Room to Roam

So the resolution I care most about, in many ways, I didn't write down while tipsy. That is, if it is not below twenty-five degrees and blowing like a bastard or persistently precipitating, I will get outside and get some fresh air, whether walking, hiking, swimming or sledding. Last year, and through the summer, I lived as though I were house-bound. Mostly it was ignorance of the island and its geography, and not yet feeling like I had any rights to the place.

This obviously changed with the dissolution of my Portland-based relationship, and with the tenuous threads of belonging I'd spun for myself. Also, at long last, I had a guide. As evidenced by the posts here, my view of the island widened; the shy girl lifted her eyes.

Two days ago, after stocking up on necessities (whole wheat flour, blueberries), I headed out into the advancing day well before sunset, so that I might climb Champlain and try descending by the trail that goes down its Northeast side. It is a pleasant hike up- there's a lovely stand of stunted pine that always makes me smile. All was well- I reached the top in plenty of daylight.

And was assaulted with associations, the sharpness and strength of which I did not expect.

So I made no delay in seeking out the opening I'd been shown that would lead me down the fresh path. No ghosts of companionship past on this side of the hill. It just felt like a parting gift, in line with everything else he gave me- thoughtlessly perfect. This side is substantially steeper, and the trail not always as clear: there was the occasional cairn; I had to read the huckleberries. Once in a while I would lose it and consider that I might need to just retrace my steps. But I trusted that I would find the way, and eventually emerged on the main road.

A note on handling slippery slopes:



I didn't stay on the road for long- sometimes you just go a little woods queer and want to stay invisible, or need to prolong the journey. I turned into Rich's Cove, another summer settlement, though substantially less pretentious than the Point. There I found the perfect rope swing. Is there any better thing in this world than a length of thick rope, knotted in a few strategic places, secured to a sturdy tree? I pulled it up a rocky incline, grasped the top knot, and jumped, swinging my legs around the large bottom knot as I whipped through the air.

It was not the end of my adventuring for the day, though it was the last major event before I wandered home in the twilight. There was one more small act of significance. Before I left, I climbed down into the curve of the cove, knelt at the water. Yes it's January, but the inlet is not yet all that cold.

Resolutions, What Else?

My first resolution is to stay on the island. This is highly measurable. Next New Year's, will I be living here? Yes: I am a brilliant an self-sufficient adult, move forward two spaces. No: I am living with my parents and obviously need to regroup- move back three spaces.

Second resolution? Continue the good work drinking in an intelligent manner. Sticking with only champagne or some slight variation on it for New Year's? Good job.

There will be other resolutions to follow, but really, I am three prosecco flutes into the night, and spelling/typing is a challenge.

Happy New Year's!

I need to dance.

Moving Out, Moving On...

It is amazing how saying goodbye to one person can buoy you, while saying goodbye to another leaves you bereft. Over the holiday I took the opportunity of being off-island to remove personal belongings that were still in my former boyfriend's apartment. After the break-up three months ago, all has been cordial, if superficial. Obviously I have been wrapped up in life on the island; free at last to embrace it fully, to wander at will without worrying about getting home to spend virtual time with my partner. I ended the relationship with no regrets, and until the last few days, little enough reflection beyond a deep relief.

While I was intrigued by the narrow boy, he had no bearing on the dissolution of bond- and when the Doc and I broke up, the Dark had not yet set foot on the island. Distance was reason enough cancel the contract, and we left it quite simply at that. Sometimes you just don't need to go beyond the tip of the iceberg- you see the ice, hear the sound of a ripping hull, and can safely say you are fucked without thoroughly examining the extent of the damage. So no conversation of guilt and recrimination, just civility and the earnest intent to remain friends. It is a comfortable lie, and an easy end to a two year trial.

Saying goodbye to someone after two months- that is a labor indeed. Two months is just enough time to become smitten in spite of yourself, and not enough time to get bored. In sixty days you have discovered details, can list off little charms, have developed a heightened sensitivity to their presence. After sixty days, you might find yourself wanting the luxury of sixty more- or six more- or whatever you can get. I rushed back to the island ahead of schedule, hope a fluttering song bird in my rib cage, so that I might get two or three more hours.

Better judgment did prevail. I made the late boat, getting home the evening before I had originally scheduled. But I did not pick up the phone to let him know, to see if he was still here, only two miles away. Because we had already said our goodbyes. And it was a full-stop "goodbye," not a soft and sweet "aloha." And he would need to pack, to spend the last of the hours with his family. Grown-ups are graceful: grown-ups let go. And dammit, this is me, letting go.

So tonight, the next-to-last night of 2008, I will claim this face-saving victory as my cold comfort. Back to thermals, back to buttoning up, back to bound hair. Resilience, you know, is a virtue.

Huh. Sounds like someone's at the door.

Christmas Eve With the Grim Reaper

I did finally leave the island, sledding my suitcases down to the landing, handling the sled's painter like a dog leash at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show: "No, no heel! Not nip my heels! Heel!" I got a good early start, so no one was witness to the first part of the trip, when I was still struggling to balance two large suitcases on a plastic sled meant for a grade-schooler. There was even time to grab my mail, which I had not checked in two weeks. Getting on the boat, I thought I had dodged the bullet of riding the same boat as the Dark and his dad. He and I had said our goodbyes the night before, and I did not really care to spend forty minutes pretending to be mere acquaintances.

Of course they were taking the morning boat. They were just the last to arrive.

And I spent forty minutes pretending to be an acquaintance, while he buried his shapely head in a National Geographic. God love me, I had brought the collected poems of Emily Dickenson- for a measure of solace. Books become talk on the mailboat, and soon it was "Oh, whatcha reading?" and "Emily Dickenson? Why Emily Dickenson?" I couldn't bust out with "I am preparing my soul for the descent back into passionate, yet asexual spinsterhood," so I settled for "Taking a chance over vacation to get my New England Studies back on... thinking about my thesis..."

I am fairly certain his environmental science major did not include the study of Emily Dickenson, so I daresay the Dark, overhearing, did not jump to the conclusion "damn, she is going to miss me." Unless poetry is now so seldom read that one assumes the reader must be tending to a raw heart. Next time I should brown bag the cover or stick to Robert Frost. Ugh.

That was only the second stage of the journey (yes, I will count the sledding as the first). Next I had to drive the beloved, yet unregistered, uninspected Jeep some fifty miles to the family homestead while not being caught by the authorities or busting the slack rear wheel. It was tense, but I made it.

I settled into the guest room, where my mother and aunt had erected my late grandmother's fake Christmas tree: I didn't have a tree on the island, and they felt I had earned one. In the afternoon we left to go visit my surviving grandmother, who has now been in an assisted living facility for a year. Our departure was only slightly delayed when I took my time putting on my boots, finishing up my Sanka, etc... Uncle Charlie seemed to be in no rush, so I saw no reason for me to do so. Turns out everyone else was in the van waiting, and Charlie wasn't going on the trip at all. Sometimes I suffer from a false sense of complacency.

Happily, nothing will jar you from your complacency like a visit to an assisted living home. I may be on the verge of thirty, but my grandmother is verging on ninety. She has been a lot happier since moving to the home: she dances, she plays Beano, she flirts with one of the male workers, and now includes "young men" on the list of things she wants us to put in her casket. They rate right up there with her cane and "cross words." Last year, as my mother and aunt were agonizing over the decision to farm her out, I told them it would be like old-age boarding school. I mean hell, the greatest increase in STDs is in the geriatric set. It is nice to see her happy; to see her outside the context of the family household, where despite everyone's best intentions, she became the burden she never wanted to be.

And it is also wholly depressing, as proof that if I do live a nice long life, this too too solid flesh will sag and fail... eventually to resolve itself into ash and steam, if not dew. I have spent the last month haranguing and corraling children, rambling all over the island alone and in company, pressing my lips to equally vital lips- how could I not be aware that I am approaching my prime? That I am well into it? Just as my grandmother had her prime, skating with young men, casting sideways glances while making a quip... every so often shades from her youth flash across her face, a face not unlike my own.

Today she once again used an expression we hadn't heard in a while, upon unwrapping some Christmas gifts: "Boy oh boy, aren't I glad I didn't die last night!" Once in a while, I have moments, generally outside during a walk, when I think "I could go now, and be okay with it- no regrets..." In those moments I feel saturated in the beauty of this life- but of course when I return to my laundry, the prospect of compost and cat litter, or think about something I don't have (hello masculine companionship!), the joie de vivre slowly drains out, leaving me less obviously soppy. Which is just as well. Because while it was wonderful, boy oh boy, aren't I glad I didn't die last night!

Just What We Needed: A Swedish Princess

Two days later, I finally dug out from the solstice storm. I don't mind wading through snow to get to the road, so digging a path from my house to the street hardly seemed much of a priority. Add to that the fact that the good snow shovel seems to be missing, and we have the perfect recipe for a procrastinated chore. Today, after rolling out of bed at nearly eleven o'clock, I decided I would finally insert my Yankee spine and spend some time character building. Of course, this raises the question: "can character be built so late into the morning?" If I had really wanted to make it a worthy day, I should have been up at five, clearing my driveway with the heaviest shovel I could find. As it was, it was well past noon before I had braided my hair, baked some scones, picked out appropriate layers and ascertained that no, the feather-like plastic shovel was not going to descend from the heavens. It was lost, and as I have mentioned previously, 'tis the season to get over losing good things.

We got quite a bit of snow. Had I mentioned that it was a blizzard? God's truth, NOAA's honor. Still, it wasn't that bad. I just hate shoveling snow. With metal shovels. As I made my way down the drive, cracking through the surface layer and using my hands to throw aside that top sheet of two inches, I reflected on my Scandinavian origins. My people were made for this- all well adapted to snow, life in the cold climes, blah blah blah... Yet in three generations, through interbreeding with Baltic people and New Englanders (supposedly also hardy), and an increased standard of living, America had spat out me, a lackluster twenty-something who kept up an uninterrupted inner-whine during the hour it took her to shovel a pitifully narrow walk from the road to the nearest (and most dangerous) ramp into her house.

It occured to me during this time that the Swedes in my family moved from the Frosted Fatherland (Sweden should be a motherland, I know, but I crave alliteration like a sweet) to New York City. NYC. Where there are road crews and shit. Probably roads crews of Norwegians, hardy Norwegians, built to shovel snow. Swedes are built to contemplate snow. My step-grandmother was a prime example of Norwegian snow-shoveling. She shoveled her own snow with apparent good cheer (and in skirts) until she was well into her seventies. My grandfather (the first generation Swede-American) had a heart condition, so this Pan-Scandinavian pairing worked well. I have been putting off having an actual adult physical, where they draw blood and tell you to stop eating so much cheese, so I don't know that I have a heart condition. But I suspect that shoveling snow with the heaviest shovel in the world is enough to give me a psychosomatic one.

The worst thing is living "in town." People tend to drive by and bear witness to my snowy labor. They smile, laugh internally and think "she is using the wrong kind of shovel... does she know that?" The shovel I am so maligning is a heavy metal and wood deal, with a plow-like scoop shape. Would have been great if I had used it every twenty minutes during the day-long storm. Still would have caught on the uneven gravel surface of my driveway, but it would have performed better than this afternoon. This afternoon, I looked like a woman doing the doggie paddle in a serious survival situation. Eventually, however, I triumphed.

And then I went snow-shoeing. I did mention I don't mind wading through snow, right? After a year, it was time to take my snow shoes, Christmas presents from '07, on their maiden voyage. I yax-trax-ed it up Annis Hill, and turned down the road to Point Lookout, the island's private summer colony. Securing the snow-shoes to my boots, and throwing the yax trax into my back pack, I headed off into the world of privilege. I love people who can abandon homes for 10/12ths of a year, because it means those of us who cannot afford a vacation can at least spend some quality time wandering around on private roads. The universe finds balance.

Now if only I could keep mine. Some of you may recall last year, when I planted my face on the ice while endeavoring to skate. I split my lip, and got a nice subtle scar for my trouble. The other night, during the storm, the Dark was adding to his footage of people randomly running through the woods, and got me to participate. It was snowy, and he had set up the shot so that it was a down-hill run. Of course I fell. The other day, doing a pirouette in my living room, I no sooner got through the first 220 degrees, when I found myself sprawled on my ass. I fall. I have even been designated by the Dark as a faller.

Tonight was no exception. I got down to the Point landing, got to taking pictures, and when I went to get some shots of interesting drift patterns, I failed to attend to the fact that the drifts were built up over huckleberry bushes. And that the drifts were deep. First I was up to my thighs, and then I was on my back, up to my nose. Or nipples. Whatever was the highest point of me at the time. It is a good thing I enjoy looking up at the sky, and that normally (the skating incident, and okay, the Champlain incident aside) I fall backwards. I am getting pretty philosophical about it all. In fact, I have a growing suspicion that I am literally falling for the island. And when I take it a bit further, and refuse to accept my own gracelessness, I come to the obvious conclusion that the island is actually sweeping me off my feet. With that first scar, it marked me as its own. I succumb, dear island!

Continuing on this island bride theory, tomorrow I will test out my ability to communicate with woodland creatures through song. Or pack to go home to my family for Christmas. If I don't make it off the island, I probably just fell on the way to the boat.

I will make it home- maybe!

Winter Solstice

Tonight is longest night of the year, and it arrived on the island riding the winds of a blizzard. I spent the earlier part of the day performing the pleasant labor of baking when there is no pressure. I threw together some pizza dough for later, used the verging-on-over-ripe bananas for banana walnut bread, and got to work making and bottling lemon curd for island neighbors. There may have been a nap in there somewhere... I have moved an armchair into the kitchen, rendering it more or less the most functional room ever. Because really I can do work sitting in a comfy armchair, my feet up on a stool. Lap=laptop=work. Everyone accepts the truth of this commutative property. The key is I can't allow myself to curl up in the armchair. With anything remotely resembling a blanket. Fetal position + blankie = sweet sweet slumber.

About an hour before night closed in, the Dark arrived at my door, ready for his second hike of the day. I stripped down and re-layered for the storm while he foraged in my kitchen, pleased that I had carried out my plans to make banana bread. Once I was fully bundled, we headed out into the brunt of the storm, which had worsened since his earlier trip to Seal Trap. My plastic sled in tow, we made our way up Annis Hill to the Champlain trail head, where we stashed my sled at the side of the road and headed into the woods. With the variation of weather, season, and light, I could never grow bored of this place. The huckleberry underbrush looked soft with the snow; enrobed in white, the spruce seemed taller- looming over the path with a magic that promised potential danger or delight. Even in the forest, the wind scoured the land, shrieking through the thinner areas nearly undiminished. This was not a gentle evening, but since I was well-clad and warm, it was strangely peaceful. In the last light of this shortest day, the island again turned to a more sepia-tinged shade of grey. Champlain is slightly bald at the top, mostly ledge, huckleberry, and scraggly spruce that look a little sheepish, like they knew they should have left the party an hour ago. The world was wild at the summit, and I tilted my head back to watch snow sheet across the sky.

It was the peak of the island, the peak of night for the year. And yes, the peak of the affair. At some point you have to pack up the picnic, get out of the water, or come in from the cold.

We made our way back down the mountain, this time at a slower clip- ever the lover of the ephemeral, I need some stillness to take in the transition. Emerging on the road, we recovered the sled, debated the best method of descending the hill (seated or on stomachs), and let gravity carry us down to my house.

After a time, he was back to foraging in my kitchen- this time for supper: I was assigned the task of making cocoa. Having warmed up and replaced some calories, we rebundled to go in search of the Tall. The storm had gained in power as night took hold, and the walk toward town was wicked, but conditions weren't quite white-out. By the time we reached the post office, we spied familiar headlights approaching, the Tall, in the nearly-clutchless truck. Together they needed to head back to their place, to literally keep the homefires burning. While the Tall could have managed this on his own, we three have been walking on the tension wire of a bizarre love triangle. Hooking me up with his friend was a gas in theory, but the Tall found it less appealing in practice: he and I have traded off feeling like a third wheel.

As we arrived at my house, I was deposited with a quick kiss goodnight just outside of the truck, and off they went, making their way up the steep hill, the snow closing in behind them.

In a week's time this portion of the year will be over: no more holidays, no more boys of Autumn- they will return to their respective homes out West to work the ski season. Long nights have never bothered me- every year I watch winter approach with a sense of comfort, that the dark is a blanket thrown over the earth, reminding us to rest and reflect. To dream with eyes open.

Now to accept that the dark will recede.

Four Years of Study- Worth Every Penny...

Gussied up for the Xmas Pot Luck

Once a year I pull my theater training out of the closet, dust it off, and put it to work. At least that is the case in my life here on the island. After Thanksgiving it becomes painfully clear that "wow, we don't have a lot of time until Christmas" and that the school's annual Christmas Show will not, in fact, happen on its own, and can't be canceled- however much we might wish it. Traditionally, the show is fobbed off on whatever fresh-faced and civic-minded newcomer has washed up on the isle's shores for the winter. Last year that newcomer was me, and really I had no way out since I had a degree in theater, and was being paid to be useful in whatever way necessary. This year I wanted a way out, but found that that particular Christmas wish was not going to be granted. This year's Christmas miracle turned out to be finding a staple gun when I needed it.

Thankfully, I was relieved of picking the material. We have a new music teacher who comes out once a week, and she brought in the script and canned accompaniment for "Christmas at the OK Corral." It concerns the town of Snowy Gulch, and one villainous grump by the name of Bubble Gum Bart, who threatens to cover the town in bubble gum if they carry out their holiday festivities. Logically, the townsfolk wire Santa a request for help, who sends the Candy Cane Kid; everything gets talked out, a saccharine ballad is perpetrated, and there's a ho-down. Classic New England Christmas fare. And it was my job to make sure it actually happened.

A few words about our school: we have eight students, spanning grades K-8. In this group of eight children we have two sets of brothers, and another student is half-uncle to one of those sets. The male to female ratio is 6:2, a vast improvement over last year's 6:1. You would think that working with only eight children would be a dream- with so few students and so many adults (two to four, depending on the day) surely the days must glide by in a pleasant atmosphere of scholarly inquiry.

You would be wrong, asshole.

It is like homeschooling the most disfunctional family of all time, except we have no control over their home lives. And the whole one-room schoolhouse thing is all very romantic until you realize you can't hit them with rulers. Eight kids will make the noise of eighty, and there's no handy principal with an office, or guidance counselor, or special ed room, or oubliette. Though perhaps we could find an old well...

The only thing to do, given the personalities involved, was to divide and conquer. I ruthlessly excluded one of my students from almost every blocking rehearsal, staging him fully upstage, behind a large set piece. His blocking was simple and, per his request, he never had to dance. He could be kept out of the tedious blocking rehearsals. Not typically a fan of exclusion, I will embrace it whole-heartedly when it means avoiding disasters and migraines. The process was still pretty ugly, but by the time I plugged the student back into the rehearsals with the other kids, the larger group all more or less had their act together. Of course, the little kids still loved to turn upstage to sing to the back wall, generally miss their cues, forget their lines, and totally lose track of what they were supposed to be doing. If they didn't come by those habits naturally, I guess I would've had to have staged it.

To get everything to come together, I had to move beyond the use of my teacher voice, and into the use of my director voice. My mother wondered what the distinction is between the two, and I think it was good to have the opportunity to elucidate the difference. A teacher's voice will be strong and angry, but will have a undertone of weariness and frustration that hints at her proximity to the breaking point, or at least incipient alcoholism. A director's voice promises that the director will crush the actor's ego, extract the blighted soul, and then have a nice cuppa.

Either my director voice is rusty, or the kids are semi-impervious. Nonetheless, we made it through, and there were moments when they paid attention, but by and large it was an exercise in controlling chaos. When set before an audience, they were adorable and didn't yell insults at one another across the stage. The audience laughed and cheered, and as I stood backstage to help with quick changes, I couldn't help but laugh and grin, and think "Oh, my kids are the loveliest lovelies!" Which is proof that the holidays render me somewhat soft in the head.

The Dark wanted special credit on the program for his efforts to keep me on an even keel: "It's just for the kids: I am doing it for the kids."