A Disturbing Reminder

Two of my kids are now back home. Patrick and Sarah made it safely back to Nashville yesterday, ending their time with us. Kaitlin and Jon will be here through Wednesday, then it will Pam and me for another week or so. Amazing how fast time passes up here. Today was supposed to be a complete washout but woke up to calm water and patchy sunshine, so I hopped in the kayak and paddled over to the next cove where I caught five beautiful bass in a matter of minutes. The mist was still roiling across the lake when I arrived back at the dock. By then it had started to rain, more like a soft, polite drizzle. Kaitlin and Pam decided that a trip into Camden for a clam chowder lunch at The Deli was essential to our happiness and well being. Mine came with a Reuben sandwich and one of those delightfully intense dill pickles. By the time we finished lunch, the rain had become real, coming down steadily while the high temperature hovered in the low 60’s.

While the rest of my family wandered off for pointless browsing in the many lovely shops on Elm street, I stepped into The Smiling Cow on a mission from God. Every year, I buy gifts for all of the ladies at the office, those poor souls who are forced to put up with my workplace harassment and high-jinks all year. I partially make it up to them by bringing them treats from Maine. They receive them with a very high level of entitlement, figuring that it’s the very least I could do.

Then there’s the matter of the sweet pups who live next door to us back home, the three Garland kids, Cash, Kennedy, and Sully. These wonderful kids have served as my grandparent-training guinea pigs, which means I get to spoil them with treats from Maine too. Their long-suffering parents go along with this spoiling for the most part, although I thought I detected an eye-roll from Jamie last year when I bought Cash a cool pirate knife with a disappearing blade and a collection of practical joke tricks he could use to terrorize his sisters. So, this year I scaled back the asshattery a bit, going with slightly more educational gifts. I hope they aren’t totally crushed.

Anyway, the point of this blog was to tell you about a disturbing message I received from my son this afternoon that actually sent a brief wave of nausea sweeping over me. He sent me this…

We might have two more weeks left up here but we are under no illusions about what awaits us back in Short Pump. This screenshot served as a disturbing reminder. Nevertheless, going home isn’t all bad. Take a look at my Grandpup, Frisco. Somebody missed his Mama!!

Wonder

It was around 7:00 in the evening. Patrick and Sarah were rattling around in the kitchen preparing dinner. Pam was in the shower. Jon was getting a fire ready for later while Kaitlin was sitting on the dock reading a book. I was in the living room reading book number four of this trip, when I got to the end of a chapter and thought to make myself a cup of coffee. As I got up I glanced through the big windows that face the lake and noticed a bright splash of color in a straight line across the surface of the water that seemed to be pointing straight at Kaitlin. It stopped me in my tracks. “Look at that on the water…what the heck?” Then I noticed Jon hustling down the path towards the dock. I thought to open the door to our bathroom to tell Pam that she might want to take a look. Then I too ran down the path until I realized that what I was seeing from the upstairs of the house was a reflection of the thing and not the thing itself…

Soon, all of us were on the dock, faces aglow with wonder, snapping photographs which were destined to disappoint. In a particularly delightful moment, my wife appeared, her hair bound up in a turban, having stepped out of the shower, camera in hand, determined not to miss the experience. Dinner would have to wait. next thing I know, Pam and Kaitlin were off chasing another sunset…

It’s very easy to romanticize our memories. Fond memories can easily become myths with the passage of time. How many of us have had warm memories of some childhood experience that when revisited 40 years later disappoints? But this rainbow is exactly the kind of thing that always seems to happen up here. Each new day up here brings to life the dormant capacity for wonder that is cooked into our DNA as human beings, but is largely neutralized by the relentless slog of our routines. Quantabacook inspires wonder like no place else for me. It reminds me that the world is a beautiful place. Up here, beauty isn’t an abstraction, its the air you breathe.

After we finally finished dinner around 9 o’clock, we gathered around the fire, mesmerized…

Pride Goeth Before a Fall…

I don’t believe in karma, but yesterday’s events at the dock gave me pause. 

 

It was an especially warm afternoon in the upper 70s (ha!), so Patrick and Sarah and I decided to break out the floats and attempt a “floatilla” for the first time since the start of our vacation. Patrick scanned the dock for the best place to lower himself onto his float and realized the ladder was too unwieldy for a smooth takeoff. The only alternative was to somehow hop onto the float from the dock’s edge, which rests a solid 18 inches above the water. He bravely decided to give it a go and lowered the float into the water. Without pausing to think too much, he hoisted himself off the dock and crashed onto the float like a bowling ball, cross-legged and facing the wrong way. Like a good sister, I pointed at him and cackled.

“Why did you get on it backwards?!” Sarah asked.

“How else could I have done it?” Patrick responded, paddling furiously and tipping dangerously to the right.

The float suddenly flipped and Patrick tumbled into the water. This was funny enough as it was, but the funniest part was watching him try to get back on. As I sit here remembering it, I am giggling all over again. Every time he gained purchase, the float would flip him off again with a big splash, and he would pop up like a buoy, his arms flailing and his glasses cockeyed on his face.

The contrast was stark between Sarah’s reaction as his wife and my reaction as his sister:

Sarah: “Are you okay??? Please tell us if you need help!”

Me: “BAHAHAHAHAHA. Can we sell tickets to this? Somebody pop some popcorn!”

Eventually he figured it out and stabilized himself on the float. At this point we had secured the ladder properly, so I wiped the tears from my eyes and sashayed over to the dock’s edge, ready to show him how it’s done.

As a three-time winner of the Least Valuable Vacationer award, I am a seasoned float launcher. I slipped my feet through the hole in the foot of the float, walked down a couple rungs of the ladder and then gracefully lowered myself onto the raft, pushing off from the dock with my toes. I waved at Mom and Patrick as I floated away, self-satisfied and serene. 

Then, without warning, a great POP echoed across the lake. Generations of lake-dwellers will tell their children of the great POP of July 20th, 2021. Mom tells me that my confident smirk evaporated in an instant. My float deflated faster than I thought possible, and before I knew it, I was the flailing, sputtering, chagrined Dunnevant sibling. 

I can often hear Nanny’s voice in my head, reciting one of her favorite Scriptures: “Pride goeth before a fall!”

Quite literally, indeed.

Grateful

Yesterday was Pam’s birthday so we did all of her favorite things. That meant blueberry pancakes at the Camden Deli, several hours of casually pointless shopping, a lobster roll lunch at Hazel’s, a paddle board excursion with Kaitlin and Sarah tagging along in the kayaks, a delicious dinner which she insisted in preparing which featured lots of laughter and conversation and ended with whoopie pies. Then, Sarah handed out special gifts she had bought for the occasion…

It should be noted that my daughter-in-law did not buy the boys matching pajamas, a fact for which I will be eternally grateful. Suffice it to say that my wife had the best birthday ever. Yesterday was one of those days you dream about where everything seems right with the world. It’s why you work. It’s why you plot and scheme and calculate. It’s the reward for all the grinding, the relentless slog through meetings and paperwork. To be able to gather your family together in a place like this and hear their voices, see their happy faces…

Then, this morning, I wake up at 5:30 to this…

Grateful…

Moving Day

It is never an easy thing to get to Maine. Whether you’re driving up 95 or flying into Portland or Bangor, its no picnic getting here. Yesterday we moved into house # 2 on the west side of the lake. It was also supposed to be the day that our kids flew in to Bangor around 10:30 pm to join us in this great big old house. Instead, here’s what happened…

Pam and I cleared out of Summer Dreams precisely at 9 am as per the rental agreement. Pam drove the car around the lake to house # 2 and waited for me to paddle the kayaks across, which took 25 minutes. I tied them up to our new dock and then we drove into Belfast to kill some time. We owned that town:

The Cajun chicken sandwich I had at Darby’s Irish Pub was legendary.

There is a quirkiness about Maine that I find comforting. We went to an amazing Farmer’s Market which we could have spent a fortune at but were restrained by having very little room in the car to put anything, so Pam had to settle for some zucchini, squash, hard salami and cheese…

But, Maine being MAINE, the musical entertainment was provided by a harpist…

Of course. 

And in case you needed to go to the bathroom, the Belfast Farmer’s Market’s got you covered…

After lunch, we headed back to Camden to rest in the Camden Library where we were lucky enough to see a wedding taking place in the amphitheater. The bride had to enter through the large room where Pam and I were resting. She looked radiant.

While we were so engaged, we received a text from our son informing us that just as he and Sarah had left their apartment headed for the airport, they were informed that their flight had been cancelled. But these are my kids we’re talking about and if I managed to teach them anything it was how to roll with the punches. They ended up making an adventure of it by driving to Huntsville, Alabama booking a flight out for early today, finding a hotel and eating dinner at this cool place…

Meanwhile, we moved in to the new place…

It’s huge and not as campy as Summer Dreams, But once all four of our kids get here it will feel like home. Speaking of which, Kaitlin and Jon’s flight was delayed but they made it to Bangor a little after midnight. We made it home at 1:30 in the morning, a long day. If all goes as planned, Patrick and Sarah will be here by 5:30 this afternoon. It looks like it will be raining all day today.

A couple more delightful examples of Maine quirkiness…These folks know a thing or two about diversification…

Who among us hasn’t been walking through a book store and thought, “Wouldn’t a fine cigar be great about now?” And, how many times have you been ordering a latte when you’re overcome by a desire to purchase a touring bicycle? 

Ok, trying to publish a blogpost with this many photographs is going to be a challenge for the fragile internet up here. So, I hope you are able to read this before the end of the day. 

“This is the day the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it…” 

 

A Rare Sick Day

Over the past ten years or so, Pam and I have spent approximately 9 months cumulatively in Maine. In all of that time I can count on one hand the number of days I have not felt well. Yesterday was one of those days. There have been plenty of times when I have had minor accidents up here, falling down rocks while hiking, falling through a broken plank on a dock, that sort of thing…but sick…hardly ever.

Yesterday started with a workout. I did some light dumbbell work, then went for a 3.4 mile run. It was cloudy out and a cool 60 degrees but for Maine…very humid. I wore a long sleeve black t-shirt to protect against biting flies, which was probably a stupid idea since I was carrying my cool bug zapper racket thing. By the time I made it back to the house I was dripping in sweat so I ran down to the dock and jumped in the lake and immediately felt refreshed. However, later in the day after some very mild exertion I felt suddenly clammy and light headed. For the rest of the day the dizziness persisted, and was accompanied by a headache that never quite went away until I went to sleep last night. This morning I feel totally fine, completely back to normal.

Here’s the thing though…every time something like this happens, the slightest irregularity in anything health related, Pam starts worrying that it might be my heart. That’s because 18 years ago I underwent emergency open heart surgery to repair a damaged mitral valve that I wasn’t aware I had until it almost killed me. And although I have had not one single heart related problem since, its still the first thought that pops into your head when anything goes south health wise. I suppose thats a natural response. Major surgery like that is impossible to forget. Every time I get dressed in the morning I see the faded eight inch scar in the middle of my chest. At first it looked like a horrible gash that would never heal. Now I hardly notice it anymore. But, its still there and always will be. To be honest, every time I see it I feel thankful that it happened. That terrifying experience changed the trajectory of my life, slowed me down, changed my perspective and altered my priorities. Its funny how the possibility of dying at 45 changes your idea of what the good life actually is. My plans of becoming a gazillionaire vaporized overnight. My notions of personal empire building suddenly seemed embarrassingly vain. So yeah, I’m actually grateful for that horrible day in April of 2003. Having said that, I have no desire whatsoever to revisit the experience. Which, ironically, is why I was out running 3.4 miles in thick humidity while on vacation. It’s also why I do stupid things like this…

Yeah, so a few days ago I took off in my kayak for a little fishing jaunt to a new spot I’ve discovered just above the 1 mile mark on this map. I caught several beautiful bass and was feeling quite cocky when the idea popped into my head to attempt the entire northern loop while I was out. It was a beautiful day, why not? The problem started when the light and variable winds turned on me around the 2 mile mark. Now I was rowing in choppy water. At this point, a smarter  more responsible person would have considered aborting his plans to complete the northern loop. Unfortunately, there were no smart responsible people in my kayak. I soldiered on. 3 hours and 40 minutes after I left the cabin, I finally made it back with a world class case of cramped muscles. But, to hear Pam tell it, this is the sort of thing I always do. Which, I suppose is why she worries so much, bless her heart.

But, this morning, all is well. I’ve got an idea…maybe tomorrow I’ll try a mini iron man thing…run a 5K then jump in the lake a swim a mile!! I mean…what could go wrong?

There’s a New Rodent in Town

I am informed by my house sitter that the squirrels are on a destructive rampage back home. Amazing what removing the threat of instant death does to the audacity of rodents. So far, one light bulb has been broken and an adorable birdhouse that the girls next door made for us lies shattered in several pieces on the deck, no doubt the work of newly audacious squirrels. But I will eventually return and when I do, justice will be swift and unyielding. Meanwhile the happy news here at the lake is that I have not seen a single squirrel (gray or red) anywhere on the property since we arrived 15 days ago. It has been glorious.

That is not to say that our lives here are rodent-free. At this property, the king is this guy:

The Maine chipmunk rules the roost around here. They are everywhere. And while they are cuter than their destructive cousins, at least squirrels don’t spend all day singing. That’s right, you heard me…this guy, several times a day stops dead in his tiny tracks and starts this obnoxiously loud chirping, for no apparent reason. It’s amazing what a tremendous amount of noise can come out of something so small. The worst part is…it goes on forever. As I write this, one particular guy has been at it for the last four minutes straight without coming up for air…just a constant stream of chirp, chirp chirp…

Unlike the squirrels in my backyard who live in constant fear of my hulking presence, these guys just laugh when they see us. They won’t even stop eating if we happen to walk by while one of them is gnawing on something. They act like we don’t even exist. In that way they are similar to the loons, totally unimpressed with our presence here. Its like a loon will slip up from the depths within twenty feet of our dock and look at us and be like, “Oh…I see you guys are back. How was your winter? Looks like you’ve gained weight…”