[Above photo: My final rocket display over Casco Bay for the season.]
18 July 2022
I have returned to our island in Penobscot Bay. We’ve definitely launched into a new cycle here. Several, actually. There are very few young children in the immediate family, which is a huge change. Many of the late ‘teens or young adults aren’t wild to spend their holiday time here, among aging adults and demands for their labor. Also, the costs of house and dock maintenance, boat purchase and storage, and, in general, summer operations have risen considerably over the past 10-15 years. It was a stretch for my brother and is becoming so for me. I can do it, but it will mean less for my kids at my demise and it is beginning to feel like too much of a luxury in a world falling down.
In addition, as my niece, an accomplished PhD oceanographer, suggested today, if a huge Antarctic ice shelf calves or a large piece of the Greenland ice cap slips into the sea, our well water will be saline, our shoreline eroded, and two of our houses and the barn will be inundated. Britain, Wales, France, and Spain currently have record high temperatures. Our thirst for fossil fuels steadily climbs, worsening whatever natural cycle may or may not be occurring. And there is no international climate accord or commensurate action, despite dire warnings from virtually all unbiased climate scientists and the leaders of the UN. Developed nations have reneged on our promise to give billions to developing countries to even the playing field. The latter, of course, are not the cause of our climate catastrophe but they will suffer more, and sooner, than we who have caused or largely contributed to it. Many are experiencing terrible consequences already. We are skidding at high speed over a cliff, it seems.
There has even been talk of selling the island and using the proceeds to buy a family compound on an inland lake, which would be more easily accessible and much less expensive to maintain. Still, my mother came here at 9yo in 1913 and my father bought her an undivided half in 1926. My children, and a host of other relatives, have grown up here in the summers. It has the gravestones of our deceased family members. I have limitless memories of a great variety attached to the island. I suppose I can keep them alongside all the others that won’t be repeated.
I saw Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” which I recommend to all. It is a close-up look at youthful attraction and vulnerability in a sweet, warm way. Show that to the dictators of the world, the moguls and would-be tyrants. It is so appealing it will make them abandon their selfish and cruel acquisitiveness in favor of directing their energy and talents toward accessing true love. Well, probably not or they wouldn’t be who they were, but the film moved me. I later saw “Before Sunset”, part 2 of the trilogy, which was very interesting in its own way but contained less of the magic of uncomplicated new, young love.
I cannot understand the summary judgement of the followers of the GOP that the lies, treachery, and sedition, the attempt to overthrow a peaceful transition of power by multiple, including violent, means, doesn’t trump (Sorry!) all other matters at this moment. Or that the high price of gasoline and food, which by the way is worldwide and caused by forces well beyond the control of any single president, will cause many people to ignore all other issues and vote for a party whose signature legislative accomplishment, according to them, was a tax-break for the corporations and ultra-wealthy. It has not resulted in business expansion or trickle-down to middle and working-class Americans. We are prey to irrational fears (immigrants, “replacement”), the demands of our organized religions, and the trope that any change of leadership will be for the better, which is demonstrably false.
My daughter, Ari, and her boyfriend, Jon, are here. At the moment, after kayaking miles and practicing their rolls and self-rescues for 4 or 5 hours, they are in a rowboat in the rain fishing for our supper. They know about foraging in Maine and retrieve great bounty from the woods in Summer and Autumn. Matsutake mushrooms, as an example. They are the Japanese pine mushrooms that 15 years ago sold fresh for $35/pound at the BerkeleyBowl. They have never been successfully cultivated and in the Pacific Northwest they are so valuable that gangs of armed men stake out territory on the slopes of Mt. Rainier to harvest them. They are fabulously fragrant. When we lived in San Francisco and Berkeley, in the Fall we’d generally get a call from United Airlines that we had a package at the freight terminal. Poki’s parents generously shared some of their matsutake foraging, gently wrapped in fir tips.
Jon completed culinary academy and is a fabulous cook. They’ll do something special tonight, I know. Last night was penne pasta with a garlic-butter-squash sauce topped with steamed broccolini and parmesan. So delicious!
I arrived expecting to have a full complement of clothing, as I keep it all here. I’d forgotten that at the end of last year my room was redolent of an animal’s den, so I took all the shoes and clothing I’ve warn and worked in for years ashore. Some I tossed, some I washed, and the latter I stored in Ari’s attic. When arrived here I realized that I have no underpants, no pajamas, no long pants, etc. I’ll fetch them in a day or two from her home. The main thing is, it really doesn’t matter. I can wash my one pair of underpants in the evening and they’ll be dry by morning. It is so quiet and peaceful, so glorious not to have a car within 6 ½ miles (the mainland). I doubt we’ll sell.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 