WATER

 Water.  It’s an amazing substance too frequently taken for granted for all the magic it brings to this earth.  Water is chemically known as  H2O.  Two Hydrogen and one oxygen.  The universal solvent.  It is life.  It is found in every living thing on earth.  It exists in three states: solid, liquid and gas.  Solid will melt to the liquid state and the liquid state will evaporate into the gas form.  It tends to break its own rules though.  The process of sublimation has the solid form going directly to the gas. 

My walk yesterday was through the crust of snow that fell the night before.  Getting out into the morning I could feel the air warming and the snow changing to rain that was immediately freezing on my jacket.  When water becomes super cooled it can exist in the liquid state but below its freezing point, thus freezing on contact with any surface it hits …me, for instance.

Passing a small Beech tree I marveled at the effects of the freezing rain on the leaves that still clung tenaciously to their branches; the dried leaves quake in the breeze, brushing against each other to sound like a Shaman's rattle. The frozen surface of the brown leaves turned them into burnished copper.  The Hemlocks dip with the new weight of ice crystals collecting on their feathery fronds; a glittering of fans over me as I pass through their grove.

My dog,Rosie, and I head down towards the trail we have named “the gorge”.  This trail is narrow and rocky and follows one of the three streams that flow through this land we claim as our own.  Entering into this darker wood with its high bank on one side the rain no longer hits my jacket with a PING as the denser foliage of the coniferous trees shield us from above.  There is a different energy along this trail, quiet, calm.  It’s always green in this “gorge” with the bright green of the mosses that grow on all the rocks and the Christmas Ferns along the trail remain a deep green all through the winter months.  I look for tracks along the stream bed; the small pads of the Mink as it runs along impossibly thin ice that hovers over the flowing water.   A raccoon came down to the deeper pool and the tiny skittering of the weasel tracks show her scampering from rock to rock in search of small rodents or insects hiding in the crevasses.  I love this trail.  The footing is difficult but the mood is always easy.

I can see a fog rising off some of the snow still in the field.  Sublimation.  Fog also hangs heavy over the mountain, clinging to the various ridge lines and obscuring the summit one minute and twirling and swirling upward exposing the summit the next.  Having grown up on the coast of Maine there is a term, “pea soup” that refers to surface clouds so dense you can see only a few feet in front of you.  I remember walking along the beach in this opaque fog.  A beach at low tide in a pea soup fog creates a very small world; one with visibility of only a few feet all around you.   You exist in the moment of one footstep at a time within a monotonous landscape of sand.  Shadows loom up ahead becoming recognizable only when they enter within a few feet, emerging as a large piece of driftwood or another person walking in the opposite direction.  It was the only time that I felt I was truly present in the moment.  Unable to see anything in my future and the past lost to the fog. I traveled, one step at a time, through a dense cloud of water.   

Today the lake looks like molten mercury, smooth, charcoal gray and still.  No loons break it’s surface or call across the shores now.  Winter is here and they have gone to the sea until next spring.  

Soon there will be ice forming on this body of water.  My husband will watch it closely and determine when it is safe enough to walk down with skates in order to glide across the black mirrored surface.   Once the snow falls I will walk across the lake to the opposite shore and the trails on the other side.  The frozen water allows me to walk on top of the lake! Amazing!

I am remembering a friend who once was in love with a man from Barbados.  He came to Maine during the winter to witness “the big chill”.  We took him to a small pond by the beach to experience skating.  He pulled up beside me and grab me around the waist whispering in my ear,
“Mary, how do they do this?”  

“Do what?”

“THIS!?” he said as he gestured to the frozen surface of the pond.  He opened my eyes to just how miraculous “this” is; this body of water that we can walk and play upon!

Water. It is all around us. A wave of water bursting between our mother’s legs introduces each of us to this world. We are water. We can’t live without it.   

 Christmas with a Grandson. 

My memories of Christmas are filled with light, carols, food, lots of family and an obscene pile of presents under the tree.  With five kids in the family there was a lot of gifting going on.  My parents weren’t rich so a lot of the presents were very small, simple gifts wrapped in a big exciting box.  It was the joy of opening and finding this secret that has been held within these wrappings for weeks prior to the morning of the 25th. 

One present at a time was handed out and we all sat and watched the unfolding of the magic held within. One-at-a-time we would slowly work through that mountain of colored wrappings, taking all morning to get to the last tiny box sitting on a bow of the tree.  Christmas morning, there was never a rush to get it over.  We’d waited a lifetime for it to arrive so we took it slow and savored it all.

I still have my rag doll that Santa left under my stocking when I was five.  I have a very large, black stuffed poodle that I awoke to beside me in my bed on the morning of my fourth birthday.  I have memories of all this from about three years old.  At one years old I remember nothing.

I won’t be supplying my grandson with boxes and boxes of presents this Christmas.  At one years old any object given may simply be that for a while.  I have a file drawer filled with children's books I have collected and saved over most of my adult life. They will be worlds to travel through with him.  We have a home in a secluded valley filled with streams, forests, fields and beaver bogs where treasures hide; British soldiers stand guard to the reindeer lichen, the pixie cups wait for the elves to come sip from their rim and the brilliant orange of witches butter dazzles from the dead stumps.  Barred and Great Horned owls call at night waiting to hear an answering call. Standing on the deck we can answer those wishful callings and draw them closer to us during these silent nights.  

There will be tiny weasel tracks to follow with the coming snow and a sled for gliding down the hill to the lower field.  Gifts of time with each other is what we will share with him this Christmas.  The first wobbly steps of memories being laid before him with people who love him. A love that is equal to the great canopy of stars over our heads at night.

This will be our Christmas for our one year old grandson this year.

And for a lifetime of years to come.

 For my mom~

The greatest gift you gave me, besides my life, was asking me to assist you in your passing. 

As a teenager you and I were like oil and water, I didn't really like you and you didn't really understand me.

When I bolted ... by getting into an old Saab with two men you had never met and we drove away... you believed you would never see me again.  Perhaps I didn't even know if this was true or not at that time.  I was heading for Colorado with a man and a dream.   The mountains still call me.

As I grew I learned how to set my boundaries with you, to my surprise, this had you respect me even more.  You taught me how to be strong, how to never let a man control me, to always have my own money and my own life.  I've been lucky to find men who have loved me and appreciate this independent  nature that you instilled in me.

I always loved you and came to really like you.  Your sense of humor was quick, dry and hysterical.  Your ability to listen and engage with others had many coming to visit you for hours when you no longer could leave your house.  People loved you and enjoyed being in your presence.  You even voted for a democratic president after 90 some years of only voting republican.  Barack Obama made you proud.  You would love the fact that Kamala Harris now commands the VP position.  You were always a woman of power yourself.

You were born in the wrong era, one where men controlled the world and their wives and when women had only 4 choices of a career; teacher, nurse, secretary or mom.  At 28 years old you came late to your last career as mom.  Mom to five children and the wife to the minister of a small town.  Talk about a fishbowl!  You shouldered it well and an entire town came to love an entire family with your help.

So in November of the year 2019 you became ill.  Not horribly ill, nothing that some medicine and a lot of Dr. visits might  not have been able to help you through.  But at 97 years old you saw that your independence and ability to still live alone might never return to you.  So you decided it was time to just leave this plane and go be with all the family and friends who had journeyed on without you. And you asked me to be there to assist you.  Perhaps it was because you had witnessed how I stood by my husband who spent 18 months dying from a brain tumor.  Perhaps you saw that I was capable of doing this and would not try to convince you to stay.  Your youngest and your middle daughters sat with you, laughed with you, helped you begin the month long process of dying ... with honor and with dignity.  There would never be any other way for you.

Today, on Mother's day I find myself wishing I could call you or bring you the Irish soda bread you loved so much (it was your recipe mom!). And to sit in your living room and watch the flock of turkeys parade past your windows as you tell me what great mothers those "old girls are".

I miss you mom.

But I am of you and I carry you in my being.

Always.

Mom with Donna Gray.

Tracks

I love going out with my dog, Rosie, after a new snow has fallen.  I see with my eyes what she "sees" with her nose as she puts it into some animal's tracks and follows it for short distances: the tiny quotation marks with a thin line drawn between them of the weasel, the tight stitching tracks of the grouse, the parenthesis cleft of the deer or the much larger, but similar clomp of the moose.  There is a beautiful coyote who travels our trails with h/her tracks looking so much like Rosie's even with the hind foot drag.  And the smaller, single file padding of the gray or red fox as they follow the staccato dots of the field mouse that disappear into a single hole. 

I'm drawn to the outdoors and to witnessing all that these woods, fields and mountains have to offer up to me. 

As I came back down the mountain side this morning I got thinking about how I am now an orphan; there is no parent to me in this world any longer.  I guess, at my age, this isn't uncommon and more and more of us 'boomers' are facing elderly parents and their eventual death.  

Both my parents nurtured in me my love of all things outdoors.  My mom, raised as a Maine farm girl,  was completely comfortable with cutting the heads off a chicken.  She once validated that they do run around without their head if you don't hold them tight enough while you bring the axe down.  This same woman was terrified of the little meadow vole.   She literally would scream at the sight of one or shiver at the mention of them in my house, stating, "OH!  I hate mice!"

She instilled in me my need to remain independent and not be taken in as just a girl by some boy.  She always encouraged that I go 'double dutch', slipping a $20.00 bill into my pocket when going off on a date in high school.  Somehow it was understood that if I paid my own way I wouldn't "owe" that young man anything.  This teaching served me well as I grew from girl to woman.

My  mother always expected me to be able to do the same jobs my brother did: shovel snow, haul brush, cut down a tree, bury the compost, mow the lawn.  Mom was in her 80's when we finally convinced her it wasn't safe to use her chainsaw when no one was around.  And so I grew, knowing that I was strong and capable of following my own path and carrying my own load.  I have never cut the head off a chicken though ... and to this day I'm not sure I've got that in me!

My dad was a poet and gentle man who was compassionate and caring of others.  He took a career where his poetry could be spoken every Sunday from the pulpit.  His need to care for others could be used in his counseling for those grieving a loss or in the kind discussions of marriage with a young couple.  My dad was far more spiritual than religious. He taught me that God could be felt in all of nature; including the small, fragrant Mayflower or the exotic Lady Slippers.  These treasures needed to be hunted down in the deeper woods.  We were taught to never pick these precious beauties, but rather to worship them in those deep, sacred woods.

The months of the school year were spent in a small town in the foothills of the western mountains of Maine where my dad's church was.  There I learned to paddle and maneuver a canoe, to snowshoe, to downhill ski and to somehow get through twelve years of schooling.  Summers were spent on the coast where my mother had grown up on that farm and where my grandfather (my mom's dad) built a small cape for the newlyweds on a piece of farm land owned by family.  It was this spot with the smell of drying seaweed and the sound of surf surging that I always felt was my 'home'.  It was here that my parents spent the rest of their days after dad's retirement and where my mother stayed after my dad's untimely death.  It was here, in this little cape, where my mother decided, at 97, she was tired, she had lived a good life and it was time to join her ancestors.  And it was here that I spent the few weeks needed to aid and care for her in this process.  Full circle as the mother cares for the child, I cared for my mom .... the natural cycles of birth and death.

It was in these fields that led down to the rock ledges and the sandy beach that dad would take us out at night to stare into the night sky and listen to the call of the Whip-o-will.  Lying on our backs he pointed out the constellations and taught me how to follow the curve of the big dipper's handle to find one of the largest stars in our solar system, Arcturus.  "Arch to Arcturus" he would say, sweeping his arm across the the dipper's handle and landing on another bright speck.  He would talk of infinity, light years and eternity ... concepts as big as that glittering sky that were impossible to grasp and yet opened the mind to what endless and possibility meant. 


My parents encouraged me to go outside and allowed me to run wild in the summers, barefoot and free down by the sea.  They instilled me a respect for myself and also for the natural world around me and all the living organisms that share it.

Today,  I went out into my own spot of earth, living again in the western Maine mountains, and learned of some of the other beings that share this land with me. 

With the greatest respect I send up a thank you to my parents, who taught me how to be in love with it all.

January 3, 2019

 January 3 is here.  Jim would be 68 years old.  Amazing.

It's been a very long time since I've written here, on my blog.  What has brought me here today is the birthday anniversary and this note I found this past fall from my good friend Mick Cochran.

Back when Jim was in Hospice there were a lot of people who couldn't get in to see Jim; everyone aware that this was the end of his fight.  He was in a morphine coma for most of his time in Hospice, but I was (and still am) a firm believer that hearing is the very last thing to go.  So I put a notice up, on this blog, that if anyone was unable to get to Hospice to say goodbye to Jim they could send me a note and I would read it to him.

The notes, the cards, the poems started to come in.  And I read every single one to Jim.

I saved many of them, in a box that was stashed away in my closet at the house in Falmouth.  When packing up that house to make the move to the mountains I found the box.  I was feeling pretty emotional at that time so couldn't open this box knowing what was in it .... so I brought it to Farmington and stashed it away in the basement in our house here.  This past Fall we began the long needed cleaning out process of so many boxes stashed away.  I found this box, again.  I opened it this time and found this note from Mick.

I skimmed it quickly.  And then I clutched it and took it to the couch where I read it slowly.  And then I dissolved into tears.

Dave found me there.  He sat down and asked what was wrong?  I handed him this note and watched as he read it and his tears begin to flow too.  He came over and put his arms around me and just held me.  When I could talk again I said to him:

These tears are for gratitude.  Gratitude for this man who chose me for 34 years.  This man who so many loved, who is everything here that Mick has summed up in a few, wonderful phrases.  He was an amazing  person.  But what has me sobbing is the fact that somehow I have been blessed ... or graced ... or what I don't even know!  But I find myself with another amazing partner to finish out my days with here on earth.  I don't know .. I truly don't understand .. why I am so blessed!  But I am so very grateful for your love, Dave Lovejoy.

My good friend who was in acupuncture school with me and who I continue to see every September along with 7 other women who graduated in the same class told me, after meeting Dave, "Mary, you have got amazing 'Man-Qi'!"

Maybe this is what it is?  Maybe I just have good "Man-QI".  I sure as heck don't know why I am so blooming lucky to be so graced with two wonderful human beings who want to walk with me, love me, partner with me through this life.

But ... I take it.  I look to the top of my mountain and watch the clouds unfurl and tumble around it.  And I just say, 'thank you'.  Thank you for all of this.  I am so very grateful for the presence of all the amazing people in my life.

Here is Mick's note:

Loving you all back,
Mary

Mr. Brewster

All my running buddies are injured, including Rosie.  This morning I headed out for my longest run in over 7 years ... 6 miles.  One girlfriend had planned to do this with me but she had to go see her doctor for an ankle injury.  Another friend, who actually has inspired this new surge in running for me again, has a possible stress fracture in her foot.  And Rosie has a torn toe nail that has her limping and looking forlorn.

So, I headed out this morning into the sunshine and temperatures pushing near 40F degrees all by myself, but with a gorgeous morning for a run.  

Taking to the ski-mobile trails here I plotted my course as I ran.  I am in training for a half marathon to be held in the small, northern Maine town of  Millinocket next December.  Yes, next December .. like a good girl scout, I believe in being prepared!  But mostly I have fallen off my endurance athletic endeavors and have needed the motivation to get out there again.  With the encouragement of my friend, Beth, I signed up for this half-marathon and  have hit the trails ... running. 

Beth and MW, both amazing women with a lot of miles and marathons under their belts, have been more than kind in their patience and willingness to run with me at my Clydesdale pace.  And the chatting that goes along with these runs makes it so much easier to log another mile or two on without much thought to it.  Thus, today, as I struck out on my own I wasn't sure I would get this job done without more distractions than my own thoughts.

But, running is a solo sport and within the first mile or more I found my rhythm and my thoughts started to wonder:  I began to think of my high school track running days and with this came the memory of Mr. Brewster.

Mr. Brewster was a handsome older man with white hair and a spreading middle. He was my biology teacher my sophomore year.  A very quiet, mild-mannered individual he always seemed to struggle with discipline of his class, and far too many of my classmates took advantage of this as I remember.  But I liked him and I loved Biology.

I ran the 880 in track.  I wish I knew then what I know now about running distance and the training for such distance.  But I was built for endurance and not a sprinter so I got signed on for the longest event available to girls who ran track.  I hated it.  But I would show up for practice and run around and around that track trying to get the 'love of the game' in me.  Our track coach was also the gym teacher.  She was young and newly hired, probably not much older than we were at that time and she had a lot more focus on the sprinters and the hurdle runners.  After all, to run the 880 all you had to do was, well, run!

Mr. Brewster use to walk to school every day, regardless of the weather, covering at least a mile or more in one direction.  During track season he would stop by the track setting his briefcase down beside him in the grass and watch the practice for a few minutes.  Then, picking his briefcase back up, he would turn to walk home.  One day, as he watched, I got a horrible pain in my side half way around the track.  I had to stop running and just walk, bent over and gripping my side.  As I came around to the side by the school he motioned me over.
"Got a stitch?"
"Yeah.  It will go away eventually."
"You might try belly breathing.  It's just gas trapped under your ribs.  So breath and let your belly really expand as big as possible to give that gas some room to move."  And with that he picked up his briefcase and headed for home.

He continued to stop by the track practice every day and I began to go over and speak with him.  One day he told me I might try speeding up a little bit.  "Don't go too fast or too soon.  Just try speeding up your last circle around, a tiny bit, and on that last half before the finish line see if you have enough juice left to just go a tiny bit faster".  And he headed for home.

Another time he said, "as you speed up, try pumping your arms a little more, see if they don't help propel you forward and help with that last push of your sprint". 

Or he would say, "Mary, don't forget to drink some water, it's hot out here today".

I would listen to him and experiment with his suggestions.  At one point my real coach came over and spoke with me saying, "Mr. Brewster seems to be giving you some pointers."  I was a little embarrassed so answered her with a roll of my eyes and a "yeah, well, it entertains him I think".
 She smiled and said, "You know, he was a track star all 4 years of college at Colby.  Broke a lot of records with distance running, some still hold. He's a good coach.  You'd do well to listen to him!"

When I pulled my lower jaw off the track asphalt she laughed and moved on.

I never became a very good runner, never did much for the track team with my 880 times, but I was pretty proud of the fact that Mr. Brewster saw something in me that worth nurturing and helping along.  Today, as I stopped while running up, yet another long hard hill, I had a stitch in my side. I stopped and breathed by expanding my belly into a big "Buddha belly".  I pulled out my water bottle and I lifted it to the tops of the great pine trees I rested under with a toast to Mr. Brewster.   I tucked my bottle away into my runners pack and,  pumping my arms, I ran up that damn hill with that stitch no longer bothering me.

I was able to run 6.71 miles today and cut two full minutes off my most recent min/mile running times!

I give full credit of this to Mr. Brewster, my running partner today.

Loving you all back,
Mary

I'm enclosing an article from Downeast Magazine about this marathon in Millinocket;  an old mill town that was created by the papermill and was a thriving area while that mill was running.  But, like a lot of Maine towns, the mills have shut down and the towns have become ghost towns.  Millinocket is the gateway to Baxter State Park and our majestic and loved Mt. Katadhin.  The people of this town are proud, but their town economy is suffering.  This full and half marathon was created by Gary Allen - "The Marathon Man" -  to help pump money back into this town.  Thus, only a good cause like this could get me attempting to run 13+ miles again ... next December!

http://downeast.com/marathon-man/

Come Winter

There is a dusting of snow on the mountain that overlooks our homestead this morning.  The air is not just the crisp, clean spirit of a fall morning, but the crackling, breath taking cold slap that is more common to a winter morning.  Come winter these temperatures will be more accepted, but today I'm not quite use to it.

Yesterday, in the early morning, I headed out to climb Varnum Mountain with my dog Rosie.  The minute we stepped off the deck her hackles were up and her nose to the ground. The erratic circles of the invisible trail she followed spoke to me of our resident skunk that has sprayed her two times now.  But as we got down onto the trail I could see the deep, blanket of leaves disturbed ahead of me.  Rosie, still with her hackles up and nose to the ground was also aware of the disturbance; more of a straight line vs. circles and definitely something big enough to leave a trail in the leaves.  Moose?  Deer?  Coyote?  The tracks weren't clear enough to tell; they left only a faint memory of what went before us.

But come winter I will be able to see very clearly the tracks in the snow that Rosie "sees" with her nose.

Today I am thinking about an entire community in the small town of Orono who are grieving the loss of one of their members.  A man who traveled to Antarctica and the Arctic studying climate change, glaciers and ice.  A man who was an amazing scientist, teacher, friend, father and husband.  A man whose death has rocked the entire world.  A man whose image I see at our camp fire deep in the north woods on Spencer Lake with the rain falling, the wet wood smoking, the fire sputtering and Gordan's head thrown back laughing.  All who knew him speak of the laughter and fun-loving spirit of a very devoted and intelligent scientist.    A man who spent much of his time on ice and in winter.  A man who leaves a crevasse as huge as the one he fell into in the hearts of those who knew him. 

Come winter we will all need to close the circle around her and build up the fires to warm that empty space.

Come winter Dave and I will explore these woods on snowshoes, identify the tracks of the others who share the land with us,  watch the snow fall over the mountain and hold all our loved ones close.  For I have learned first hand that there are no guarantees in life, that all that we hold most precious can be whisked away in a single moment; no tracks left behind for us to follow them.  Only the memories of what once was.

Loving you all back,
Mary