This Fallen World

So, its been almost five weeks since I’ve darkened the door of my office. My expectations for today are minimal and include:

- When I distribute the gifts I bought for the girls in the office, I hope I can remember where their offices are.

- I sincerely hope that I can remember how to work the copier

The one thing I always dread most of all is getting reacquainted with what is going on, not just in the world of finance, but in the world at large. People have a hard time believing me when I tell them that I completely unplug from the news when I’m on vacation...but it’s true. Its a feature of my time away, not a bug. It is purposeful. I figure that if some earth shattering event were to have taken place while I was away, I would eventually hear about it when I returned home anyway, so why stew over it while I am recharging my emotional batteries? In the past four weeks I have not read one single word about Donald Trump. No news of the Democrats in Congress has been able to break through the firewall of my news ban. I have learned about no fresh new debauchery from Hollywood, no soul crushing betrayal of trust from corporate America. The only snippet of news which is allowed access is Major League Baseball.

So, yesterday morning the first thing I read about is the mass killings in El Paso and Dayton. Sigh...

I’m back...and so, apparently, is the fallen world.

Home

There was no tear-filled moment standing on the dock. We didn’t say goodbye to the lake, although we both did stop in our tracks once to notice the group of eleven loons that appeared fifty yards from our dock. But it happened during our last hour at Loon Landing, and we were overcome with packing up, our emotions elsewhere. When we drove away I didn’t even look in the rear view mirror. Just like that it was over.

The drive home took 14 and a half hours. The traffic was manageable. Hardly a drop of rain. Come to think of it, the entire time we were in Maine I think it might have rained twice. The only accident backup we endured happened less than thirty minutes from home. I should have noticed the State Trooper whizzing by, lights flashing ten minutes before. When the GPS offered a quicker route with no mention of a wreck ahead, I thought she was just dispensing helpful information, but the 3.5 minutes the detour was going to save me seemed silly when I had been driving for over 14 hours. I ignored her, then sat in a parking lot for thirty minutes. By the time we passed the accident site, the ambulance had pulled away, leaving a fire crew, a couple of Troopers, and a charred, mangled motorcycle twisted around a guardrail. Welcome home, I thought. 

Home is every bit as much a concept as it is a place. Each year when we drive up into the driveway after being gone for a month, there is an overwhelming feeling of pride that wells up in me. This, despite the fact that the yard is a mess, the grass withered and brown, the hydrangeas drooped over and gangly, my tomatoe plants having been ravaged by the neighborhood squirrels. Dead pine needles have coated my front yard like snow, a rusty red needle snow that gives my yard a southwestern desert look. Exhausted as I am, despite aching hamstrings and a sore back, I instantly know what I will be doing for the next three hours before I’ve even rolled to a stop. This is our home...and it just can’t look like nobody lives here a second longer. 

After unpacking the car and removing the car top carrier and roof rack, I begin. I rake up the pine needles. I clean up the deck, reinvigorate the house plants that have been faithfully watered by the precious kids who live next door, and place them back in their respective places. I then cut the grass, trim the haggard edges, gather up a month’s worth of sticks from the yard and driveway. The sweat is pouring out of me, dripping off the end of my nose. It has been a while since I’ve been in Short Pump humidity. I haven’t missed it.

This was taped to the fence when we arrived home. The kids next door who I had hired to water the plants had made it to welcome us back home. These three pups are about the sweetest things you’ve ever seen. They all three had birthdays while we were gone. I bought them some cool stuff from The Smiling Cow. I have no grandkids of my own yet, so I’ve got to start spoiling somebody’s kids. I hope Stu and Jamie don’t mind.

So, that’s it. The Maine 2019 adventure is in the books. We will both miss Loon Landing. For the next couple of weeks, I will think about the lake when I drink my morning coffee. Pam will try to imagine gliding along on her paddle board at sunset. We will both long for the table on the deck every breakfast, lunch and dinner we eat for the next month. Lucy will miss the lake, mostly being in the lake. But, there are things we are glad to be back to. Air conditioning, high water pressure, a shower stall where you can turn around without hitting the handle and sliding it all the way over to the red H. Lucy is happy to have her back yard back. The first thing she did yesterday afternoon was walk out there and flip over on her back and roll around, making a snow angel in the pine needles.

Leaving Maine will always bring with it a sadness. We love it there. But coming back home will always bring with it a kind of joy. It’s ours, for one thing. But it’s also...Home.

Tour Guide

For the past couple of days Pam and I have had the privilege of introducing these guys to Maine...

Kirt and Jennifer Sederstrom are a couple of the many new friends we have met at Hope Church. They happened to be on a spontaneous vacation driving through New England. When my wife found out they were going to be in Camden, she couldn’t resist offering our guest house to them for a couple of nights. I can think of nothing that we enjoy more than sharing this incredible part of the country with others. They got here Sunday afternoon and are leaving this morning, but we served as tour guide for some sightseeing, and crammed lots of fun into these two short days. We took them to all of our favorite spots in and around Camden, then gave them a crash course in lake living—Maine style—which includes lots of flotation devices, charcuterie plates, and no judgement and guilt-free afternoon napping. They took to the place like old pros.

In other lake news...

Pam found the perfect lake bag.

Lucy has established herself as the MVV of this trip...Most Valuable Vacationer.

Had a fabulous dinner at Barrettstown Farmhouse.

Had another one of these...

The trees and the sunset reflecting off the windows of the cottage, with Lucy keeping a sharp eye on us...

So now the hard part of the trip has arrived, that uncomfortable feeling that rises in the stomach when it occurs to us that we only have three more days of this. Thursday doesn’t count either since we will be preoccupied with packing up. Our month away is drawing to a close. Reality awaits us back in Short Pump. At this point, I’m not sure who will more devastated...us or Lucy.

Never Let Them Take Your Pants

Reading Richard Russo. I love him and I hate him. I love the guy so much I read everything he writes. I hate the guy because in doing so I am reminded just how pathetic my writing is by comparison. I discovered him a few years ago when I found his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Empire Falls, in a bookstore in Camden on the Maine Authors aisle. When I then learned that he used to live a block from the Camden Deli and actually spent time writing the book at his regular table there, I was enchanted. Seven novels later, here I am, diving once again into two of his more recent works...

Great writers have the gift of delivering truth directly into your brain without the distractions of car chases, bad acting, and the pretentious cinematography of film. You’re reading along on the edge of your seat when, out of nowhere, you are presented with a fog clearing sentence like this:

...People cling to folly as if it were their most prized possession, defending it, sometimes with violence, against the possibility of wisdom.

It stops you in your tracts. You find yourself staring out at the lake, deep in thought, sorting through all of the real life examples of this human tendency you have witnessed in your 61 years, how many times we deny evidence of our own errors rather than admit them, learn from them and move on. How many marriages have failed, how many businesses have gone belly up, how much of our own politics has been poisoned by this simple truth?

But then it dawns on me that this isn’t a unique insight by a great writer, I have heard something similar before, but I just can’t place it. Maybe it was from Shakespeare or one of the great works of Dickens, or Jane Austin. Then it hits me...it was actually from the Apostle Paul:

...They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped created things rather than the creator...Romans 1:25

...proving another 2500 year old truth bomb from King Solomon...There is nothing new under the sun.

Lest I give the impression that Russo’s writing is all deadly serious, I should mention that he is perhaps the funniest novelist of this or any age. More often than not, his humor comes on the heels of something deadly serious, which makes it even funnier. When he was describing a character’s deadly diagnosis of cancer and the blow it had been to his young son, he follows it up with the sick man’s opinion of hospitals...

...Never let the bastards take your pants, because bare-assed men don’t get to make decisions.

Truer words have never been spoken.

My Excellent Kayak Adventure

Yesterday afternoon I took the kayak out and headed north along the edge of the lake. I had my fishing rod with me, as I searched for a new fishing hole. The lake seemed ideally suited for such an adventure, not completely calm with just enough current to make it fun. I must here confess that fishing from a kayak is probably easier than I make it look. Fifteen minutes in, I sent a cast too close to the edge, launching one of my prize lures into a low hanging branch. Unfortunately, it could not be saved. The fishing part of my adventure came to an abrupt end since I had only brought a few extra lures with me, no swivels. At this point I decided to continue my trip and enjoy the scenery.

Quantabacook is a small lake by Maine standards. It takes up 665 acres of real estate. Loon Landing sits at the southern end and our view of the entire lake is limited by the shape. If a kayak were deployed on a voyage around the perimeter of Quantabacook, it would require an 8.4 mile cruise. My voyage was considerably less...

However, the 4.4 miles I did manage revealed some incredible beauty. Of course, everything looks better when framed by crystal clear blue skies. I believe that what makes Quantabacook special is it’s anonymity. This is the lake that nobody has ever heard of. It’s one of the few up here that cannot be seen from any State road. It sits back in the woods, isolated and ignored. I don’t know how many cottages, camps and homes are here, but when you kayak along the edges it doesn’t seem like many. There are long stretches when all you see are looming pines, spruce, and birch trees and rocks jutting from under the water line. There was one section where it seemed that I was completely alone on an abandoned lake, with only the sound of birds in the trees and a couple of loons for company...

I took this photograph from the marshes to the north, around two miles from Loon Landing. An otter lives there, I’m told...but I didn’t see him. 

I made the wise decision not to take on the top quadrant of the comma. Instead, I cut across open water to the western shore and immediately found something that had so far eluded me. Every time we come here, we see a magestic eagle soaring above us. He comes and goes in his impressive way, making sure we know that Quantabacook belongs to him. Up until yesterday I had never found his nest, but suddenly, there it was near the top of a giant pine tree...

The last leg of my journey found me getting uncomfortable. The giant catcher’s mitt shaped clouds had thinned, leaving me in the bright sunshine. At the one hour mark, my backside was feeling it—this kayak has a paper thin seat—and I was getting hot. Just about this time of maximum discomfort, Quantabacook threw me a bone...I turned a corner and found this lovely spot in the shade where the current had died down. I sat there for probably five minutes just looking and listening...

Looking back on these photographs it occurs to me that they really aren’t all that impressive. Unless you’ve been to a place like this yourself, seen it, smelled it, and heard it for yourself, it might not resonate. Quantabacook cannot be experienced in third person. It’s a here and now place.

Coming Attractions

A while back, I wrote a novel called Saving Jack. The idea for the story had come to me at this very place a year earlier as I was sitting on the dock fishing. So, I suppose you could say that Loon Landing was my muse, adding to the long list of it’s magical powers. Anyway, I like the novel, so much so that I am planning on publishing it as an e-book on Amazon. To that end, I have employed my daughter, Kaitlin, to edit the work. She has editing experience, has a Masters Degree in English literature, and an English teacher’s intolerance for bad grammar. I sent her the transcript as a Google doc so I can actually see the suggested edits she makes in real time and either accept or reject them. It has been a humbling experience.

When I was in high school and should have been learning all about grammar and sentence structure, I was otherwise engaged in more pressing matters such as the proper construction of paper airplanes, flirting with the many beautiful girls in my classes, and skipping school to go swimming. While it was all great fun, I have lived to regret my less than stellar performance at Patrick Henry High. When Kaitlin gets finished with a chapter it looks like a disaster, like there has been an ink pen accident involving the color green, slashes and dashes everywhere!! 

She makes very few plot related suggestions aside from an occasional - develop this character more. It’s almost exclusively grammar and balky phrasing. In her defense, I probably approve 95% of them. She is making the manuscript so much better, earning her money. When I attempted an apology of sorts for all of my errors, she attempted to reassure me with this classic—Dad, you’re a great writer, its just that you struggle with grammar and phrasing. That’s like a pitching coach telling his rookie pitcher—Kid, you’re a great pitcher except for the fact that you have no control, your curve ball has no bite and you need to work on your velocity!!

The plan is to scrub all of my grammar and phrasing embarrassments away and come up with a clean copy. Then, come up with some compelling cover art. After that, I will devote myself to the business of getting it self published for sale on Amazon. To make it work, I will have to market Saving Jack. I will start with promoting it here on The Tempest. The hope is that many of you will be willing to purchase it in ebook form for the currently undecided price of between $5.99 and $9.99. The second part of the plan is that those who do buy it will love it and immediately start telling their friends about it and spreading the thing around Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and more importantly...write glowing reviews of it on Amazon! Of course after the thing sells 100,000 copies, a bidding war will erupt between all the major New York publishers, I will end up on a book tour, get interviewed on the Today Show and make a million dollars, and about the time it gets made into a movie I’ll be ready to publish  A Life of Dreams. ( I think this is an excellent example of what Kaitlin is talking about when she says—confusing phrasing)!!

Anyway, I’ll keep you all posted on the development of this project. Set aside your $5–$10 bucks now.

A Quiet, Magestic Day

Today, it’s raining and 65. It’s a quiet day, a day for reading and clam chowder. A trip into town is in the works to pick up some odds and ends, perhaps another book, since I’m about finished Anthony Horowitz’ The Sentence Is Death. A game or two of Rummikub will be played. Naps will be taken. Maybe dinner out. Usually, Lucy gets unsettled by the rain. This morning not so much...

What follows are some pictures we have taken over the past couple of slower days, which gave us a chance to revisit some of our favorite spots:

A schooner on Penobscot Bay

Camden, from the top of Mount Battie

Lucy, unimpressed with the view

Perhaps the loveliest picnic spot in all of America

Pam swinging on her favorite swings at Camden Hills State Park

I am the only one in this photograph without a small mouth 

My faithful fishing buddy

Lucy protecting Mom from the dangerous approach of four Canadian Geese

Lucy inspecting her catch

Dinner

Yes...another sunset

And now as Pam paddles back from another sunset trip on the lake, the loons begin to call out. I have no picture of the sound. You’ll have to close your eyes and imagine it for yourself.