Author: Jnana Hodson

In downsizing to a remote fishing village in Downeast Maine, this eclectic writer feels everything's coming together.

As my world turned

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

So we were settling in.

our orchard tenant shack here
like Snyder’s place in Dharma Bums
out back of a holy family’s
out toward the birds
and simple
like the long-legged house
of Wendell Berry’s uncle
close to nature
beside the river

Noz [our black cat, half-Siamese] goes berserk when we’re not home: rolled a geode across the floor and ripping caulking from the windows …

Noted on 15:VIII:77: Kitty received notice of her in-state status today. Next up, $50 in the mail to Central.

A week later: With Celeste over Saturday night.

And then we to Seattle Sunday: dinner at Costas [my delight at souvlaki?}, then a movie house of 99 seats, lobby three times larger than the viewing room …

In the morning, my wishing Kitty would say something profound rather than weeping over a slender girl or some fine threads …

Back in our desert orchard:

Tarts baked in stars

So hot that apples sunburn

and I’d thought Ivar’ was joking

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

Mention ‘The County’ in Maine, and everyone knows what you mean

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Pine Tree State has 16 counties, but only one is recognized as The County, a place also known as “the crown of Maine” or even the most northeastern point of the USA.

It’s Aroostook County, set right along the border with Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada, with a population of 67,000 people and who knows how many moose.

It’s also the largest county by landmass east of the Mississippi, though

St. Louis County, Minnesota, is larger though much of it is waters of Lake Superior. With more than 6,800 square miles, Aroostook is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

Now, for ten more considerations.

  1. It’s famed for potatoes, which are being harvested about now. In the 1940s Maine topped the nation in potato production but by 1994 had fallen to the eighth-place in production and the seventh in the number of acres devoted to potato cultivation in the United States. In 2024, Maine grew 54,000 acres of potatoes (behind Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Colorado, and Michigan) and nearly 90 percent of that was in Aroostook County. Potatoes are still far and away the state’s largest (legal) crop.
  2. When the county was created in 1839, border conflicts with Canada threatened to erupt into the “Aroostook War,” explaining the town names of Fort Kent and Fort Fairfield.
  3. It’s hard to spell, but not nearly as much as the Wolastokwey (or Maliseet) language that originated it. It means “beautiful river” and refers to the St. John River. The Maliseet, still present in the county, are affiliated with the Wabanaki Alliance that includes the Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy tribes.
  4. The county was a stop on the Underground Railroad carrying fugitive slaves to freedom in Canada. The secret network carried freedom seekers from ports around Bangor to wilderness waterways, where Natives canoed them to havens like the Quaker community in Fort Fairfield, one of the last safe places before reaching Canada.
  5. During the Cold War, Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, vital because of its location close to Europe, had a major impact on the county’s economy. Its closure in 1994 is still deeply felt.
  6. The county is becoming a major producer of wind power.
  7. Many people in the northern part of the county speak both English and Acadian French (which is different from Quebecois).
  8. As the agricultural activity changes, Amish are moving in and establishing communities. Somehow, the county does feel a lot like Pennsylvania to me, so it seems fitting to see horse-drawn carriages (they don’t call them buggies) on the roads, dark blue and green laundry on the lines outside plain farmhouses, and lively one-room schoolhouses as you drive through.
  9. Much of the county is forest, including a significant moose population. Drivers, beware.
  10. A stretch along U.S. 1 presents the measured-to-scale solar system. Created with high school and college students plus adult volunteers, it really is mind-boggling. The results can be viewed in the October 2023 archives of this blog, should you wish to explore more.

 

Exploring the psyche, as well

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Churches can tell you a lot about a town. It’s ethnic components, first and foremost.

In the Valley we had Buddhist churches as well as Indian Shaker

The Indian Shaker church, as described by Elizabeth Colson in The Makah Indians:

People come and go, without waiting for the end of the service; participants and onlookers; no hymn books; praying not in unison; simultaneous performance, with each participant voicing their own prayers; shaking comes at the end, as participants stand shaking violently or circle the room as they go … during the shaking, several men ring handbells — “Dear Lord, send us your holy power!”

POWER SONGS

Also: “You’ll be a great doctor. You’ll see a hand sticking out of the ground. When you see that, you go put your hand close to that so that power will get in your hand. That’s the best you can get if you become a doctor, that hand sticking out of the ground …”

Vlada Karpovich via Pexels.

A map allows you to go back through places you’ve been while also looking ahead.

The topographical maps of the valley, especially.

Trail maps, too. The Cascadia books!

As I noted: Several times last week, in conversation someone got too close physically or gave a look that broke through the façade — my reaction of quick fear, a fleeting impulse to run — how far I’ve come from yogic self-clearness …

Reactions to Carlos Castenada’s Journey to IxHaMm: 

  • Laugh! Lightning!
  • Reverse all assumptions.
  • “Everything agrees with me!”
  • Create a fog around yourself so others cannot manipulate you by their preconceptions.
  • No need to explain to others, your action becomes false in the telling.
  • Caw like a crow, like an omen

Early July: Tuesday, went to town, looked at new cars — torn between the class and comfort of Audi Fox, the rugged opportunities (high country) of Toyota Land Cruiser … $7,000 either way … Land Cruiser eats the gas …

I had never even considered I could afford a new car before that.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

Happy Crab

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The late Kate Devonshire created this mural for a dive about three blocks down the street from us. I still miss Dungeness crab, a local delicacy when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, although lately I’ve been enjoying picked meat from the smaller Jonah and rock crab varieties, which proves just as sweet and tender. The Chesapeake traditions that I encountered in Baltimore will await a post for the future. The deck of the Happy Crab, do note, is usually packed all summer.

Some quivering in the newsroom

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

At this point, I’m not sure exactly when ActionNW was launched as weekly tabloid insert focusing on outdoors activities and opportunities, everything from hiking and camping to hunting and fishing and rodeos and travel, especially daytrips.

I do know that it soon became one of my responsibilities at the paper, Noted on 10:III:77, eight months after my arrival, “ActionNW preprinted today — I finally changed the format, raw-wraps [ragged right] and quote-outs. Oxford rules atop the pp. A cram-jam job that worked, and I’m happy.”

Obviously, we weren’t doing a lot of discussion before each edition. It really was seat-of-the-pants, like so much American journalism.

Over time, it would become the closest I would have to running a magazine … I took some inspiration from the Sunday Herald Tribune’s New York section. Yes, the Sunday magazine continues long after the newspaper itself folded.

I also found a letter of recommendation I wrote for a photojournalist buddy: “He sets high standards for himself and uses his art as a means of maintaining a state of constant discovery about life itself. As a result, he has deep influence on many of his colleagues.” Little would I know the eventual downfall …

Goz, bringing in a Time magazine review to Wren, pointed out: journalists as novelists seem to lack plumage. They cannot make their sentences dance, they cannot make them spin with magic.

Sounds like so many of the rejections I’ve been collecting.

James Michael Gosney, 79, died Nov 7, 2017. He was a sportswriter we tasked with the lead stories in ActionNW before giving him a daily column he used to profile everyday locals …

~*~

Noted on 30:VI:77, full moon: Maurie retired today — reception party at the office, surprise party later — new suit, everything like a high school graduation …

Officially, he was news editor of the afternoon edition … died March 16, ’92, in Yakima nursing home, I find now …

A sweet guy, as I recall … pretty much semi-retired already …

Was this another opening for me?

[How much I was oblivious to what was popping up around me or my threat to others and their existing order.]

So during this stretch I had Mondays off … allowing me an “outdoors day” free of the weekend crowds …

In mid-August: With a Wednesday off work, I slept till 11. Who needs 11 hours sleep? I had set the alarm for 6.

Wednesday, I shift back to two weeks of night labor, wondering how Tippet will accept my presence over him …

Friday night, after work, stopped at the Lewisville (a log cabin tavern) for a pitcher with Whiz and Jeff. Goz dropped in after a glut-out on escargot and Reisling. He and I talked out back till 3:30 under half moon and clouds after the tavern closed. He wondered about the value of it all, “Am I a good writer?” Answering himself, no, but later, yes, reflecting on the joy he’d given old men with one piece.

“Hooper, he was a good editor. Could really make a piece sparkle. But you, Mr. Hodson, have a touch that may be better.”

~*~

How many times have I not done something because I know from news stories how dangerous the time/place/action is?

How much have I never done because I was doing my job instead?

~*~

A really bad night at the office, when Macknicki and I were suddenly far behind after the new copy courier had dumped all of the UPI perforated tapes because the machine had gone bad. Perton swearing he’d never seen things so bad, copy piled up, etc.

Yes, I was dead when Kitty came home and was pissed I slept late the next morning.

Notes of frustration, having to cover for Mrs. Stone plus a farm tab on top of what was already too much …

~*~

22 Nov., morning, I note working two weeks of day slot (the afternoon edition), which even means getting Thanksgiving Day off … (Hurray!)

And then our HR administrator noticed Mrs. Stone was 15 minutes late the day she “fell” … um …

[slackers]. And thus to can or ax a bounder can become natural, to make the forest come to climax or to fulfill its own — to bump them off keeps the youngest saplings from starving.

16:XII: Worked night shift, came home, my wife within, the little house seemed so sad, even from the distance.

At work, two-paragraph story, conductor Thomas Schipper had died, of cancer, age 47. I had almost played his recording of Rossini’s Stabet Mater today as a requiem for Nosmo. How strange.

~*~

Gil’s leaving, for Woodbury, NJ, and a daily of his own, yet our sense of loss and reassurance, Whiz and me.

Gil telling me how Kent’s a bit afraid of me, thinks I’m unpredictable, too independent for his taste — how the back shop claims I’m indecisive (what I get for being considerate of them).

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

With yellow bursting in the grass

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

“Those yellow flowers, what do you call them? They are so beautiful.”

“We call them weeds.”

The Frenchman cannot understand our reaction to dandelions.

Still, a sparrow carefully picks at the puffs bit by bit for breakfast.

A jerk here, tug there, then swallowing. And flies away.

~*~

Summer Full Out:

Kat smoking her new pipe

~*~

Nosmo:

Our four-legged asshole
an input-output equation
hops on our bed
tears at the carpet
leaps nearly three feet at eleven weeks
stinks terribly
goes after moths
when we call, he comes
“He’s really a dog”
“He’s really a pest”

 

Sometimes we went camping together

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The year 1977 presented us with several memorable treks that included camping.

In early May came this entry:  2nd day of my first real vacation in two or four years … about to set forth on the Olympic Peninsula camping trip … in that cumbersome umbrella tent, smelly but with odors that stirred much within me …

The experience evolved into my longpoem, American Olympus.

The place is a cosmos of its own, one we explored before the summer crowds flocked in.

Pacific Ocean coastline along the Olympic Peninsula. Pexels photo by Landon.

 

Photo by Mario Tutic at Pexels.

 

Rainforest by Alex Moliski at Pexels.

~*~

 Meeting campout the weekend of June 5, Meeks Table, elevation 4,200 feet …

Nathan Trueblood, 7, in his dad’s Cub Scout shirt … Indianola, Iowa …

Recorder music resounding at twilight …

Great worship atop the butte …

Prickly pear cactus on the way home

My sit focused on a feeling that people should strive for excellence, constantly making an effort to expand, grow, produce their best, but then feeling it contrary to faith, in which God gives all, that the way may unfold — like bees, birds, grasses, with ease and faith (the child). But then realized that every tree in nature survives by effort, by striving to stand (in light), that many seeds fail (may eaten or trampled), that even the biggest fall, are cut, get blight and die (silver snags, silver forests, or become nurse logs) …

~*~

And then, 26 jun 77, First-day:

Workt long hours (1 p.m. to 1 a.m. yesterday to get the Sunday paper out: breaking a new guy in for the rim)

Today, woke at noon at packed for camping, off to Adams. Kitty resistant, her tension fighting me (don’t go, don’t leave me) …

Stopped at Maryhill, place to honor a minor queen (as if a movie queen), mostly mediocre art, save Rodin studies, some glass, Russian icons, and Native collections …

Tonight, Morrison Creek camp, wondering if we have enough gasoline to get out tomorrow (on empty) … learned later this was rattlesnake infested …

Mountains white as moonlight … even in the day.

Mount Adams from a cherry orchard. Photo by Chukar Cherries orchard via Wikimedia Commons.

Glacier-clad Mount Adams dominated the western horizon of the valley, peering over 6,000-foot-ridges of the Cascades, though it was more than 50 miles away. The summit was, however, much harder to approach than Mount Rainier, some 2,000 or so feet taller.

After spending the night camping in a high-country grove in what we later learned was rattlesnake-infested, we explored the alpine edge of the mountain, where I collected two elk vertebrae.

Then we packed up the Bug and coasted down, out of the mountain, tank on empty. Silently, wildly rolling. Found a Chevron station at Trout Lake but lady afraid to fill it, tank under the front hood.

Back home, via the Horse Heavens heights and their barley expanses:

So many stars familiar constellations vanish. The awesome addition of the unexpected.

Perseid showers: fat, brilliant streaks sometimes long, others dim, thin; fast flashes or slow particular dissolves. Such variation.

Pure cold fireworks.

~*~

From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.

 

Bodies of water attract us, naturally

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Walking along rivers, lakes, and ocean shores seems to have healing powers for the soul. Just consider.

  1. “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley
  2. “Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers.” — Charles Kuralt
  3. “To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.” — Barry Lopez
  4. “The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.” — Zhuangzi
  5. “Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” — Herman Hesse
  6. “I’m an old-fashioned guy… I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.” — Johnny Depp
  7. “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
  8. “There’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” — Sarah Kay
  9. “Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.” — Zora Neale Hurston
  10. “Despite the ferocity of the current, a river is always moving but it’s always in the same place. And much like a river, while we should surge forward with great ferocity, our principles should never move.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough