young boy runnin' hard.
Brown and bruised and battle
scarred and lost in sweet illusion.

From my window I can see
the fingers of an ancient tree.
Reaching out it calls to me
to climb its surly branches.
But all my climbing days are gone
And these tired legs I'm standin' on
would scarcely dare to leave the spot upon
which they are standin'.

And I remember every word
from every voice I ever heard,
Every frog and every bird,
Yes, this is where it starts.
A brother's laugh, the sighing wind,
this is where my life begins.
This is where I learned to use my
hands and hear my heart.

This house is old, it carries on
like lyrics to an old time song,
Always changed but never gone,
this house can stand the seasons.
Our lives pass on from door to door,
dust upon the wooden floor,
Feather rain and thunder roar,
we need not know the reason.

And all these thoughts come back to
me like ships across a friendly sea,
Like breezes blowing endlessly,
like rivers running deep.
The day is done. The lights are low,
the wheels of life are turning slow
And as these visions turn and go,
I lay me down to sleep.

Keep Walking

3:30 a.m.  ... such a bewitching hour.  Such a familiar place for me.  I didn't wake with the thought of getting up, getting the coffee going, siting here to write, but as I blundered around the house as quietly as I could so not to wake Dave it has dawned on me ... ah, here are the emotions I've been watching and waiting for.  Here they are bubbling to the surface a little bit; fear, anxiety, melancholy. 

Change is never easy.

But this change actually has been easy and this is what I remind myself of on this dark morning with rain coming in.  From the moment I met Dave I knew that there was another big love here.  It was so easy.  It's not perfect, trust me.  As we learn more about each other there are the typical spats; learning what buttons shalt not be pushed ... but learning this only after the manhole cover-sized-button was stomped on!   And some of my friends and a couple family members have struggled with the speed of all this, struggled with the change of this new guy, struggled with their own unprocessed grief around Jim.  But even they are coming around and beginning to understand what I knew from that first "coffee date" ...  that this is a match.

And the Universe continues to say, "Next step Mary, here it is, take it!" So I take it.  Lately, that step  feels like I hopped onto one of the airport escalators that flows along the corridors of the terminal and allows you to just stand in place with your bags as you're whisked along.  A human conveyer belt.   In the Chicago airport there is a section ... a tunnel actually ... that has neon lights flashing and the 'conveyer belt' travels under this neon haze with a female voice that sounds like a voice right out of the Sci-Fi movie, Bladerunner, that informs you to, "Keep Walking" ... over and over this computer voice says, 'keep walking, keep walking, keep walking".  

This year I feel this is what the Universe is telling me to do; to just "keep walking".

The new plan with Dave was, in a few years, to move to Farmington.  I sat with it, we explored the town a little bit, looked at houses on line on Saturday mornings over coffee.  I began to warm to this idea ... cute town, a college town with lots going on there, in the mountains, easy access to the north woods and all it's lakes and rivers, great real estate prices!  Last winter I looked to see how many acupuncturists might be in the area .... one.  ONE?!  I contacted her via email and explained that I was planning to move to the area in the 'near future' (nebulous can be a good thing at times, but our timing was nebulous!), would she be wiling to discuss the climate for acupuncture?  Her response was .... "I was going to put out a search for an associate this spring to join my practice.  I'd love to meet with you and discuss your plans.  How soon can you move up? "

The conveyer belt just sped up as the "near future" became the VERY near future!

So we began to look in earnest for a house in Farmington.  The plan being to find something in town that can be converted into apartments.  While we live in one apartment we look for land that we can build our "dream home" on with gardens and fruit trees and no GMO's.   Eventually renting both apartments of the 'town house' to UMF students.

Next step.  Find the house to fit this plan!   We'd had our eyes on this house for over a year and the price had dropped!  This house was a doctors office for many years and thus has no kitchen and no real bath.  But it's huge with a big attached barn and we could create two apartments in it (especially with this guy whose been a carpenter for thirty years)!  How could we secure this wonderful old house?

We simply asked ... and a contract was signed with a deadline to be able to buy this house by the end of September, contingent on the sale of my house.

Keep walking, keep walking.

So, full steam ahead to fix up my little house and get it on the market.  The little house I've lived in for 22 years.  The little house Jim and I bought not believing we'd have money to even paint the damn thing, but we put on an addition; learning carpentry skills as we went along, learning the difference between eggshell and semi-gloss paints, learning we were home owners and real adults. 

Now, under the hands of the master carpenter, Dave, we have done some renovations to  this little cottage that has created quite a wonderful home.  We've painted and hammered and spent many weekends working on the house and not going off on any summer adventures.  With this has come some early relationship "tests" ... we have our flare-ups,  talk it out, laugh and move on ... and we grow together a bit more from it all.

Keep walking, keep walking.

We wanted to sell the house ourselves without the added expense of a realtor.  People gasped, this isn't how you do it when your time line is so narrow!  Ah, but I've always been a risk taker and it's one of the biggest attractions Dave and I have to each other, both being 'risk takers'. 

Within three weeks of being on the market we are under contract.  I know, nothing is done until the closing is all signed .. so I'm not popping that champagne bottle yet! But holy Toledo, this has been one very fast conveyer belt!  With my head down I haven't really looked right or left, but just plowed ahead working on the house, informing my clients that after 16 years my office will be closing within weeks, meeting and greeting folks in the new office in Farmington, working out the details of that new partnership.

And did I mention the wedding?  Yup.  And of course the big celebration of joining our two lives together with all our friends and our families is going to happen just as all this house stuff and moving stuff is coming to a head!

Keep walking, keep walking.

And I wonder why I woke at 3:00 a.m. this morning!   But, here's the important point ...  not once have we banged our head against any kind of wall.  We've knocked on a door and three have swung open!   I truly feel the Universe is saying "Keep walking" .. and with this comes real validation that this whole thing must be the right thing.  I'm a firm believer in being able to recognize when the spirits are working with you and not against you.  Trusting this is not easy, but when I give myself over to this, when I truly trust  and let go of trying to control too much, I find myself on that conveyer belt. 

Oh, I have to put out the energy, take the steps, knock on that door, and move my life forward. 

But the more I do this, the more I trust and give myself over, than the Universe is carrying me .. and all my baggage ... along much easier.  

Loving you all back,
Mary

Wildness

This past weekend I was up on Great Pond in the Belgrade Lakes area.  This time of year the Loons are nesting and talking with each other.  I can never quite get a handle on whether these birds are nocturnal creatures or prefer sunlight; they seem to call to each all night long and yet are ever present on the surface of the lake during the day.

That call ... it always hits me in the solar plexus ... it stirs the imagination and, like the octave jumping of the wolf's moan, the loons song also speaks of wildness.  Unlike the mournful wah-hoo of the Mourning Dove or the sharp, static, conversations of the Crow, you must go to the quieter fresh water areas of our world to hear the Loon's song.

I have never had the gift of hearing a wolf cry into the night.  I know that it would raise the hair on the back of my neck as well as have me burst into a smile from ear to ear.  It's a sound I truly hope to hear some day before I leave this place.  But I have heard the yip and yowl of the coyote while on a cattle drive in Wyoming.  Being hearing impaired I'm never sure what range an animals voice will be in and whether I'll actually be able to hear it.  So, while on this cattle drive so many years ago, I had asked those with us that if they heard coyotes singing to let me know so I might focus all my attention to that one sound and grasp that bit of mountain wilderness.

One evening, while sitting around the nightly campfire, one of the wranglers came out of the darkness into the small circle of light and motioned to me to join him.  I jumped up and followed him into the blackness away from the fire.  The stars were brilliant above us with a tiny sliver of a moon just beginning to hang over the distant rounded shape of a mountain.  Buck looked at me and simply said, "listen" as he walked away.

Buck had a little black and white cattle dog, Lily, who was one of the most unfriendly dogs I have ever met.  She tolerated people but she had big boundaries.  If you walked too close to her she would lower her head and, like the rattler of the rattle snake, she would give a low menacing growl to warn you to back off.  You knew she meant it and you also knew that she would never back down, she always expected you to find a broader track around her!

So as I stood there this night, under that brilliant star-pricked sky with the sage brush dotting the landscape, I closed my eyes and turned towards the coyotes singing ... and I stood stalk still, willing that mournful, ancient howl to drift over that dry land to my compromised ears.  Just as I heard the first high carooning song I felt the lightest touch of little feet on my thigh.  I stood still, listening with my eyes closed to the yipping of a distant pack, fully aware that Lily was standing upright with her small front feet on my leg listening intently with me.  After many seconds I heard Buck in the distance say, "Well, I never!  Never saw her do that with anyone but me!"  I felt her little feet disappear from my leg and as I opened my eyes I watched her wiggle and wag her way over to Buck.

Buck looked at me and just shook his head with a big grin on his face, "not sure what you were doing but Lily was pretty attracted to it."  I'm not sure what I was doing either, accept trying to connect with my own wildness, trying to block out the campfire behind me with a small group of people gathered around it, who couldn't see the stars through that brighter fire light and who weren't needing to listen so intently for the song of the coyote.  Perhaps Lily was connecting to her wildness with me.  I don't know, but she went right back to being a little bitch who wanted nothing to do with me!

I'm getting ready to return to a wilder place than where I live now.  Ready to claim a larger piece of land and turn that earth into my own herb and vegetable garden and turn away from the GMO's that everyone is screaming about these days.  Ready to live where the Loons call, the coyotes yip and the stars offer enough light to see the trail without a single back porch lamp lighting the night.

Lobster Lake

I'm ready to join this man of mine whose wild heart matches my own and who has woken me in the middle of the night while in our tent and whispered, "listen" ... and I turn my full attention to that lonesome wail from across the lake.

Loving you all back,
Mary