maine island days

July 7th sunrise, Sutton Island, Maine.

4:55am, or so

[I wrote this post yesterday morning, after a week on our favorite island with all the kids plus S.O.'s - the first ever gathering of all 9 of us]

Back on Sutton Island in Maine, where time hovers in suspension.  We leave today.  I say goodbye to a large number of those whom I hold most dear, so I am restless.  I always get unsettled when they leave me, when they go off into their cars and planes and lives – all those things fraught with unknown perils.  At least, that’s what it sometimes feels like when they are out of my hands, out of my sight.

The sunrise is always there, more often ignored than not these days.  The month of June slipped away without a sunrise excursion.  But today I allowed it to call me out.

I’ve been in a kind of holding pattern, waiting not for a landing but a launching.   I suppose I’m waiting to be called out in a bigger way.  Less than a week remains before I start my first residency for an MFA program in writing, and I’ve been writing virtually not at all.  I wish I didn’t feel the need to be shoved forward by some external force, but that seems to be my lot.  

Maybe with that impetus I can write about this island, the thoughts that flit by, the personalities inhabiting my life’s space, cookouts on the rocks interrupted by a drenching rain, hummingbirds at the feeder, barnacle scrapes, wading to a tidal island, catching up with a slew of 20-somethings over breakfast on a hot summer morning, many dogs draped over stones and decks in a state of island bliss, lots of coffee from a French press, margaritas shaken up in a washed out spaghetti sauce jar…stuff like that.

 dawn glow through a screen door...

Quebecois lessons - crossing borders

sunrise:  reasonably further west

Two years ago J and I visited one of our great lifetime friends at his amazing home in southern Quebec.

Our visit happened to fall on the same weekend as an annual event for our Canadian friend and his family. On the birthday of his oldest child, they invite a bunch of friends from their former home in Ottawa, 3 hours away.  For one exuberant weekend, the house fills with about 20 people, half of them children.

It was such a unique experience, that we kind of invited ourselves back again.

There are numerous cool things about this gathering of friends.

First - they only see each other 4 times a year, and their initial connection came from one year of living in the same town.  Somehow, this group of young and grown-up friends has become a kind of family.  When they are together, they are at their most animated and their most relaxed and secure all at the same time.

Second - Every one of them is bilingual, and for several, English is their second language.  To hear a bunch of children bantering back and forth between languages is an amazing thing to my sequestered Maine ears.  I realize that this happens in Spanish all over my country nowadays, but I don't see it (nor do many Mainers).

Third - No TV.  There is one big computer screen around, but they don't have any television in the house.  The whole crew went bowling.  The piano was played endlessly by young hands.  Kids bundled up and jumped on the trampoline.  Piles of books in both languages littered tabletops.  A floor-to-ceiling tower of blocks was erected.  There was lots of movement up and down three flights of stairs, and lots of noise.  It was awesome.

Fourth - I forget that we have this foreign culture just a few hours away from home.  Most of the US doesn't think about the fact that we have French speaking neighbors right next door, especially in our increasingly Spanish-speaker influenced society.  Architecture, food products, the metric system, signage - everything is different.  It is always so eye-opening to travel to a foreign country and be reminded that we each live in a particular culture of our own.

Fifth -  Our friend has four children, ages 6 to 14.  I think one of the things that irresistibly attracts J and me to that household is the return in time to a houseful of kids.  Our own four are launched and away, which is exciting and gratifying in its own multiple ways.  But -- to return to that dynamic, discovery-filled period of developing life is intoxicating, especially when we have no responsibility whatsoever!  It is a spectacular family of bright, inquisitive, affectionate, twinkling, engaging young people.

Perhaps even more than traveling to a foreign country, traveling back to another kind of time and place in life is breathtakingly illuminating, exhilarating, and heart-stirring.

passages of thought at the end of january

sunrise:  7:01

a few random thought passages this morning....



Sometimes, this time of year, people find themselves feeling a lot like this empty milkweed husk.  A walk around the pre-dawn world can do wonders to fill your soul.










Strange winter - plenty of ice but what little snow there was has disappeared.  The icy flow across the back field is an unfamiliar landscape, usually buried under a blanket of white.

There are advantages...it is much easier to get up and go - no boots necessary.  But I am still looking forward to snow's return:  visible animal tracks, the smell of snow, cold moisture in the air, the crunch underfoot, the glide of cross-country skis, the highlighted detailing of tree branches, the silent footfalls, and the brightness that glows from the ground under a night sky.

As of this morning, my four children are now living in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, New York City, and Boston.  Our family is spanning the country.  We will more thoroughly span when A moves to St. Louis next summer.  Where will everyone land when it comes time to settle down, I wonder...?  Or perhaps, the concept of settling down won't be the same.

Tomorrow is the last day with a sunrise on the civilized side of 7am.