Book Club

I checked out my very first chapter book from the library at Claiborne Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana as a third grader. It was a biography of Mickey Mantle called The Commerce Comet. I have been reading books ever since. I wrote my first story when I was a sixth grader at John M. Gandy Middle School. It featured a frustrated student at that very same school who one day received the gift of flight during a terribly boring lesson on punctuation. I have been writing stories of one kind or another ever since and wishing I had paid closer attention during the whole punctuation thing. However, after having lived a life so immersed in literature, last night I attended my very first book club meeting. I had no idea what to expect and consequently felt no small amount of anxiety as I walked through the front door of the Wythe Trace Book Club, made even worse since the featured book up for discussion was A Life of Dreams and I was the guest of honor. Pam was with me serving as my interpreter in case I said something stupid, and for moral support. Everything is a bit better when she is with me.

I was greeted by the host with a warm hug and the happy sound of 16 ladies enjoying each other’s company along with a wide and varied selection of wine. I had heard that wine played a key roll in these affairs and I was not misinformed. After a while the host made the announcement that dinner was ready. Cheeseburger sliders and salad along with two items taken from the book—pound cake and Doritos! So cool.

Eventually everyone gathered in the living room with chairs lined up all around the room. The host started by asking me what my inspirations were for writing this particular story. As soon as I opened my mouth to answer I felt oddly relaxed, all the anxiety having mysteriously disappeared. Then she pulled up the discussion guide questions that I wrote for the book back in April before the publication date. I had looked back over them earlier in the day as a refresher and discovered that even I didn’t know how to answer half of them! But I reminded myself—with the help of my daughter—that once fiction gets released into the world it no longer belongs to the writer…it belongs to the readers. Well…the royalties come to me, but you know what I mean!

What followed was a spirited and very smart discussion of A Life of Dreams. These ladies weren’t amateurs. They were serious and thoughtful readers who kept coming up with observations and insights that had never occurred to me when I was writing this 13 years ago. Their enthusiasm for the story and its characters was an amazing thing to witness and quite gratifying for this writer. On our walk back home Pam said she was proud of me and that I seemed so relaxed and confident. For once I believed her. I was relaxed and confident. But it was easy to be with such a fun and engaging group.

So, a shout out to the Wythe Trace Book Club and Wine Bar Extravaganza. Thanks so much for the invitation.

My Appointment

The handsome man enters the examining room with two students in tow. He introduces them as such and asks if I object to their presence. I say “no” while wondering why a couple of high school students would be shadowing a Cardiologist around. Wait, they are med school students? No way. They look like babies. Speaking of which, I look again at the handsome Doctor and ask him how old he is, a legitimate question to ask someone who will be soon tinkering around with your heart. He vaguely replies, “mid-thirties”, which means he’s probably 31…younger than my son. This is a good thing, I’m thinking. Steady hands. He’s Indian. I have trouble pronouncing his name. All the nurses in the office tell me he is the best, that I will be in very talented hands. I believe them.

I had open heart surgery 21 years ago when I was 45 years old. This issue is unrelated to that and not nearly as serious. Still, if you have ever had your chest opened before, the thought of revisiting the scene of that jolting trauma is not something I look forward to. This time there will be no 7 inch scar, no horrifically painful recovery and hopefully no hospital stay. This time I will be in and out the same day. A friend of mine who recently had this same procedure said the bill was $200,000, about what my open heart surgery mitral valve repair and five days in the hospital cost back in the day. Thank God for Medicare. I’ll pay 300 bucks.

I’ll be glad when it’s over. I don’t like thinking about my heart. I much prefer that my heart would mind its own business and pump blood like it’s supposed to. When you start thinking too much about any internal organ it becomes hard to stop thinking about them. Every hiccup feels like a crisis. It’s stupid to think this way and a huge overreaction, but it is what it is. The irrational often overpowers the rational when it comes to visits to the Cardiologist.

But my young, handsome doctor with the tongue-twisting name seems to have everything well in hand. 

I just wish we were talking about my appendix instead of the heart.

Saturday Morning Rant

This morning I put on my curmudgeon hat, the one with the social critic feather sticking out of it. This might not be pretty. In my defense, I don’t feel that great, haven’t for several weeks now. That’s part of it, along with the natural post-Maine malaise that often greets me upon my return from the north. Here goes nothing…

People have gotten rude. Don’t misunderstand, there have always since the dawn of time been plenty of rude people, but these days rudeness seems to be everyone’s default setting. From road rage down to the disappearance of the most basic courtesies of daily life, boorish, self-absorbed behavior has become the norm. We seem to be drowning in a sea of people insisting on their rights, with no concern given to the responsibilities that have always gone with them. “I have first amendment rights to free speech!!” Yes, you do. But you also have a responsibility to exercise respect and discretion in the exercise of that right. In the often overlooked notes of Thomas Jefferson on this subject I believe he said, “But don’t be a prick about it.”

Of course, election years always bring out the worst in people when it comes to…well, just about everything. In 2024 partisans on both sides are convinced that our very survival as a species hangs in the balance. If you feel that way then rules of civility are the first thing to get thrown overboard I suppose. But when I hear some of the types of language being deployed in the service of politics these days all I hear is coarse and ugly words full of meanness and venom. 

Now, what I am about to say is for those of you who consider yourselves Christians. If you are not a Christian, you’re off the hook on this one! When I hear Christians constantly insisting on their “rights” it makes me nervous. Sure, we have fundamental rights like everyone else, but we have a higher obligation than  constitutionally guaranteed free speech, a concept that I should say is not found in scripture. Our “right” to free speech ends when the words we speak serve to drive people away from the Gospel of Christ. We are told that the number one identifying characteristic we should be known for is…love. The New Testament positively teems with admonitions to kindness and humility, exhortations to self control and patience and that almost forgotten word…forbearance. I see almost none of these traits on social media when the subject is politics. And love? Forget it…the stakes are too high.

No, they are not. If success on election day requires me to make enemies of those I disagree with, count me out.

But this rudeness thing isn’t just in politics. It’s everywhere now. All of us seem to be walking around just waiting to be offended, our sensitivities on a hair-trigger. Nobody knows how to take a joke anymore. Every disagreement gets conflated into an insult. The reason we have lost the ability to laugh at ourselves is because our self-regard is at all all-time high. In all of human history no people have been more enamored with themselves than 2024 Americans. We are all just so damned special. Well, I am here to let you all in on a little secret. I’m a pretty decent guy, I’ve done some cool things in my life, and I’ve had my share of success…however, beneath all of that lies a dude with a boatload of problems. The list of my foibles is a mile long. Every now and then I deserve to be humiliated, to tell the truth. When my mother was alive she could be counted on to disabuse me of any delusions of grandeur that I may have had. And as I’ve gotten older my sins have become easier for me to recognize. With age has come greater humility, still probably not enough. Once your own failings and mistakes become easier to see it makes it easier to cut other people some slack for theirs. The remedy for an over developed self-regard is…kindness. We all have to relearn kindness, that fundamental element of the ancient concept of manners.

I don’t get it right every day, far from it. But when I try to go out of my way to be kind to someone, everything begins to change. Before speaking I start to ask myself…Is what I’m about to say helpful? Is it absolutely necessary? Is it kind?” Maybe one day these filters will start working more consistently than they currently do, but I think they are pretty good filters, don’t you?

Keeping My Wits About Me

I’ve been back home now for several days and finally falling back into the predictable daily routines that make my life work. The only thing missing has been writing, this being the first couple of sentences I’ve written in over a week. The book I’m working on has been lying dormant for over a month, the last creative flash happening one of the first nights we were at Fernwood Cottage. It is a rare occurrence when I have nothing in my head to write about.

I have a few things on the schedule this week that have caused me no small amount of anxiety, tomorrow’s doctor’s appointment, and this book reading Zoom event I have Thursday at noon. I was told by my publisher that I had been selected, along with two other new authors, to read a selection of my choosing on a Zoom call that will have in its audience many other authors, plus any friends who happened to register for the event. I am given 15 minutes to read, followed by the other two authors. Then there will be a Q and A from anyone in the audience, all of whom will be invisible to me. I was nervous enough doing this live in front of 130 people who I love at my book launch party. This will be different because most of those listening will be strangers. Of course, playing along in the background like bad elevator music are the wild gyrations of world equity markets, and the Shakespearian tragedy of the 2024 Presidential election.

Of the three anxiety-producers listed above, the easiest to deal with is the Zoom Reading. I mean, who cares? I’m a decent reader and I’m proud of the story. What’s the problem? Nothing really. If somebody asks a negative question, I have a pretty good track record of being fast on my feet and my capacity for pithy snark is basically unchallenged at this point.

As far as the Presidential election is concerned, I have resigned all previous political affiliations permanently in recent years. I’ve done my bit. It’s time for someone else to lose sleep over politics. And the stock market is best known for acting out in this way. It has a long history of histrionics. This too will pass. These two things—the stock market and politics—are one and two on the list of things I have no power to change.

The doctor’s appointment is another thing all together. They are the one place I go where my IQ drops 50 points as soon as the doctor walks in the examining room. I can’t half remember what I’m even there for. I get quiet and apprehensive and oddly passive. When he or she speaks to me it sounds like the parents in the Charlie Brown cartoons. Then my ability to remember any single thing he or she says vanishes as soon as I reach the parking lot. Consequently, Pam has instructed me to write all of my symptoms down, along with everything I can remember about them ahead of time, then come up with a list of questions to ask, so I don’t sit there, mute as the dead like some slack-jawed ignoramus. But I suppose Pam is right when she says that this is what life is like when you reach a certain age. You have to learn how to manage good working relationships with a whole host of physicians. Part of how you do this is keeping your wits about you when you’re in small rooms with them. 

I’m working on it.

Quirky. Peculiar. Beautiful.

The weather this week has been rather dismal, but we’ve been here almost six weeks. The place owes us nothing. So I went out for a walk this morning since it wasn’t raining. There’s a dirt road that runs all the way up the western side of the lake. I walked up and back, around 3 miles. Only this time I wasn’t walking for the health benefits, I was just taking it all in since we’ll be leaving in a few days.

People often ask me questions like, “I’m sure Maine is great but…six weeks?” or “What makes Maine so special, Virginia has beautiful places too.” My honest answer to them is something along the lines of, There’s just something about this place that’s…different. But it is quite difficult to put it into words. This morning on my walk I ran across several examples of what I would call the peculiar charm of this place. There is a vibe here that can best be described as quirky. I took a few pictures that attempt to capture a bit of this quirkiness.

I have no idea what the story is behind this odd scene, but yes…that’s a hat perched on the top of a twiggy tree on the side of Pond Road. I inspected the hat to see if it was defective in any way and found it to be in good condition. Apparently, its former owner decided that the time had come to part company so he found a convenient twiggy tree on the side of the road to place it on the oft chance that a hatless person might come along, place it on his or her head and begin a lifelong relationship.

The trees up here are huge, in both height and circumference. Many of them are several hundred years old. But when trees grow so towering and ancient, it takes them forever to die. They just stand there, looking more and more diabolical by the year. I’m telling you guys, there are some scary-ass trees up here.

Another thing you see all over the place in Maine are rocks, huge, ponderous boulders strewn willy-nilly all over creation. I suppose since there are so many of them, it explains the existence of literally a thousand miles worth of rock fences.

Some are weathered by 300 winters, and starting their slow decline back into the soil from which they came.

Others are younger, more structurally sound, solid as the day they were built. Looking at them lined up in field after field reminds you that our fore-bearers carved a hard life out of this stubborn soil. They worked hard, and that work should be honored.

Again, since rocks seem to be everywhere, the good people up here never tire of putting them to no good use by erecting these weird small statues on top of larger rocks unlucky enough to have flat tops. As you can see, some of these statue builders go to great elaborate lengths in their artistic and architectural efforts.

But, even in Maine there is no escaping that scourge of 21st century artistic expression…minimalism.

Of course, one of the most arresting and beautiful sights in Maine are the labyrinth of dirt roads that snake their way through the deep forests leading you to your lake house. This one is typical of such roads and comes with the quite mundane name, Fire Lane 6. Every single one of these roads makes me want to walk down them. I just have to see what lies beyond that curve where the path is covered in pine needles. These lanes, paths and trails are all invitations, each one a delight.

So, all of this, in a delightfully quirky 3 mile walk along the western edge of Quantabacook.

Then later, we drove into Lincolnville Beach for lunch and I found this and I was almost undone with gratitude for this place. This is exactly what it looks like, a place where anyone can come and help themselves to free fresh produce, in the hopes that sometime later you will bring some of your own and place them in the coolers for the next person.

Quirky. Peculiar. Beautiful.

 

L’affair Lord’s Supper

Woke up early this morning, around 5:30. It was gray outside, a stiff breeze stirring around a fine mist, a very cool feeling 60 degrees. It’s supposed to be this way for a couple days, high temperature only 71. I quickly decided against shorts and a T-shirt, instead opting for my only long-sleeve shirt and a pair of black pants. As is always the case I’ve put on a bit of weight since I’ve been in Maine and I desperately need a haircut. Maybe we will head in to Belfast or Camden and putz around some today.

So, I suppose I should have something to say about the great Last Supper controversy, since it seems every one else in the world has an opinion. As a Christian the consensus seems to be that I should be offended and scandalized. But as a Christian I have had to endure the likes of Jimmy Swaggard, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, the Catholic priesthood, and the following images that pop up on my Facebook feed every five minutes…

So for me to be offended and scandalized would take a miracle at this point.

I did not see the Last Supper send up live. The TV was on in the background because Pam loves watching the Olympics opening ceremonies, and I was reading. But even she didn’t notice at first. Apparently the entire first few minutes were tres weird, even for the French, lots of sexually charged themes and such. It wasn’t until the next morning when we both discovered what a huge mess had been stirred up not only here but around the world. So, we were both forced to revisit the scene via YouTube. There it was, an obese woman with a halo standing in for Jesus, surrounded by a Star Wars bar scene collection of transsexuals(?) on her left and right, then this blue guy comes out wearing nothing but vines or something, which was suppose to represent some long forgotten Greek God. It was maybe 30 seconds long…maybe.

This is 2024. It’s the French Olympic Games. The nation of France turned its back on Christianity long, long ago. The latest numbers suggest that roughly 1-2% of the French population identifies as Christian.. But it’s not just Christianity. Very few Frenchman consider themselves believers in ANY religion. I would guess that with the surge of immigration at play in France that the most popular religion at this point is Islam. Which brings me to the only strong feeling I can muster about this Last Supper thing. People who consider themselves uber progressive, and by this I mean the far left, humanist, artistic community love to think of themselves as cutting edge, the brave, enlightened few who are constantly pushing the envelope. But, thats not what this was, not even close. This was the very safest thing a French radical could do—insulting Christians. What I want to see the next time there are 1 billion people watching on television—I want to see some brave, progressive, avant guard artist do an irreverent send up of the prophet Mohammed. Try mocking Islam. See how that works out for ya. Oh, my bad, the French already tried that. Poor Samuel Paty and the newspaper Charlie Hebdo found out the hard way what happens when you mock the Prophet.

But getting back to the Last Supper. I find it hard to be offended by the French. If I had been in charge of programming the Paris Opening Ceremonies I wouldn’t have included any of the weird stuff I saw. But, I’m not in charge. This Olympic Games belongs to France. They get to choose how they wish to portray their nation and culture to the world. This was what they chose. I was not offended, nor was I scandalized. I am made of a little more sterner stuff than that

One More Week

One week from this morning Pam and I will have packed our belongings in the car and started the two day journey back to Short Pump. Just like that, five weeks have passed. We have no regrets, there is no sadness that this trip is coming to an end. For one thing, we will be back in mid-September for our four week Fall adventure at Loon Landing. So no, there will be no sadness, just profound gratitude that we are lucky enough to be able to do this every year.

Every morning two things happen here that are predictable and comforting. First of all at approximately 7:30 Pam emerges from the bedroom dressed for her morning kayak paddle. This year her outfit includes a bad-ass hat which I love that makes her look like Katherine Hepburn…

She never knows which direction she will head until she gets in the kayak. “Where will I go this fine morning?” She says to herself before heading out into the mist. She stays out on the lake for an hour and a half, sometimes two full hours. Usually she makes her way up to Sheep Island to check in with the family of eagles on the point. Sometimes she heads down to the dam to listen to the water rushing over the blocks and watch the lily pad blooms opening up. But, make no mistake, she’s out there every morning unless it’s raining or the wind is howling.

The second thing that happens is this…

We don’t let Lucy go down to the dock to see her off in the morning because she would jump in after her. Instead, she stays in the house and stands at this window watching every move Mom makes. She doesn’t stop this vigil until the kayak disappears from view. Then and only then will she drop her head, let out one small disgruntled whine, circle around three rotations then plop herself on the floor for a nap, where she sleeps with one eye and both ears open for the first tell-tale sounds that tell her that Mom is back. It is as predictable as the sunrise.

While all this is happening I am usually either writing or reading. Although I don’t stand at the window drooling and whining like Lucy, that doesn’t mean I’m not anxiously awaiting her return. When she gets back we eat breakfast out on the porch, Lucy gets her breakfast, and we listen to Pam’s report on all things Quantabacook. After breakfast it will be my turn. I pack my fishing gear in my kayak and head out for a couple or three hours of fishing and deep thoughts. Sometimes when I return, Pam and Lucy are on the dock getting ready to head out again, this time Pam is on her paddle board and Lucy has her bright orange vest on swimming right beside her. After securing the kayak on the rocky shore I slip my tired and aching body into the water for a swim of my own. Three hours fishing from a kayak plays hell with my back, so the cold water acts like a miracle cure.

Eventually one of us will ask the other, “You have any idea what time it is?” Neither of us do. We are always surprised when one of us says, “It’s one o’clock!”

Then the other says, “We probably should think about lunch pretty soon.”

After lunch I take a nap. Pam works on her cross-stitching or reads. Then around three o’clock or so, our dock is in the shade so we hop on our floats and attach ourselves to the swimming float around fifty yards out in the lake. The sun is bright and warm out there. We drift along chitchatting about various topics. Sometimes Lucy swims along in our little cove, keeping a sharp eye on us in case we decide to do something stupid.

Pretty soon someone will say, “I wonder what time it’s getting to be?” Both of us are again surprised how late it is. Where did the day go? After a while we drag ourselves back to the dock, dry Lucy off and head back to the house to make dinner. We eat out on the porch and Pam always asks the rhetorical question, “Wonder if there will be a decent sunset tonight?” It will be her last excursion on the lake for the day, her search for this sunset. Sometimes I go with her. No doubt, Lucy is standing at her whining window. We don’t say much to each other this time on the lake. It feels a little like being at church and listening to a really moving and powerful message…

Tomorrow we will do it all again.