Transformation

Woke up to 58 degrees this morning with every window in the cabin open and only one thin sheet covering me. I quickly pulled up the bedspread and covered Pam, then grabbed a long sleeve shirt and long pants out of the closet. My coffee taste especially good. Lucy is typically nonplussed…

It has taken a bit longer this year, but its finally starting to happen. The transformation. There are several reasons for its later than usual arrival, the back incident, arriving here carrying a heavier than normal anxiety burden, but Maine is slowly working its magic. Each day I spend less time looking at my cell phone. Each day I notice more of the beauty around me. Each day I consume less news. I finished reading a novel, The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz, then started a second last night, Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan. I received an excellent recommendation for a third from a friend, which I will purchase when we next drive to Belfast from the lovely bookstore there called Left Bank Books, or maybe I’ll pick up a copy at The Owl and Turtle in Camden.

Pam has taken up cross-stitching again, after having given it up 35 years ago when being the mother of two young children stole from her the concept of free time. In the evenings when it finally gets dark here—a little after 9:00—I glance over at her quietly intense face, reading glasses on the bridge of her nose, hair pulled back in a ponytail and think that it might be the most peaceful thing I’ve ever seen. Suddenly she says, “This is what people used to do at night before cell phones, I guess.”

There’s this tree here that catches my attention every time I walk through this cabin. Its just outside the window beside the dining room table. The morning sun lights it up from the east, and the evening sun from the west. It never seems to be out of the sun’s glare. Since almost every day since we arrived its been breezy, the leaves are always dancing this way and that. I always notice, more every day. There’s nothing extraordinary about it. Its not much of a tree. But it captures my imagination every time I look at it. The grill is out there underneath its branches. This is the sort of thing that I would never even notice at home. Here, it becomes a symbol of some kind, a reminder of where I am and how lucky I am to be here. I think I should take a picture of it, but I’m sure it will disappoint. Its hard to capture delight.

Made it all the way down to the dam yesterday, my fishing hole of choice. The lake is low this year. For the first time ever, the top of the dam was dry. Last year, after a heavy rainstorm, I kayaked over top of the thing, there being no evidence of its existence! Usually when I stand on the top of it to fish, my feet are submerged to the top of my ankles. This time, I had to step lively to avoid the goose poop. Caught three beautiful bass.

The forecast is for sun and 78 today. We have no specific plans for the day. We’ve had no plans for any day since we showed up here. Pam has made a couple grocery trips to Belfast. We drove to Camden one morning for breakfast and some shopping. I might run over to the Fraternity General Store this morning to pick up a spinner, and maybe grab a whoopie-pie if Amanda has made any. Her’s are excellent, but not quite as on point as the ones at Camden Deli. Tonight I thought we might go out for dinner. Maybe Delfino’s in Belfast or The Waterfront in Camden. Or maybe not. We’ll just have to see how we feel later this afternoon.

Reading back over this, I can understand if some of you might read it and say…that sounds like one boring vacation! That’s fair. We look at it differently. For us Maine is like a great uncoiling, a de-briefing from modern life. It might take longer than it used to, but it never fails to happen.

Lucy’s Scary Adventure

Lucy had a big day yesterday. She got to accompany Pam while she was on the kayak and the paddle board…

But then everything when to heck in a hand basket. Wait…let me let Lucy describe what happened:

“Was having great day. Lots of swimming, loads of smells, ate at least a dozen flies. But then loud horrible noises from across lake. Sound like fireworks, but it not dark and no lights in sky. This just hekkin’ loud noises from invisible place. Of course, I tuck tail and start shaking like any sensible dogger would, but my humans act like it totally normal for loud booms to be blasting in ears. They tell me everything be alright but I not believe them. Sound like invasion of cats with guns. I hear Dad say it skeet-shooting like that suppose to make me feel better. Fluffing ridicurus. After I pace around and whine Mom finally put on thunder shirt, and even though she cooking dinner in cramped kitchen, I not leave her side. If she have to step over me, small price to pay to keep me safe from skeet-shoot cats.”

When I woke up this morning Lucy was nowhere to be found in our bedroom, either on the bed or the floor…a first. I found her dead to the world on the futon Pam had set up for her to sleep on but she had ignored up to this point, preferring our small bed instead. Maybe she was mad at us for not taking the whole skeet-shooter thing seriously enough, who knows?

This morning its raining, not too hard and it looks like its already clearing up. Low 70’s today. Might be time to break out a puzzle. Caught a couple more nice bass, two off the dock and the other on my first kayak trip of the week. The back held up quite well.

God I Love This Place

It’s been a windy few days here, making kayak fishing trips impossible for someone with a tender back. But this morning has dawned clear and calm, not a ripple to be seen on the surface of the lake. So in a while I will venture out.

Yesterday found us in Camden for breakfast at The Deli. Blueberry pancakes with crisp bacon and coffee. But the best part about The Deli is the view…

That’s the Megunticook River flowing under the place, then crashing down a waterfall into the Penobscot Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. We have sat at this table for over ten years, thankful for our great good fortune.

Lucy is living her absolute best life. This dog owns the place…

Last night, a storm came through from the southern end of the lake. It didn’t rain much but the wind blew harder than it had all day. The biggest result from the storm was the stirred up sky it left in its wake. The sunset looked like the cover of a Gothic novel…

The final slice of the day was the sort of thing its hard to turn away from…

God, I love this place.

Silver Linings

The back is on the mend. I wanted badly to get in the kayak and head out but that would have been dumb…and Pam would have been furious with me if I did. Instead, I stayed around the dock with Lucy while she went out. However, in Maine you don’t really need to leave the dock to catch fish…

It must be said that Miss Lucy is in mid-season form already…

It has taken Pam a bit longer to hit her stride. It might have something to do with the fact that she has been working like a beast since my back went out, picking up my slack. But this was a good sign…

That’s her out there with her kayak tied to the swim float reading a book. 

So, last night something crazy happened. We were both busy cooking dinner, Pam in the kitchen, me out on the grill. It was one of our favorite camp meals, chicken kabobs with peanut sauce. We sat down at the table and slathered the sauce on everything, then said the blessing, thanking God for the privilege of being in such a place for six weeks. Then we both shoveled the first delectable bite into our mouths only to be shocked by a horrible discovery. I looked at her. She looked at me, mouths closed, our faces contorted in painful grimaces. Apparently, that container of sugar from which Pam had taken a third of a cup to mix with the peanut sauce was…SALT. In 38 years of marriage, this was a first. The dinner that had smelled so delicious while it was cooking was now ruined. Then Pam—in the first sign that she is rounding into ideal Maine shape—says to me, “Well, I guess this means we have no choice but to go get ice cream.”

A valuable lesson was learned which is that the secret to guilt-free ice cream consumption is destroying dinner. Silver linings.

This morning, for the first time since we arrived on Saturday, the lake is still…

First Day Complications

At 5:22 am on this Sunday morning I am cautiously optimistic. 

Yesterday around noon we arrived at the lake greeted by fabulous blue skies and sunshine. The breeze coming off the water made us feel a chill as we got out of the car. The thermometer said it was 74, but with no humidity and that fresh lake breeze it felt colder. We introduced Lucy to the place and she was ecstatic. Then we decided to eat our lunch before unpacking the car. We had stopped at the always dependable Fraternity General Store and picked up some sandwiches. Before lunch I took a couple pictures.

Then we sat about unloading the car. Ten minutes in to this enterprise, I reached into the back of the car for something and felt a knifing pain in my back. I froze in place and waited. Then a spasm…then another. A few minutes later I was laying on the hardwood floor with my knees pulled to my chest trying to make it stop.

There is never a good time to throw out your back. But some times are far worse than others. This was one of the those times. Lucky for me I am married to a calm cool and collected women who always seems to know exactly what to do in situations like this. As I lay on the floor fearing the worse she was busy unloading the car by herself all the while devising a plan. She presents me with a post-it note with the address and phone number of a Walgreen’s in Belfast, Maine and the phone number of the Short Pump Patient First with these instructions: “Call them and explain the situation and ask them to call in a muscle relaxer prescription.” Brilliant.

I call and am connected to a sympathetic and cheerful nurse who pulls up my extensive record of back pain related visits. “Ahhh,” she says knowingly, “You seem to have a history of this sort of thing. I see a visit in 2017, 2018, and two visits in 2020, all for muscle spasms,” as if I was about to win some repeat customer award or something. Then a worrisome sigh and the words you don’t want to here when you’re laying on the floor fighting off back spasm’s  on day one of your six week vacation, “Unfortunately…”

Because it had been over a year since I had been treated for back issues, they would not be able to call me in a prescription. The fact that I had been treated for back spasms at that particular location more times than Britney Spears has been in rehab made no difference to what was apparently a mandate from corporate. We were then forced to launch Plan B.

Pam drove into Belfast to make our first grocery run with strict instructions that I was to stay in bed and “do nothing until I get back.” Luckily, I am ideally suited for such a task. Lucy and I made ourselves as comfortable as possible and waited for Super Woman’s return. When she arrived back at the house, she brought with her an ice pack thing that you can strap unto your back via a Velcro belt, along with a heating pad with a built in massager. Then she handed me a cold Baxter Stowaway IPA and deadpanned, “Here’s your muscle relaxer.” The woman is gold.

So this morning I sit here in my rocking chair drinking my coffee, feeling the warmth and vibrations of the Relax-o-Matic 2000 Deluxe model 2, with the Mister Freeze Relief Belt warming up in the bullpen. So far, no spasms and except for a a little tightness, I seem on the mend.

Today is a new day.

What’s at the End of the Rainbow

I packed up my office laptop, transferred my bill-paying files from my credenza to my briefcase, recorded an away message on my office phone, then locked my door on the way out. I paid a month’s worth of bills ahead of time. I got my summer haircut, picked up a couple books from Hope Thrift, then instructed our summer intern in the fine art of watering the lawn. I gave Lucy her pre-Maine bath. Spent most of last night packing a suitcase and a duffel. Mostly, shorts and t-shirts, underwear, bathing suits and baseball caps. But, because its Maine, two jackets, four long sleeve shirts and two pair of long pants—you never know when it might be cloudy and not get out of the 60’s. 

Several rooms in our house have taken on the appearance of a teenager’s bedroom. All of this chaos, all of the piles of necessities will find their way into our car by the end of today, hopefully leaving room for Lucy, who doesn’t need much, just a circle big enough for her to turn around three times before curling herself in a ball for long naps. Pam will no doubt remind me at least twice to make sure I can see through the back window. She will ask me several times whether or not I have locked the doors to the house, then before we are even out of the neighborhood she will say, “I feel like I’m forgetting something.”

In exactly 24 hours from now we will be on our way. It will take twenty minutes or so before Pam gets firmly settled in her co-pilot’s seat. When she does, she will let out a long sigh, the first second she’s had to relax in weeks. Sometimes she gets emotional when it hits her that we are on our way. For me, I’m all in on conquering the trip and have no time for emotions, except the kind that burn on the inside—mostly gratitude and relief. Then there’s the thing that hits me every year as we pull on to the interstate, that little boy, Christmas morning thrill of anticipation.

Some time today I hope to get a massage to prepare my body for the rigors of the long drive. At 64 an 850 mile road trip takes a toll on hamstrings and backs. Pam ordered me a special car seat cushion that is supposed to promote better driving posture. It is supposed to arrive today. It better, because if it doesn’t I’m leaving without it. When I checked the weather forecast for Camden, Maine for the day of our arrival—Saturday—it promises to be 75 and sunny. In fact the ten day forecast shows no temperature higher than 78. At night it will be in the upper 50’s, low 60’s. 

For us, Maine is always what’s at the end of the rainbow…

The Coming Escape

I’m not sure I have ever needed to see everyone’s family 4th of July picnic pictures more than I needed to see them this morning. Out of an abundance of caution, Pam and I were laying low this past weekend. After several friends close to us came down with either COVID or the flu, and with our Maine trip only a few days away, the very last thing either of us needs is to come down with either one of those things. Discretion being the better part of valor, we skipped church and the Dunnevant family 4th celebration, hunkering down here at the house. We did whip up some delicious brats on the grill and played some patriotic music, but it wasn’t the same. The 4th of July is not a holiday meant to be celebrated alone.

So, this morning I began flipping through the family photos on Facebook, including some from the Dunnevant gathering up in Ashland. Group pictures of families holding little American flags, the wide-eyed faces of children being lit up by the glow of sparklers, babies sound asleep in the arms of uncles and aunts. They were all beautiful. I needed to see them, needed confirmation that the entire country wasn’t going to hell.

Earlier in the day yesterday came news of yet another psychopath with a rifle opening fire on a parade in suburban Chicago. Six dead, thirty in the hospital, and the deranged little suspect plastered all over the news, some nobody rapper, another confused young man with a deadly weapon. The rest of the news seemed filled with despair, the suggestion that America has literally nothing to celebrate anymore was heavily covered in almost every story I read. To hear the media tell the story we are hopelessly and irreparably divided and the future almost certainly contains either civil war or formal dissolution. Its hard not to agree with such a negative assessment. But then I look at the endless succession of pictures of grateful and happy celebrations and find reason for optimism and a reminder that its the media’s job to attract eyeballs, with the truth—only if absolutely necessary. Sometimes the perspective of people who report news isn’t the same as the perspective of people who read it. So, as Pam and I prepare to leave for Maine, we will chose to focus on the reasons we have for being grateful and happy, not the steady drumbeat of gloom and despair that attempts to make happiness and gratefulness feel like guilty pleasures.

While we are retreating to Maine for six weeks at a time that makes it feel like we’re the last ones to get out of town alive, I know better. America will still be here when we get back. For those of you who are thinking…Wait, isn’t Maine part of America? Yes and no. Yes, Maine is one of the fifty states. No, where we are headed feels like a place set apart from the rest of the country, something closer to heaven than hell. 

We’ll send pictures. I owe you that much.