 Impulsively, I picked up a copy of Mary Oliver’s Upstream as a birthday gift for Jonathan last February. I didn’t realize it was essays rather than Oliver’s gorgeous poetry, but the book landed and took root in the soil of Jonathan’s deepest psyche. He read some essays twice and read several aloud, so we could experience their exquisite unfoldings together. Not every essay strikes the core, but the book abounds with quiet revelation. A great deal focuses on Oliver’s immersive relationship with nature – turtles, spiders, water, dogs, trees, birds. She astutely pays tribute to her literary heroes – Poe, Whitman, Wordsworth, Emerson, and she offers poetic prose about work, art, aging, life. The book is a sensory feast, even the tactile softness of the cover. It’s awash with moments where you stop and close your eyes to savor a passage, absorb it, write it down and tape it to the mirror, because it releases something valuable that you house but rarely recognize. It moved me to witness my husband’s recognition and embracing of that release. The liberation of that rarefied space inside us is something like love, both given and received. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 239: 190 words, TOTAL = 39,244; 20,756 remaining
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 Not surprisingly, Husson University is scrambling with coronavirus-imposed budget challenges. I’ve just lost my fall teaching job. When I finished an MFA in creative writing in July of 2015, my plan was to try full-time writing. However, a teaching job dropped in my lap, so I taught. My tendency is to let life lead me, work with what it hands me. It’s how I cook, shop, take on new projects or new dogs or exchange students; it’s how I live, and it generally works out. The teaching stint was wonderful. A secret part of me is grateful this decision to immerse in writing was made for me. Life has spoken – it’s time to establish routines, deadlines, a framework for my days…ugh. Just writing those words clenches my stomach, but I’m ready to try. Comfortable as I am reacting opportunistically to life’s lead, sometimes I desire control. Today I cleared the kitchen counter. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll change the sheets. Then I’ll start planning my writing life, unless something else comes up… My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 238: 170 words, TOTAL = 39,054; 20,946 remaining  No working today for either of us. We slept in, ate a fancy breakfast of curried veggie omelets and English muffins, drove back to Great Pond Mountain’s trailhead near the Craig Brook fish hatchery, in Orland, and set off on foot. Five miles, down to the beautiful banks of the Dead River, up to the rockytop summit of GPM. From the spur trail called “south overlook,” you can see Schoodic and Tunk mountains, all of Acadia National Park’s range laid out, and down the coast to Camden Hills, probably 80 miles of coastal vista all at our doorstep. What a gem of a mountain, and so understated. Back home, we’ve pitched a tent by the pond and we’re sleeping out there tonight, trying to ignore all but the critical pings of the cell phone. Jonathan is getting the campfire going. Some days you just need to go away. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 237: 148 words, TOTAL = 38,884; 21,116 remaining  Moonless nights have provided excellent sky-watching during this week’s evening dog walks. Venus gleams brilliant; Orion the Hunter and the Big Dipper, unusually, are simultaneously visible – Dipper straight overhead, Orion over the western horizon south of Venus. Impulsively, I lift my new iPhone 11 to see what it can do. A series of clicks and buzzes emanates from the little machine; witness the results. Wow. When Jonathan and his siblings were little and got a little too full of themselves, their Dad sent them outside to look up at the stars. Get off your high horse, suggested the night sky. How big do you feel now? Star-gazing reminds us of our puny place in the cosmos. Nonetheless, it can also elevate and unify. As I stand at the edge of a marshy pond, I, too am a microscopic part of this unfathomably vast universe of ebb and flow, life and motion, history and infinitude. No matter what happens, I was here. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 236: 161 words, TOTAL = 38,736; 21,264 remaining  Another measure of quarantine time startled me this week. Tessa – my precious, affianced, piano-craftsperson, dog-mama, hat-knitting daughter – had to go for her second monthly infusion of Tysabri (a Multiple Sclerosis drug treatment) since this viral scare began. I remember worrying about Tessa entering a hospital at the start of this viral explosion, and it stunned me that a month had already passed. Back again today. My daughter’s grace in the face of this disease awes me. She does not hide it, nor does she allow it to define her life. In fact, she absorbs it so matter-of-factly that I occasionally (sheepishly) forget the MS is even there. So far, her treatments have kept most symptoms quiescent, and she rarely raises the subject. She’s too busy building her piano-technician business, supplementing with entrepreneurial knitting during quarantine, planning her wedding, making a life. “Well what else would I do?” I can imagine her asking. Excellent question. What else should any of us do when life veers off its familiar track, when the plans we had must be scrapped and readjusted, when health becomes uncertain and we must mentally and emotionally prepare for the onset of serious illness, just in case? Hmmm… If ever I begin to feel quelled by the threat of COVID-19, I will summon my mighty daughter to mind, and carry on living my life as best I can. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 235: 229 words, TOTAL = 38,575; 21,425 remaining  Five-month-old Fiona is marking this quarantine’s passage of time with particular pangs to the heart. “What’s a few weeks?” we think. Well, a few weeks for a baby is a significant percentage of her life so far, filled with significant change. Fiona’s face and body are changing quickly; her brain’s absorption of the world around is expanding like mad. She reaches and grabs things; her eyesight is almost as good as an adult’s now; she expresses great volumes of communication with new squeaks and coos and has discovered endless fun in making this spitting noise with her pursed mouth, blowing raspberries with serious purpose. Basically, she is a different person now from the one I spent a week with a month ago. Jonathan and I are like crazy idol fans when we spend video time with our granddaughter – our tiny celebrity. We laugh at Fiona in delight; Nellie and Mike laugh at us in amusement. We love seeing her, but we ache for more – to heft her weight, kiss her belly, smell her soft hair, grab her little feet, sing to her and make her smile. Yes, yes, I know. All in good time, but baby time is so condensed! It’s hard to see it fly by. Tessa made Fiona a piano hat in baby size, and sent a screen shot of Nellie and Fiona, modeling Tessa’s design. Oh dear three girls! Can you feel my arms around you? My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 234: 239 words, TOTAL = 38,346; 21,654 remaining  Sorry about that panicked entry yesterday. Today the air is scoured clean. Things have settled down, inside and out. It was a little thrill to see that our pond muskrat has returned. I witnessed his little humped body, coarse brown fur, sleek and shiny wet, swirl down beneath the water like a breaching dolphin, heading under the cattails. I bathed in the songs and stirrings of sparrows, finches, grackles, phoebes, cardinals, crows, jays, red-winged blackbirds, and robins galore (I’m happy to count myself among their company). Some days I just want to be still and absorb every atmospheric sensation. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 233: 99 words, TOTAL = 38,107; 21,893 remaining  My body feels electrically charged, something in the air, in the battering wind. The world outside is in a weighty, gray, unsettled state of disturbance, an atmospheric manifestation our region’s rising viral surge. Must get groceries, fast! Many wear masks now, averting eyes, swinging away for a wide berth; a woman tallies entering customers, maintaining quota. I search my pockets and realize I changed my coat just as I left home. No list. Starting with produce, I scan carefully over each array when a panicked realization strikes: high-value items could disappear as I dawdle. I rush to the bakery and score the last loaf of Hannaford’s asiago cheese bread. Intensity buzzes and bounces between carts. I scurry to the cooking aisle and grab the last two 5-pound bags of flour (only to be thwarted at checkout – one per customer). I totally forgot to look for toilet paper. Back home, text alerts light up my phone – windstorm! Likely to lose power! Charge your phone, do your laundry, wash the dishes, fill water bottles. Before any of that, I sprint to my computer. My tip sheet is due today – Finalize edits! Send! Then there’s my full manuscript, one last quick scan, get it to Molly for the last round of edits! Who knows how long our power might be gone? Even as I type, the lights flicker. Must get this blog out before we lose power! Winds whip and roar, windows rattle, heart pounds. Jonathan is in-house at the hospital since last night, uncertain of when he might return. This is feeling apocalyptic. I think I need a drink. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 232: 267 words, TOTAL = 38,008; 21,992 remaining  My dear old 14-year-old doggie continues to astonish Jonathan and me. We never expected her to make it through the winter, and here she is, still suffused with enough gumption to wander off and scare the heck out her people parents. We started putting a doggie diaper on Kate a few weeks ago, since the occasional surprise package drops in and finds itself onto a shoe, then everywhere the shoe travels, until shoe-wearer finally clues in to the propagating odor. However, Kate rarely needs it now that we’re more diligently listening to her requests to go outside. Like today – nudge nudge, shove computer arm, give Mom the wet nose. Okay, Kate, here you go. Of course Mom gets distracted, until a text from a neighbor says Kate has sauntered past her house. Luckily, Kate is trackable in the snow, with her prominent foot-drag. We caught her before she hit the big main road. “Hey,” said deaf Kate to her panting, yelling Dad; “What’s up?” She meandered by his side, unphased, back down the hill. She doesn’t even know she’s old. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 231: 180 words, TOTAL = 37,741; 22,259 remaining  Yesterday morning Jonathan and I heard a loud crunching snap outside our bedroom window. One of the many trees that succumbed to the sudden weight of a wet spring snowstorm smashed through three sections of the paddock fence, just a dozen yards from the house. Later, we walked the dogs around the rest of the property to survey the damage. Trees were bent to the ground unbroken, or snapped off near the top, or uprooted entirely, their great trunks and reaching branches crashed to Earth. Many took out other trees as they fell. You couldn’t have guessed which trees would go by looking at them. Some survived the disaster, some did not.
I couldn’t help contemplating this storm’s timely message. You cannot know what trials the world has in store. Shit happens. Many are damaged, but they recover, adapt, make do. Not everyone survives. Central Maine appears to be starting its COVID-19 escalation. Let’s hope that as many of us as possible can weather this storm. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 230: 166 words, TOTAL = 37,561; 22,439 remaining |
AuthorRobin Clifford Wood is an award-winning author, poet, and writing teacher. She lives in central Maine with her husband, loves to be outdoors, and enjoys ever-expanding horizons through her children, grandchildren, and granddogs. Archives
December 2024
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