 I will let Sutton Island speak for itself today in images. Also – Happy Birthday Mom! You would have been 87 today. I love you. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 339: 24 words, TOTAL = 55,908; 4,092 remaining
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 When I pick up a novel written in 1925 by someone I’ve never heard of, I’m prepared for quaint narrow-mindedness, ready to tolerate the ignorance of bygone days. You know how you laugh or shake your head at vintage movies, their old-fashioned ways and effects? I figured it would be like that. This is not what I found in Furman’s novel set in remote mountains of early 20th century Kentucky, where a glass window-sash meant monumental change for cabin-dwellers. Time and again I was taken aback by turns of events or character development that countered my expectations. There are timeless interior struggles here, not to mention exquisitely detailed and often beautiful scenes of primitive living in the hollows of rural Kentucky. I plan to track down Furman’s book that first introduced this world – The Quare Women. I doesn’t hurt that I can imagine Rachel Field sitting in this island house, reading this very book about 90 years ago. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 338: 158 words, TOTAL = 54,884; 5116 remaining  I forget about quarantine out here. I thought it was the isolation – no roads, cars, stores, TV. But I’ve concluded that my blossoming sense of normalcy comes from being with people, in the flesh. Perhaps we’ve stretched distancing’s rigidity, but virtually all interactions are outdoors, on porches, on the rocks, on wooded paths. Twice I’ve met new people and instinctively extended my hand. We remembered ourselves before touching, but the instinct is ingrained. It’s not just a social nicety. Touch means something. In the absence of physical touching, we’ve had to make do with eye-touching and voice-touching. Virtual contact offers something, but physical proximity to other humans transmits a far more complex sensory messaging. Pheromones? Energy auras? Who knows? But the balm of physical closeness to other people has been palpable. Extended family time, the brood of teens, casual encounters with island neighbors, friends just arrived for a week in a nearby cabin – all have lifted my fog of gloom. Solitude is a treasure, but only in the context of contrast. Solitude must be a respite from human contact, not a replacement. We need to share space with each other, as we need sun and air. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 337: 196 words, TOTAL = 54,726; 5,274 remaining  It took very hot weather and a bunch of teenagers (our beloved piano-mover gang) to get me out to the jumping rocks, a family favorite. There are 4-foot and 10-foot jumps to warm up, then the big mama, which we estimate at about 30-feet. Somehow it seems most appealing as a group event. We had it all – the daredevil flippers, the splatters, the mug-for-the-camera hams, the double-jumpers, the half-hour-on-the-precipice lingerer (she finally did it!). I leapt twice, which might be enough for this year, though I may want to clock in a cliff jump at 60… Believe me, it looks a lot higher from the top down than from across the cove. I remember my time as a lingerer. As my sister-in-law said, there is a particular thrill when you leap from high enough that you have time to think along the way: “Wow, I’m still in the air.” My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 336: 149 words, TOTAL = 54,530; 5,470 remaining The hermit thrush’s unusual double voicebox allows it to sound two notes simultaneously. The result is a meandering, reverberant melody under the trees that clenches the heart. Today I was graced with a particularly poignant hermit thrush duet. My heart flushed with feeling; I held my breath, awed. I was carrying out a task for cousins. “Can you please return these to Charley’s stone?” they asked before departing yesterday. Absolutely. The family had touched up a collection of painted rocks that decorate a memorial stone for their brother/uncle Charley, who died at the hands of a lunatic with a gun 27 years ago. He was 21. As I arranged the rocks, I glanced at the next stone, memorializing Charley’s 1st cousin Andrew, who died of a rare disease at 24, three years later. Two young men who loved this island and left the world too soon. Their stones lie beneath the spruces, near markers for their uncle and grandparents, while hermit thrushes sing their hymns of hope and loss, grieving and glorifying. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 335: 172 words, TOTAL = 54,381; 5,619 remaining  On an island with no roads or motorized vehicles, people tend to leave household items in place or share them with island neighbors when it comes time to move. There’s a lot of jury-rigging, making do with 100-year-old equipment if it still works. So it was with an ancient but functional piano of that age, offered by our neighbor a quarter mile up the path. Of course, it took a village to make the transfer. How lucky were we that our 19-year-old nephew happened to arrive this weekend with five fit friends? (less lucky for them…?) The old instrument is a solid ~7-800 pounds. This is a Sutton day that will go down in infamy, and song! My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 334: 117 words, TOTAL = 54,209; 5,791 remaining  I’m afraid our dear old Kate is flagging. How can we know when it’s time to be merciful, when the toil of living outweighs its enjoyment? Kate’s sleep conveys the oblivion of deaf old age. Largely incontinent. Constant heavy panting. Rising from the floor is an ordeal, or rising from the ground after an obstacle topples her back end into the dirt. Sometimes when she’s stuck down there, Kate lies still and stares at me with her penetrating gaze: Really? Do I have to keep doing this? But – she lights up for mealtimes. Once up, she walks the morning and evening rounds with Clara and me, slowly, as long as we keep it to ¼ mile or so, though I wonder if her compliance stems from devotion rather than desire. We’ve elevated water bowls; J. is ramping the step-downs. We pet her and love her. But at some point, I have to ask myself, am I prolonging this ordeal for my benefit or hers? My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 333: 164 words, TOTAL = 54,092; 5,908 remaining  In order to authentically represent my 60th year, I’ve tried not to edit out low points. It’s hard. Best-face-forward is so ingrained. Though I believe forced optimism can be positively therapeutic – for our companions and for our selves – it has limits. Sometimes we’re sad, and it’s okay. I sank into an emotional abyss yesterday morning. My off-island escape was a lifeline I was grasping after days mired in doldrums, then I missed the morning ferry. Stranded at the dock, I didn’t know what to do with my black sense of entrapment and uselessness. It got better. A kind soul appeared and offered me a ride. I had a good day after all. Strains of anxiety, depression, and mental illness thread through my family tree. Suicides are overtly devastating, but dark, awful places precede that ultimate desperation. My lows are nothing compared to what I’ve witnessed in those I love, but they’re not nothing. And they’re intensified by shame. “Look at your life! What the hell do you have to complain about?” But reason is irrelevant when the brain decides to haul us down under. Maybe episodes of gloom have a purpose. Maybe the low-grade lows engender compassion and forgiveness, not just towards the severely afflicted, but toward our own fragile selves. Maybe they remind us to be patient, to ride out the tsunami, to remember, it gets better. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 332: 228 words, TOTAL = 53,928; 6,072 remaining  When Rachel Field summered on Sutton Island in the 1920s, she left the island periodically to resupply, just as we do today. She found the whole affair an adventure worthy of prose and poetry – the great “marketing expedition.” I can relate. After a week on island, I felt ready for an expedition of my own. This quarantine thing continues to unsettle me, even out here. Restlessness and aimlessness drove me to the mainland, where I got to see people, chat with my across-the-street neighbor, pull some weeds, harvest herbs and flowers, and swim a mile in my local pool. I bought a deli sandwich, shopped for groceries, stopped for ice cream. Returning to Sutton with my provenance in backpack and boxes, I looked back over the foggy sea at Northeast Harbor as it disappeared behind the ferry. It felt good to visit home, but it was also nice to return to my island home after a day’s adventure back in the world. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 331: 162 words, TOTAL = 53,700; 6,300 remaining  Since 2010, my sunrise year, my encounters with dawn have been rare. I see her occasionally through slitted eyelids when she peers into our eastern-facing windows on Sutton. Then I roll over inhospitably and slip back into lovely oblivion a while longer. Today I was awake at 3:30 when the slightest hint of light haunted the sky. By 4:40 I gave up. A particularly promising sky-pink tantalized me out of bed. For those unfamiliar with dawn’s light sequence, the most vibrant display, if it comes at all, blossoms about 20 minutes before sunbreak. Today’s arrived around 4:50. By 5:12 colors muted to gray as the sun emerged dazzling from behind the rise of land on Schoodic Point. My shared witnesses: some lobster-fishermen, a few seabirds, and hordes of hungry mosquitoes, more interested in my legs than the sky. Now it’s 7:10. I’ve walked and fed the dogs, made myself a huge trucker breakfast. My eyelids are drooping. Might be time for a nap. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 330: 163 words, TOTAL = 53,538; 6,462 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
September 2024
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