The Heart of Buddha

View from Bald Mountain, Maine

I was out early this morning for a bicycle ride, before the heat and humidity of the day could wilt me.  Climbing up to the ridge that is known as Mosher Hill I could see the western mountain range off in the distance, shimmering in the heat that would be descending later in the day.  This is a respectable climb on my bike, and I was going pretty slow needing to stand on my peddles at times or bounce back down onto my saddle to maintain some kind of momentum so I wouldn't fall over like the tricycle riding comedian of the Laugh-In generation.  It was during this slow climb that Jim came to me.

He does this, pops in at different and unique times, not always associated with an anniversary any more.  Today, as I climbed, I got thinking about his actual passing in Hospice.  We were in Hospice for five days and during this time many people came to our room to sit by Jim, or sit with me on the couches across the room from the bed where Jim lay in his morphine induced coma.  One frequent visitor was our dear friend, Jane Burdick.  Jane is a practicing Buddhist and has been for years.  She became Jim's mentor in his studies and a trusted friend and teacher who helped him find a deeper understanding and appreciation for his own practice.

On one of Jane's visits, after she had sat and meditated beside Jim, she took my hand on her way out and told me to whisper into Jim's ear, "dissolve into the heart of the Buddha".  I thought this was beautiful, and I began to hold this mans hand and, truly believing that hearing is the last thing to go and that Jim was capable of hearing everything, I would whisper into his ear to dissolve into the heart of Buddha.  And then I would kiss that unresponsive hand.

The morning of Jim's passing the night nurse woke me at 3:30 a.m.  She had to shake me pretty hard to get me to wake up.  I had been awake at 2:00 a.m. and all was fine and yet in that hour and a half I fell into a deeper sleep than I may have had over the entire 18 months of Jim's struggle with brain cancer.  Someone had told me this is a phenomena that happens, as though the individual who is passing is able to silence their loved one by putting them into a deep sleep or even to time their passing for when the loved one leaves the room, thus slipping away without the witnessing of that last breath.  I do believe this is what Jim did not only to me but to my good friend, Mary Margaret, who spent her nights at hospice with me. She told me she was also in a very deep sleep even though she had gotten up at 2:30 a.m. to check on Jim.

As this kind nurse woke me she gently whispered, "he's gone" and gave me a hug.  There was an odd feeling of nothingness in me.  I looked at MaryMargaret and said, "what do I do now?"  She suggested I take my time.

Prayer flags, Ladakh India

 I got dressed, called Jim's sisters who were staying at our house during this time and began to pull things together.   The nurse came back in and told me she needed to share with me the experience she had prior to checking on Jim.  She said she was sitting at the computer in the office and heard, "the most unusual, but very beautiful, tinkling bells.  And my first thought was to check on Jim!" (there were many other people in the hospice house at this time, but it was Jim she thought of).

I knew instantly what the tinkling bells were this nurse had heard.   If you have ever held the small, brass, hand cymbals that the Buddhist monks chime during ceremonies you would know the tinkling, but unusual, sound of these bells too.

I began to cry as this nurse squeezed my shoulder and said, "I thought you might want to know this" and left the room.  And thus, I knew that Jim had dissolved into the heart of Buddha.

As I reached the highest point of my climb and traveled along the ridge with that gorgeous view of the mountains I thought ...  now Jim is not only part of the heart of Buddha but he is part of everyone's hearts too.  He is not only part of my heart, but he is in and deeply dissolved into each and every heart of the people who knew and loved  him.  The gold thread of connection now has all of us connected together through and with Jim.

 I knew that Jim wanted me to write this today, wanted me to tell those who will read this to know,  we are all connected by this LOVE.  This LOVE, that is of the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, God, Great Spirit, The Divine ... whatever you want to call it, it is all the same LOVE.  Only humans and their belief systems seek to separate this and alter it to appear different from one another.  But it's not, it is one LOVE, and we are all connected to it.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Jim, on the left, in Ladakh India

Memories

April.  It's here and once again I find myself wondering what the heck is happening to my normal calm demeanor.

It doesn't seem to matter what I do or how I try to push these feelings away they still ooze up from my cellular memories and become part of my day.  The beast is circling deep and stirring the waters I guess.  This grief beast no longer surfaces for long and no longer drags me down into the darker depths, but it still nips at me, has me feeling uneasy, restless and with emotions that rip through me like a  polygraph needle, spiking and dipping erratically.

And the reason this always takes me by surprise is because Jim died in May, not April!  When May rolls around and the anniversary of his passing comes I find myself back to normal and feeling fine again.

Grief is a very odd beast.

With this month come flashbacks too.  Yes, flashbacks, as in PTSD flashbacks.  I've been reminded that one doesn't need to have gone to war to have this disorder.  Yesterday I went out to the house in Temple with plans to give Rosie, our new 4 month old pup, a little fun and then go for a run by myself.  After I had walked with Rosie I took her in the house to settle her onto her bedding, but this little dog had other ideas.  She seemed to know my plan to leave her alone and she was not going to allow this to happen today.  She refused to lie on her bedding, staying close to me as I tried to get ready and out the door.  I took her back to her bed and sat down beside her.  I had a nice fire going in the fireplace for her but she insisted on being in my lap.  There she snuggled in, wet and shivering from the long romp out in the snow we had done earlier.  I pulled the old sleeping bag that is now hers up over us and she began her little purring noises.

I couldn't leave her now.  I sat there with the fire going, looking out the big picture windows at the mountains and decided I didn't feel like running anyway.  My motivation and my energy was gone.

Sitting there holding this little puppy I flashed on an April afternoon back when Jim was sick and he was refusing his usual afternoon nap; there were days when he just insisted on being with me every minute.  This was hard for me at times, but I always gave in to him.  This day we went out onto the deck in the sunshine with blankets and pillows.  Propped up against the trunk of the giant Oak tree in the yard Jim fell asleep on my shoulder.  We sat there for a long time and I began to quiet my mind and to relax in the moment ... since there wasn't really much else I could do.  It was then I heard the drumming.  Looking up I was able to locate the small Downy Woodpecker as he rapped on the dead limb high up in the tree over my head.  I continued to just look up and was able to watch "my" crows come and go in the foliage, they believing they were invisible, but I was aware and seeing.  I could see how the spring buds were swelling now and turning a pale pink as the sap flooded up from the roots and into the tops of the trees.   As I looked up I felt terrified of what my future held for me.  Terrified that this man who I loved so deeply was now reduced to being more like a child ... and I felt very alone on that spring morning.

My puppy adjusted herself and I came back to Temple.  There was an odd metallic drumming happening so I looked out to the old barn where a rusty gallon drum lays on it's side.  Perched on top was the bright red head of the Hairy Woodpecker and he was slamming his bill into the metal drum.  It didn't seem to be attracting any females but he continued to pound out his beat for several, painful looking drills.  Eventually he flew off to find a hollow log I assumed.

As the fire crackled and popped and Rosie slept I watched the gray storm clouds of the predicted snow darken and drop in over the mountain tops.  I saw the first Turkey Vultures of the season soaring on the wind currents flooding off the mountain; such big birds I always think "Eagle!"  But those wing tips tilted up to form a V and that distinctive wobbling back and forth pattern of their flight tells me it's the Vulture.

My attention was quickly brought to eye level as a flash of red streaked by and landed in a nearby birch tree.  The male Cardinal, so needed in these north woods to brighten our spirits and offer us their geranium blossom color in this gray and white season.  I flashback to a blog I had written one spring about red flags and their warning signs and how I will never let slight personality changes be passed off as anxiety or stress.  Could I have saved him if I had noticed the red flags flying?  Could I have changed his destiny?

Rosie stirred, awake now and I was ready to pack up and head back into town.  I haven't sat quietly  without a computer or cell phone or even a pad and pencil in my hands for a long time.  Just me and my thoughts and my view of that wonderful world I'm so in love with these days out in Temple.  I felt better, a little grounded, a little more ready to let the beast nip at me again if it must ... the memories aren't all that horrible after all.  There are some really sweet ones in me.  And I have this new life and  new memories being created even today.  I don't know how I got so blessed but I hope never to take it for granted.

This is a gift that this grief brings with it, the deep pain of real loss and the difficult flashbacks. But now there is also this whole new depth of gratitude and understanding that making this moment and this new life with the memories of today
really count. 


Loving you all back,
Mary

Winter Gems

"My Mountain" (also known as Varnum Mountain)

This morning broke with bright sunshine, blue sky and a temperature in the single digits.  Since I didn't need to be in the office until the afternoon I decided to head out to the land in Temple for an early morning xc ski by myself.

This land we bought has old logging trails and discontinued roads that border it and are used by ski mobiles in the winter.  There are hundreds of miles of these trails that are interconnected throughout the woods in Maine.  Many are run by local "sled clubs", which is true of the trails that exist a quarter of a mile in front of the house.  Well traveled, they make for great skiing without  the arduous task of breaking trail.  On an early Wednesday morning there would not be much traffic so I knew I would have the woods all to myself.

The snow sounded like Styrofoam as I glided down the lake towards the trail.  I love being out in winter as the signs of all the others who live here with me on this land are easily seen.  I followed the tracks of a little fox for a quarter mile before they veered off into the woods.  I picked up another padded track that was larger than the fox, probably a coyote.   This morning I wanted to go in a new direction and take a trail we hadn't explored yet.  At the first junction at one corner of our land I headed east..  Most of the trails on this land begin with a climb to ascend out of the valley.  This morning I didn't mind climbing first thing since it helped to warm me up;  the air was sharp on my face and my fingers were already numb.  Along this new slope I noted another kind of track, small, about 1 inch wide with distinct claws.  Tiny little tracks that never veered from the hard packed sled trail.  Further up the trail I saw the tracks leaped up the bank and disappear into the roots of one of the Poplar trees; I noted the fresh scat just outside this doorway.  I was surprised this little Mink would make it's home right beside this well traveled snow mobile trail but as I thought on this more I realized how smart this was ... the snow is damn deep this year with very little crust to support even a small Mink, traveling the packed trails saves a lot of energy.  Like me, this little gal didn't want to break her own trail and work too hard!

I climbed this hill for another half hour, up to where the trees opened up and I had a new view of the mountains that form my valley.  Having grown up on the ocean I am learning that mountains are as dynamic as the sea.  In the house we are rehabbing, we have sat looking out the picture windows and watched clouds dance on the top of Varnum mountain.  The wispy gasses of the cooler air aloft hit this large land mass and get held back, allowing them to gather strength and finally escape to billow down over the sides of the mountain or reach out towards the lake; spreading fingers across the sky that catch the scarlet rays of the setting sun and turn into fiery wisps.

Today, however, there was not a cloud in the sky and still these mountains command my attention. I stopped often to just look up at the blue of the sky above these peaks.  Directly over head the sky was the color of blue sapphire, but over the more distant mountains it turned a gorgeous aquamarine.  The evergreens still hold large clumps of  snow that look like huge, white, dangling pearls that are strung along the dark green branches.  The blanket of snow that dresses the sides of the mountain shimmer even brighter against that sapphire sky.

 There is such silence out there in those woods.  Today I brought another dear friend along with me in my thoughts as she faces a new challenge, one of chemo and radiation, surgery and more attempts to kill her before they hope to have her heal.  She would have loved being out there with me today and probably would have whipped my ass climbing the hills!  Today I want to embrace my ability to go out to these woods and to just be in that silence and all that blue.  Today I want to honor the friendships I have and to bring some of this blue brilliance back with me to share with one who is struggling.

Today I found winter gems with priceless beauty all around me.

Loving you all back,
Mary

December

I sit here looking out the big picture window in my office.  The sky is milky gray as is the ground with it's snow cover.  The birches stand proud in this afternoon light with black spreading branches.  On one of the branches sits a vibrant red dot ... a male cardinal.  I feel awe for his splash of color on this gray day.

The air smells of snow.  But not for long.  There is warm air circulating in the south that will bend and wind it's way up to us Northerners just in time for Christmas Eve, bringing with it record high temperatures and "heavy rains at times".  I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.

This is my favorite holiday.  I don't get caught up in the buying and craziness of shopping.  My family gave up gifting years ago; we all have far too much stuff anyway.  But I love the lights, the carols and the fun of giving a gift because it's right, because I can, not because I must.

A lot of people struggle with Christmas.  It comes wrapped with memories of all the magic that once was or should have been.  Those who struggle to find that glitter and gold again end up feeling lost and lonely.  Those who never had it find themselves questioning what it's all about and feel anger and depression.

This time of year now carries a darker side for me too. I get melancholy at times and very  moody.  As much as I want to escape the beast who lays low most of the time now it constantly circles and surfaces to brush a fin on my conscious and stir up the memories of a diagnosis on December 27th and a birthday on January 3.  It doesn't last as long these days and the pain isn't as deep or aching ... more of a paper cut to the heart that is quick, shallow with some sting to it.

And just as suddenly I can look at all the grace this life has brought to me.  How lucky I am.  There are lights on the tree that we cut and hauled off our land.  There were carolers ... "out in the snow" ... one evening at our front door.  Of course Dave and I sang along with them.  And there are presents under our tree.  There is love in my heart and my life and a whole new world to explore in these mountains.
I'm blessed.

The cardinal is back. He acts as a reminder that even the smallest bright spot, if noticed, if honored, can light up the darkest day.

There is always magic in the air, and miracles too, this time of year.

Merry Christmas.

Loving you all back,
Mary

For You

A couple weeks ago Dave and I stopped in to visit with my 93 year old mother.  This woman still lives alone and needs no care.  She's a bit unsteady now, but realizes this and takes great care with canes scattered around the house in every room within easy reach, much the way my reading glasses are in my own house.  But this gal is sharp as a razors edge and amazes me with her mental clarity.

During this visit she handed me a copy of a piece by Oriah Mountain Dreamer titled, The Dreamer.  I had read this years ago but my mother handed it to me and said, "this made me think of you.  I think you should read it aloud so Dave can hear it too".

So I did:

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.  I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are.  I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.  I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.  I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.  I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from it's presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver moon, "YES!"
It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.  I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.  I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.  I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.  

As I read this there were several times when my voice cracked and I had to take a deep breath in order to keep from crying so that I could keep reading.  When I had finished I looked up to see Dave wiping tears from his cheeks and eyes.  I gave a big sigh as Dave turned to my mother and said, "wow, Mary Lou, you know how to bring us all to our knees!"    At this the three of us laughed.

When I read this so many years ago it was before Jim was sick, before I became a caretaker to a man who would not survive, before I understood what "standing in the center of the fire with me" truly meant.  When I read this so many years ago it wasn't personal.  On this day as my mother handed this to me because it had made her think of me it was very personal.

I share this with all the caregivers who are now, have been, or will be called upon to find strength they never knew they had.
I share this with those who have lost a huge piece of their life as they've witnessed the passing of a loved one.
I share this with those who will need to live with their failures and questions of whether are doing or have done enough and yet, 'still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver moon, "YES!"'

I share this with those who have had nights of deep despair and they are weary to the bone but still get up and do what needs to be done for someone else.

It goes out to those who have been tested to the point of feeling so badly broken that they feel they can never find all the pieces again.
I share this with those who have put their own puzzle pieces back, maybe in a slightly different way now because one can never quite see the world the same again, and yet will still "dance with wildness" and seek their own truth and  live the remainder of their life true to themselves, "faithless and therefore trustworthy".

I share this with those who are "willing to risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive."

I share this with you.

Loving you all back,
Mary

Where is Love?

 

Lately the people on this earth have me feeling that most everyone is going insane.  So much hate and killing in the name of God and country.  So much greed and lack of human compassion for those who are most in need. All of it lately seems to come down to one thing really ... self service.  How one - or many -  can use their religion, their God, to justify their greed and their hate. How some can use their millions - or billions - to corral more power for themselves.

I'm baffled.

As all of you know my dad was a Congregational minister and I was raised, basically, in the church.  We heard a lot about God.  When we sat down to our family dinners we always bowed our heads and had a prayer said over the food and in blessing.  Most of the time dad gave the prayer, sometimes he would ask one of the older kids to say their prayer.  And as my oldest sister came into her teen years she would say, "Ah, MEN!" at the end of the prayer.  A take on the more commonly spoken, Amen.

I know now that my dad was a biblical scholar.  What I thought, when I was younger, was that dad just knew everything there was to know about Jesus and God and how to be a good person and not mess up.  But if you did mess up, God was all forgiving and you just needed to right your wrongs.  God understood that humans are imperfect - he made us that way - and we make mistakes ... take responsibility, say your sorry and learn from the mistake and still love your imperfect self.

"GOD FEARING CHRISTIANS" was not a part of my world.  We did not fear God.  God was Love.
 We heard this Corinthian reading almost weekly:  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

And sometimes I believe I replaced the word God for Love.  For they were one and the same in my mind.  Still are.

I struggle so much these days knowing that good, honest, God loving (and maybe fearing) people who tell me the bible says that Homosexuals are a sin; that such people are not welcome in their church.  Somehow, somewhere their bible talks about this.  I'm amazed.  Right here in my own circles there are people who go to a very different church than what I grew up in, and who seem to have a very judgmental God.   I so wish my dad were still here so that I could ask him how he might respond to this.  I can almost hear him spout off a quote from the bible off the top of his head to counter what these people are saying.   But I also hear him say, "sometimes you can't change what people think or believe.  The best thing you can do is love them despite their hurtful thinking.  Love them and show them compassion and perhaps they will learn to turn and do the same ... to everyone".

I feel we need to demonstrate an ability to accept and embrace those not made in the same exact way that we are.  Because God made all the little children.  We are not all the same skin color,with the same eye shape.  We are of  different genders and we do not all love in the exact same way; some of us love the same gender, yet they still have wonderful and amazing family values; still raise amazing wonderful children who become good citizens even though they had two moms or two dads.  

How does one cast the first stone and then explain their hate by quoting the Bible?  How does one ever get to this point of feeling so righteous, so empowered in their beliefs that they can stand in defiance against someone because they are a lesbian, or they are black, or yellow or red or purple?  And how does one ever, in the name of their God, raise their sword and begin killing entire villages because they see God clothed in a different cloth?

What has happened to that simple, yet profound, concept of Love ... that endures all things, hopes all things, never fails.  How in this world has God become the power behind that automatic weapon that can destroy entire villages, ripping down children, woman, and elders because these people say their prayers differently?

And when did God begin to tell people that they must step on every little head they can in order to climb the financial ladder and hoard as much money as possible for themselves.  How does one justify being a billionaire and pump some of these millions of dollars into politics that keep poor people from earning a decent wage, or from obtaining needed health care or getting food by using stamps.  How can people who have enough money complain about paying some taxes to help provide a single mother or father with food for their family? 

I guess I am standing here in judgement and decrying those who judge ... I am as guilty as the next person; pointing fingers that should, simply, be turned back on myself.  But ... I don't understand some of these Gods.  I believe there is this great Love that exists.  I believe there is a Power that is far greater than myself or even greater than the hate that seems to control so much of this world right now.  Humans are imperfect.  We mess up.

But, I worry we've really made quite a muck of things ... in the name of God.

"Where is Love?
Does it come from skies above?
Is it underneath, the willow tree,
that I've been dreaming of?"
(from the musical, Oliver)

Loving you all back,
Mary

A New Land. A New Life

Varnum Mountain

Dave and I have bought some land in the small town of Temple.  It boasts a population of 500 (502 now!) and we're told Temple is where most of the artistic, old hippies live.  This land is something we looked for from the time we arrived in Farmington last year.

While we still lived outside of Portland, Dave and I did a lot of thinking about how to sell my house and move to Farmington.  Where would we live after the sale of the house?  How could the timing of selling my house, finding land and building a new house ever work?  How would we do this?  We started just cruising real estate on line and began to see a lot of houses in the village at very reasonable prices.  The idea to buy one of these houses that could be turned into apartments bloomed. We could live there while we looked for the land we wanted and eventually rent the place in town.  This is how we came to own an old Victorian house on main street.  We began renovating the first floor into a three bedroom apartment last October and lived at the Lovejoy camp a half hour away while we were under construction.  We moved into the apartment last December and started construction on the second floor apartment. This old house is being given new life and will become a wonderful income property for us.

Farmington has many eyes that have been watching the transformation of this house. A very pedestrian  town people are walking by the house all the time.  Many stop to view our progress.  If we are sitting outside on the porch we will frequently become engaged in conversations with people or just hear, in passing, "I love your house!"

But this is not where we want to live, on main street with the traffic sounds and the parade of people.  As sweet as it is to be able to walk to the grocery store, the movie theater, the restaurants for dinner, even to my office, we always planned to find land outside of town.  And I wanted it to have view of the mountains.  We moved up to the mountains, I wanted to be able to see them!

I went to my favorite psychic,Tracy.  Each time I saw her she would describe the land we were going to find.  At that time I had visions of seeing the entire western range with Mt.Abraham, Saddleback and Sugarloaf; the rounded peaks of these mountains with their purple ridges etched into the horizon as far as the eye could see.  But Tracy would tell me, "I'm seeing water, with moose walking down front, there are mountains, yes, but there's also a body of water!"  This was very confusing for me.

She also told me I didn't need to worry, that we were going to get this land by Spring or the summer of this year.  She would say, "this place has wonderful energy,  the house is all glass.  It's amazing and so beautiful with so much glass looking out over the mountains and the water".

I thought she was crazy and confusing someone else into my reading!

We found this property last March and explored it on snow shoes. It was damn close to perfect.  We closed on this land in July ... we now own an entire valley that overlooks 3 mountains and a lake .. and we're only five miles from Farmington.  There is an existing house with "good bones" that we have to completely gut and renovate.  As we stand in the front room there are massive windows looking out at Varnum mountain with the lake shimmering to the east where we catch glimpses of the Loons who nest on this end of the lake.  As we walk through this house we tear down walls and design it in our minds.  We are planning on even more windows ... lots of windows ... to bring those mountains into our living room and that lake into our kitchen and those fields, woods and other two mountains to the west into our den and bedroom.  We've been told there are Moose that walk down through the field in front of the house.

Yes, Tracy saw it all!

Last week Dave and I put on blue raincoats and rubber boots and went exploring on a dripping day with the intent to head deeper into the interior of this land.  There are two beautiful wooded streams that run through the property.  We stopped to admire the multitude of greens that dotted this scene with ferns lacing the sides of the stream and the deep green carpeting of moss on the rocks.  In one shallow pool Dave spied a Brook Trout!  There are small cascading waterfalls and groves of white birch trees.  There are purple trilliums and promising feathers of young balsam furs making their way towards the sun.  In one very muddy area we saw bear, deer and moose tracks.

Varnum Pond

I found myself thinking ... "and this is mine?!"   There is a deep feeling of amazement of the fact that we now own this land.  The house down South had a postage stamp sized yard, though it had woods up back that "my" crows liked to swoop into and spy on me from.  But, there was no land to really walk through, to explore, to get a little lost in.

Growing up the family spent summers by the sea in Scarborough on the farmland once owned by my grandfather and where my mother had spent her childhood.  Here I would leap onto my one speed bike and peddle like the wind on the old farm roads that ran through the fields of corn and pumpkins.  In the spring my father would take us into the surrounding woods to go hunting for Lady Slippers; at times we'd find too many to be able to keep an accurate count.  There were the tender, pink edged Mayflowers deep in the woods that had us dropping to our knees to bury our noses into the tiny blossoms for that intoxicating smell.  There was the haunting Whip-poor-will call at night whose voice would float through the open front door as we watched Red Skelton on TV with a view of the full moon dripping from the Atlantic over Richmond Island.  We had endless tide pools to explore at low tide and ocean waves to body surf at mid tide.  It was the classic summer for a kid, with hazy days laid out in front of me and no agenda except to go where my curiosity or desires led me, with enough open land and a mile long beach to escape into.  A luxury I took for granted back then.

And here I am, at mid-life with a mountain valley stretching out before me with no other houses in sight and a rekindling of this feeling of freedom.  I am, once again, filled with curiosity and a desire to explore and discover all that exists in this new acreage that is all ours.

But, you know what?  When I saw those tracks, distinct impressions of the others living on this land with us,  I realized we do not own this land at all; we are, simply, the new stewards of it.  We are moving into a valley that has already been the home to many others for a much longer time. I feel we will need to learn how to best fit into this new neighborhood, how to best do our construction without disturbing too much of these pristine woods and fields. To enter this sanctuary with respect for all those we share it with.

For the first time since living in Colorado back in the '70's I will spend my days away from the ocean and it's air tinged with salt brine.  Instead I will have the musty, acrid smell of ferns and the call of Loons on summer nights when our doors are open and we watch the moon climb over the ridge of Varnum mountain and flood it's glow into this lovely valley.

View of the western range from the top of Bald Mountain

A new land. A new life.

Loving you all back,
Mary