You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Driven by low temperatures and low humidity, vapors known as sea smoke rise from the warmer waters of the sea below. Not that they’re anywhere what you or I would call warm. Still, some mornings you cannot even see the water from any distance but only a churning cake frosting, and when it races in a stiff breeze, the effect is eerie, like looking down on a storm.
But not a dead end. Rather, I see it as a destination, a place of arrival or culmination, rather than a fatal trap. Like Key West or Provincetown or Cape May that way. Or so I hope, only smaller and less touristy.
When I said it’s on the verge of being discovered, a neighboring couple shuddered and individually chorused, “I hope not!”
Well, an influx of income and youth wouldn’t hurt. Leave it at that.
Maine has many fingers that reach out to the sea, but among them, tiny Eastport is unique. There are reasons it’s called the City in the Bay. Technically, it’s an island – or a group of them, with the two inhabited ones connected to the mainland by causeway. Moose Island, where most of us live, is still big enough for plenty of explorations, including a state park, forests, and rocky coves.
Along my life journey to here, I did write a novel about subways, which now has me thinking. A packed underground train can carry 1,200 to 1,800 passengers. Compare that to Eastport’s year-round population, around 1,300, swelling to 6,000 in high summer.
I can joke about coming here to die, but I’m not being morbid. Rather, I just don’t feel there’s anywhere else I’d rather live out my remaining years. Let’s call it focus.
Yes, I’ve loved big cities, though among them I’ve lived only in Baltimore. Meanwhile, Boston, close as it was, served largely as a place to visit, even if once or twice a week.
One thing that’s changed everything is the Internet. I’m not as isolated as I would have been even a decade ago. I can stream concerts, operas, and indie movies, as well as order self-published books or about anything I want retail, even download rare historic volumes, often for free.
In some ways, it’s seemed I’m just setting up shop – or camp – here.
Covid really has changed a lot of our social outlook. It made me hungry for face-to-face gatherings, which a small town can foster, yet it’s also made long-distance meetings more flexible. We don’t always have to drive for hours anymore.
I’ve long touted pedestrian-friendly communities, and that fits the tip of Moose Island where I’m living.
And, yes, via blogging, I can stay in touch with a world of folks like you.
Once the car’s parked, it can stay there as long as I want.
Weather Underground kept scaling back its anticipated snowfall here, cutting it to a tad over three inches. Instead, we woke up to this yesterday, about 9½ inches after a day of blizzard conditions. Seemed strange going from near whiteout one day to cloudless blue the next.
We’re bracing for subzero temperatures in the coming nights, but a minus four is still ten degrees warmer than just up the road. And then another half-foot is on the horizon.
I know we’re hardly alone when it comes to scenes like this, and I’m grateful I no longer have to commute through hazardous storm conditions.
How’s the winter kicking in where you are?
I like to think that natural beauty can be found anywhere, but I have to admit that too often, what’s happened is that brute ugliness has prevailed in far too many places, typically as a result of greed. There’s no excuse for much of that, either. A little extra expenditure could have added grace to any development, created visual intrigue, lessened the harshness. Urban or rural or what’s in-between, alas.
Whenever possible, I chose career moves that opened me to natural or artistic settings and inspiration – along with opportunities to shine professionally. It’s meant avoiding suburbs, for one thing. Sometimes, though, it’s also meant invoking a sliding scale of value – you know, finding pockets of serenity within otherwise harsh localities. And then there were some other postings that principally industrial, even when it was mostly farmland. So it’s been a mix.
Still, as I’ve said, I came to realize that had I remained in my native corner of Ohio, I wouldn’t have been able to write poetry, the vibe was simply wrong. Or, if I had, it would have been much different from what I’ve done.
On the other hand, the four years I lived two hours east of Mount Rainier, back in the late ’70s, gave me repeated access to one of America’s greatest national treasures, often from lesser-known perspectives. What memories! And that’s before I turn to much of the back country and wilderness that was closer to our home. I even came to love the beauty of the desert where I was living, a landscape that initially struck us as hideous.
Now I’m finding myself dwelling two hours east of an even more popular natural park, Acadia. Already, I have glimmers of many backwoods and remote rocky shores to explore in-between.
Technically, all of Downeast Maine is also Acadia, the French name of the region. For most folks, though, Acadia means the park.
The biggest land mammal out west was the elk, while here in northern New England, it’s the moose. Just as the celebrated shellfish here is lobster, rather than Dungeness crab.
The fact is, for many people, either place is about as close to paradise as you’d find on earth.
And, yes, I’m feeling lucky – or especially blessed – that way.
It’s hard to believe the Red Barn has just passed its tenth anniversary. Frankly, I thought this blog would be going dormant by now, that we would have exhausted everything I have to say or show, but that’s not what’s on the horizon after all.
Instead, thanks to our downsizing and relocating to a remote fishing village with an active arts scene on an island in Maine (whew!), I promise you the best year yet. And, yes, Dover back down the coastline will still be a big part of the mix, but in a new way.
Each year, the Red Barn has changed its emphasis somewhat, and in doing so explored new fields while leaving others behind. Looking back, I’d say it’s made for a natural evolution. The poetry, for instance, has moved over to my unique digital Thistle Finch imprint. Much of the Quaker experience has gone to my As Light Is Sown blog. And newspapers just aren’t what they were, while their “war stories” fade into a foggy past.
During that decade, though, my novels were finally finding publication, and that provided a lode of new material and thinking to share with you.
Photography also became a much bigger part of the mix, thanks to my digital cameras, so much so that I can now claim shooting as one of my hobbies.
Add to that the bunnies and vanity plates and some wordplay, for a little fun, which will continue, as will the Tendrils.
The original visual artwork from my high school portfolio, alas, has been depleted. Let me confess that as the pieces came up, I often wondered why I had done this or that back then. There are some wild leaps of intuition that amaze me now, not that I’d ever venture such confidence these days. Ah, youth! (Sigh.)
What’s new this year is a close look at Eastport itself and the surrounding Bold Coast and Sunrise County. It’s a remarkable landscape with a host of fascinating characters and wildlife. Having been here a year now allows for some perspective in the discoveries, ones you, too, will be sharing. The encounters have opened a whole new world for me, even as part of upright New England. They’ve also revived many sensations I’d been forced to leave behind in the Pacific Northwest more than 40 years earlier. I hope to be able to convey that awe of natural wonder. I still can’t believe this landlocked Ohio boy looks out the window and sees the ocean daily.
The year also provided me with a writer’s retreat, long stretches of solitude while the rest of the family remained behind, apart from their festive visits.
I was already well into the first draft of my next book when we uprooted but quickly got back down to business here. Alas, after showing the manuscript to a circle of beta readers, it was back to the drawing board for a thorough reworking. I should have been suspicious when the book seemed to write itself. Without revealing too much, I will say the project keeps me connected to Dover but in a fresh way. You’ll definitely be hearing much more while it inches along toward publication.
The barn itself has become a memory, a symbol of the longest place I’ve lived in my life, and maybe even my roots in the farming heartland.
At the beginning of the week, we had a tease of the Christmas-card expectations of a white holiday. Whether it holds to the big day itself is always in question, and the forecast seems to shift hourly. Even so, enjoy the scene.
One of my more familiar drives while living in Dover meant crossing over into Maine on my way to or from the Antique House.
Within a seven-mile stretch of the roadway, there were at least 16 family cemeteries – some with only two or three visible stones.
It’s all the more striking when you realize that two separate two-mile stretches have none at all, so the burials actually occur in just three miles. In those parts, you probably couldn’t turn around without encountering a tombstone.
Many of the graveyards are overgrown, with some surrounded by iron railings.
I’m guessing there are more, if we were going more slowly and looking even closer.
Still, we’re left wondering about the families, some who settled the grounds in the 1600s, and how long they remained.
But on the drive, each one is gone in a flash.
With a landmass of 16,577 square miles, the country of Denmark is almost exactly half the size of Maine and has six-times the population of the Pine Tree State. Yet Denmark uses close to 10,000 megawatts of power annually, about double of what Maine uses.
If my math’s right, that means they’re using only a third of what we do, per capita.
How do they do it?
We both have cold winters with long nights. And most of us rely on fuel oil for heat.
And, for the record, nearly half of Maine is uninhabited, year-‘round, meaning the lived-in part of Maine’s about the size of Denmark. They do stay warm and keep the lights on, don’t they?
Jnana's Red Barn 