Author: Jnana Hodson

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

Do you follow a to-do list?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I thought everyone did. And then one day, at the close of Quaker worship, I casually asked the circle if anyone in the room didn’t do such a checklist. I was surprised by the number of hands that went up, even if they were a distinct minority.

How do they get everything that needs to be done, done? It’s still a mystery to me. It’s like I need a map if I’m gonna get anywhere.

My wife and I have multiplicities of such lists. The problem is keeping them all straight. Sometimes, once we find where they’ve gone missing, just trying to read the handwriting is confounding, but even guessing still helps.

For years, I kept both seasonal and monthly lists, broken down into categories of Personal, Domestic, Creative, Quaker/Spiritual, and, at times, even Computer and Astro. I eventually kept a master file on my PC for easy updating and printed out pages as needed for a clipboard.

You know, reminders of auto tag renewal, driver’s license, income tax filing, ordering firewood (and the phone number), furnace and chimney cleaning, medical exam and dental cleanups, birthdays and anniversaries, Yearly Meeting sessions, drafting our local Meeting’s State of Society report, and so on.

To that I added goals like weekend escapes, writing and publishing agendas, gardening chores, home improvements, even exercise, which never did actually happen. Reviewing these can be embarrassing.

Yes, we can regiment ourselves or else try to go with the flow, even if that means trying to put out endless fires we hadn’t planned on. The frustrating part is all the stuff that never got done – or as I’m seeing in my review, did so only years later. Others remain unfulfilled dreams or promises.

The more practical solution has been my keeping of weekly planning calendars, though a master list would still help in inserting some of the tasks. This year, I’ve gone with a smaller book – make of that what you will. I do miss the big artwork, though.

Darling Ilene

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

perhaps you remember the one whose moon-eyed lovers were reflected within the ringing gravel } none of them yet the maid of honor or a best man’s cattle, hogs, goats grunt in discomfort, sniffing the usual rounds without any drum healing wounds at least only to burn away { somewhere in the distance

Ready for a few recent thoughts arising from all of our teleconferencing (trademark?)?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

(By the way, I’m wondering if that “?)?” is a first in the English language.) (Along with opening a writing in a parenthetical mark.)

To the point: After all of this time Zooming, specifically, I’ve finally found a visual background that works for me, almost a stage setting.

In our new old house, my workstation is in what’s also my bedroom rather than somewhere up in an attic. In common with many New England homes, there’s no closet, so when the laptop’s camera is in its usual, sharp focus, my hanging clothes are in full view.

How embarrassing. Or candid. At least I’m not naked, in all my senior-citizen glory.

I’ve played with several photographic backgrounds as alternatives, but they do use up valuable bandwidth, sometimes even interfering with the signal or pixilating my face, and they get wonky if I so much as twitch.

Moving myself and the said laptop to another room gets complicated, especially when I need to reach for a book or paper (back in the earlier room) for reference. New lighting conditions are an additional consideration.

Do we all need a stage manager or producer or even a dramaturge working on our behalf, much less sound engineers? I hope not!

So the solution, where low-tech me is? Voila! Or amazement. I chanced upon the “blurred background” option on the Zoom toolbar and like it. In fact, it can even look dramatic, keeping the focus on (drumroll, please) me. Maybe I’ll keep it.

~*~

As long as we’re on the subject of Zoom, does anyone else find conversation or dialogue unnatural and awkward? There’s hesitation when we’d simply join in and then jump out contrasting to talking over each other because we have no eye contact or other non-verbal cues regarding each other. There are times I’m sure I come off cold simply because I’m stepping back to listen yet other times I no doubt seem rude piping up the same moment others do, like drivers all trying to enter an intersection at the same moment.

By the way, I do think our faces are appearing in a less harsh light than we did earlier in this transition.

For a while, it seemed we were all at less ten years older, children excluded. We looked ghastly.

~*~

I’m also discovering there are many people I recognize more by the sound of their voice than by their faces. Maybe it’s a consequence of joining a new community in the age of Covid, but there is a world of difference between individuals unmasked on my computer screen and masked (or not) somewhere out in public, often miles out of context.

How has your Zooming changed? Any advice to share? Or off-the-wall particulars?

The Puritans came to establish a utopia, not religious chaos

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The conventional explanation that the Puritans migrated to New England for religious freedom misses the obvious.

When the Puritans first arrive in 1629, followed the next year with the beginning of their great flood of migration, theirs is a well-orchestrated and well-financed scheme to establish a utopia, one based on their Calvinist Protestant worldview. In many ways, it ranges well beyond the confines of religion.

They set forth in droves.

Crucially, sensing that their mission could be corrupted by false teachings and practices, they squelch unorthodoxy and dissent early on. Within the first decade of their arrival along Massachusetts Bay, they banish Samuel Gorton, Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson, who find refuge in Williams’ new colony of Rhode Island. Early Quaker history turns its focus there and neighboring Cape Cod, for good reason, though much also happens north of Boston in Salem, Hampton, and Dover.

Hutchinson’s brother-in-law, the Reverend John Wheelwright, also takes flight and founds the town of Exeter, on the other end of Great Bay from Dover, in New Hampshire.

The Arabella, one of the Puritan fleet. Imagine spending two months confined to a vessel like this in often turbulent waters.

Others head more or less straight to Dover. Among them is Hansard Knollys, a minister whose evolving theology will lead him to being a founder of the Baptist denomination when he returns to England. He’s not quite there yet when he formally organizes the church in Dover as a congregational society just six years after its first services. Had he been a bit clearer in his theological evolution, Dover could have established the first Baptist church in America, a year before Williams in Providence. Oh, well.

But that does leave an opening for the Quakers a decade later.

Yes, Puritans. They do look like a smug, judgmental lot. Of course, that’s a judgmental view on my part. I’d hate to get in an argument with them. Ahem.

All the more, I sense that Knollys leaves enough nonconformist thought in his wake to lead some independent spirits in Dover to privately question the ongoing Puritan preaching. As my new book will note, there are hints of that in the town records – supposedly subversive thinking that has to await the arrival of the itinerant Quakers for confirmation and action.

As we’ll see, it’s a volatile mix awaiting the spark for explosion.

Post Office and old Customs House

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Anchoring one end of Eastport’s main street downtown is the Post Office and former Customs House.

Though the Customs role has moved closer to the Breakwater but not so the mail, especially this time of year..

The building still bespeaks of a special authority and order.
From the water, it’s a landmark.
And inside, the post boxes are pure vintage.
As is the staircase up the tower.

 

Yeah, cabin fever has kicked in

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

It had to happen, especially after the euphoria of last summer. The return of Covid only intensified it, especially when family and friends came down with it. A letdown was inevitable. The summer people are gone, and Eastport nearly resembles a ghost town.

So here we are.

Cabin fever. The winter blues. The blahs. Even if I weren’t up here living alone, building new friends I can’t quite drop in on yet. Zoom meetings go only so far. Ditto the radio. At least choir practice is resuming, even if we’ll still be doing it online.

Further dampening my spirit was finding myself stuck on breaking through on the next steps for the book. I don’t want to take up new projects till I see this one over the next few hurdles. So I keep nipping away at the edges.

Some nasty weather had me not wanting to leave the house at all, sometimes several days in a row. If only the place weren’t so cold, indoors and out. (And the fuel oil bill comes as a shocker, as does the electrical. Just for me, mostly.)

By now, I’m getting tired of my own cooking. There aren’t a lot of options up here that are better, either. One night I headed down to the brewpub for a cup of zesty soup or an imaginative panini by our resident culinary angels, aka Bocephus, only to find they’ve departed to his relations in Spain for a month. Well, they’ve earned that part and just might return with a supply of smoked paprikia for my wife. Fingers crossed. Otherwise? A boxed Newman’s Own pizza from the IGA managed to suffice.

Obviously, I’m not the only one under this cloud.

The high school actually had a Cabin Fever Week before their winter break, and since I’d be up there anyway for that hour of indoor walking ‘round the gym, I thought I’d follow along.

  • Monday, for instance, had everyone wearing red, pink, hearts, something lovely. Xoxo. Well, it was Valentine’s Day. I could do that.
  • Tuesday was “anything but a backpack” day for carrying books and gear. More of a challenge, considering the gray messenger bag that goes everywhere with me. My eyeglasses, emergency meds, and cell phone got stuffed in parka pockets. As for the kids? It was backpacks.
  • Wednesday? “Wear your best flannel and/or camo. Let’s get real Downeast here, folks.” Now for me, that’s a challenge. My only flannel, apart from the sheets on the bed, was a shirt that’s rather black-and-white rather than the traditional plaid color choices. Forget the splotchy hide-from-the-enemy alternative.
  • Dress for Success came on Thursday, “Come to school Interview Ready.” Gee, I haven’t worn a tie in how many years now? I do, however, still have some loud ones.
  • The week ended with a school spirit activity. My version was having beloved company on the way up for the three-day Presidents’ Day weekend.

The arts center’s Sunday afternoon free series has been a lifeline – if only we could all take off nearby for more.

By the way, I was wrong about the last of those near-zero overnight lows. We’ve had a few of them return, but on the heels of some highs in the 40s and 50s. The trick is to not believe spring is just around the corner, even if you see a robin hopping around on repeated days.

What’s getting you through the depth of winter?