A Room With A View

[Above photo: “A Room With A View” ]

A piece of exterior trim between two panels of shingle on the front of my place came loose. Ari, with the skill and sharp eye of a rural Maine homeowner who does most of her own repairs, noticed it and wondered if it meant ROT. Home ownership for me has always been a bit terrifying, since I associate decay in a wall with decay in a family. I think my dad must have been concerned with the deferred maintenance on our huge old Ivy Banks house on Mercer Island. I know the front porch, which also formed the roof to part of the basement, was rotting and I think we didn’t have the $ to repair it, due to Mom’s repeated hospitalizations. Anyway, my simple child’s conflation of structural issues in home life with those of home has generally meant that I am in a state of anxiety lest my dwelling quietly rot and collapse, as our family did.

There are numerous sills here that are, in fact, rotten and need replacement. But that will be for a carpenter next Spring or Summer. My sprung molding was about 16 feet off the sidewalk. Lowe’s had a selection of ladders; I bought a fabulous one that folds up into a short, easily-carried bundle but when extended can reach 18’! Plus, it has levelers on the end, so it can be stable. The conclusion is that I extended it, nearly put it through the bay window of the living room, climbed aloft, probed the wall for rot, and nailed in the offending trim. Today it is raining like crazy but I am snug in the knowledge that my family—I mean my house—is secure against collapse (for now).

Winds today are gusting to 55mph, supposedly. I am thrilled to be so close to the ocean. My walks downtown each day regularly begin or end with a cruise along the Eastern Prom (-enade), which is a large sloping grassy park with unobstructed views of all of Casco Bay. I can see many islands, only some of which I can identify. Ari and I took the ferry to Peaks Island two days ago and walked its circumference. If I were partnered, I might have enjoyed settling there instead of where I am. The ferry ride is $2 round trip for a Senior—they don’t collect tickets on the way back since they sell only roundtrips and figure you’ll return on the ferry sometime.  Why waste the papah?  Very Maine.  I guess if you die and are buried on the Island, your soul will have a Return Credit.

Yesterday I purchased a good kayak which I have yet to retrieve. It is Downeast, 2 ½ hours away; I’ll gather it this weekend. It will rest in my basement until the weather improves in the Spring. When it actually warms, I’ll go to western Maine for an Eskimo-rolling course so that I am safer in rough water. Before that, however, I can explore the many, many calm and lovely estuaries along the nearby coast.

I’m reading a volume—The Best American Short Stories 2019—which I bought used. I am amazed at the variable quality of the writing. Some seem excellent, others not so much.  Reading them has prompted me, as has the cold and wet weather, to begin writing fiction again. [That sentence sounds so very presumptuous, as if I am a trained, published, and recognized writer!]  I’m enjoying Wallace Stegner’s essays on writing fiction. How exciting to have participated in the Stanford Writing Program when he started it!

The days are so short—today, for example, the sun rose at 6:53AM and shall set at 4:06PM.  9 hours only. I must discipline myself to think of darkness, 4-7PM for example, as part of my waking day, as well. I’m still alert then, so I can plan that to be reading time, for example. Or, I can use it to build in the basement. I bought two sawhorses, some lumber, and a palm router (a Bosch for $89 on sale—imagine!) and shall begin by constructing bookcases. I need a low, 7’ long one to go beneath the dining area windows and a couple of smaller ones for upstairs. As convenient, economical, and ecologically-sound as Kindle is, I cannot help myself with used books. I so prefer them.

This evening I’ll attend an event of the Global Affairs Council of Maine in a tony white-shoe law office downtown. A former ambassador to Ukraine will speak on aspects of the conflict. Maybe I can see if a former ambassador to Myanmar can be brought on another occasion. Or maybe Danny Fenster, the editor-at-large for Frontier, a terrific news magazine in Myanmar. He was incarcerated by the junta for 7 months in Insein prison after the coup as a warning to other ex-pats, lest they think their foreignness would provide impunity were they to criticize the Military. Danny is now a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. In an amazing coincidence, the video journalism graduate student who rents a room from my friend, Ellen, in Berkeley knew Danny when he was selling hot dogs in Telluride. What leaps, from selling hot dogs in SW Colorado to an editorship of a Myanmar news magazine to imprisonment at Insein to a fellowship at Harvard’s School of Journalism. I’ll see if we can get him here for a talk.

As the courts do their work, our country seems to be settling down a bit, excepting the ongoing mass shootings. “Freedom” should be synonymous with safety, not gun possession. Not that Ruger and Remington Arms would agree. We all are pretty wild animals and boundaries/limits are necessary prerequisites of civilization. Like vaccines and face masks in an epidemic. The German penal code makes hate speech and Holocaust denial in public and online illegal.  What about gross fabrications, like election denial? I think complete freedom of speech is ideal but I wonder if our democracy is educated and resilient enough to withstand it. Hate speech, especially when amplified by social media, feeds on itself. We must acknowledge and respect that we are emotional creatures: Reason is a flea on the back of the elephant Emotion.  We have learned, once again, about politicians exploiting hate speech and lies for personal advantage: election denial, racial and ethnic stereotypes. I did love the Jewish Space Lazers of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Holy shit, I bet that some people believed her.  Enough of this nonsense.

It strikes me, for the first time, that sitting at my writing table set in the bay window of my bedroom is like being on the bridge of a ship—in port, of course. When the trees are fledged, it’s a tree house but now with the leaves gone, I have a 150 degree view.  I am fortunate. No waves breaking over the bow!