High Anxiety

Today was a day full of high anxiety levels all around. We are on vacation...in Maine...that’s not supposed to happen. 

It started with the cloudiness, high winds and cool temperatures. Then we headed out to tour another property, this one on Crawford Pond over in Union/Warren, Maine. From the pictures we had seen, it looked like it had great potential. So, we pulled up at the place around 11:00 just as the sun came out and bathed the entire place in warmth for thirty minutes or so. A sign? We walked every inch of the place, inside and out. Neither one of us could find much fault with it, the cabin was much nicer than the pictures had lead us to believe. Usually its the other way around with pictures. This place exceeded our expectations at practically every turn. What made things even better was the fact that the place hadn’t even been put on the market yet. Our realtor found out that the owners were prepared to sell after a family member’s death. So, we were on the inside, ahead of the mad rush for lake front property in Maine that COVID has spawned. Then, when we were about to leave, a guy pulls up the driveway and asks, “Is this the place that’s for sale?” Apparently, the owners had just posted their intentions to sell the place on FACEBOOK!!! To make matters worse, in the middle of the madness our realtor’s daughter got sent home from school with a fever and had to be taken for a COVID test.

A series of texts back and forth between us and our frantic realtor produced an offer and a letter, written by Pam, to the owners describing in heart-string pulling detail why they should sell the place to us rather than some friend, or worse, stranger on Facebook. Our realtor has called, texted and emailed with the owners this afternoon and as of this hour, there has been no word from them as to their reaction to our bid. We have tried to remain calm, cool and collected as we wait. It’s been hard thinking of anything other than this business all day. We had dinner. I watched some baseball. But in between I’ve been flipping through the 100 + pictures we took of the place, trying not to get my hopes up.

Although most of the day has been a cold, windy, dreary mess, even on bad days Quantabacook seems to redeem itself...

Now, we wait for the vibration of our cell phones, indicating a text from Tiff. Meanwhile, The Braves won, The Astros are now up two games to zero over the A’s, and the hated New York Yankees and their 10 gazillion dollar payroll are about to go up two games to one over the Rays. A minute or so ago my phone came to life with a dramatic buzz. My heart beat quickened as I reached for it only to discover that the warranty on a car I no longer owned was about to expire, and if would only call the Toll Free number, they could extend it for an unbelievably low low price!!

Grrrrrrrr.......

Rock Painting

The early morning is dreary. The sky is low and there’s a stiff breeze. But Pam and Lynn are out there in their kayaks anyway. By 9:00 0’clock it will be bright and sunny. After breakfast, the two of them will get busy with Pam’s latest thing...

Pam collected these seven rocks from all around the property yesterday, cleaned them up and let them dry overnight. Today they will paint them in cheerful colors and designs, then place them strategically around the grounds of Loon Landing for the owners to find...like Easter eggs that you can’t eat. She did this at Loon Call back in July...

In other words, this is the sort of thing that would never have entered my mind as something to do. Never. It is just yet another dimension of my wife that I admire, her endless artistic inclinations and thoughtfulness. Maybe at some point I will try my hand at rock painting. The problem will be, what sort of thing would I paint on a rock? They aren’t big enough for a dad joke. I don’t have the requisite skill to paint a picture of something. I’m not good at one word cheerfulness. Maybe irony or sarcasm...but how on so small a canvas...Wait, how about:

LUCY

 2020

That might work! I’ll publish pictures of the final products.

Morning Rainbow

With the rising and the setting of the sun, this place never fails to dazzle. But this morning’s display was fabulous even by Loon Landing standards...

I’m not sure what to think or say about seeing a morning rainbow.

But, there it is. And now, less than ten minutes later, this...

There will be fishing this morning. I’m taking Chip out in that little motor boat there to see what we can catch in the northern part of the lake. Yesterday, I took him down to the southern end to my favorite spot by the dam. We both caught a nice small mouth on our very first cast! Later this morning we will head in to Camden, pick up some sandwiches at the The Deli and have a picnic by the ocean at Camden Hills State Park. After that we will head up to the top of Mount Battie for views of the harbor and Penobscot Bay. Tonight there will be Old Bay shrimp and sausage on the grill and a fire on the edge of the lake. Tomorrow we will drive our friends to the airport and send them back to Richmond. If the lying meteorologists can be believed, we should have sunny weather for the next ten days, but colder, high in the 50’s, low in the 30’s. I’ll settle for another morning rainbow.

 

The President Has COVID

I have woken up to probably 60 sunrises at this place, but have never seen one like this. I’m not even sure what to call it. If you were to ask me if if the sky is clear I would have to say yes, there’s blue sky up there. And yet, the lake is shrouded in fog, but not so much fog that I can’t see the reflection of the blue sky in the water of the lake! As I was taking this picture, somewhere out there in that blue-gray mist, a loon greeted me with his charming warble.

So, the President and First Lady have tested positive for COVID. Trump is now at Walter Reed Hospital for treatment. The reaction to this news has become a sort of Rorschach Test of political passions. I’ve seen everything from shock, to sympathy, to ridicule, even accusations that its all a PR stunt by his campaign. Nobody has the power to divide us like Donald Trump.

My reaction is a product of my upbringing, particularly, the example set by my Dad. I remember very well the day I came home from class when I was a student at University of Richmond to find my father sitting on the end of his bed watching a small black and white TV with a tear running down his face. Why? He was watching a special report bulletin reporting the attempted assassination of Gerald Ford by “Squeaky’ Fromm. I was surprised at the news, but even more so by his emotional response...he wasn’t particularly fond of the President. When I asked he simply said, “He’s the President of the United States, son.” Same thing happened years later when Reagan got shot. Him and Mom both. They were old school Christians who took seriously the words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel...”You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you....If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”

So, when I hear that Donald Trump has COVID, I put aside any notions of mockery and derision that come to mind, and concentrate on hoping that both of them are ok and will recover. I refuse to wish death on another human being. It is counterintuitive, even uncomfortable sometimes. But I have to choose love over hate, because it’s the only choice available to me that leads to human flourishing. To passionate partisans, my take will seem foolish, “sentimental hogwash” in the immortal words of Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. So be it.

Vote Already...Geez!!

There was a Presidential debate last night, I’m told. I’ll assume that the reputations of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas are still intact. For those of you who watched it, especially those with the fortitude to make it through to the end, I salute you. If I were President, I would send each of you a $500 gift card.

There is a storm raging outside, no...not the metaphorical kind, but a real one with howling wind and sideways rain. It’s loud and mysterious and utterly fascinating to watch. There’s a high wind advisory out warning of possible 50 mph gusts. My coffee is hot, my eyes and ears wide open. It’s hard to write serious political commentary when surrounded by the splendor and fury of God’s creation. But if you guys had the stones to sit through a presidential debate, I suppose the least I could do is offer a serious opinion.

So, I didn’t watch the thing. First of all, I’m in Maine. There  may be a law against reckless endangerment of the soul up here. If not, there should be. But, I did a deep dive into the content of what was screamed by each candidate. Then I read some of the reactions of friends and strangers on Facebook. I then glanced through the reactions of various commentators, some of whom I admire, some I detest. Nothing I have read came as a surprise. In fact, anyone who expected a different debate from the one we got hasn’t been paying attention. This is who they are. This is who we have become.

I hope, for the sake of the country, that neither of these candidates agree to another debate. I think we’ve all seen enough. I don’t believe anyone’s mind was changed last night. The only purpose the debate served was to illustrate just how far we have fallen, just how removed from basic decency we have drifted. To all of you people around the world who may have tuned in, let me just say that eventually we will recover our dignity. We will overcome this insanity. Don’t write us off. Every country has episodes of disorder and chaos. We’ve survived far worse than this.

Vote already...geez!

That’ll Do

This morning my eyes opened just a bit before 6 o’clock. I laid in bed and listened. Although there wasn’t any wind and the water wasn’t stirring, I knew I was at the lake. Quantabacook makes a sound. It’s hard to describe. You have to be listening for it but its there, soft and distant. Part of it is the pulse of so much life in the deep woods that surround it and under the depths of the clear cold water. But the other part is the fact that all the competing sounds of civilization have been filtered out. When there are no muffled roars of air conditioning or car engines, even the buzz of electricity, you can hear everything else...finally.

It’s still cloudy. Some might say dreary. But as I write this sitting just inside the sliding door that leads out onto the deck, this is my view...

If it looks like I’m seven steps from the water, that’s because...I’m seven steps from the water. They won’t let you build cabins this close anymore. Thank God for the 1950’s. 

Pam woke up soon after me this morning. She is on vacation and there is nothing that my wife enjoys more than sleeping in. But not here. She never sleeps in unless its pouring down rain. I knew what she was up to the minute she appeared at my side. It was time for her morning kayak run.

She’ll be gone for an hour or so, gliding along, reacquainting herself with each camp, having conversations with all the loons that will follow her around the lake. Breakfast will have to wait. 

We have the next three days to ourselves. Weather doesn’t look great, but the forecast is for sunny skies and cooler temps starting Thursday which is the day when our friends arrive for a visit. They’ve never been to Maine before. Sharing this place with friends is for us like the anticipation of Christmas morning when we were kids! We never tire of showing friends our favorite places. We never tire of seeing the expressions on their faces when they see the lake for the first time.

So, three weeks of this will have to do me until next summer. Hopefully when we return in 2021 it will be to our own place where we will begin a new lifetime of memories.

When Pam returned from her kayak adventure I asked her what it was like. She showed me this picture she took just around the cove from our dock...

Yes. That’ll do.

Decisions

This weekend was not a typical Maine escape. In some ways it doesn’t even feel like I’m in Maine yet. First of all, we’re staying in what the kids are fond of calling a tiny house. When I say “tiny” I mean that its so small I can’t brush my teeth in the tiny bathroom unless the door is open! I have to lower my head to walk out onto the deck, the sliding glass door apparently not made for anyone over 5’8”. No, this weekend has been full of the sorts of things I usually come to Maine to escape...decisions.

It occurs to me that my life has passed through several phases. Yours has too if you think about it. To everything there is a season, is how the old prophets described it. For me, the first phase lasted until I graduated from college. I was a kid, largely dependent upon my parents for guidance, food and shelter. Then I became an adult, a free man, responsible for his own care and feeding. I had to find a job, find a place to live, buy car insurance, learn how to live on a budget. Thankfully, those dreadful years of being a lonely free agent ended when I married the beautiful, and beguiling Pamela Jean White. I was still an adult, doing all those scary adult things, but now I had this amazing women doing it along with me. That lasted for three years, then kids arrived, which launched the two of us into the longest phase of life...parenthood. This phase was spectacularly expensive and exhausting in every possible way, but it was—and remains—the greatest thing we have ever done. However, eventually our living breathing tax deductions transitioned into adults themselves, leaving us empty-nesters...our current life phase. Now, we find ourselves on the cusp of the next stage of life...retirement, or something approximating retirement. In my line of work, it’s complicated.

To that end, we have spent the past two days and nights searching for what we have been dreaming of for the past decade, the perfect lake house in Maine. Our plan has always been to buy a place when we were ready, once we could A. Afford it and B. Have the time to enjoy it. Once we buy the place, life will change for us. Our intention is to live here from the first of June through the end of September every year. That is a significant life change, one which we are very excited to begin. But it comes with more questions than answers. We have found a place that seems almost too good to be true, but is located an hour and forty minutes away from the part of the State of Maine which has our heart, Mid Coast, Camden/Rockland. This place is in the DownEast area of the state, 55 minutes from Bar Harbor/Acadia, 25 minutes from the town of Ellsworth—which is no Camden. 

We know Camden like the back of our hand. We know the best places to eat, we know the sites to see and the best places to shop. Ellsworth might as well be Mars. So the question is, do we wait to find a place in our favorite stomping grounds where the lakes aren’t as plentiful and the houses are more expensive, or do we start this next phase of life in a completely new place, almost two additional hours away from Short Pump?

So, my mind is racing. Whenever big decisions loom on the horizon, I find myself retreating into humor, sometimes dark humor. It has been this way all of my life. Perhaps it’s my way of dealing with pressure and uncertainty, my subconscious strategy for self preservation. Whatever the reason, these cartoons have been quite helpful of late...