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currently listening to: New Favorite the Cardigans True North Maine Public Radio currently learning: New Dress Olana currently reading: Blue Highways Salon.com Critique Communication Arts
2001 September August July June May April March February January 2000 December November October September August July June May April March
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:: You will rally a lot of scared and angry people with talk about how we're going to "whip terrorism" and win "the first war of the 21st century," but public opinion polls do not decide what is just. Global sympathy does not condone scattershot retaliation. Terrible calamity -- no matter the scale -- does not allow for premature response. It takes two fighting sides to make a war. Help us comfort the victims, honor the dead, protect our families and bring the murderers to justice, but please please please do not lead us into War.
:: Online donations for disaster relief: My sympathies go out to the victims and their families.
:: Cutler, Maine is about thirty minutes from the Easternmost point in the United States. It's currently overflowing with antique white asters, black-eyed susans, browning ferns, purple grasses, fading violet fireweed. People seem distant, but friendly. They wave from their cars or their windows. A half-hour bike ride into the the forest along the shore north of Money Cove leads onto the Bold Coast Trail where extremely well-maintained paths lead to breathtaking, craggy cliffs that plummet a hundred feet into the Atlantic. Deserted campsites perch among the brave cliffside firs. Bittersweet nightshade creeps up to the rocky precipice. Acres of pulpy seaweed pulse with the low tide, below. After dinner in Machias, a drive Downeast terminates at the only bar for a miles and miles. Dimly lit and poorly disguised, this bar is possibly the strangest out-of-place establishment north of Portland. The walls are painted deep red and violet and oddly decorated with plaques of yellow plywood flames at twenty-foot intervals. support-columns are covered with long strips of colored mirrors. A partition wall perforated with turkish-arched windows reveals four small rooms set apart with more turkish arches and draped with metallic curtains. The bartender says, "You think it's a dump now, you should have seen it before they cleaned it up to film Murder in Small Town X!" The rooms? Lap dances. Now they're elaborate utility closets. We drink a beer, play pool, feed dollars to the jukebox (Rock, circa 1975), and peer out over the dark bay into Canada. </saturday> Fog is a different beast Downeast. The Little River feeds into Cutler Harbor, which opens into the Atlantic beyond two peninsulas. Sunday, A towering wall of fog pushes against the mouth of the harbor like a frozen tsunami -- a slowly-twisting mesh of greys with a crest of white. The wall hangs there all day long, occasionally enveloping the tree-topped peninsulas and the lighthouse, never entering the sunny harbor. We sail two hour-long loops along the sleeping harbor past pebble beaches, working docks tidied for a day of worship, lobster boats hanging and swaying on their moorings. Docks creak, gentle waves slap shiny hulls, piper plovers caw. Schools of captive salmon draw circular currents around their mid-harbor pens and occasionally breach the surface with a spectacular leap for an unsuspecting fly. We sail the 18-foot O'day toward the wall. It is not solid and, on closer inspection, it is not still. The boat drifts into the thickening grey and heels over against the rush and coughing gusts of a twenty-knot milky slipstream that begins to block out the sun with casual wisps. We round Little River Island, briefly ride the buck of tide and current throught the rushing fog and turn back to the harbor... for the comfort of light breezes and a big quiet blue sky. A hike back to the house on warm tarmac with bare feet melts any residual chills. We pass the sleeping houses, the dry glowing fields of wildflowers. Western Head beckons: a hike and a picnic. Cutler's only general store recognizes a day of rest so we scavenge the fridge for sandwiches (tomatoes, swiss, smoked salmon) and venture out along the south bank of the harbor. The Maine Coast Heritage Trust maintains a beautiful, unearthly trail to Westen Head. The trailhead quickly plunges into a remarkably thick, dark forest. A fir canopy blocks out most of the mid-afternoon sunlight. Everything within a foot of the forest floor is carpeted with dense verdant moss. Trees stretch tall to compete for light, but huddle together and create a twiggy impenetrable mass on either side of the trail. Moist sea air guards this mass of lichen-covered branches from fire. Every twig is preserved. Smaller paths seem to cross the main trail, but inspection reveals a narrowing passage which threatens to close in behind. After a mile or so, surroundings suddenly lighten and, as if forgotten, the coast leaps fifty feet from the water and grabs the edge of the narrow trail. We have surfaced into the slipstream. It is very bright, but there are no shadows. Juniper and wild cranberry lay low against the tops of the rocky cliffs. Graveyards of trees line the path -- weathered brittle and bleached white. Limbs poke at our jackets and whisper as we pass. The views from Western Head are beautiful and swarming with fog. Hundreds of tiny wildflowers face upward to the filtered sunlight. Gulls, terns and pipers congregate on outcroppings, waiting for who knows what. A seal surfaces. Another day in eerie paradise. We head back into the forest along the north shore. More lichen and hanging moss. Ghost-white Indian Pipe. Bright gold and pink toadstools poke out of the black dirt and decay. I half expect a white rabbit in top hat to pop out and offer a remark about the time. ...which rolled along Route 1, Haunted me and slipped away. And now I am home. Maybe it was all a dream.
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:: It's been in John's family for generations and remains largely uninhabited. Inland from the protected cove where friends tie boats up at the dock or set them on moorings, woods spread out for a couple miles -- pines, cedars, big sprawling oaks, a thick layer of blueberry bushes and a couple of bountiful crabapple trees. The shore is characteristically grey and craggy. Beyond the north edge of the cove, rolling lawns stretch out under shade trees. Directly above the cove on an outcropping of ledge and protected on three sides with trees and bushes sits an old, sturdy cottage. It has no electricity beyond batteries and running water only in the form of rain -- running from rooftop catchers to a single spigot in the galley kitchen below. In the living space two sets of bunkbeds are built into the southern wall and a massive fieldstone fireplace consumes the opposite. Shells, driftwood and other found curiosities line eaves and windowsills. Old games and toys are neatly stashed around the edges the room. Wooden surfaces are worn smooth from use or weathered with age. (A thousand stories fill this space.) The view is of other islands and the mainland to the west. An additional bunkhouse is a few steps to the north, but today we spent only a short time inside -- waiting to jump out and yell "surprise!" We enjoyed sandwich lunches, birthday presents, chocolate cake, a big blue sunny sky streaked with wispy cirrus clouds, swimming in a nearby cove and sunning on the rocky ledge above, remote-controlled sailboat races, a walk through the woods to secret places, kazoos, balloons, bubbles, rowboat tours, and an all-star softball game on a hidden grassy diamond. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out. To top it all off, some of us went into town to join several hundred people at what must have been the last of L.L. Bean's free outdoor summer concerts. Freeport has never seen such a crowd (and it sees some crowds). As the sun set and the full moon rose over Casco Bay, Buckwheat Zydeco filled the town with Cajun rhythms and call-back lyrics sung by a hundred shoppers, families and friends. Just last night the air suddenly turned cooler. Today leaves began their descent. Tonight we wore sweaters. Autumn appears to have arrived as if on cue.
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