Checking In

Still here, after all these years. Also, back to working on photography. I hope that some of these pictures will encourage me to work harder and smarter at the photos I take. A photography class (week 3 coming up) is already helping.
 

July 2016

It's hard to believe this was 7 years ago, but not because it seems so long ago but because somehow this has faded into what seems like an even more distant background. I think in part it's because my body and mind were there, but my soul wasn't. I wasn't engaged in the whole enterprise in a way that I was passionate about. I learned a lot, I had some interesting experiences, but I also see it as an opportunity where much was also lost for silly reasons. Another reminder to determine what's important in life and to make the most of ALL opportunities.

Looking Back

I should have been reflecting as I finished the weeks, and I'm amazed at how much I wrote in the first weeks and then totally fell down on the job for the remaining weeks. I left in the morning on Friday, July 16 for a trip to Boston, then NYC to see my friend Tom and his wife. I had trouble leaving. The last couple days found me grumpy and a bit emotional, even though I think I suffered from being homesick and a bit lonely the first two weeks. I also realized that though I really enjoyed Maine, I had ambivalent feelings about all the reading and the acquaintences I made, not so much because I didn't enjoy everything, but because I realized I wouldn't really want this type of situation to continue. It was what it was--a gathering of people whose lives had been temporarily left behind who had gathered for a particular purpose. That part hadn't changed; it wasn't like I was back in high school journalism camp at Ball State University where I fell hard for a fellow camper from some high school in Indiana. Oh, I don't want to go, he's so cute, etc., etc.

So what was the concern? And this may also answer my friend Lucy's question about what I've learned from this little adventure. In part, it was that for five weeks, even though there were distractions of many kinds, and the expectation that I would go to the meetings and do the work, it still very much felt like I could focus on and do what I wanted. Take a bike ride on a sunny afternoon? Sure! Go to ladies' night out? Of course. There developed a fear and a certain sadness that such freedom would not translate back to Cincinnati. Yes, I could bike there. Sure I could meet friends. But there would be the reminder of the school work to prepare, the writing to do, the house that needs so much work, and even more pleasurably, the sons with whom I'd like to spend some time. In other words, my world, like everyone's I'm sure, is multiple with many more reasons to be pulled off-task. And, I realized yet again, I am not the world's best and ablest focuser. I find it difficult to harness my energies to accomplish the task at hand, partly because I find it hard to answer (or don't want to answer) the question of what "the" task is that is at hand. This one or that? (or that? or that?)

Unless I want to continue to struggle and feel somewhat less than satisfied with any or all of the things I do seek to accomplish, I will have to figure this one out--how to get the jobs done with less anxiety and stress over them. I'm supposing I'm not the only one with this trouble, but I think some have found the knack for putting the necessary blinders on, and somewhat happily, to get jobs done sequentially. Any and all ideas welcome.

I did also learn that I can contribute to a new group of people and come across as intelligent and even somewhat interesting. I told that to a friend and he said, so why did you ever doubt that? That's good to hear, too. But in our routines, I think it's far too easy to get lost under the burden of what needs to get done next and forget that each of us has talents that other people appreciate and that are worthwhile seeing the light of day. Ah, confidence. Another slippery concept, like focus and organization, that can benefit from some reinforcement.

Another non-surprising observation is that I love being able to step out of the house and find an interesting place to walk (the beach, the woods) and to be able to walk or bike to places I need to go. I've been threatening to sell my house for years, but this complicates things. I can't walk or bike to anything here in the burbs, but I do love the nearby parks and the lush foliage that the east side offers that Clifton, for example, and even Oakley, just doesn't have in like measure. Since I also realized I like to be around people more than I find easily possible here in Anderson, however, that may push things over the edge to population of humans as opposed to trees.

So lessons that are clear and others that aren't so clear are still important, right? Well, yes, if I have the ability and energy and stamina to follow through with what I've learned from these things. I feel the need to plunge into work which I also find myself at the same time resisting. I do think being better about setting aside not only work time, but play time, is crucial both to enjoy life and to plan for it. The blog was useful for feeling connected, even if it was illusory. Obviously, I felt less of a need as the weeks went on and life became a little busier and somewhat more complicated. But it is a useful mechanism to sort things out, record memories, and to close chapters--while leaving doors open--as I'm about to do now.

Another Sunny Weekend

It's Saturday, and I'm keening to take off again. Took a boat trip to Wood Island Lighthouse on Thursday and a day trip to the Portland environs, including Wiscasset north of Portland where the little hut called Reds was recommended as having the best lobster roll in Maine. It was a full lobster on a bun, and the picture shows me more than half way finished. You can see why I'm happy.

Sunshine

Yes, it's official. We saw the sun yesterday for a good part of the day. Of course, it didn't last, but it was glorious--shining brightly, then fogged in, then shining tentatively and then brightly again for hours before the thunder in the distance warned that we wouldn't close out the day without more rain. A few drops dampened a walk in Portland after dinner at a wonderful tapas bar, but the real rain held off until I was in bed, which is when it provided a soothing backdrop to sleep.

Keep this on the lowdown, but sunshine expected today and tomorrow as well. Crazy!

Mainers and "Friendliness"

I guess that's what they're called. Ohio = Ohioans; Maine = Mainians? Mainites? Mainers? I'll go with the last, though the first sounds better. They're a bit maniacal, so Mainians seems to fit better. I've decided they're not really friendly, as I thought they initially were, or not only, simply, uncomplicatedly friendly. They're difficultly friendly. And that goes for others in New England as well.

In the grocery stores, I ask a person stocking shelves where paper plates are, and he says, "Aisle 3" and as I start to thank him and turn, he says, "I'll take you there." Take me there? Grocery stores aren't exactly mazes. He runs into me later as I'm about to check out, and he asks if I'd found everything, and was everything okay. Yeee-essssss . . . . I say hesitatingly. Is he being sarcastic? The third time someone in different stores does that to/for me, I realize it's just how it works here--people, I think, want to please. My roommate asked in another grocery store if we could get the sale prices though we don't have the special store card, and not only did the managers she asked say yes, they tracked us down in the store to bring us our personal courtesy cards.

So it's friendliness, I think. Then I'm looking for the restroom in a Starbucks-type place on campus and walk into a room where I think the restrooms might be located, and instead there are study tables where everyone is reading, working on computers, etc. I'm about to turn and ask the barista, when one young man looks up from his computer, mouths "Restroom?" at me, and as I nod, points me in the direction around the corner where I can find them.

Okay, ah, nice.

Then, I'm traveling to Concord and stop at a Dunkin' Donuts (the Starbucks of Seattle Washington--one on every corner and the only coffee one can sometimes find), and find the bathroom door locked. I turn and a customer who's been talking to a friend at a table across the room calls out from his table, "they have keys for the bathroom; they're usually over there"--and he waves toward the counter where I do find the key and where I mumble a semi-gracious "thanks." Yeah, I'm glad to be directed to so many bathrooms (and no, that's not the only reason I travel), but nice has started to seem a bit pushy, like the next time I look perplexed, someone will walk me to the bathroom whether I want to go or not.

Then, of course, I have the Oracle of Walden Pond experience. And I think I've explained to every sales person in every store I go into where I'm from, why I'm here, when I'm leaving, and no, it's not because I'm volunteering all of this. It gets pumped out of me, like water from a well.

It's very nice in some ways, but I thought we Midwesterners were supposed to be friendly. We're downright freezing cold by comparison. I think we are also a bit inclined to let people be, as though we want to help, but we don't want to intrude. Here, there's no question of intrusion. It includes the cross-lane intrusions by major speeders on major highways as noted before, as well as drivers ready to turn into an intersection who do so by intruding half their car into the intersection into which they want to turn so that, as my friend Maggy whose lived in NE for five years said, you finally let them in and they wave as if to say thank you while you're shrugging your shoulders and wondering what else you could have done if the alternative was to take out their front end.

I'm not saying I don't like this. I do think I'll appreciate walking into a McDonald's back home (my universal pit stop when no other public restrooms are available), and not having anyone assume I need to use the bathroom, even when I do. But a tiny part of me will be a bit pissy when I'm looking for something in a store and the person will tell me where I can find it and then go back to stocking shelves. I may just ask them a few questions, like where they're from, why they're working there, what they consider good customer service to be, what they think about when they stock shelves all day, and maybe even whether they can walk me to the nearest restroom.

The Oracle of Walden Pond

I stayed in Concord after visiting a friend outside Boston. In Sleepy Hollow Cemetery rests such notables as Thoreau, Emerson, and Nathanial Hawthorne. Given the theme of our seminar, it was interesting how many inscriptions declared the deceased's support of the republic and the need for law and justice. Visiting Emerson's house, I imagined Thoreau carrying an armful of wood in as the Emerson kids let their "big brother" in the door and to the wood box (I'm depending on the tour guide for the authenticity of this info). A fellow conference member noted that Emerson's wife said something to the effect that she wondered how he could be called such a hermit when she saw his face in their kitchen every night. What fascinated me were the various wall hangings--prints from places where Emerson had visited, or pictures of friends, but so much of every wall covered with what could be seen as reflections of the various inhabitant's personalities, including Emerson's daughter.

A very different kind of house was reconstructed at Walden Pond. Spare, but attractive in its simplicity, the plastered cabin was supposedly a replica of Thoreau's. The original site is elsewhere and a walk around Walden Pond from the noisy beach where many families were gathered on this rather warm Saturday.

As I was hoping for some solitude, Thoreau-style, I decided to walk the trail around the Pond. The further away I got from the small beach that was anything but quiet, the more I could imagine Thoreau had walked here and how peaceful he would have found this large and placid pond (more like a small lake, reminiscent of many in Northern Michigan). By the time I was on the opposite end, I was only seeing the occasional person in the water or walking along the pond's edge. I found a spot where, as there were at points along the trial, a small opening was made in the wire fence surrounding the pond (yes, not as Thoreau would have found it, no doubt), and stone "steps" progressed into the pond. I sat down and took off my sandals, and plunged my feet in the water as I munched on my snack of an apple and cheese. I thought of Thoreau who I'm sure would have taken time to do just this. The water was clear and cool--I could see good-sized perch among the stony outcroppings.

And yes, dear reader, I knew they were perch. Not because I am such a fisherwoman, though, but because the Oracle of Walden Pond came paddling up to my quiet enclave and told me. A man in what I took to be his late fifties, fit-looking, his face half-hidden behind the large sunglasses with side and top coverage that elderly folks sometimes wear, came paddling up--"How's it goin'?" he asked in his gruff New England voice. "Lovely weatha we're havin'; good to be out in it." He proceeded to reflect on life, the weather, relationships, marriage, fidelity, health, the surrounding area, and, by this point it was of little surprise, me.

His comments and questions alternated. He was by himself because his wife's back was bothering her. Do I get out and do sports? What was I doing here by myself? Why didn't people from the conference I told him about come down with me? People oughta be together, he noted. Marriage is a funny thing; his wife had been away for a week with girlfriends in New York, the first time she'd been away so long. He puttered around the house, but it was quiet. Upon her return he said, "If ya die, I'll be married within the year! I can't take being alone!" He was married thirty years, but he knew many who had gotten divorced. After a number of example, he asked, "So how 'bout you?" and related questions until he'd learned I was divorced, for how long, a brief statement about why, that I had grown children, and that I haven't been dating lately. "Ya oughta find someone," he told me, because things are different the older you are--it's good to have a person to spend time with. A beautiful woman, "A real knock-out!" that he knew married a man who was "so darn ordinary!" he couldn't believe she'd even have looked at him. "Go fig-ya!" I should talk to everyone I meet; the person I'm meant to be with could be anyone. So, I said, recapping, I should find someone to marry, and he could be anyone, so I should talk to anyone, even men who may be what I would consider unattractive. There was a pause. "Within reason!" he said, and with that erupted in a loud voice with, "Love's the glue that holds the world togetha!"

More advice, included telling me of a man he met who looked to be in his 40's but was really 80. "I told my docta, and he agreed: a different species!" he growled, admiringly. How old was I, he asked; forties? fifty? Ah, 52, I responded somewhat grudgingly. He was no flatterer, or otherwise, he might have asked if I was forty, though he did follow up with "ya look like ya work out." I should continue to work out, he said, because there's a certain age one hits when the next day, "bam!, ya might not wake up," and I should find a guy who also worked out (story here about wife who can't keep up with his skiing, kayaking, etc.), and so forth.

My head was spinning as I looked at my watch and thought I should be heading out. The sky was clouding up, I was on the other side of Walden Pond and still needed to walk back, visit a few more sites in Concord, and then drive to Plymouth before the day was over. I'd better go, I told him. I laughingly recapped some of the points he had provided me with, "yeah, yeah," he agreed. "I'm 72 years old!" he announced, and proceeded to give me a few more words of advice as I stood up; at that point, a young man I didn't know (no, not a prospect; much younger than me) came to stand beside me as he seemed to be looking for friends on the Pond. It seemed a good time to go, but I admit I was torn: the Oracle kept paddling, and talking, I kept hoping I'd remember all he said. But he, too, was heading in; he was getting tired, he admitted. He'd been out there most of the morning. He said to enjoy myself, and I left him paddling there.

By the time I walked the rest of the way around the pond, I found the spot where many kayakers beached their kayak. His wasn't there. I peered across the lake, wondering if I could see him--no sign of him. It was a large lake; I'd walked back quickly. I assume he could have paddled faster than I walked, or that he was in some cove somewhere, perhaps advising yet another visitor. The rest of the day, I tried to say at least hello to everyone I met.

(Thanks to my friend Michele for the title of this; I'd noted the oracle in the kayak, but this has a much better ring to it.)