Weathering it...

The last couple weeks have been so overlaid with stress from work, it's even hard to remember them. As if life - including my own - is going on somewhere else than where I am.  The last couple of days, a crescendo.  (Interesting that both Helen and my neighbor, Melissa, could tell my stress level had increased more than just a normal ratchet up - Helen, just from the tone of my voice over the phone, Melissa, from how tired she said I seem.  Both right.)

The only exception, my morning walk with Ella - and any other time I get away from my desk and get to walk with her.  Even my ukulele class was not particularly relaxation-inducing because I was late for it because my boss's boss called.

Meanwhile, mid coast Maine weather has been changeable - from out right warm (80 degrees) to what I think of as more typical Maine June weather - chilly, foggy, misty - to beautiful, crystal clear late spring sunshine and 67 degrees.  Here are photos of a chilly, foggy morning last week, taken from the pier at the Aprenticeshop very early on the morning after a full moon.  It was low low tide - the lowest of the month.

See the sailboat tilting on its rudder - that's because the tide was SO low that morning!















And here is one from a crisp sunny spring morning just a day later:

Even Ella pays for my stress as my mid-day walks are being shortened or pushed later in the day.  But more than that, Ella is a stress-o-meter.  I don't need a blood pressure cuff.  I can tell if my blood pressure is elevated or I am generally stressed, because Ella goes somewhere and curls up, preferably in a small space such as under David's desk, or between the radiator, the couch and the end table.  Here is Ella, looking as ambivalent about life at that moment as I am feeling.

Ella bears all with canine patience and still finds an ability to jump up and leap in joy for the smallest good thing - like a squirrel daring to come up on our back deck, the UPS truck having the nerve to pull up across the street (who knows, what devious intent that brown truck may have - thank heavens Ella is there to warn us of its arrival!), a shared piece of cheese, a romp with a ball.

May my squirrel come soon.

Peace.

Work Stress More Stress More Work Rain and Remembering

Is it clear from the title of this post that I've been "busy" at work lately?  To clear my brain, I turn to our wonderful little local weekly paper, The Free Press, to see what other people nearby are up to in their lives.  Here's a selection from last weekend, I think:

Perennial & Herb Swap, 9-10 a.m., Spectrum Generations Coastal Community Center, 521 Main St., Damariscotta. Bring a perennial for the Center's beds. Annuals and vegetable seedlings also welcome. If you don't have plants to swap, you can buy them for $2-$6.

• Death Cafe Damariscotta, 9-10:30 a.m., Savory Maine, 11 Water St. The open group is a safe place to have a lively conversation about death. Reservations: 633-4432.

• Antique Autos at Matthews Museum, 9 a.m.-noon, Union Fairgrounds. Dozens of antique cars will be on display. With free Moxie samples. Museum admission reduced to $3 for the day.

• Henry Knox Reading Circle to Meet, 10:30 a.m.-noon, Cole House next to Montpelier Mansion, Thomaston. The book is "American Crisis: George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years After Yorktown, 1781-1783" by William M. Fowler Jr. All are welcome.

• "Retrain Your Brain to Form Healthy Habits Through Yoga and Meditation," noon. Tammy Lee gives the presentation at Camden Library, as part of its Wellness Brown Bag Lunch series.

As usual, the above is a random selection of events listed here just as they appear in the paper.  There does seem to be something for everyone.  However, one particular event that caught my eye is apparently happening today.  Too bad about work stress work more work more stress - I guess I'll be missing:

"Sugar, Sex, and Poison: Shocking Plant Secrets Caught on Camera," 1 p.m., St. Andrews Village, Boothbay Harbor. Bill Cullina, executive director of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, gives the talk. Free, but space is limited, so save your seat: 633-0920.

Would you call that "Plant Porn" or maybe "Plant Punk"?  Who knew?

From the ridiculous to the only too real - today  what I really want to do is remember Danny Friedman in my mind and my heart.  I look across the room from where I sit typing this and see the banjo he gifted David with - that I think possibly may have changed David's life.  He plays it every day.  He "played" banjo before Danny's banjo, but since has been "serious" about it (or at least as serious as a banjo player can be - banjos just make you smile!)  More than that, Danny gave a gift of friendship and trust and belief in David's commitment to music that made (and still makes) David glow. I think of how my own life was touched by Danny - the first person in Connecticut to welcome me, take me home to Susan and her Shabbat dinner, make me part of the family whose friendship sheltered me in difficult days, laughed with me and still reaches out to me.  Danny, may his memory continue to bless David, me and most of all, his family who must miss him so.  

Peace upon Danny's soul, and peace upon all of us who cling to this planet and hurtle through space into an unknown future.

Blah blah blah blah June, Blah blah blah blah Moon

The title of this post comes from an Ira Gershwin lyric, can't remember the song title right now.  However, it is June.  The moon last night was about a quarter full.  This morning the sky is blue, the sun is shining and there is a soft breeze.  It is a beautiful day in mid coast Maine.  That's good because I badly need to be restored after this last week at work. 

This morning Ella and I got out earlier than usual - we were up at 5:00 am and walking by 5:30.  We stopped down at the waterfront and I sat for a while on a bench at one of the businesses on Front Street, Ella laying in the early sunshine on the grass at my feet.  When we got up and walked on, I took a couple photos.

First, this is a roll of shrink-wrap plastic - boat-size.  The photo doesn't really show the scale.  It's probably 12-15 feet high.

 Then these from Ulmer's point - a boat in dry dock  being worked on, and next, what the working water front looks like at 5:45 am (the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse in the background).

I've been thinking about what my morning walks mean to me (and since David's been working full-time, my mid-afternoon walks, too, and recently, as David's heel pain has continued to bother him - much better now, but not quite completely well - often my evening walks as well.  But most of all, my morning walks.)

Each day to rise, dress, brush my teeth, and be out the door with Ella into the morning - whatever it might be that day - within 15 minutes of shaking off sleep, and within 10 more minutes walking, to be by the water, seeing the sun - depending on the season - just peeking over the horizon, or shining behind Vinalhaven island, the water variously misty, sparkling, wrinkled, glittering, roiling, or smooth as deeply blue or grey or green glass.  Wheeling overhead the gulls.  Calling from the trees, the wires overhead, the rooftops, the sky - birds, birds and more birds.  

Doing this every single day, day in and day out, month in, month out, and now year in, year out - when it is still dark when we go out into the morning, and when it is broad daylight, in the rain, the sunshine, through mist, fog, snow, sleet, when it is below freezing, or there is a warm spring breeze, when summer's heat is already apparent at dawn - whatever the season, the weather, the temperature, every single day, for more than 18 months, rising to walk, to smell the air, to hear the sounds, to watch the trees and bushes and other plants cycle through their seasons' garb.  Almost always to be the only ones out there.  Now become so familiar, and still, every single day new, wondrous, different.

I wonder how I lived in the days when I awoke in a concrete building in a concrete city and walked concrete streets to descend into a concrete tunnel to ride a machine through more tunnels to reach more concrete, breathing day in and day out the exhalations of millions of others doing the same.  (The plus side - I didn't even know I had allergies.  How could I?  There was no green.) How do we human beings, who evolved and lived for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years in, and on, and of green and living lands, how do we come to live in concrete?  

I watched a video posted by my dear friend 'Scabless' Sue on FB today about "concentrated industrial farming" - the images are horrendous, and we ask ourselves how we can put 4,000 chickens into a space that public safety codes would limit to hold at most 100 persons, how we can "raise" pigs in metal cages where their limbs poke through bars.  Do we not see that we are doing the same to our own species?  

Breathe.  Peace.  Breathe.

Peace.