It's been SO LONG since I posted, I'm not sure how to even start. Since the last post, autumn - both calendar and meteorological - has arrived. The trees are mid-change and beautiful. The weather is also changeable. We are still reaching 70 degrees on some mid-days, and as low as 39 in the middle of some nights. David and I were have taken Ella for many hikes off of Birch Point beach over the past weeks, through the woods and ending up on some rocks where we usually sit in the sun for a bit, and I sometimes take a photo, like this:
We also took a lovely hike out the Rockland Breakwater on a beautiful windy day in September:
A few weeks ago David completed the cedar strip kayak he began last winter.
He had interrupted building it to complete the skin-on-frame kayak he made for me, a picture of which I think I already posted here. I don't have one of the new kayak in the water, but here's a couple taken in our yard. It is beautiful and David says he really like the way it handles in the water:
Of course, my morning walks with Ella continue. These have become the one reliable action I take every single day for myself - and Ella - to have time to myself, to move my body, to relax, to empty my thoughts, to see the world in a new way, even though we usually take nearly the same route. We have been going further, up to 3 miles. Good for Ella, good for me. We usually still go down to the waterfront and throw the ball on the grounds of boat yard and bait company.
We almost always make it to the Apprenticeshop's dock. There have been many foggy mornings in September-October, including these:
Apart from Ella and my morning walks, I've been busy, too busy, "volunteering." After living up to my commitment to myself not to overdo the volunteering for the first year of my retirement, I guess I overdid it. In addition to volunteering with the Restorative Justice Project (RJP) - for which I agreed in late August to serve as another mentor, but this time for an adult and involving a year-long (at least) commitment - I have become involved with a group called Renew Rockland which is working on 3 projects for our city: 1. renewable energy, specifically solar; 2. sponsoring a "food sovereignty" ordinance at city council; and 3. Rockland's solid waste, recycling and composting through a "waste watchers" volunteer group. I also became involved in our synagogue's High Holiday committee which took a lot of time. And I volunteered with FairVoteMaine which is advocating for passing the Ranked Choice Voting referendum that will be on the ballot in Maine in November. I've done a lot of data entry for them, and we held an educational event at the synagogue in September, which went well.
Finally in September I also became involved with providing assistance to a family of new immigrants to our midcoast area. Originally from the Democratic (sic) Republic of the Congo, they spent almost 20 years in a refugee camp in Tanzania. They recently came to Maine under sponsorship of Catholic Charities' refugee organization. They are an extended family of 15 - really 2 families, a mother and her 8 children, one of whom is himself married and has 6 children. Mostly I have been providing transportation to the family, to take family members to doctors' appointments - I learned about the family from a neighbor who is the Maine Public Health Nurse assigned to the family, each of whom has to visit a doctor at the beginning of their residence here in Maine - shopping, and so on. None of the family drives and they live several miles from Walmart, which is the closest place to buy groceries. My synagogue is also getting involved, one one of the Men's Club members donating a used laptop and helping set it up, and the entire congregation being asked to help donate items the family needs, including winter clothes. Little by little. It is instructive to be involved from the very beginning of a large new immigrant family's introduction to life in the U.S. Five adults are working ]in a group home. (There is a shortage of workers for group homes, homes for the elderly, etc. here in Maine and that is one reason Maine is accepting refugee families here. That is why this family was found housing in our area, because of the job availability.) Only one of the 5 adults speaks English fairly fluently; several others, not at all, The kids are all in school, where they are getting English lessons. There is so much to learn about what it means to live here. I have incredible admiration for the courage of the entire family.
Less than a month until the election - at this point, I feel like most people probably feel - let's get it over with! Watching Republicans first rush to disavow Trump's bragging about sexual assault and then back off the disavowal engenders cynicism. Worse are those who say that "as the father of a 15 year old daughter..." - so what. Daughter or no daughter, sexual assault is wrong against anyone is wrong, bragging about sexual assault is wrong. I cling to the frail hope we have learned something from it, but I tend to be fairly cynical. Yesterday was the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur - on which the fate of the Jewish people, along with all other people and the entire world is set to have been "sealed" for the year to come.
May it be for us all and for the entire planet on which we ride through space a year of life, of health, of prosperity. May we at least take steps toward ending poverty, racism and all injustice. May every person who has had to leave his or her homeland find a place to settle in peace, taking steps toward making a new home.
May there be peace, peace, near and far, for every single human being and every living thing.
