County Fair

County Fair

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It’s just serendipity that we’re here the same week as the Garrett County Agricultural Fair. So yesterday we ventured out to see the pigs and cows and sheep and goats (some of us city folks confusing those latter two).  There were rabbits, too, long-eared laps and Netherland dwarfs. Plus all kinds of hens and roosters, one of which excited the babies with his loud cocka-doodle-doo.

The carnival rides looked as scary as ever — a ferris wheel that was going around at quite a clip and other contraptions that shake you and turn you upside down.  Along the midway, barkers sang their timeless song: everyone’s a winner here. 

And then, there was the food: cotton candy, which brought back memories of when I used to make it at the Bluegrass Fair as a teenager, gathering the sugar floss with a paper cone, twirling it around the sides of the machine and handing it to a happy customer. What we didn’t have back then were fried pickles, fried cheese and fried candy bars.  So of course, that’s the photo I snapped. 

Old-Growth Forest

Old-Growth Forest

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This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlock

Bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight

Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

Today we explored the oldest stand of old-growth forest in Maryland, a place of deep shade and filtered light. The destination was Swallow Falls but the journey was also an attraction: a hike through pines and hemlocks more than 300 years old.

I imagined what these trees have seen, the ancient twinning of their root systems. Being in their company made me want to talk softly, to concentrate only on breathing the air they purify, on striding beneath their canopy.

At the Lake

At the Lake

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A laptop that’s been off for more than two full days. Dinner for eight every night. A new place with new routines. Must be on vacation.

Here at the lake it’s 20 degrees cooler than home — and with two babies and two dogs, quite a bit more lively.

Two of us are working, two just left for a walk, two of us are napping (the under-one crowd) and the rest are figuring out what we’ll do next. 

It’s August … and the world is now this cottage near a lake. 

Space Relations

Space Relations

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Never my strong suit on standardized tests, what we used to call space relations is not one of those fusty academic subjects that never comes in handy later in life.  It’s an aptitude you can use! 

Right now, for instance, it would be nice to know if the two large (and growing) piles of stuff I’ve been collecting for the lake will fit in our two smallish sedans. One of these cars will have a kayak strapped on the top, or at least that’s the plan, so that must be taken into consideration, weight-wise. 

My record in these areas is dismal. I can’t even figure out how big a Tupperware I need for leftovers, often trying one too small before I finally hit it right. The difference in cubic feet between a dollop of green beans and the mountain of food, fans, towels and other essentials growing upstairs and down is, well, stunning. 

The hour of judgment is coming. I have a feeling it will also be the hour of jettisoning. 

‘Let Every Fiber Thrill’

‘Let Every Fiber Thrill’

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With our family lakeside getaway only two days away, I couldn’t have picked a better time to read Madeleine Blais’ book To the New Owners. A valentine to her family’s ramshackle bungalow on Martha’s Vineyard it sums up the chaos of multi-generational gatherings.  

One of my favorite chapters features excerpts from the guest register. There are explanations, exhortations and ruminations — entries that touch on every aspect of that family’s island getaways.

“I’ve never played so many games of gin rummy in my life.” 

“I can think of no other place I’d rather go  out and not catch any fish!”

And, because this is a literary family, numerous riffs on the famous line from Moby Dick, including, “Call me, Ishmael” and “You never call me, Ishmael.” 

One of my favorite entries is this quotation from Flaubert, which captures the spirit with which one should embark upon a trip that (in my case) consists of eight adults, two babies and two large German Shepherds:

“Spend! Be profligate! All great souls, that is to say, all good ones, expend all their energies regardless of the cost. You must suffer and enjoy, laugh, cry, love and work, in other words you must let every fiber of your being thrill with life. That’s the meaning of being human, I think …”

(Above: Guest books from Thule, our beloved lakeside cottage in Indiana, which left the family about five years ago.)

Welcome, Toby!

Welcome, Toby!

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Turns out there’s not only a wood shortage and a computer chip shortage but also … a parakeet shortage.

The local animal shelter had only a bonded threesome. And pet store clerks said that shipments of birds sell out the same day they arrive.  

Our new bird, Toby, was part of a “shipment” of three, first seen huddled in the bottom of a cage at the local Pets Mart first thing on a Monday morning. 

“I just put them in the cage an hour ago,” said the manager, who seemed to know and love the critters she was caring for. “They’re really scared.”

Toby, the green-and-yellow bird above, was sitting slightly apart from the other two parakeets at the pet shop and seemed the one most likely to be a boy, though all bets are off on gender at this point. 

More to the point, he spoke to me, not literally, though if he wasn’t living with another bird he might learn to. No, it was more of a psychic connection. There seemed to be a valiant little spirit in him, something plucky and endearing. He and Alfie first sat cage-by-cage and now perch side-by-side. It’s still early, but they seem to like each other! If only it was always this easy.

The Lark Ascending

The Lark Ascending

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I was lucky to find early in my life the twin passions that drive it still. One is words, the other is music. I’ve made my living from the first and kept the second for pleasure. For that reason, music has been the great unexplored ocean — restless, deep and ever-changing. 

This morning for some reason I hankered to hear the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Thanks to the streaming service I had free for six months and decided I must keep, his pieces were at my fingertips. 

My walk began with Overture to the Wasps, which after a buzzing start, settles into a brisk march and then a shimmering serenade. 

I listened to The English Folk Song Suite, Fantasia on Greensleeves, and then… The Lark Ascending. It’s this last one that I can’t get out of my mind, so much so that I came home and started playing it on my computer. The comments on the YouTube page — more than four thousand of them — speak to the power of this special piece and of music in general.

People write about emerging from depression after listening to The Lark, of saying goodbye to dying loved ones with this soaring melody. The piece harkens back to a simpler time, said many. One man wrote that it reminds him of his parents peddling through the English countryside during World War II, his father on leave from the RAF, the couple picnicking one golden afternoon. Life amidst the madness, ending somehow on a high note, despite it all.

One-Car Weekend

One-Car Weekend

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I remember when the driveway used to resemble a parking lot — five drivers and as many as four cars. Lately, there have just been two parked there, both gray sedans. And starting Friday, with one car in the shop, there’s just been one. 

This might have seemed difficult in the past, a juggling act, but lately not so much. We  often run errands separately, but those can be planned around each other. Appointments seldom overlap. Neither of us parks our car all day at a Metro lot.

Life is simpler in this respect, and it makes me wonder … could we do this permanently? I’d like to say yes, doing our bit for the carbon footprint and all, but I’ll have to say no. 

In the suburbs, the car is autonomy, mastery and sometimes salvation. I’m thinking about the other day, when a walk I thought would be one hour was more than two, how glad I was to see my car parked beneath the trees, waiting to carry me home.

So as much as I’d like to be noble and economical, I’m hoping that the one-car weekend doesn’t become a one-car week. 

Lower East Side

Lower East Side

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The New York City expedition was two weeks ago, but I’m still thinking of the city and its pleasures: the cacophony of drill hammers, car horns, trucks backing up, people talking, gesturing, all while walking, of course — life happening everywhere you go.

The destination of our trip was the Lower East Side, a neighborhood I seldom ventured into after dark back in the day. But there we were, wandering down Delancey and Essex and Orchard, dodging only rain, not bullets. 

I ‘m stretching that a bit; it was mostly muggings we were trying to avoid in the mid 1980s, carrying a folded $10 or $20 in a back pocket, “mugger’s money” we could offer if accosted. 

But still, it was hard to visit the area and not notice the sheen of danger.  Maybe that’s part of its charm.

Newborn

Newborn

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Happy is the day that dawns unexpectedly cool. The door that swings open into rare air. 

It is the surprise that matters, expecting heat and humidity in mid-July, unaware of weather reports, of fronts arriving or departing.

When you get something else, something altogether delicious and cleansing, it takes your breath away for a minute. 

The world is newborn.