Island Beauty

[Above photo: The cemetery and fallen tree: fallen parents, brother, uncle and aunt, in-law husbands. Ages at death: 42yo, 43yo, 55yo, 60yo, 78yo, 84yo, 88yo, and 90yo.  Mean age at death: 67 yo, considerably under the average life expectancy. The 4 men who died early, all fathers, lowered it. ]

23 June 2023

The fog covers, softens, and obscures everything on the Island. It isn’t cold, just cool and moist. I fall asleep when the sun sets and awaken about 4:30AM, rising at 5. It feels good to be synchronized with Nature.

My daughter showed me Merlin, the amazing bird app from the Cornell Ornithology Department. The morning air is filled with birdsong and, when I aim my phone, the application can distinguish whose call it is. The woods are filled with a variety of songsters, just as the sky supports a juvenile eagle soaring for 10 minutes over our meadow and shoreline. A nesting pair of osprey, fishing in the harbor, disappear when the eagle’s menacing shadow moves past. After s/he heads off the Island to more propitious hunting grounds, the osprey re-appear, bobbing and hovering as they scout for fish. I suspect they have, or are expecting, chicks. It is interesting to me how one, male or female I don’t know, always follows the other on their quest. I wrote a text to my daughter that the hummingbirds hadn’t yet appeared this year. Within 10 minutes of filling and hanging the feeder, one was hovering next to it.

The air is fresh, the pink and white rosa rugosa are in bloom, and the meadow is lush with 18’ grass. Winter storms took their toll, snapping off a number of large spruce 3 feet above the ground. Generally, because they lack a tap root and the soil tends to be a thin layer above the granite, winter storms topple them intact with their roots. Perhaps the soil wasn’t soaked when the gusts came through. The huge old spruce marking my ancestors’ gravestones in the meadow went. I’ll take a chain saw to it and haul the branches away to decompose in the woods. Maybe I’ll plant lilacs or high bush blueberries in its place.

The meadow is surrounded by white (or “paper”) birch. I have clumps of them at the NW and SE corners of my house. The bark is incredibly strong and rot-resistant. The wood, if a felled tree is left over the winter, rots rapidly but if dried after being cut is hard, strong, and durable.  It amazes me how fungi and bacteria in a moist environment can turn it to mush so quickly. A log on the ground that appears intact has no substance, save its pristine bark covering, like a sausage.  Dry birchbark is as good as cedar shavings for starting a fire.

We hooked up the float and hoisted the gangway. It entailed a bit of tugging and hauling. While at it an immense school of minnows milled about the float, staying shoal to avoid the larger fish. We’ve seen dolphin, so I’m sure the mackerel are in the Bay. The fish population seems to be reviving from the pulp mill pollution of past years, although the Atlantic salmon run up the Penobscot River has not increased as rapidly as hoped and the mussels seem permanently vanished.

My cabin looks good. Two of the 6 skylights leak, which I can address easily, I hope. The front door seems to have rot, although the paint is excellent and intact. I think I can replace the damaged part and save the door. I am puzzled why it has gone; we cover all the doors with sheets of plywood to protect them when we close the island at the end of summer. Perhaps snow traps between the two surfaces and does its damage. The elements are hard on structures in Maine.

It is strange to be as alone as I am here. The caretaker, Michael, is here but he elects to be solitary. We’ll talk once per day, usually.  Anadine, my distant cousin, arrives today for 2 weeks. She used to spend the entire summer here but her husband, who is older and needing care, no longer comes so she feels a need to split her time. I’ll prepare supper tonight for her and Michael. One of her daughters, with family, will arrive Sunday. I’m eager to see them.

I’ve just finished J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting For The Barbarians. It was a good read, compelling and intimate. He slyly suggests that the “civilized” fit the definition of “barbarian” better than the indigenous people the former feared and attacked. A significant focus was more personal, addressing the protagonist’s need as an “old man” for sensual and sexual gratification with younger women, ignoring the power differential. 

An awareness of the latter represents a step upwards.  How strange that men, through their needs and greater muscle mass/wealth/etc., have ill-treated women, both now and then! A companion is just that, not a subject.  It’s no wonder many men squeal loudly as women assert their equality, accustomed as the former are to the alpha position.  Alternately, it is such a gift when someone wants to do something for you, rather than being forced to or responding out of duty.

Upward and onward with the House censuring Adam Schiff. His address in response was wonderful; direct, declarative, and lucid.  Many members of the GOP are strikingly timid, cowering in fear of DT and humiliating themselves before the ignorant and hate-filled fanatics of his base.  Shiff is Presidential material. Now a ticket of Schiff/Whitmer, or Whitmer/Schiff, that would catch my attention.  They would create a sea change, as well as a landslide.

DT is lending his imprimatur to the Sultan of Oman. He was in the White House primarily to network for his businesses, clearly. As were so many of my graduating class at Harvard who went into banking or investing.  How naïve I was, imagining that upon graduation they were all determined to change the world for the better.

I feel for President Biden. Hunter is such a troubled flake. Also, we clearly want to have India on our side. But Modi appears to be another cruel, racist/religionist tyrant. What a balancing act, to have to befriend (sort of) someone whose actions you despise.  I suppose Joe is trying to hold out an olive branch to India and Modi just happens to be their current leader. It is called “Diplomacy” and happens all the time.  We cannot reject an entire population of a country just because we dislike their leader.

A friend and an acquaintance spent the night with me in Portland before starting their journey up the Island Trail from Kittery to Lubec, the length of Maine. Both are younger, accomplished kayakers, and up for the paddle. I was envious but know that I couldn’t possibly do that trip at their speed—if I could do it at all! They may stop here to dry out if the weather is as wet as is promised.