Tag: Writing

Autumn in Maine Can Bring a Flash of Great Joy.

October 3, 2024

Today I reunited with old friends here in Maine, something that gave me a flash of great joy. Driving home, looking at the myriad of red, orange and yellow leaves, I reflected on why I felt so happy.

Autumn is a special time here, not only because of the beauty of the landscape, but because it is the beginning of “nesting” time, or rather, the anticipation of what is to come after the leaf peepers leave:  the start of what I call the Andrew Wyathesque period of the area:  the grasses will turn yellow and there will soon be a calming down, that may bring sadness or contentment.  It depends.

The weather has an underlying chill.  My good friend, the horse, can’t wait for the first frost that will finally put an end to the pesky flies that pullulate around him.  I am not ready for that first frost, but am resigned to it.  

I have my winter clothes and am prepared.  I hope I will opt for contentment and not sadness.  One of the things I feared most about moving to Maine full time was the sadness I would feel, not because of the cold, but because of the short dark days.

I discovered that weather played a pivotal role in my life when I first lived in Moscow, gazillion years ago, in the late 1980’s.  It wasn’t until I visited Rome, on a beautiful sojourn early one spring to escape the darkness of the USSR, that I realized how the Moscow weather (and lack of sunlight) affected my soul.  In those days, only a rare few had identified this condition as “SAD”:  seasonal affective disorder.  

In the end, it was thanks to my SAD condition that I finally understood why there was only a Tchaikovsky, or a Dostoevsky, or any one of those profound Russian musicians, artists and writers.  I realized that weather and lack of light can affect your outlook on life, especially if you are missing something or are experiencing a longing of sorts.  There is an emotional dislocation. 

I resorted to music and my children, who were very young then, can attest to that.  I bombarded them with songs.  To this day, they tell me, they remember most of the music scores I played in the car, wherever we went, and they have a soft spot in their hearts for them.

Funny how old age can change things around.  I know I will be sad and melancholic when we lose the leaves and the grasses turn yellow.  However, I am anticipating spending cold days ahead with warm and kind friends and acquaintances who understand that we all go through that misplacement of emotions that comes from living life.

I leave you to listen to one of my favorite ballads that captures my heart, my love for my home, and best explains my sentiments nowadays.

Chucho the Fox.

September 13, 2024

A lifetime ago – actually, only 6 years ago -, when I left my legal career and the Washington DC area to move to Maine full time, I embarked on a little project. By June 2018 I had finished the very first chapter of what I had hoped would become a series of vignettes about our experiences in Maine. It was dedicated to my Grandchildren.

I wrote two little books about “Pop of Penobscot”. Although not the protagonist, I had included myself, Nonna of Penobscot, in those stories.

I have so many little stories that I wrote for the third volume, one of them about the “Legend of the K’chi Casco Birch Tree”. I hope to finish it before the end of 2024. I thought I was done, but life happens, and some things need to be edited out. (Isn’t that the prerogative of the writer? Yes, but then it delays the process!).

Today I made a new friend, and of course, I immediately thought of my Grandchildren and another story. But this time, it will be about this handsome fox with perspicacious eyes that looked at me as if knowing something about me, or so I thought. He stopped when I said hello.

I interrupted his visit to the chicken coop, which is well protected. He looked at me and I loved those cotton-ball cheeks. He then decided to make himself at home, waiting for me to tell my side of the story. I need a name for this handsome character.

I have lost count of the many times I have been mocked for anthropomorphizing animals. I always felt that I was in good company, though, beginning with Aesop, La Fontaine, Rabier, and others, and ending with Walt Disney. In fact, historian Paul Johnson wrote a wonderful chapter in his book “Creators” contrasting Disney with Picasso. Worth a read.

The whole encounter brought back memories of the old Disney movie, The Fox and the Hound. We used to watch it when my kids were young. How they loved it!

The Alabaster Stone – The Representation of a Promise

August 30, 2024

“A long long time ago, a young and exuberant romantic picked up a white smooth pebble by the shore, on an unusually gray and cold summer day. No blue sapphire nor gleaming diamond could surpass the value of that white small pebble.

He was penniless, and yet, holding in his hand was the most precious of treasures and bounty: the representation of a promise…”

So, I like to write stories that are never published. They live in my imagination. They may reflect my life experiences, stories my friends told me, stories that have laid dormant in my life, fantasies or fables. Who cares. However, whenever I read a poem or a story written by a famous author that reflects a flash of what I was thinking, I am fulfilled and tickled pink. The story of the alabaster stone is true. However, it was only a few days ago that I discovered this poem that awed me. Sharing just because.

DOVER BEACH
by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.