best laid plans...

sunrise:  5:47

T and I awoke to a pink dawn on our last island day.  "I woke up and saw purple water," she said to me.  We don't really mind being awakened early by the sunrise, especially since we can loll back to sleep again if we like (which we usually do).  It is a lovely sight to feed the subsequent morning dreams that often come along with island sleeping.

It has been an itinerant August.  I've only been home a few scattered days - just enough time to get my Friday columns in, catch up a bit on mail, email, household upkeep, in between trips.

Now, with hurricane Irene on the horizon, we're supposed to travel into the teeth of the storm to move T back into college over the weekend.  The best laid plans may go right out the window.  Some creative adaptation may be in order.

Safe passage to all readers!

sunrise through an August mist

Aug. 14th dawn -- Sutton Island, Maine -- 5:34am

I have just returned from a lovely eight days's immersion in island rhythms.  There are limitations to life on an island, but they are more than made up for by the sense of natural pace that overcomes you in that setting.

It was especially productive for my writing life.  I think if I could leave the rest of the world behind for a couple of months and stay out there, I might be able to crank out the rest of this book in no time.  As it was, I made the most significant progress of the last couple of years, sitting at the same table where my biographical subject ate her dinners eighty-some years ago.

There was a strange gathering mist on the horizon that morning that made eerie, twisting cloud-shapes that curled around the sun and neighboring land masses.  Quite beautiful.

summer sunrise on an island in Maine

I have posted two separate island sunrises today, one series above, one solo shot of the second one below.  They were taken somewhere around July 18th and the 21st.  Island time begins to run together, so you experience a blissful ignorance of things like time and dates.  The sun was rising in the vicinity of 5:05 - 5:10am during that period.

July ends today, so I thought I'd better get these two July sunrises on the books before I go to bed.

In spite of some wickedly hot, soul-dissolving weather over the last few weeks, I have also experienced a few of those quintessential summer days.  The clouds are high and puffy; the sun shines hot, but only hot enough to relax your whole body as you soak it in.  At certain times of day, the air feels so close to the temperature of your skin that you almost feel as though there are no boundaries between your flesh and the surrounding atmosphere.  Then a tiny, soft zephyr of breeze curls around you, caresses your arm, your face, and you just want to close your eyes and be.

That's what summer is supposed to feel like.

Hawaiian sunrise

It's been a while since we had a guest photo.  The Sunrise Blogger is very happy to add Hawaii to the sunrise collection:

Many thanks to a traveling cousin!

All of you summer travelers - get yourself out of bed early one day, and send in a photo to share (and maybe some thoughts as well).



berry-picking

sunrise:  5:02

It's nice to be back on the civilized side of 5am at last.  During these earliest sunrise days, I have generally decided to forego the alarm and let my body decide whether I should get up for dawn, thus the sparse entries.  On this muggy morning the early light called me out for a stroll.

If you are missing the dogs in my photos, so am I!  But the chance of stray barking at 5am still compels me to leave them indoors until a more reasonable hour.

Yesterday felt like the heart of summer to me.  J had a day off, S and T were both home, it was sunny and hot, and we went berry-picking.  We visited two different farms, about 8 miles outside of Bangor.  The four of us filled our boxes in very little time, on a quiet, late evening as the sun headed toward the western horizon.  There is something so satisfying in the feel of a perfect raspberry, its soft plumpness pulling off the center like a sleeve and dropping into your hand.  With strawberries it's more like the constant thrill of discovery.  You lift a wide-leafed jungle of greenery and find scarlet treasures hiding underneath, lit by the setting sun.

Eight quarts of strawberries and 4 quarts of raspberries are now in our kitchen -- well, slightly less than that, given the liberal consumption that went on during the drive home.

S is still looking for his post-college path, sending out job inquiries, writing letters, spending time both here at home and with his girlfriend in New York City.  N, in Boston, started a job this week in a science lab at a major hospital research center.  She, too, is living with her significant other.  I got to visit the two of them in their summer apartment during a follow up research trip of my own for my Rachel Field book.

I love sharing a little part of the odyssey upon which these young travelers have embarked.  Job searching, apartment hunting, setting up housekeeping, financial planning, sorting through the sea of paperwork that comes along with life, working out the ever-evolving complexities of relationship.  And then there are the less profound, but perhaps even more charming phone calls:

Do you put cumin in your spaghetti sauce?

How do I re-heat rice without a microwave oven?

How many scoops of coffee per cup?

It is both eye-opening and reassuring to realize how much they can still fill my heart and mind, even after launching into the world.

Today, too, I am wistful.  The bullfrogs bellow, the birds sing, the sun makes its uncompromising ascent, and I also know that across the country, a family that I love has been plunged into a renewed battle with cancer.  Of course I know these heartaches, hurts, fears, and wrenching struggles are happening everywhere, every day.  But... so is birth, and sunrise, and berries, jewel-like, ripening in their greenery and glowing a dazzling red in the low light of a summer evening.

Any time I really give it some thought, this world gives me a lump in my throat.

beginning of a pretty long day

sunrise:  4:49

Sutton Island

Maybe not the longest day of the year, but it was the beginning of a pretty long day.  And it was a fine one.

June 22nd, our first morning on Sutton this year, dawned in its usual, soul-stirring, peaceful brilliance.  I left the curtains open on our eastern-facing windows, so it wasn't difficult to meet the day, despite the early hour.  When that first crimson glow swells over the horizon, something flutters in my chest, and it's hard not to get up, and out, to feel the wind on my face and watch the daily silent splendor of our mother star rising over the ocean.

What a strange combination of steadiness, routine, and dazzling drama all rolled into one event.  And how strange to think that most of us sleep through this free exhibition every day.

It has been a lovely stretch of days with several of our children and their friends coming and going.  Of course, their presence pulls me from my solitary workings on writing projects, but I am getting better at finding my own rhythms and adapting to the varying pace of life, as family and friends flow in and out of our home like the rising and falling of the tide.

The island is an extraordinary tonic.  And there can be no better place to watch the sun come up.  What a reassuring moment - to witness this new beginning.  It can signal the commencement of inspiration, consolation, contemplation, whatever you need to set under way.

earliest sunrise of the year

sunrise:  4:49

Daisies and the dawn

Some of you may already know that the summer solstice (June 21) is the longest day of the year, but not the earliest sunrise.  There's an explanation here.

I was up at 4:00 am in order to catch all of today's pre-dawn loveliness, before official sunrise at 4:49.  I am basking in the luxury of being able to sleep-in for most this June, but it was, as ever, a transcendently beautiful time of day and time of year for an early morning walk.

Since I'm posting so seldom nowadays, I hope you will enjoy my liberal posting of photos...

I left my three canine friends in the house today, in consideration for the neighbors who may not appreciate a baying hound at 5am.  But it was nice, in a way, for me as well.  Peaceful, lower intensity, with no OCD, stick-bearing, panting Kate assaulting me with entreaties to throw something.

There were several discoveries along the way.  Plant life is in its glory right now.  Lilacs have gone by, but the phlox is in full splendor, along with daisies, irises, clover, flowering trees whose name I forget, and berry bushes thick with blossoms that promise us some juicy breakfasts in the not-too-distant future.  I also love the variety and texture of so many grasses throughout the fields.

As I came around the back corner of our lot, I turned and literally gasped at the massive glowing disk of the moon, just about to disappear.  It looked full to me, but I read that it is the waning gibbous moon, with 99% still showing.  Full enough.

So preoccupied by the moon, looking over my shoulder for a final view through the trees, I didn't notice that I had company.  A white-tailed deer stood still as a statue until I was about 30 feet away, when I turned my head around to look ahead.  We had one second to ponder each other in surprise, then she gave a little snort of alarm, turned, and flicked her white tail as she bounded off into the woods.  Another good reason to have left the dogs behind.

*****************

I had a one-of-a-kind experience last weekend.  Though, perhaps it was only the first-of-a-kind that will continue.  I hope so!  I was a guest speaker at a conference in Stockbridge, Mass.  I spoke about Rachel Field and the doll about whom she wrote a historical novel in 1929.  "Hitty, Her First Hundred Years" went on to win the Newbery Award - first time a woman won.

Preparing for the talk (with my exceptionally generous and tech-savvy husband, who assembled the power point presentation), I immersed myself back into the mountains of archival data and notes that I assembled over the last three years.  My excitement to get this book written is back in full flame, and I am determined to make it happen SOON.  Coincidentally, I was asked to speak about Rachel Field again on August 10th, right out here on Great Cranberry Island near our summer house.  It seems that something in the fates is pressing upon me to keep after this book project.

It was especially gratifying to speak to a roomful of people (30-35 or so) all of whom are familiar with and great fans of Rachel Field.  So many of them effused over my material and "can't wait to read the book!"  That is positive pressure, and I'll try to make the most of it, even if they are the only 35 people who buy the book!

Meanwhile, I am also determined to get through the first year of my weekly column without missing a week, so I have my work cut out for me.

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On the home front, T has a good job, is taking a summer physics class, and the three of us have survived the re-negotiation of household chemistry after her first year away at school.  S and N followed up their wild double graduation weekend with three weeks in Europe, and are now back stateside.  Neither has a job yet, and they are now plunging into the uncertain world of unemployment and unknown direction.  I hope, however, that they each approach this youthful stage with some sense of hopeful anticipation.

A is back on the east coast, ecstatic over her daily regimen in a charter school's teacher training fellowship in New York City this summer.

Life goes on, in all of its messy unpredictability.  At the moment, it looks like a very good day.