Author: Jnana Hodson

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

Gilkey Harbor memory

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The member ships of the Maine Windjammer Association are independently owned and operated, and apart from setting firm departure and return dates, each of them ventures at the will of its skipper and the elements each day.

Watching the others in the course of a cruise is almost a game, and sometimes two or three wind up spending the night in the same cove, as happened here on Islesboro. We had the Heritage, above on one side, and the Angelique on the other, and the atmosphere was festive.

For more schooner sailing experiences, take a look at my Under Sail photo album at Thistle Finch editions.

One checkpoint where we lucked out

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A miraculous thing for us was that the roofing shingles, which had prompted our big renovation project, had held on for the four years between the insurance company’s alarm after our purchase and the actual replacement. Not so for many other shingles around us, even those that had been replaced during those years.

My initial impression, looking at the real estate market when we started considering this move, had been that we could fit into something cheap and make do. But things were shifting.

Most homes we saw for sale had problems, either for my coconspirators or me. Many of the remodelings were utterly puzzling. Others really needed to be redone.

I wasn’t the one who zeroed in on Eastport, but now I cannot imagine anywhere else I’d want to be at this stage in my life. Maybe it’s like Swami when she came to the Poconos and felt the vibes.

The ideal of moving to an island in Maine is almost a cliché. Even a Downeast shore, or a bit to our west, like the Wyeth clan. But we did need to downsize.

At one point, my dream had been to live on a mountain lake. The ocean never even entered into the picture.

Yet here we are, surrounded by interesting people, too.

Where is today’s local communication and shared identity?

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Unlike many localities, Eastport has a fine newspaper, one that appears twice each month. It covers much of Washington County in Maine and Charlotte County in neighboring New Brunswick, Canada.

You get a good sense of the place from its pages. I can’t say that for many of the newspapers I’ve seen across the country, even when they were big moneymakers.

Living in out-of-the-spotlight localities, I’ve been sensitive to the nuances of each landscape and the people who inhabit there, not that I’ve often found them reflected in mass media outlets.

It’s not just newspapers or, for the most part, TV, though Northern Exposure did create the sense of one, especially with Chris Stevens as the disc jockey on KBHR radio.

I do sense that the lessening of local identity reflects the loss of local economic power centers, largely through corporate buyouts. The pharmacist no longer owns the drug store, nor does the local bank have its own president. The newspaper is part of a chain, as are most hospitals these days. The list goes on.

As I’ve explained, for many years, despite the arcane business structure in which advertising rather than sales of copies provided the bulk of the income, hometown newspapers were cash cows for their owners – who, in turn, paid their reporters and editors minimal wages.

The resulting management practices – reflecting those of surrounding corporate retailers and manufacturers – have put news coverage at risk, endangering both the communities and democracy itself. How will they, like the reporters and editors, survive?

Oh, yes, the big box stores – especially Walmart – rarely bought advertising space in the local paper, even while they squeezed the smaller retailers out of business. I remember one year when an economic downturn put five of our ten largest advertisers out of business.

~*~

Social media posts by amateurs may fill some of the gap, but there’s no substitute for fact-checking and other accuracy. Reporting and writing take time and devotion, not a given when you have a real job and family vying for attention.

And if you’re out there solo, who’s going to back you up when the topic at hand gets nasty? As it does, when corruption seeps in.

Anybody else feeling crushed?

From a Scroll of Improvisation

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The premise: So much of my writing has resulted from distillation, revision, compression, and concision, often as a matter of collage or thesis/antithesis/ synthesis opposition and release.

The pieces of this scroll, in contrast, are envisioned as longer, free-flowing outbursts without structure or topic, a matter of simply letting the writing stream where and how it will. Perhaps my Dialogues are my closest antecedent, although I could throw in Ned Rorem’s journals or John Cage’s diary or Keith Jarrett’s solo improv concerts. I like the story about one of those performances, where Jarrett came out and sat for some time, unable to begin. As the audience grew restless, someone called out to the stage, “D sharp!” or some such; the pianist turned, said “Thank you,” and began.

While I anticipate these to emerge as prose, their spirit should be poetry. Whatever the key or time signature.

~*~

To start slowly, or even slow, with a single note. Not even a chord. A word or two, cryptically without context. Sit in place, melting.

Where was I, then? Or you?

De Tocqueville set out to define America, that is the United States, as some overriding commonalities. What conceit, though I suppose we might do the same regarding Europeans, as if Italians and Danes resemble each other in many ways. Yes, I boldly spent a week on the Olympic Peninsula followed by a couple of years digesting the place and its peoples. More recently, the decades of investigating New England have proved more elusive. Even my native Midwest is far more varied and nuanced than I would have suspected. Explore the world? My focus becomes more and more this place I inhabit along the Cocheco.

The falling water, splaying on rock below. The mills. My own small tract, now covered with new snow. Birds at the feeder. Skittering.

What do I know of anything? Of anyone? Just who am I, and how did I ever arrive here, with this woman and her daughters? All these squirrels and buried black walnuts.

Each shell, a note. Each snowflake, another. Cry out, unheard against the wind.

Consider the Theotokos in the Nativity events

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When it comes to the mother of Jesus, Eastern Orthodox Christianity has developed a perspective that differs in subtle ways from the Roman Catholic and Protestant streams. Much of the teaching is not found in the standard Bible but does round out a broader understanding.

Here are ten points from the Orthodox tradition without getting to some very fine hair-splitting.

  1. She is called the Theotokos, Greek for “God-bearer” or “God-birther.”
  2. In her full title, she is referenced as the “all holy, immaculate, most glorified and blessed Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.”
  3. Elsewhere in the liturgy, she is called the Mother of God, though the theology does but put some limits on that, as in “Mother of the Incarnate God.”
  4. She was the only child of an elderly couple, Saints Joachim and Anna, mentioned in the New Testament apocrypha Gospel of James. Their childlessness was a cause of shame, as the drama goes, until their big surprise. Their festival day is July 26.
  5. The Orthodox celebrate her nativity on September 8. Fittingly, that’s a week after the beginning of the Orthodox liturgical calendar year.
  6. Her presentation into the temple is celebrated on November 21. According to tradition, she was taken at age 3 and left there, consecrated to its service, where she remained until age 12 in preparation for her celestial role. The feast day comes about a week after the beginning of the 40-day Nativity fast, the Orthodox parallel to what Western-Christianity observes as Advent.
  7. The annunciation, where Archangel Gabriel appeared with glad tidings to inform her of her surprise pregnancy, is celebrated on March 25, nine months ahead of Christmas.
  8. On her death, or Dormition (Falling Asleep), she is believed to have been ascended into heaven. The event is celebrated on August 15. In support of the argument, the faithful are reminded that no bones remained behind. Thank “doubting” Thomas for that, when he arrived late for the occasion. Had there been any bones, they no doubt would have been highly regarded wonder-working relics preserved in a famous church or monastery.
  9. Her icon is displayed on the iconostasis that separates the sanctuary (altar) from the nave in an Orthodox house of worship. She stands holding the child Christ on one side of the Royal Door, through which only the priests may pass, while Jesus is depicted at the other.
  10. She is also referred to as Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Church.