Say It Ain't So!

The winter is about over. It's mud season now, and the scenery is somewhat less than pleasing, but that's okay. Even though the ground is still mostly brown and the dead grass is yellow, the trees gray and leafless, things are starting to get that windswept, waking-up look about them. There are pools of icy water just off the sides of the road and the trees that stand in it look somehow like they just sprouted there, moments ago.
Plaintive bird calls echo through backyards. Today I saw a blazing red cardinal and heard him trumpeting his spring call; "Toooo-weeet! chew,chew,chew!"
The little black-capped Chickadee was singing; "See-mee, See-mee!"
Two turkey vultures found a thermal above our street and circled each other in an aerial ballet, gradually drifting upward toward the sun.
Snow drop and crocus stems are starting to poke up everywhere, through the cold, crusty mud. The sky this past week was a nearly forgotten shade of blue. The only remaining mounds of gray snow are hiding in the shaded areas that the sun never reaches. The rest has melted and evaporated away. Today, although the wind was high and brisk, the ground radiated warmth. Winter is over for all intents and purposes, so why...why...WHY are they saying we are going to get a foot of snow over the next two days....WHY!? I know why. It's because this is New England; land of the meteorological practical joke. Wake me when it's over please...

What's So Good About It?

To say that I am not a morning person would be an understatement. The very thought of actually getting up and moving around before the sun has come up makes me slightly nauseous. My husband Mac's battered old clock-radio springs to life at five thirty in the AM (after experiencing an awful barrage of loud metal music as my first sensory perception at that already rude time of day, I convinced him to at least set the dial to a classical station). He springs to life right along with it. He is up early to prepare for his job which consists of carpentry and roofing. After shrugging purposefully into his layers of thermal, flannel and sweatshirts, bumping into the bed and jarring me awake again numerous times while doing so, he sallies forth into the day without so much as a yawn or a groan. There is much coffee drinking and truck loading to do before he can head out for the day.
I, on the other hand, pull the covers up over my head and try to shut out the sounds of the house and the light that filters in through the window blinds.
If possible, I try to stay in bed until everyone has gone and the house is empty, no one home except Rigby, the cats and me. This has become a lot easier since I was cut adrift from my job. After all these years of living with three other people and only one bathroom, I know better than to think it might be free if more than two of us are home and up. If it's a rainy or frigid day and Mac is still home when I rise, the kitchen dance begins. We dodge and weave around each other as we both try to get to the coffee pot and into the cabinets or the fridge, much to my aggravation.
I'm actually a really nice person, except in the early morning. I love my family to pieces, but I'm pretty cranky first thing in the morning. I need about a hour to get my wits about me. Thankfully, my husband is pretty easy going and doesn't get offended. Yesterday he was laughing at me. He said that when I get up in the morning I'm like a bear coming out of hibernation; grumpy and dangerous. To that I said: Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

Have We All Been Here Before?

Energy never dies, but is only transformed. What becomes of our energy once our physical bodies can no longer function? Is it on to a final rest after one single lifetime in the body, or do we take on a new shell, like spirit hermit crabs and graduate to a new level of education at schoolhouse Earth? I have to concede to the possibility that perhaps not only does our soul, our life-force, leave our bodies upon death, but it may enter a new body to further progress in our life lessons. One life just doesn’t seem like much time to attain all the wisdom there is in the universe. What if we get more than one chance at trying life on Earth? This seems like a reasonable possibility to me.
Some years ago I was invited to an evening of “past life regression” at the home of a friend. I always take these kind of things with a grain of salt, but I have a very open mind, and I thought it would be interesting.
A young woman with bunches of dark wavy hair and a long, purple, velour dress was holding court when I arrived, doing readings for people in small groups. She touted herself as a past life reader and promised to reveal to each of us, a past life persona.
The person she saw me as in my most recent life was a male. He was a dark, brooding, sort of menacing guy. His name was Jason, and he was a shaman or sorcerer of some kind. It didn't really sound like he was a nice person. She told me that my current life was all about regaining the power I had in that life, but channeling it toward good this time around.
As interesting as the tale of Jason was, I'd been a little disappointed not to hear about a life spent as an American Indian. For reasons I've never understood, I always been deeply interested in Native Americans. I've collected many books on subjects related to American Indians and their culture as well as some recordings of their music. As a child, I liked to play a game with friends that consisted of us living like natives in the woods and performing rituals with sticks, stones and water. Whenever games had a western theme, I would always be the Indian and never the cowgirl. The first pieces of jewelry I ever bought for myself were silver and turquoise made by a native artisan. I prefer them to diamonds.
I've also had a dream in which I am dressed in buckskin clothing and moccasins. In this dream, I'm running for my life across a desolate landscape. I trip and fall, and when I look up at my pursuer, he is raising a tomahawk over me. I've wondered whether this dream could be a traumatic memory of the end of a past life...or then again, maybe it's a just a dream?

At Last

At Last!!!....my president has come along!
Sorry, just watching the Prez speak on T.V....God, he makes me so happy! He is the real deal, I can feel it.

Empathy

Various sources describe an "Empath" as someone who has the ability to discern and actually feel the emotions of others. I have long thought that this describes me.
I've heard it said that this over-developed sense of empathy is a double-edged sword and I can certainly attest to that. If someone I know is happy and joyful, I seem to absorb those feelings as well. If someone near me is experiencing grief or sadness, it manifests as a dark cloud of depression over me. While it can be very helpful in life to be able to intuit the truth of a situation and to accurately guess people's true motivations, it's also exhausting to experience other people's pain as well as your own.
In the past, as strange as it may seem, I have many times walked around for months suffering over situations that have little or nothing to do with me. It is particularly difficult detaching emotionally from my immediate family members, as I am in close proximity to them daily. That makes it a lot harder. Their sorrows, joys, grief and anger feel like they are mine too.
It's as if someone else's flame is consuming my candle.
For the longest time, I didn't realize that there was something of a choice involved, but I see now that I can take steps to protect myself. I am just now, at this advanced stage of life, learning to sort out which problems and emotions are truly mine, and which belong to others. I can still care about them, and I can still try to help them, but I don't have to suffer for them. Letting go of other people's pain and problems is something I have to practice daily to keep my sanity.

Up In An Airplane

Up on the airplane, nearer my God to thee, I start making a deal inspired by gravity - Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls)


The other day when I was out walking with Rigby, something above caught my eye. Like a faint ghost, a big passenger jet was carving a trail through the bright, blue morning sky. I thought about the scores of people, all the souls inside that distant plane. Some, maybe sitting with their seats reclined and their Ipods on. Maybe someone's reading a book that I've read or chatting with the attendant. Somebody's eating peanuts and having a diet Coke or a chardonnay.
Many of the flights that originate out of Logan airport pass right over my little town. At night they can be seen approaching from the east with big, bright lights ablaze, like high beams. As they get nearer, the big lights suddenly go out and just the blinking red and green lights seem to stay on.
I don't like to fly. Even though I know that air travel is vastly safer than car travel, I'd prefer to take my chances on the ground, rather than at 30,000 feet.
The take off is always the worst for me. In my car, I feel that I have some degree of control over what happens. In the air, I am at the complete mercy of the pilot, who I've never met and know nothing about. For all I know, he could have just taken three Ambien and washed it down with a couple of whiskey sours after a fight with his ex-wife. I guess this probably means I'm a control freak, I don't know. Plus, there's that whole "gravity" thing. I have no understanding of physics, really.
As the plane starts to move, I clutch my rosary beads, scapula or a prayer card and shut my eyes. I'm chomping gum to try and pop my ears before the altitude does it for me in a more painful way. My stomach flip-flops. I pray silently as we taxi down the runway, and I hold my breath until we are up and we level out. The landing is no piece of cake either, but it's usually not as traumatic for me as take-off.
That morning as I looked up at that plane, I was reminded of the last flight I took.
I was traveling down to Florida with my sister and one of my brothers to attend the wedding of our nephew in a town near Tampa last November. The take-off had been as smooth as silk and we were waiting for the attendants to come back with our drinks. I watched as the Earth fell away from my window, then took a deep breath and glanced around the cabin. I caught my brother's eye and asked, "How're you doing?" He answered, "Wondering how the heck it's possible that we are rocketing through space in this metal cigar."
I laughed out loud because I have had that exact thought many times. It seems like such a crazy, improbable thing to be doing, and if you didn't know for a fact that such a thing is possible, you'd never believe it, would you? A big, steel tube weighing thousands of pounds, filled with more than a hundred people and their stuff, taking off from the ground and speeding through the air, then safely landing at your destination. It's nuts.
That was a great trip, because not only did we get to see our other brother and our two nephews and experience the wedding, we also got to spend a few days together, just the three siblings without our spouses or kids. We really had a good time and a lot of laughs together. Even though I really couldn't afford the trip, I knew it would be a rare experience that I would not want to miss, and I was right. It was so worth it, and I'm glad I made the decision to go.
Everytime I look up and see those passenger jets overhead, I am reminded how so many things that we take for granted in our every day lives are actually so incredible. Really makes it seem like anything is possible.

The Fifth Season

Anyone who lives in the northern climes knows that there are more than four seasons. Some think of that beautiful reprise of warmth after the first frost, better known as "Indian Summer", as a season unto itself, but it lasts only a few, precious days at best. Many of us who live where the winters are snowy have a different idea about what constitutes the fifth season. Right now, in this part of the country a new season is just beginning...mud season. Starting near the end of meteorological winter and lasting into the first weeks of the calendar spring, mud season is all too familiar to those who dwell outside of the cities.
As the snow and ice retreats with the slowly warming temperatures, yards and unpaved driveways become oozing car traps that rival the La Brea tarpits. Boots and sneakers get caked with brown muck, no matter how carefully one tries to step. Mac starts parking his dump truck on the asphalt driveway and is reluctant to try and get down to the barn in it, as the ground turns into chocolate pudding.
It's impossible to keep floors clean in mud season. Many homes around here have that handy entryway off the kitchen, better known as "The Mudroom", where shoes are removed before entering the main house. This is usually mandatory for family members and guests alike, to try and stem the tide of grit and grime that fights to get inside. We have a screened-in porch that works well for this purpose. Most people I know are not shy about enforcing the shoe ban, at least not during mud season.
The roadsides are a mess now, littered with chunks of asphalt, rocks, trash and detritus of every description. Snow-plow blades have destroyed the edges of the sidewalks and potholes and frost heaves dot every street. Things that have been hidden for months under snow banks are revealed as the melt commences. Car parts, torn envelopes, broken beer bottles and random nuts and bolts mingle with lost gloves and losing scratch tickets. Everywhere, a coating of sand and salt lines the streets and waits to be swept or raked off the dead grass next to the curb...sand, salt and mud.
If you have a canine friend, mud season is all the more annoying. Every day when Rigby and I come in from her walk, we must go through the unpleasant and time consuming ritual of bathing her muzzle, her feet and the underside of her belly. I fill a big bowl with warm water and shampoo, spread a towel on the kitchen floor and start the ablutions with a wash cloth, while she struggles to pull away and looks reproachfully out of the corner of her eye at me.
Some days, I glance out the window, prior to the walk and fool myself into thinking that things appear dry enough so that if we stay mostly on the pavement, we will be able to avoid the need for the half-bath that day. It has never been the case yet. She is pretty low to the ground and has very furry paws. By the time we get home they are black and her underside is wet and grimy. On damp days, when we have to navigate puddles and dodge the spray from car tires, she requires a full bath. Into the tub she goes, much to her chagrin. To make it up to her, I give her three or four treats when we are done, but she's still not pleased with me.
Despite all this, mud season is a joyous time! It means that winter's back is broken. The sun climbs to a higher angle in the sky and our corner of the world is definitely warming by a few degrees each week. If it's mud season, can spring be far behind?

Mysterious Manisses

Eons ago, a great glacier carved out a tiny island 12 miles off the coast of Rhode Island. Hills, valleys, rocky outcroppings and deep, dark hollows mark the terrain. On a clear day, the tip of Montauk, New York can be seen from the bluffs on her western shores. This place was called Manisses, the “Island of the little god”, so named by the Indians who lived there for centuries.
Captain Adrian Block, a Dutch explorer landed there in the early 1600s and changed the name to Block Island, paving the way for the white people to settle there. Throughout its history, the island has been the scene of massacre and shipwrecks. A grand hotel and a mansion were destroyed in blazing conflagrations. There is a historic, Indian burial ground surrounded by rolling hills and pastures. Many of the older hotels and homes are said to be haunted. Even the dark woods in the hollow at the center of the island is said to be a place of supernatural power.
It is a place of unmatched beauty and heavenly tranquility as well. The island is ringed by roughly seventeen miles of mostly unspoiled shoreline, and coke-bottle green waves lap the white sands. Swallows and terns fill the air and flutter about the cliffs. Beach roses line the roads and scent the air on summer days, while boats with white sails drift in and out of her two harbors. It is a place of magic and mystery.
There are many stories to be told of Block Island, but the one that comes to mind tonight is the legend of the mermaid.
It seems that a young mother and her little boy were on the island, and enjoying a day at the beach some years ago. The woman was reading, while her son played in the sand near the water’s edge. At some point, the woman became aware that she had dozed off, and when she lifted her head to check her boy’s whereabouts, he was nowhere to be seen. In a panic, the mother ran up and down the deserted beach looking for her son. Suddenly, she saw him bobbing in the water. The story goes that something unseen seemed to be pushing him toward shore, keeping his face just above the waves. His mother charged into the surf and floundered toward him. Just as she reached him, she saw the tail of a large fish slap the surface of the water a few feet away. When she got her little boy back safely on dry land, she asked him what had happened. He reportedly told her that he had walked out too far into the water and had started to struggle, when a nice lady with very long hair who was swimming nearby, had helped him by lifting him up and pushing him back toward the beach. The woman looked out at the water and saw no one. In fact, the beach was empty as far as the eye could see, but the child insisted that “a lady” had rescued him. Then the boy’s mother remembered the large "fish" she had caught a glimpse of, just as she had reached her son.
I recall reading a written account similar to this story in a little island newspaper many years ago, but when I searched online recently, I could not find anything on it. Could this story be fiction created to entertain the tourists? Quite possibly. But I prefer to think of it as a mystery and a legend. Whenever I am "on the Block" as we say, I always scan the sea for signs of mermaids. It is only one of the many strange and marvelous tales of the magic island of Manisses.

Night Visitors

At night it becomes a different world outside. Now in the winter, especially, the tracks left in the snow tell a story about what happens after darkness falls, to those who care to try and read them. I study the impressions and try to imagine the creatures that left them. There are tunnels and little narrow trails weaving through the yard, which I guess are from shrews; tiny, fuzzy, brown animals that resemble mice with stubbed tails. Rabbit prints are everywhere and deer tracks are easy to spot. Not as easy to decipher are the ones that look like little hands pressed into the snow...raccoon or opossum?
One morning, not long ago we found a pile of gore and entrails left behind the garage. It was apparently all that was left of a rabbit.
There is a big hawk that hunts in our neighborhood, but it was hard to tell if this was his handiwork. My husband has been sitting silently out in the screened-in porch late at night indulging his cigarette habit and has seen a lone coyote stride up the driveway and head down behind the garage on two occasions, so it may have been his leftovers. We have also seen a fisher. His long, bushy, chestnut-colored tail disappeared behind a blue spruce tree, as he slunk along the edge of the woods.
There is one set of tracks that we just can't figure out. It travels across the yard from a big white pine and goes directly under the porch. In between the large footprints, there is an impression of a thin tail, and the snow is pushed aside, as though it's belly were dragging. Whatever it is, it may have set up house under there, or maybe it was just seeking refuge from the weather or some predator.
The yard becomes a secret world after the sun goes down. Nocturnal animals emerge and dramas play out in the darkness, just beyond our doorstep.

Did I Do That?

Confession time. When I was eleven years old, I helped tie Emily Calhoun to the a-frame of the Bellini's swing-set. In fact, it was entirely my idea. Emily was a misfit; a pale, chubby girl with freckles, an overbite, and a head full of the frizziest, flakiest, most unkempt hair I have ever seen on a human being. She and I lived a few houses apart. We were the same age and were always feuding over one stupid thing or another.
I had recognized her poorly disguised voice, just a day or so before on the opposite end of a prank phone call made to my home. In retaliation, my brother and I, and a scruffy band of younger, neighbor kids had found a large, black and yellow salamander that someone had stepped on, and we somehow thought it would be appropriate to restrain Emily and scare the sass out of her by sticking it in her face. Our gang accosted her gang in the woods and being the larger, stronger group, we took her captive. We marched her to the rusted old A-frame like a prisoner to the gallows, and proceeded to tie her to the crossbar. Her blood-curdling scream caused us to cut her free just a few seconds into the torture. We scattered to various hiding places, but the damage was done.
When I remember this now, it does not seem possible that I could have actually been responsible for something like this, but I was. The thought of it horrifies me now.
According to the grapevine, at some point during her high school years, Emily became a resident groupie to the local motorcycle gang. She later dropped out of school all together and off my radar. Then, years later, I saw her one day at a pizza place a few towns over. Our chance meeting led to an impromptu lunch during which she revealed that she was completely estranged from her entire family, and her new, slim shape was the result of ongoing amphetamine abuse.
Although I suspect there were many factors from her early life contributing to her troubled state, I still can't help wondering what part(however small)I may have played in shaping it. I will never know for sure. I can hardly believe some of the things I said and did when I was a kid, but there it is. As alien as that person now feels, it was definitely me in some earlier, larval form. I am sincerely contrite and remorseful for the actions of the younger, meaner, stupider me.
Now, I am the champion of the underdog. I support several charities for the homeless, and as I write this, I am preparing to go to my weekly stint teaching religious education to an unruly mob of thirteen year olds whose parents belong to my church. Maybe on some level, I see this a sort of penance for the sins of my past life. Proof that anyone can change.