Tag: Life

Just what’s drawn us to Sunrise County?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Naturally, there have been moments when we find ourselves second-guessing our decision to relocate to a remote fishing village at the other end of Maine. Technically, it’s a city, reflecting its peak as the sardine-packing capital of the world, though today’s year-’round population is a mere 1,300 – about the same as the enrollment in my high school minus the 700 freshmen.

I could easily do a Tendrils on what the place doesn’t have – a Laundromat, Chinese or Mexican restaurant, even a pizza takeout, for starters. It’s in an economically challenged region, to put it politely, and the county has a population of only 32,000 stretched across an area about 2½ times the size of Long Island, New York. That comes to about 10 residents per square mile. What, three households? Around half of the townships have no residents at all or at least not enough to incorporate – they have to rely on the state for local governance.

The closest city of any size and resources is St. John, New Brunswick, population 68,000, an hour and three-quarters drive mostly east – once the U.S.-Canada border reopens.

Next, and more likely, is Bangor, 33,000 population, a two-hour-plus drive to the west. (Practically speaking, it’s also the nearest Toyota dealer, when we need serious work on the Prius, the closest medical specialists, the closest U.S. airport providing commercial service or even an Interstate highway.) Portland, seemingly cosmopolitan, takes four hours – with Boston an additional two or so beyond that. (More in the tourist season, when traffic backs up forever at the turnpike toll plazas.)

Are we crazy?

Yes, I’d have to say.

We’re also enchanted.

Crucially, Eastport – on the Bold Coast in what’s aptly dubbed Sunrise County – does have an active arts community, making me think of the TV series “Northern Exposure” and its quirky characters.

And there’s all that North Atlantic water and maritime activity. What makes an ocean so mesmerizing, anyway? The appeal goes far beyond romance for those who rely on moody appearances. This new realm is also deadly and terrifying and constantly changing, unlike anything I knew growing up in landlocked Ohio, for sure. Not even the then far-off Lake Erie.

Somehow, Eastport quickly revives my memories of Port Townsend on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, back in the late ’70s. At the time, it was an eclectic blend of working-class, outdoors types, and marginal artists, many somehow connected to the Fort Worden state park for the arts. Its proximity to booming Seattle, a mere 2½ to 3½-hour trip, plus any down time waiting for ferry connections, does put it in a cosmopolitan orb, unlike Eastport’s seven- to nine-hour drive or bus ride from the Hub of the Universe, Boston.

When I lived in Washington state, I harbored dreams of moving from our home in the desert orchards east of the Cascades Range and resettling somewhere like Port Townsend, perhaps even up in the Alaska Panhandle or on coastal British Columbia. That was crushed after the eruption of Mount Saint-Helens and career upheavals that had me reeling back to the Midwest and then Baltimore and finally New Hampshire. I really missed opportunities to spend time in the wilderness during much of that. Even small pockets of forest could be rarities.

Eastport, though, has rekindled that awareness. It’s not just the deer all over town or the eagles or the seal and then whale I saw from the lantern room of a lighthouse across the channel. There’s also the First People’s presence, which was a part of my Northwest experience. Did I mention you have to drive through the Passamaquoddy reservation to get to town?

In ways, I’m sensing the move promises me a chance to get down to some serious unfinished business. Me, with my certificate in urban studies, my yoga training, time among Plain Quakers and the more liberal end of Mennonites, my labors as a poet and novelist, and all those years in the newsroom.

We’ll see.

People of today I admire

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 10 Comments

OK, I’m counting couples as one here. And I’m excluding some nominees I celebrated earlier in the year in my ten fine couples list. Here goes:

  1. The Obamas, of course.
  2. And my wife and daughters and the two guys they bring into my life. Natchurally. Think of this as a team.
  3. Noah Merrill, the ever patient and faithful field secretary of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends.
  4. Brown Letham, energetic painter and activist and father of one very fine author.
  5. Jim and Eden Grace, holy peaceniks on a global scale.
  6. Timothy and Nijmeh Curren, Orthodox priest and presbvtera.
  7. George and Althea Coussoule, welcoming stalwarts of Dover’s Greek community.
  8. Sherry Wood. See my dedication in Hometown News.
  9. Jay O’Hara, free-Gospel minister and Quaker activist.
  10. Gary Snyder, American poet and Zen Buddhist.

~*~

So what if this adds up to more than ten individuals in all?

Who’s high on your own list?

Also on the plate

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Why does the restaurant business sustain so many immigrant families? Just look at all our ethnic options in dining today, even in small cities. Not just Greek-American, like the one in my novel What’s Left.

What’s your favorite food stop? Is it run by a single family? Does it have an ethnic identity?

~*~

Look at all these Greek specialties!

Bienvenue, Val

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

the one who pushed has a brain tumor on top of four or five years of chronic, debilitating, undiagnosed intestinal pain, only in her late thirties I agonize over how to respond, wanting to run up to the coast and bring her back where she would at least have someone to offer care, while from the green valley a letter saying another’s on the way to Old Order Mennonite (unless, maybe, I’d go into dairy farming? Nah!)

 

Just look at Upstate New York

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

You say “New York” to someone and the first thing they think of is Manhattan. Not even the rest of the city, where most of the population works, studies, and sleeps. Or Long Island, as an extension of The City.

Easily overlooked is the sprawling region of Upstate New York, with a population of more than six million people and the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, and more. A population that would make the region itself the 18th largest state in the U.S.A., if it were independent. Larger than Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, or a host more.

Besides, it’s a lot like the place where Kenzie alights in my novel Pit-a-Pat High Jinks.

Here are ten more facts to consider.

  1. Upstate starts right outside New York City, at the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River, where you can still see the towers of Manhattan when the pollution-induced haze abates. OK, the boundary is debated, let’s not argue. Maybe it’s just upriver at the Bear Mountain Bridge.
  2. The region has two major mountain ranges, the Catskills and more impressive Adirondacks, plus a lot of Appalachian foothills. It is largely rugged terrain.
  3. It was largely uninhabited by whites until after the Revolutionary War, when the Iroquois natives were pushed out. What it means is that the bulk of the region was then settled about the same time as much of the Midwest.
  4. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 turned the region into a hotbed of manufacturing along its route, as well as religious upheaval, leading it to be called “the burned-over district” because of its zealous waves of missionary activity.
  5. Many of those companies led to giants including General Electric, IBM, Kodak, Xerox, Bausch and Lomb, Carrier air conditioning, Endicott Johnson shoes, Gannett newspapers – manufacturing enterprises heavily hit by Rust Belt devastation in the past five decades. The region is still hard-pressed to recover economically.
  6. It gets a lot of snow. Nobody accepts the crown of the snowfall capital, which seems to shift each year.
  7. The Mormon movement took off when Joseph Smith reported having visions while living in the Palmyra area in the 1820s and ’30s.
  8. The Shakers first settled at Watervliet, near Albany, in 1776.
  9. The Catskills supply New York City’s water via an elaborate pipeline system.
  10. Welch’s makes a lot of grape juice in Chautauqua County, while the Finger Lakes Region is noted for wine making, including Manischewitz sweet kosher wine in Canandaigua.

In case you’re not conversant in Tibetan

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Having Cassia cast a Buddhist chant as a spell in my novel What’s Left, is a bit of an inside joke. She may be trying to intimidate her middle school classmates, but what she utters, Su To Ka Yo Me Bha Wa, translates as “Grant me complete satisfaction” or “Grant me complete satisfaction within me.” Not that they have a clue.

Besides, I feel a shade of Harry Potter here, without an ominous wand. These words can simply feel magical.

By the way, Cassia’s chant is one letter off from Su Po Ka Yo Me Wa, “Grow within me” or “Increase the positive within me,” which also fits.

Just in case you’re wondering.

~*~

Think of some word or phrases you repeat often.

Do you have your own “mantra,” a word or phrase to raise your spirits?

(My favorite 9-year-old introduced me to “Yay!” So yours doesn’t have to be the least bit exotic.)

~*~

Cassia’s aunt Pia came from a family that owned places like this. Not far from Lowell, Massachusetts, where she grew up, for that matter.

Farewell, Dover … in a way

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

It’s not like I won’t be back. My next book is a unique history of the town’s Quakers, for one thing, and I’ll be promoting it. And I’ll still be connecting with Dover Friends, especially through New England Yearly Meeting. Yes, Downeast Maine is still part of New England, thank God.

Will I miss people? Definitely. Some great neighbors, the Greek Orthodox circle, the lifeguards and fellow swimmers at the city’s indoor pool would be high on that list. My fellow musicians, on the other hand, were down in Boston, and I haven’t seen them since before Covid. Our beloved conductor even stepped down in the face of its digital demands. The local writing circle, meanwhile, adds some valued faces to the list, though I can’t say we were close or even much on the same page. But that’s where I did learn about Smashwords, where all my novels quickly appeared.

Which brings up another point. This new move would be much harder if we were leaving extended family behind or, more crucially, that rare friend who connects intimately on a range of shared interests – those things that fit one’s life mission or identity. For me, that would be a nexus of Quaker spirituality, off-beat literature, classical music, natural wonder and wilderness, back-to-the-earth awareness, even folk dancing. Things like gardening and foody smarts would be more on my wife’s side of the equation.

What, you think there are tons of people who match my varied interests? Surely, you jest.

Death has already taken a toll there, as has spiraling illness, their moving away to a distance, or even insurmountable conflict. But in my new setting, I am meeting some fascinating eccentrics. More later, I’m sure.

I do wish we had more words to describe friendships, though I’m afraid any subtlety would quickly be eroded. The fact is there are few of those soul-mate connections, especially among males of our civilized species. Women seem to be naturally inclined toward that one-special-friend connection, the kind of person you have to phone (or text) every day. Or every-other hour. Not so guys, to our own detriment. Mea culpa.

Let’s also note that Covid precautions have also already detached us. We’re rarely in physical contact, no matter how much Zoom and other platforms allow me to catch up with buddies even when I’m way up Downeast Maine. And, from everything I’m seeing, that’s likely to continue into the foreseeable future.

~*~

My wife and I have both been surprised how quickly I’ve switched into my new center. Once my workstation and files were set up in our new address, that’s where my heart was. Dover is undergoing what I expect to be an amazing rebirth, but I won’t be part of it, and I’m aware of that.

Quite simply, it’s become a great place for me to visit, but no longer home. All of my goods have ether been moved to the new address or are in the storage unit we’ve rented.

In other words, the dream has stepped on.

~*~

As I look back on my years in Dover, I realize I see I hadn’t spent as much time in neighboring Portsmouth as I’d expected or at the University of New Hampshire just a town away. Even once I’d retired from the newsroom, I was largely hunkered down in writing, revising, and publishing. So much for the writer’s life!

I can say I feel comfortable in leaving Friends Meeting in good hands and wish the best for the new owners of our old house, barn, and precious gardens.

I can say Dover’s been the best years of my life. So far. You will be seeing more from that through the coming year, here at the barn.

What would you miss most if you uprooted?

 

Reasons I still love type on paper

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Well, compared to ebooks and all this digital reading.

  1. I can caress it. Yes, even the texture and weight of the paper itself.
  2. Admire the spine on a shelf.
  3. Frame a page and mount it on a wall. (I’m thinking of a broadside, especially.)
  4. There’s marbling in some old editions, and end-papers. Nothing like that in ebooks.
  5. Underline and make notes as I read, enhancing the engagement.
  6. A sense of timelessness. Unlike a computer crash.
  7. Open an old book and there’s a special aroma. Hopefully not mold.
  8. Reading one works better at the beach, in full sunlight.
  9. Easier to find errors when correcting galleys or drafts.
  10. It really does feel finished.