Wintertime

 

I've always loved the snow.  

The changing of the seasons is so suited to my personality.  I used to think the seasons of renewal, heat and lethargy, dying and decay, and then solitude/darkness, were suited to all humans' personalities just like the change from night into day back into night.  

However, as I've aged, I've become more open minded, and in the process learned that not every one thinks like I do or feels like I do...which is a good thing.  That's what makes our world and our relationships with one another workable and pleasurable.  How boring it would be if we were all the same. 

For me, winter is one of my better seasons.  

As someone who craves solitude and works creatively, pulling inward is invigorating, not lonely or depressing.  What I've seen, experienced and felt all summer, I stew on, chew on, reflect and remember, and visualize during the winter months.  Summer is when I live it; winter is when I ponder it.

In summer, I feel compelled to be outside whenever the sun is out.  Our bad weather in Maine is the majority of the year, so I cannot miss a moment of the warmth and the sun of summer days.  I wouldn't take, what I consider, the luxury of working quietly and creatively inside, on a summer day. 

So...

...when winter arrives, I'm ready for it and know it has its place in my psyche and my day-to-day activities.  

For me, winter holds a valuable and treasured space.    

Photos:  Marginal Way, Perkins Cove, Ogunquit, Maine

"Personal Buoyancy"

Having just read the most captivating article in the January 2014 issue of Maine magazine about Dr. Edison Liu, President and CEO of Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, I have latched onto and borrowed his term for his unique theory on “doing good”  --  personal buoyancy.

Now picture a lobster pot bobbing on the frigid winter waves or a large red metal buoy in Casco Bay that the island ferries navigate around.  Their buoyancy allows them to be fluid, going up and down with the tides, not rigidly cemented.  They go up, they go down, again and again. 

Dr. Liu says in the article:  “What’s best for you in your life?  Being three feet under water or thirty feet?  We each swim best when we’re buoyant.  To find your personal buoyancy you have to know what your composition is and what equipment you have that allows you to swim.”

At middle age, I’ve become too rigid.  Past experiences have begun to weigh me down, and I’m carrying them as though they were the truth.  When I was young, I was more the sponge – taking it all in, trying to determine the truth.  I was learning and growing.  After so many years, I’ve come to some conclusions…..when I think perhaps I shouldn’t have.  I know now they’re not necessarily true.

I should remain the sponge.  I should let some of the weight of these beliefs go and try to return to the innocence of the novice.  The novice bobbed along the waves – fluid, with an ability to bounce back quickly, forgive, change course.  The novice had a demeanor of buoyancy….and hope, optimism.

My 2014 resolution has morphed.  I now seek buoyancy – knowing what I’m composed of and what my equipment is so that I can float…and ultimately, fly.

Photo:  Perkins Cove, Ogunquit, Maine

Who You Love

Each year end, I have dutifully cleaned out and stored away my paper files to prepare for a new year.  But now, at this age, I throw away more than I save – de-cluttering, freeing myself, letting go of baggage.  Over Christmas break, I found a note I wrote to my husband from January 1998 and our answers – papers I’m so glad I saved.  

What might you learn about your partner if you were to ask this?

“Hi –

With no explanation, I’d like to play a sort of game with you.  At first, I thought we could do it face to face so you could give your quick answers – you know, a word association type of thing.  As I came up with the questions, I decided it would be better for each of us to answer on paper, giving this some thought, separately.  Then we can talk about our answers together afterward…maybe over a nice dinner and definitely alone!  It’s a way of getting to know one another….again.” 

Our sons were 7 and 3 at that time, a time I likely felt getting re-acquainted was needed.  Perhaps now that they’re 22 and 18, it’s time for us again for 2014…

1. What’s your favorite sound?
2. What sound do you hate?
3. If you could be anything, what would you be?
4. If you could spend an evening with anyone (famous, historical, deceased), who would it be and why?
5. What is your favorite smell?
6. What smell do you loathe?
7. If you could give your children one thing, what would it be?
8. What do you like to do most?
9. What do you hate to do?
10. What is your pet peeve?
11. If you could solve one of the world’s problems, what would you tackle?
12. What is “God” to you?
13. What relaxes you?
14. What’s your all time favorite movie?
15. Book?
16. What is your guiding force or principle?
17. If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
18. What is a good marriage to you?
19. What is your largest worry?
20. What is your greatest fear?
21. What past experience brought you the most joy?
22. What was your dream when you were sixteen?
23. What is your dream now?
24. What is your favorite color?
25. Your least favorite?
26. What traits would your ideal partner possess?
27. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
28. What do you like most about yourself?
29. What do you think is the most admirable quality a person could possess?
30. What is the characteristic you despise most in others?
31. What is missing in your life?
32. What are you thankful for?

Here’s to loving the ones we love, to resolutions, to starting anew each January 1.

Photo:  Spring Point Light and Little Diamond Island by Frank Kalicky

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I have the privilege of being a volunteer at The Telling Room, a writing center for children ages 6-18.  The people involved with this organization are special – every single one.  I am inspired to be in their presence whether I’m teaching a 4^th grade visiting class, walking the streets of Portland with a summer camp group, or giving my corporate HR insights to the Board for the organization itself.

On Friday, 9:00 a.m., 10 degrees in Portland, I walked down Commercial Street to my committee meeting for Glitterati, The Telling Room’s annual auction/fund raising event coming up in March.  I had to leave the sidewalk for the street due to the staging three men had built on it.  Their mission – to put up more of the gorgeous half circle blue, green and white light artwork that sparkle on all the buildings along our brick façade waterfront.  Two men were on the sidewalk, looking upward and monitoring the ropes dangling down from the staging. 

I blew on my gloved hands as I passed; they were freezing cold.

All of a sudden, the third man, high up on the staging at the top of the building belted out in song:

It’s the most wonderful time of the year……

Laughing playfully down at his compadres on the sidewalk, he sang loud and proud.  I laughed out loud.  Early morning, freezing cold, men making our city look beautiful, being funny & playful.  

What a nice Friday morning…..

Photos:  Commercial Street, Portland, Maine

Standard Baking Company

All five senses came alive the moment I entered the tiny, warm bakery on a rainy day-before-Thanksgiving. I was truly like a kid in a candy store. For me, fresh rustic bread is more alluring than candy any day!

I come to Standard bakery at least once a week.  Loving all things French, I bought into the bread is the stuff of life mantra and began buying bakery bread many years ago.  When first married, I actually told Frank I thought I’d bake all our bread….he was laughing at me before I even finished the sentence!  I’ve been on many diets, but will never buy into the no-carb one.  Have you not read French Women Don’t Get Fat?

Standard Baking Company makes divine bread.  Both of my sons have become bread connoisseurs and would no more eat Wonder Bread than tripe.  From when Ben was 8 or 9, if I asked if he wanted toast with his breakfast, he would say, “Is it good toast?” meaning the real thing baked yesterday or this morning, not months ago with preservatives, packaged in plastic, and cut in sickly thin slices. 

Baguettes, large and small, Pain au Levain, croissants, brioche, focaccia, rustica – Standard has so much to choose from, their wooden shelves and thick brown baskets chock full.  The bread is not packaged, it stands free in the open air so purveyors can see so clearly what they’ll buy. 

The atmosphere inside the bakery is as enticing as the bread.  It’s the tiniest store in the cellar of Fore Street restaurant, its door off Commercial Street at the back of a busy parking lot.  The door opens onto their patio with tiny tables, a trellis overhead, and pots of flowers in summer.  The wooden floors inside are ancient and creak; the ceiling is low and beamed.  You can watch the bakers in the back rolling out dough.  It’s cozy and quaint. 

I’m all about aesthetics and my surroundings have the ability to transport me to my happy place.  I go to Standard bakery for the bread, but also for the pleasure of being in their space. 

On the day before Thanksgiving, their stock was twice as much as usual and wet customers wormed their way in a line around the tiny space, laughing with each other as they prepared for family and the next day’s feast.  The atmosphere was as warm as their pastry -- jovial, communal.  The lighting was dim.  I felt transported to another time….maybe to the French countryside. 

We came for soft yeast and anadama dinner rolls, but left with a pear frangipane tart and six croissants as well.  When turkey becomes unappealing, I’ll melt black forest ham and swiss with a maple champagne mustard on them for our lunches.

“You know,” I said to Frank as we exited, hoods on in the pouring rain, “even if we don’t need bread, we should always come here the day before Thanksgiving just for the pleasure that just was!!!”  Big smiles on both of us…

https://www.facebook.com/standardbakingco?rf=108131349229016

Top photo taken from Facebook page of Standard Baking Company

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

October 20.  9:22 a.m.  52 degrees in Maine….and I have already brought out the cushions for the deck set from their storage spot in the garage and am sipping coffee overlooking our glorious back yard, so grateful I’ve come outside.

The morning sun forces me to squeeze my eyes shut when the sun umbrella floats upward in the wind and the morning sun hits my face – it is so bright.  

Blinding. 

It must have rained earlier this morning; everything is wet and glistening in the sun.  The breeze rustles the colored leaves that remain on trees, hanging on for maybe only a matter of a few days more….but I’ve captured right here, right now.  I didn’t let this fantastic scene slip away unnoticed. 

“Leaves don’t drop, they just let go….”  the line from Carrie Newcomber’s song plays in my mind….no forcing, no pushing, no doing anything.  Just letting go. 

Maine in fall is breath taking.  Yesterday, we walked Evergreen Cemetery on Stevens Avenue, one of my favorite places…in the world.  Truly.  The ancient, giant trees in there are awe-inspiring.  The dirt roads curve and meander through the quiet; the chapel is locked tightly; the colors and smell of fall inspiring.

 

My backyard this morning smells fresh.  The early morning light sparkles.  I feel the heat of the sun’s rays on my bare legs and cheeks.  The autumn colors are vivid green grass, deep earthy brown in the garden where my husband pulls weeds for season’s end, leaves of gold, auburn, geranium red, yellow.  Birds flit and chase one another to and from my husband’s feeders.

Art, Julia Cameron says, is born out of paying attention.  Being present and a part of nature causes me to sigh, feel genuinely grateful, and calm.

A million things to do – iron, begin making my sauce for dinner, run, make the bed… blah blah is all I hear.  

Nothing to do is ok….and oftentimes, even better.  

Photo:  a home en route to Fort Williams Park, Cape Elizabeth

Gone to Carolina in my Mind

When I set out to write Away at a Camp in Maine, my goal was to write a book that made me (and thereby my reader) feel like a James Taylor song.

I wanted to capture the feeling – the quiet, the calm, the beauty, the nature, the essence, the real-ness, the sweet.  

When I hear the first string of his guitar in any James Taylor song, I feel the rhythm of my heart slow down just a beat.  I smile.  I am instantly transported to another time, a time in the 1970’s when I was a teenager full of so much hope and promise – when all the world was good, when anything was possible. 

It’s my “Carolina.”  It transports me to my happy place.    

As a writer, words are my elixir.  They pirouette around my mind, dropping like falling leaves, gently floating around in my head, twisting, bending.  When they’re best, they’re quiet, calm, beautiful, natural…… 

"Can't you see the sunshine

Can't you just feel the moonshine"

Words are what create the pictures for me.  

Words calm me and allow me to make sense, or at least accept, what I see around me -- people, others’ conversations, the world.  They uplift me as I walk alone and choose just the right word for what I’m seeing, smelling, hearing.

Some people likely see pictures, in Technicolor.  Or they revel in music.  But me, I can close my eyes and it’s the words in my mind that create the pictures that can bring me to my “Carolina,” that can transport me to anywhere in the universe.  

I have a rich world between my ears and whenever I wish, I just pull inward and transport.   

“Carolina In My Mind,” James Taylor:  Greatest Hits.  Warner Bros Records, Inc. © 1976