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[Above photo: A door on the second floor of the Masonic Building in Belfast, Maine.]

15 December 2018

The year is rushing to a close. Actually, there are just fewer days until the end of the year. I’m rushing about. “Where does this road go?” “It don’t go nowheyah, mistah. It’s stayin’ right theyah.”

I doubt that Bracie, Linda’s cat, notes the approach of the year’s end. She is a salvaged cat who was feral, living off the land in Bracie Cove on Mt. Desert Island, having litter after litter. Did you know that cats kill upwards of a billion birds a year in the US? Anyway, Bracie has been badly traumatized and, living in the wild, at first she was not very sociable. She is infinitely more so now. I’ve always liked cats. My first pet, at 5yo, was a cat. So I naturally wanted Bracie to like me and want to curl up on my lap, as friends’ cats often do to their owner’s surprise. Two plus years ago I picked her up for that purpose and was rewarded with panic and claws. Lesson learned. Now I just stroke her a lot and feed her small amounts of cat food throughout the day. She has no governor on her appetite, having been starved, and will eat until she throws up if given limitless food. She’s getting plump and Linda suggests she substitutes food for love.  The vulnerability necessary to allow love frightens her. Catanalysis. How far have I fallen? Not so different from lots of us, I think. Anyway, she’s a marmalade cat with a wonderfully thick coat. On very cold days I keep thinking of a warm hat and censor the thought.

As the year ends, Boss Tweed is applauding a conservative Texas judge’s ruling (Is there anything worse than a conservative Texan? How about a conservative New Yorker? Or a conservative Kentuckian? Maybe the whole lot of them.) tossing out the Affordable Care Act. Merry Christmas, you with pre-existing conditions. Our Prez? “ It was a big, big victory by a highly respected judge, highly, highly respected in Texas.” And, “We will get great, great health care for our people.” I don’t know about you, but repeating an embellishing adjective doesn’t convince or reassure me. Actually, just the opposite.

On an even drearier note, I’m starting a book by JB MacKinnon, The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, and As It Could Be.  In it he chronicles how we are so adaptable that we ignore changes in the Natural World, unless we live in cities where we don’t see the changes at all, and incrementally we adjust to the new baselines without realizing the degree of our loss. Yes, we recall the tales of bison roaming the plains—-but did we know they were in California and New England as well? And that deer were nearly extinct 300 years ago because their hide—buckskin—was so desirable? A Muskogee brave might have killed 400 deer in a year to sell their meat and skin. The point is that we recall dramatic shifts like the slaughter of the bison or whales to near-extinction but not the gradual but just as consequential loss of so many other species. Anyway, it’s a brilliant book and recalls an Eden of protein development and exchange beyond what we have imagined.

We do inhabit a still-glorious globe with sites and moments of stunning beauty. As we sat in the hot tub last night—-it was 40 degrees out, balmy in comparison with recent evenings—, drank our cider/beer, and watched the half-moon bright enough to cast shadows, it was still and felt pristine, although I’m sure the other animals whose land we inhabit don’t think so.

I’m almost set to go. Taxes, Will, Advanced Directive, Curriculum, Readings, short-sleeved shirts and light-weight khakis ironed, batteries charged, car serviced before I give it to Ari… So many details. The sun is streaming through the window now, but since it is so low in the sky it barely clears the trees and provides little warmth. It is a cold land and Mainers a hardy bunch.

We’ll have a supper-cum-slide show for friends in 2 days. Culling out the best of the best from our two month trip is not easy. I favor leopard over zebra, rhino over springbok, Victoria Falls with double rainbows over the Okavango River. I guess the only way to experience that countryside fully is directly. We don’t want to induce Slide Show Coma, which would be easy to do for someone sitting in a comfy chair in front of a fire after a good meal with wine.

Ariane’s mother generously helped her to buy a house. It is a beauty, on 10 acres, on Deer Isle.  The deal isn’t yet complete but it seems likely. It will be so nice to have her settled nearby; the best part is that she loves it here and is resourceful enough to make it work well for her.

I haven’t mentioned how beautiful the stands of deciduous trees are without their leaves. Will I feel that way about myself in my winter? Will those I love feel that way about me? As we drove through Vermont and New Hampshire, the groves of white birch were just spectacular, rising from the snow like white fur on an immense polar bear’s ruff. Trees are wonderful things, their physiology so amazing, sucking water a hundred feet into the air into their leaves. And their presence—huge sticks in the ground, roots generally hidden, reaching for the sky with their arms.

I favor leaders who have gotten their hands in the soil, not soiled their reputations. It is grounding to work in the ground rather than just pound over the pavement.