Author: Jnana Hodson

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

In the end she was as ephemeral as a dream

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Made love, and made love.
Sweet wine, candlelight twilight.
Mattress on the floor.

Maybe you remember.

 

ONCE SO DISTURBING, AWAKENING ME. Are we still living together in the big bungalow? Cooking and kissing together?

Then we’re at a meeting in a big house (a rival’s, ours is across town). Her dad I don’t recognize, think it’s her brother.

She leaves, I change my mind, run after but can’t catch up.

They drive off, somehow I’m in pursuit.

 

IN ANOTHER BIG OLD HOUSE, we’re moving in – Greek Temple revival? – repair it? A leak on our sleeping bags – a group of four, is my sister one?

My Beloved: “It doesn’t have to be this way,” meaning us, as I nuzzle an ear.

Somebody we know (a friend of her father?) (or mother?) is getting married.

“They’re so close [naming another couple] won’t even get them a present.”

 

LATER, HIKING IN THE WOODS – toward Centerville? – a Corvette stops, she halts and talks, wasn’t even going all the way.

 

BUYING HER A CORSET OR BUSTIER for her birthday.

“Black?”

“No, peach!” And then, “It wouldn’t be for me – it would be YOUR birthday present!”

How lovely, desirable, in one or the other.

Black flies, little black flies

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Spring in Maine can be a very short season, marked first by mud season and then the black flies that descend from late April into July.

My introduction came one year in a brief stop to investigate a stunning waterfall, interrupted by a large swarm of what I thought were mosquitos. The second enlightenment came at a stop along the Airline Highway en route to Eastport. A wall of flying insects would be a diluted version.

Also known as buffalo gnats, turkey gnats, or white socks (not of the Chicago baseball kind), black flies are more than the defenders of wilderness. Take a look.

  1. They don’t seem to be a problem on windy days or along the ocean.
  2. There are actually more than 2,200 species of them, not that the ones I’ve seen ever look black.
  3. Their bites are particularly nasty or, at the least, a nuisance. Some even spread the disease river blindness.
  4. They’re found far beyond Maine. Scotland, northern Ontario, and Minnesota weigh in heavily, though Pennsylvania has been active in the battle against them.
  5. The eggs are laid in running water and are extremely sensitive to pollution.
  6. Bites are most often found on the face, hairline, neck, and back, though the pests are attracted to breathing and, thus, can enter the nose or mouth. Don’t overlook the ankles, either.
  7. They’re attracted to dark colors.
  8. They stretch the skin and then make shallow cuts with blade-like sections of their mouth before sucking blood.
  9. They’re most active for a few hours after sunrise and a few hours before sunset but totally inactive through the night.
  10. Folksinger Bill Staines made a hit of the logging camp song written by Canadian Wade Hesmworth. The line, “I’ll die with a blackfly pickin’ my bones,” rings especially true.

Down at the dock

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The Ocean Navigator, a 216-passenger cruise ship, has been docked at Eastport’s Breakwater pier while preparing for its sailing season, which starts Wednesday in Portland, Maine, and ventures north into the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes for much of the summer.

You can get an idea of our local tides by comparing the photo above, at high tide, with the one below. Note the difference in the angle of the gangway for an idea of how much the elevation can rise or fall in four hours or so.

Or for a similar comparison, take the two shots below.

 

In the fall its itinerary shifts to Fundy Bay and New England.

Under its stern exterior, Puritan polity was fragile in nature

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No, I didn’t expect to be feeling some sympathy for the Puritan authorities in America.

In fact, I had assumed they were a pretty formidable front.

But then, in researching my new book, Quaking Dover, I was rather amazed by the range of developments they faced in the 1630s, their first decade in the New World. It’s like they were being hit on all sides.

In addition, they had no direct representation in Parliament. And they didn’t necessarily represent the majority of the residents in their own towns.

In their tribulations with the Crown, the place was ripe for Revolution from the very beginning, rather than having to wait for Paul Revere’s midnight ride.

The Quaker challenge of the late 1650s hit at some intrinsic flaws in the Puritan mindset. As one challenge voiced it, the flaws were essentially theological rather than focusing on the unfolding news events. The title of the pamphlet?

An examination of the grounds or causes which are said to induce the Court of Boston in New England to make an order or law of banishment, upon pain of death, against the Quakers

As also

Of the grounds and considerations by them produced, to manifest the warrantableness and justness both by their making and executing the same; which they now stand deeply engaged to defend, having already put two of them to death

As also

Of some further grounds for justifying the same, in an appendix to John Norton’s book (which was printed after the book itself, yet part thereof); whereof he is said to be appointed by the General Court

And likewise the Arguments briefly hinted, in that which is called, “A true Relation of the Proceedings against the Quakers, &c.”

Whereunto somewhat is added about the Authority and Government Christ excluded out of his church; which occasioneth somewhat his true Church-Government

By Isaac Penington, the Younger

[1660]

~*~

It’s a remarkable document, actually, well worth reading, even in light of the headlines and news flashes we encounter. It argued, essentially, that the Puritans were falling far short of their true goals and potential.

As for the full title?

It would never sell today.