Author: Joy Clough

Back woods blueberries

Joy Clough1 Comment

Carpenter knee pads for harvesting in the pucker brush: $19.99
Pre-made pie crust good enough to serve to your mother-in-law: $2.50 a box
Picking fresh while still having some of last year’s crop frozen: Priceless

After they blow off the road dust and grill us about our proximity to groceries, medicine and other things they wonder why we’ve left so far behind, folks take one look at our “front yard” and know why we re-rooted ourselves way the heck up here. By the time they reach the dock, they’ve had their “aha” moment, and our mountain-rimmed vast, open lake answers any lingering questions. Nonetheless, while friends from away think they know when they relax into the bench at the water’s edge, they still don’t really get it. They have no idea that a big piece of what lured my husband here—made him want to carve out a new life with me and the beagles—actually lies away from the lake and trout streams. For the whole picture, they need to stay awhile, share some dinner, some wine, and a little more wine. Then, and only then, will they be truly enlightened.

“Pie! Time for pie!” Tom proclaims as soon as possible after the last forkful of main course leaves his plate. And even though I’ve seen him do the dance many, many times, I never get tired of watching. Sheer pleasure transforms him as he goes through the motions of serving and sharing—of savoring his beloved blueberry pie. Then, sometime shortly after their first bite, guests come to fully understand. Back in the woods, tucked away from the postcard views and all the other Rangeley things worth waiting for in August, Tom has found a hidden wild Maine blueberry mother lode.

“Did ya pick your own?” guests want to know. Oh, yeah, most definitely…with so much love and gratitude, I think he actually leaves the patch more fruitful with his mindful
picking presence. Not long ago, he missed prime harvest time, having to head “home”
in time to teach school, leaving the best ever berries hanging. Labor Day weekend, we’d be back to celebrate his birthday, and we’d always bring his customary birthday pie. But it would be baked with berries supposedly from Maine, bought frozen in the grocery store. Tasty and better than no pie…but not fit for a true blueberry pie connoisseur. As a true connoisseur, you see, Tom doesn’t care so much about fudge cake or sundaes, crème brulee, or tiramisu. He shrugs off chocolate as “a girl thing.” Most days, he’d probably even pass on pie, in general. But pie made from his back woods blueberries—picked just about the time he’d be starting his back to school teacher meetings—now that’s a Tom thing…his personal slice of heaven.

Good thing for Tom that, in the giant scheme of things, Mother Nature ripens the berries right after the lake fishing slows down and before it picks up again in the streams. If, for whatever God forsaken reason, Tom had to choose between going fishing and eating wild blueberry pie, I imagine he’d spend a long, mournful moment going back and forth between the two choices. He’d look sort of like our beagle, Toby, the time he teased him by holding his walking leash in one hand and a hunk of steak in the other—hopelessly torn over which one he loved more. Tom would pick the pie, though, I’d bet my life on it. “I guess I’ve had enough fishing in my life,” he’d probably say, “but never enough  blueberry pie.”

I’m really grateful he can have both. And each time he temporarily puts down his fishing pole, hangs his old coffee can berry bucket over his neck with string and duct tape, and heads off to pick, in his mind I know he’s pleased by his own version of beer commercial perfection: “It just doesn’t get any better than this!”

For years I dabbled with blueberry recipes. Being married to the ultimate blueberry boy, I figured I should be able to bake them in everything from cakes to muffins to bread. I should know if buckle was better than crumble, and hear first-hand why the real Maine cooks called a dessert blueberry grunt. But Tom has since assured me that pie, simple, old-fashioned pie with slightly sweetened berries piled as high as the pie plate will hold, is his ultimate favorite. So lately, I’ve given up on grunt and am content with hearing my husband’s soft sighs of delight. And those pre-made crusts in a box I keep stacked in the refrigerator right next to the berries…what a win-win situation for whipping out pie they are! Now that Pillsbury makes them without the telltale creases I used to try to press out
with my thumb, I can have a pie oven ready in about five minutes and never have to  admit I can’t make my mother-in-law’s crust “from scratch” recipe.

“What a nice, flaky crust,” she said the last time she ate pie with us. “Mine never comes out this good.” Luckily, Tom’s head was bent too close to his fork for us to share a knowing glance across the table or she might have guessed I cheated. His birthday fell after Labor Day weekend that year and we were celebrating it back in NH with a Down East feast of lobster and blueberry pie. “I’ll give your mother some to take home,” I said to him as we were cleaning up.

“Go ahead and give her that extra lobster,” he whispered when she went to get her coat. “She can make her own pie.”

With a an over-abundance of filling close at hand, Tom has since learned that manifesting blueberry abundance comes from sharing that abundance with others. He’s learned that hoarding might leave him with more for himself, but those extra coveted  pieces he’s hidden away from family and friends might also get pretty stale or, worse yet, covered with something not so naturally tasty. He’s learned to share. And I’ve learned that he’ll do just about anything to keep himself in pie. If I promise him some, he’ll tackle those bottom of the to-do list chores I either won’t or can’t do—which, in our house, involves anything requiring a ladder.

“Are you sure you don’t mind if I have a piece of your pie for breakfast, too?” Becky asked when she was home recently. The last wedge of Tom’s Father’s Day pie was waiting on the counter for him to indulge in at least two more days of his favorite ritual: eating blueberry pie for breakfast. Tom looked at his beloved daughter with beagle-like confusion for a long moment before deciding. “Sure honey,” he said, “you go right ahead.”

I stood at the stove, gazing way over the top of their heads to the living room window I hadn’t been able to reach since the remodeling. It still had film on it from the new window sticker and, I imagined, a couple inches of sawdust, regular dust and dead cabin flies on the sill. “It’s OK,” I assured my husband. “You don’t have to wait for a special day to have more pie. There’s plenty more where that came from.”

Happy blog birthday!

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A year ago, I gave birth. Not to a baby—at least not the kind that squeals and squirms
and grows to need braces, a room in the house you avoid at all costs, and a college fund. A year ago today, I began this blog. Spawned by my desire to write things that didn’t require sequential numbering or use of the word “functionality,” it became a glimmer of possibility in those quiet months after unpacking for my first full year of Rangeley residency. Then, stronger and stronger, the knowing grew: I had a heck of a lot to say and not a whole lot of people within earshot. Plus, I was a writer, living in seclusion in a place where my creativity could echo as loudly as I wanted, if I only knew how to start using my outside voice again. Was it really right, really responsible, though, to give all my silly, crazy, sad, happy, deep but long-winded thoughts an outlet? Did the world truly need another contribution to its over population of words?

“Yes!” I promised myself, mentally exhausted the first time I hit Publish and sent my
offering out into the world. “I have a blog!”

At first, what exactly I had produced was full of unknowns—a blank slate ready for my unique, twisted stamp. Would it prosper, gain acceptance, or wither in obscurity like the new kid nobody notices sitting alone on the edge of the playground? It was too soon to tell. But, as the weeks went by and my new creation gained personality and spunk with each new post, I often found myself holding my laptop at arms’ length and staring in disbelief, wondering: How in the world did something so weird and wonderful come out of me?

A year later, I’m happy to say I’m proud and fulfilled. And I’m only kept up at night when I want to be. Far as I know, my wild child ramblings have not ostracized me from any local gatherings or attracted dirty looks behind my back at the Red Onion. People actually tell me I’m doing a good job. They like me on Facebook! I accept their compliments with gratitude and a bit of bewilderment, much the same way I did when folks would ooh and ah at one of my baby girls. “Thank you, I think she’s cute and funny, too,” I’d admit. “But I’m not sure enough how something new and marvelous chose me as a vehicle to take full credit.”

It sure did feel good, though, cranking out my true creativity. Why, I wondered, hadn’t I just let nature take its course and allow this to happen earlier? I was so pleased with my new writing role, I even outed myself on LinkedIn. I announced to the professional world and to my industry peeps that I was both creative and technical. And, lo and behold, a
year later I’m balancing a blog on one knee and a new paying assignment (with sequential numbering and descriptions of “functionality”) in my lap.

In looking back over how my baby has grown during its first year, I figured I’d acknowledge its 2,303 viewers-to-date by sharing some of my favorite ways it’s been
randomly visited. By randomly, I mean not by my regular acquaintance readers—those
who log on because I wrote the URL on a cocktail napkin they stuffed in their purse, or those who get curious because they heard about the “Rangeley blog lady” from a friend of a friend. I’m paying tribute here to those Googlers who most likely were looking for something entirely different when they happened upon my back woods website.

So here’s to the best of a year of Rooted In Rangeley search terms and the wayward surfers who found their way to my corner of the lake:

Rooted where? Of course, my search engine database logged plenty of “rootedinrangeley” attempts and a wide variety of spelling variations on my name and my location. Turns out, I am “routed” here and, some would say “rotted,” but usually just “joy’s blog in Rangeley.” Once I was even found at “My Fork in the Road, Maine.” (On occasion, I do confess to Googling my own self, just because I can. My blog publisher claims it doesn’t add to my reader tally, but it’s still fun to play cyber boomerang with myself now and then.)

Top award for being topographically challenged: Goes to whoever pondered “Are there year-round residents of Toothaker Island?” (Yes, perhaps there are, but they must really like privacy during those long months when the ice on the lake won’t support going anywhere else!)

Woodsy Wikipedia: I’m not sure what some readers were researching, but I’m quite
curious to read their reports! Why, I wonder, did “Mooselookmeguntic duck itch”,
“Clarence who haunts the Rangeley Inn,” and “how to use Yankee as an adjective”
come to seek my advice? Of course, if queries like “Did any of the 9/11 terrorists visit Rangeley, Maine?”, “Girls who ride around in red Mustangs,” and “History of sex in a pan dessert” are coming from one in the same person, I guess I really don’t want to know, do I?

Haphazard how-to advice: Since I offer cooking tips one week, then blab about my fashion blunders and my quirky approach to home decorating the next, it only makes sense that I could attract folks wondering about “beagle flannel sheets” , “how to refinish a Naugahyde couch”, “new uses for shoulder pads”and “red Kool-Aid stain removal” to my virtual doorstep. I don’t know if I’d invite them in for coffee, except maybe those sisters searching for “bathing suits that fit real women.”

Seriously, thanks to all my readers—those from away who wish they were here and those from here who aren’t scared off…yet. Thanks to my real kids who haven’t stopped speaking to me…yet. Thanks to my friend, Walt, for taking my awesome blog picture who, no doubt, has  been commissioned by Popular Photography by now. And extra special thanks to my editor/husband who, with a few minor exceptions, sanctions my stream-of-consciousness publishing without reservation. I thought of giving away a big jug of his homemade wine as a prize to the first loyal reader who matched the above search terms with their respective blog posts. But then I’d have way too many “homemade Mooselookmeguntic merlot” enthusiasts knocking on my real door.

Seventh month itch

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I made the ultimate maternal sacrifice last month. Even though my baby girl is almost 24, I proved that my instincts to do whatever it takes to keep her from pain and suffering still run deep. I gave her my Bug Baffler shirt. Yup, you read right…in June, from my cabin in the Maine woods, I didn’t just lend her my Bug Baffler shirt. I gave it to her to take clear across the country.

For those of you odd ducks out there who happen to be reading a blog about Rangeley but have somehow escaped knowing what a Bug Baffler is—it’s a unique fashion accessory born of dire necessity in these parts. It’s a hat attached to a shirt that seals your upper torso in fine netting. In theory, it keeps mosquitoes,  black flies and the like from finding their way onto your skin surfaces, allowing you to venture outdoors this time of year without getting eaten alive, losing your sanity, or both. For total coverage, you can buy the pants portion, too. But I never met anyone who had to go that far, not around here, anyway. If it’s hot enough to wear shorts and the skeeters are still out but you can’t find a stiff wind to blow them off or a reason to hop back into your DEET-soaked jeans, chances are you don’t live in Rangeley.

“The mosquitoes on my next rafting course are going to be worse than EVER,” Becky told me as she was heading back to Utah from her visit home.

“Worse than here?” I asked in awe.

“Oh, yeah. Clouds of ‘em…swarms!” Her co-instructor friend had just reported back from guiding on the Green River. She was able to dial the call, Becky said, but just barely. Her hands were covered in bites and she had a ring of ‘em along the narrow gap where her pants didn’t quite meet her shirt when she squatted or stretched.

We all listened but didn’t want to believe, trying hard not to squirm in our seats. Even Jerry, her brother-in-law, born in the land where the mosquito is the state bird, had never heard such tales. And even though I was starting to look like a poster promoting measles vaccinations, suddenly my itchy patches weren’t nearly as irritating. How could I whine about a smattering of bug bites when Becky was soon going to be engulfed?

Days earlier, I’d come across my Bug Baffler again, sitting on a shelf in my closet, heaped alongside my bike shorts, my yard work pants and all those other articles of clothing I knew I should actually wear more than once a year. “I wondered if I still had this old
thing!” I said, surprised its netting hadn’t unraveled in all the years I’d refused to put it on. Oh, I could have worn it, should have worn it, but vanity and that strange blend of blind optimism that takes root after decades of Rangeley bug seasons had left me covered mostly in useless cotton.

I’d come across the old bug net shirt back in May, too, when I was shuffling my sweaters and flannel-lined jeans behind my shorts and tee shirts—blindly optimistic I’d be able to swap seasons soon. Coming into my second spring of year-round Rangeley living, the practical part of me was glad to have unearthed my bug netting. But the louder, dumber side of me was still resisting. “Seems like the bugs won’t be too bad this year,” I said, stashing the Bug Baffler back in the corner.  “I’ll be fine without this.” (If, Heaven forbid,
I was ever jostling down the short cut road enroute to the emergency room, bleeding profusely, I imagine I would have told myself I was fine in pretty much the same tone I was using to chat with myself in my closet.)

I was fine, too, relatively speaking, even though my bug forecast was about as accurate as my snowfall prediction.  By the end of May, I was dousing myself in repellant, wearing my Bugs Off bandana around my neck to cover my new necklace of welts, and swearing and swatting like I had a personality disorder. I stayed outside, though, wavering between defiance and near defeat. “I live on a lake in Maine!” I’d mutter. “I’m supposed to be sitting here on my dock in the evening having a wine cooler in the summertime!” I kept on reminding myself as May progressed into June, refusing to retreat inside, till I was nearly convinced the bugs weren’t that bad. But, as June wore on, I had to admit that the drinking jar of homemade wine cooler I carried down to the dock had become way heavier with wine than with spritzer. I was numbing myself into submission–and I was getting itchier by the day.

“I give up! I’m going to start wearing my Bug Baffler,” I announced one late June night. My ears had started to burn under a new swarm of no-see-ums, even though Tom had put out so many tiki torches and smoldering coils our waterfront looked like Survivor
and smelled like a Grateful Dead concert. And I think I was still getting mosquito bitten, too, but it was hard to be sure with my battery-operated Off clip-on buzzing louder than skeeters on steroids. “The bug net will be doubly good for me,” I said, heading for my closet. “No bugs, and less chugging because I’ll have a zipper in front of my mouth. So what if I have to admire the sunset over the lake through a haze of green mesh? This is my new life and, at times, it requires adaptive clothing.”

On my way back outside, Bug Baffler in hand, I went past the bedroom where my sweet, fair skinned baby girl was packing to go back to a wilderness dark with mosquitoes. Instinctively, I shook the dust off and handed my survival shirt over. Better her than me, I realized, and better on the banks of the Green River than Mooselook, Maine. Out there it would give her steady hands and a sane mind as she guided a group of Outward Bound teens safely through Mosquito Misery Canyon—a grander gesture, I figured, than keeping me covered in my drinking chair.

“I’m glad I found that old Bug Baffler in time for Becky’s visit,” I told Tom as we sat on the dock the other night, swatting and sipping. Hopefully, she knew somehow we were talking about her as she navigated her way through the canyon. But, hopefully, her ears weren’t burning as bad as ours.

Real Rangeley bathing suit support

Joy Clough1 Comment

It’s that time of year when we Rangeley women might want to anticipate the need for appropriate swimwear. Somewhere, sometime between now and Labor Day, we will supposedly have a few 80-degree days. And, if we’re really lucky, we might actually be able to intentionally take a dip in the lake rather than floating above it hoping whatever splashes on us doesn’t soak through our waiting-for-summer windbreakers.

Being ready to take that epic plunge, I’ve discovered, takes serious planning and more support than we’re likely to find in available retail. It takes more than figuring the suit you left up at camp as a “spare” is still going to work for you like it did back in the ’80s when it was your best suit ever.

Even the top outdoor outlets with their active women’s straps-that-stay-put suits don’t really measure up for water sportwear in these parts. We need coverage that withstands flying off a float tube or water skiis at 30 miles per hour. We need super resilient Lycra that doesn’t snag when we crab crawl along the rocks enroute to our sandier beach access areas. Requiring function above fashion, we definitely need straps that hold in what God gave us whether we’re breast stroking away from the deer flies, bending half out of the boat to net a salmon, or just wanting to hang out on the dock without really  hanging out. With the right design specs, we could fashion our own line of Mooselook maillots and Toothaker tankinis. The tankini should have a small side pocket sewn inside near the hip, I figure. Those of us who multitask when we take a dip could use it as an optional soap holder, demonstrating why our swimwear is aptly called a bathing suit. And, if we got really daring, we might even dream up a couple Bemis bikinis. For those of us blessed with the right curves and thermal adaptability, they’d be offered in a deep Rangeley green and perhaps a bold South Arm sunset pattern to camouflage our goose bumps.

Until then, I’m grateful for Land’s End and how their promise to be “true to size” did, in fact, hold true for me. A couple years ago I let their bathing suit ‘bot—a simulated version of my measurements and other physical characteristics—select my perfect tankini.  Shopping with this perky little cartoon girl model of me was way better than braving the mall dressing room or ordering off the web purely on faith. She showed me enough to know that what I’d try on in my bedroom after ripping into the Land’s End package might actually be a suit I’d come out of the bedroom in and end up wearing in public. She was right…I love my latest suit! But even though it’s withstanding scraping along the dock and hours of churning, stretching and snapping, I know it will become my nostalgic “spare” suit before too long. And before it does, I have a couple program enhancements in mind for my mail order ‘bot.

I’d like to work with the online catalogue engineers to design a super customized Bathing Suit Buddy. Real-time customer support at its finest, she’d pop up to ensure my suit shopping would not leave me crushed and despondent with my virtual shopping cart empty. She’d automatically be programmed to know that I’d been exposed to the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. By default, she’d realize I’d seen the women’s magazines that show “Suits to Suit Your Shape (where the woman illustrating “thick waist” measures about 25 inches at her thickest part). Her data base would not contain fashion designers’ stats for “average.” She’d boot up with real world honest-to-goodness average-bodied women shapes and sizes at her fingertips. And, not only would my Bathing Suit Buddy have a believable build–showing me at first glance that she’d made some effort to stay fit and trim and had achieved moderate success—she’d also have a soft soothing voice.

“Hello! I’m your Bathing Suit Buddy,” she’ll pop up and announce as I sit peering over thumbnails of the latest online selections. She’ll walk me through the process, convincing me I’m not a heap of useless skin, showing that halters are more my style, proving that “boy short” bottoms are built for boys. By the time I click on “add this to my cart,” I’ll be confident, enthusiastically waiting for my Land’s End package to arrive, and hoping summer in Rangeley arrives before it goes out of style.

“Do camp suits ever really go out of style?” I found myself wondering recently when I came across my last mall-purchased suit. It brought back memories of dressing room mirrors stolen from the fun house at the Fryeburg Fair, where I had no one (expect for my own destructive inner selves) to accompany me through the brave world of trying on swimwear. One tiny voice kept mumbling about how I’d done my best with diet and exercise to prepare for that year’s search. “The Abs of Steel video, the good old ‘Never eat unless you’re hungry’ motto, the stairs instead of the elevator…you’ve done your part…” I’d mutter. But then the other tiny voice would insist I’d obviously failed.  “Abs of Steel, what a joke!” it would taunt as I struggled with sheath after sheath of unforgivable spandex. “Next winter, why don’t you try sitting in your typing chair for 12 hours a day instead of just eight? Then you can graduate to the suits with the little skirts on them!”

By the time I emerged from the dressing room, I must have looked emotionally flogged.

“No luck today?” the sales clerk asked.

“No, not unless you’d call it luck to have one of the “mature” styles fit like I’d been thrown into an ice cream cone dispenser.”

I did manage to squeeze into a few of the flimsier styles that made me look like a painted summer squash. And then there were those “cookie cutter” suits—one-piece suits with a big piece missing in the area I personally liked to hide with a one-piece. I tried a couple on and my reflection reminded me of the Pillsbury Dough Woman after an attack by a giant cookie cutter.

“I’m an average size 10 woman!” I remember protesting to my husband half-way through my swimsuit search that year. “If I feel like a squished out marshmallow in most of the suits available, what are fuller figured women left with? How do they feel?”

“Umm…like larger squished out marshmallows,” he stated with all the empathy of someone who tore the legs off his Levis when he needed swimwear.

Fortunately, for me and my silent majority of women who weren’t blessed with mannequin perfection, there was a trend on the market that offered a solution. “Slim  suits,” they called ’em, even though they came in all sizes. (Ever heard of a chubby size 6?) Anyway, if you could  get past the way the manufacturer dangled a tape measure off the price tag, you’d end up with a multitude of styles and colors to choose from.

I didn’t rise to the challenge of measuring myself with and without the slim suit. I just scurried into the dressing room and let the hangers fly. “Please, please, please,” one tiny voice pleaded. I prayed the neon stripes on the front of the suit would go diagonal, like the picture on the tag, without any dips, bulges or zig zags to spoil the effect.

“Any luck this time?” the clerk asked when I  re-emerged.

“Yes, thank you. I found a real pretty one.” But my other tiny voice was still shopping.

“Course it looks pretty. It’s the consistency of an ace bandage!” I hid the dangling tape measure and made my way to the cash register.

Until it got retired to my camp closet sometime in the ’90s, that was my best suit ever. I guess I should just leave it there as my spare, just in case the Land’s End one finally gives up the good fight.

Dining with Dad

Joy Clough3 Comments

When she was just beginning to link objects with labels and functions, one of my girls picked a spatula up off the kitchen counter and declared it a “Dada cooker.” Ever since, I’ve been fascinated with the role of father in the modern kitchen.

Traditionally, men were not linked to any food prep functions. When they did take utensils in hand, it was to “carve” the roast—a ceremonial ritual dating back to when the head of the household had brought the meat to the table an hour earlier from yonder woods or field. Plus, fathers have also always been pretty deft with barbecue implements, a ritual which dates back even earlier to primordial families who never bothered to specify “rare” or “well done.”

In taking their culinary tools closer and closer to the kitchen stove, men seem to have developed extraordinary skill with the common spatula. Originally, I believe that
dexterity was born of necessity and fine-tuned during all-male fishing trips when there was nothing between them, their hunger and the supper still flopping around in the sink, but an iron skillet and plenty of bacon grease.

“Daddy’s cooking supper?” my sister and I would ask on the occasions my mother could not be home to feed us.

“Yes. I told him to heat up some corn chowder.”

When the time came, we watched in silent amazement tinged with trepidation. Had it been our Mum at the stove, we would have questioned the use of cast iron cookery, and said “yuck” when the Worcester Sauce was added. But, when Daddy did it, we kept still. Even if we had to watch him eat most of the chowder himself and load up on crackers afterwards, paternal cooking was an exciting shift from the ordinary.

It’s no wonder my daughters readily associated the spatula with their dad. Especially on camp weekends, he became so proficient in the short order cooking department the frying pan barely cooled between Saturday morning and Sunday evening. And, like most  dads, he never told them “You just ate,” or “You should have some fruit instead.” He was more than willing to take command of any operation resulting in food, especially grilled cheese sandwich construction for his little fishing buddies on a Saturday afternoon.

Dads don’t generally waste as much energy as moms worrying about the four food groups, either. To them, food is fuel. And the object is to tank up—preferably without forks and, ideally, without plates—so you can return to what you were doing when hunger struck.

“We made sandwiches with Dad for lunch,” I remember Helen announcing as I’d return home from running errands when she and her sister were small.

I could tell. A knife still stood buried in the peanut butter jar in the middle of the table kitchen table. Surrounding it were all the signs of a motherless feeding frenzy—paper towels, crumbs and huge hunks of cast off crusts.

“Did you have anything to drink?” I’d ask. (I’d learned that dads making dinner got so intent on the dietary bulk of the meal that they’d usually forget the liquid part.)

“Oh, yes,” said Helen. “Red Kool Aid. But we spilled some and Dad wiped it all up so the floors wouldn’t be sticky.”

I could tell. My oak Lazy Susan was glued to the table top and I could see a mound of pink stained paper towels heaped into the wastebasket. “Don’t say anything to your Mom,” he must have instructed as he unraveled a long, billowing expanse off the towel holder at the other side of the room. The sponge next to the sink, however, was dry as a bone.

I always figured this behavior dated back to the time when a guy’s bandana had to suffice for a cleaning cloth and his water was rationed from a canteen. Or, maybe it was the natural result of too many boyhood confrontations with a mom who didn’t understand there was no time to tidy up your trail when the Injuns were after you. Most likely, it stems from a little bit of both. I do know that, somewhere along the line, dads came to rely on “dry” cleaning to cope with spills and splatters.

I had to remind myself that this very same cavalier kitchen attitude had been adding spice and excitement to father-child relationships, mine included, since the first time a woman walked away from her hearth for any amount of time. I’d bite my tongue, wet the sponge, and remember my dad’s special corn chowder out of a can. And I’d especially think of Grandpa.

It was a rare and festive occasion when my grandma would drive off alone to go shopping, and my grandpa would let us take full advantage. (For those of you who read about her in Letting Myself Stay, I’m not talking about my mild-mannered Nana who’d offer us dessert all the time because she thought we were company and she’d probably just served us a meal but couldn’t really remember. This was my other, omnipresent grandma, who once told me she liked to dust. She policed her cookie supply and seemed to think the earth would spin off its axis if you ate more than two a day or, Heaven forbid, consumed your food groups in the wrong order.)

“Is she gone yet?” my grandpa would wonder with boyish impatience as my sister and I watched the big, blue Ford back down the driveway. We’d wait until she was safely on her way and then race into the kitchen straight for the cookie jar.

“Don’t tell your grandmother!” Grandpa always reminded us with a devilish smile as he scooped most of the crumbs into a napkin and double-checked us for Oreo moustaches.

Happy Father’s Day, everyone! May you dine with your dad in your heart and at your table.

Letting myself stay

Joy Clough3 Comments

The first time I remember being concerned about how much older really old folks were, I must have been about four. “How old is Nana?” I asked my parents.

Their answer was way, way out of my arithimetic comfort zone. “Fifty-eight.”

At first, I just frowned and tried to comprehend that number. I knew I had six marbles in my little drawstring pouch and that each Sky Bar came in four sections. Anything beyond that was as bewildering as adding up all the stars in space. Then I got scared and burst out crying. If my grandparents had been around for whatever that forever-sounding number was, I knew they must be ready to die any minute.

Fortunately, I was too busy being a kid to worry myself for very long. After all, my parents weren’t upset that their parents had one foot already in Heaven. And Nana was always smiling. Plus, she had soft, crinkly, Nana skin on her hands and arms that I found oddly comforting. It wasn’t until early grade school had broadened my mathematical reach that I questioned old-age relativity again.

“How many birthdays have you had, Mommy?” I asked.

“Thirty-four,” she answered.

This time I didn’t cry. But I was still pretty darn scared. “Gee,” I said, “that’s even more than the number of days I have to wait between Thanksgiving and Christmas!” Of course, I desperately wanted to be older myself. Not as old as she was or, Heaven help me, my grandparents—just a year or so wiser, taller and worldly enough to hang with the “big” kids.

During middle school, when the desire to age myself out of braces and away from bullies had become a constant daydream, I overheard a conversation that made me ponder the wisdom of wishing away time. “Tammy’s got a tummy!” my mom announced moments after we were driving away from visiting family friends. Not a caddy woman by nature, Mum was delighted to discover that her once skinny college pal now had a mid-life paunch, especially since she could make the observation into a taunting little rhyme. “Yup,” my dad concurred from behind the wheel. “She let herself go.”

“Go where?” I remember wondering from the back seat. Not to the mall or the beach, it didn’t sound like. And with emphasis as much on the letting part as on the going part of his statement, I knew there was a great deal of loss of control implied. “She let herself go,” he said again with authority. Suddenly that other mother went from a cool mom with a great backyard who bought the good kind of chips to Mrs. Tammy Tummy.

“Could she have hung on?” I began to ask myself as a teen when I’d hear my dad make the remark. “And why is it always a she?” I drew a mental picture of a poor woman teetering on the brink of 40, hanging onto a wimpy branch for dear life while nature’s relentless pull raged just beneath her like a waterfall. One moment of weakness, one lapse in concentration and…woosh…away she’d go to the point of no return. I started checking out my mother with a whole different eye. Blessed by genes from the tall, lanky side of the family, she was still a bean pole, but for how long? Would I get some sort of a warning that she was slipping so I could somehow give her a heads up? Or, would Dad just pronounce her gone when she was too far downstream for help? And, when I got to be her age, would I instinctively know how to muckle onto the branch where she let go?

In hindsight, I think it’s a good thing women in my mother’s generation didn’t know what we know now. They hit 40 back before coed gyms, body mass calculators, and good carbs versus bad carbs. Back then, if anybody’s mom said she was “working out,” she meant in the garden, not spotting you on the weight bench. So, they could let gravity and lower metabolism take over without the added torment of Dr. Oz or Dr. Atkins telling them they had only themselves to blame. Healthy eating meant ordering a Fillet o’ Fish with small fries and no shake. There wasn’t Biggest Loser Bob showing you how to take charge of your own proactive lifestyle, how to get up off the couch, elevate your cardio and steel your abs. There was Jack LaLanne doing a few jumping jacks with you in front of the TV. And, if that didn’t do the trick, you couldn’t turn on an infomercial and know that a Spanx body shaper would answer all your prayers. You were just incredibly grateful panty hose had been invented so you didn’t have to squeeze your shape into a real girdle like your mother did.

“Joy’s keeping herself up real nice,” I overheard my dad telling one of his fishing buddies  when I was almost 40. By then, the remark should have gotten him slapped, sued, or both, but I took it as a supreme compliment. I was forever bemoaning my slant toward the short, stocky side of the family and beginning to wonder if the dryer was shrinking my jeans. Suddenly everyone, including me, was jumping around the gym in their Reeboks and ripping the skin off their baked chicken. Still, it seemed harder and harder to not get sucked under, into the flow of middle-aged complacency. But then I’d think about Mum and lift my real self above those troubles. As it turned out, she didn’t let herself go. Before she had time, she got swept away by an undetected “defect” she’d been born with and would have been powerless to hold in check. She never suffered, though, and left with a smile, a teeny pot belly on her lanky frame, and the very beginnings of Nana skin. Nana herself, on the other hand, ended up living way longer than I originally predicted. While in her seventies, she’d waged war with her short, stockiness and shrunk herself about five dress sizes by eating little but plain yogurt and Melba toast. Even if she had let herself go, though, or had stayed gone, it didn’t matter. Soon after, she forgot where she was completely, how she’d gotten there, who was with her, or what she’d had for breakfast before leaving.

Dad who, ironically, was the patriarch of stockiness (or, as he called it, barrel chestedness)—became a gym rat later in life. When he wasn’t out fishing, he was horsing around weights at the health club, keeping an eye on whether or not the women in Spandex were letting themselves go. He’d puff out his chest, flex his biceps and say, “Not bad for almost 70!” But his coronary arteries did not agree. Eventually, all his pre-Dr. Oz years of letting himself eat whatever he wanted took him down at 68.

Dad watches me, though, I can feel it. And, hopefully, he still brags. Mum was with me, too, as always, when I celebrated a landmark birthday the other day. I’ve now lived ten years longer than she did, as much by hanging on as by letting myself stay in the moment. I remember them when I turn down chocolate in favor of carrot sticks. But I think of them just as vividly when I decide to say yes to a pair of “just because” earrings or to savoring every last bite of cherry cheesecake. They’re my hiking buddies, now that I’ve traded my gym membership for long walks along the lake they brought me back to. “We’re doing just fine,” I tell them as my heart gets pumping and I take deep breaths of Rangeley balsam.

My daughters concur. They’re keeping an eye on me for any signs of slippage and they swear I don’t need pleated pants or a swimsuit skirt. They tell me I “don’t even look scary yet” in my underwear. And, if I promise to not start wearing bright pink lipstick, they promise to warn me when it’s time to give up the hair dye and let myself go grey with dignity. Plus, best of all, they’ve taken the opportunity to keep me young and run wild with it like I never could with my mother. I’ve decided, with their help, that the Nana skin on my hands looks just as wonderful gripping a fishing rod against a West Kennebago sunset as it does wrapped around a roller coaster handle bar at Six Flags, screaming like a 12-year-old, and hanging on for dear life.

Mumma energy

Joy Clough2 Comments

“I got a nice dose of Mumma energy last night,” Becky called to tell me awhile back. She was going through a bit of a rough spot and really needed me in person, but had to settle for one of my cross-country pep talks instead. She’d been to a meditation/healing circle, led by a holistic Moab woman with “Mumma hands,” a giving heart, and wise, empowering words. Once again, my younger daughter had found just the surrogate she needed for that specific moment in her worldly travels.

“Oh, I’m so glad you feel better, honey,” I sighed. “Why don’t you book a couple office visits with her? That would be nice, huh? Think of it as my Mother’s Day present.” 

“Uh, Mom,” Becky said, “you do know that Mother’s Day is when I’m supposed to give you stuff, not when you tell me to give stuff to myself?”

“Right. But I’m telling you this is what I want more than anything. If you give yourself this gift, you will actually be pampering me, making my heart glad.”

“What is it with her?” I imagined Becky saying after we hung up. Every Mother’s Day for as far back as she and her sister could remember, I’d told them not to fuss over me, not to get me anything. As long as my girls were happy and healthy, I assured them, I had everything I needed. I meant it too, wholeheartedly. Of course, they’d still give me plenty of little trinkets and tokens, including their annual hand-drawn coupons for ice cream at the Pine Tree Frosty. I’d stash those in the glove compartment and promise to cash them in as soon as we got “back up to camp.” Last count, I had eight of them stacked under my snow scraper, never redeemed. We still enjoyed our share of Rangeley soft serve, regardless, lapping up the late spring sunshine as we fed the pond ducks even more than ourselves. Fortunately, all my Mother’s Days perfectly coincided with opening up camp, with no formal gifts necessary because the earth was warming up, the road was drying out, and we were returning to Rangeley. And, now that I am home here for good, I know it’s thanks to my three mothers, my beautiful daughters and husband, and all the nurturing, creative “Mumma energy” that works in mysterious ways to give us this life.

“Oh, honey, you didn’t need to give me anything!” I remember my mother telling me as she unwrapped my Mother’s Day gift. I was 17, and had presented her with a set of stoneware salt and pepper shakers I’d proudly bought with some of my $1.80-an-hour paycheck. “All I need is for you to be happy, really,” she insisted, setting them on the dining room table for “special company” and hugging me.

When Mum died suddenly a couple months later, I couldn’t imagine happy being a possibility for me ever again. Smiling was forced torture. And for years laughing was only a release mechanism that left a pain deep in my chest. Happy—as in sitting in the sunshine humming and wanting to hug myself? Well that, I believed, was forever on the other side of the big, dark wall where I’d left my previous life. But then, in spite of myself, slowly but surely Mumma energy began trickling back into my world. It came from Prudy, my step-mom, who helped me love myself as a grown woman while seeing the wonder in all things. It came from my Reiki teacher, Holly, who channeled Mother Earth energy into my heart and hands, empowering me to heal myself and those I love. It came just in time from my mother-in-law, Ruth, when—after holding each other at arm’s length for years—we finally embraced the power of unconditional love. It came from my Mum, who shows me everyday how love lives on in Spirit. (For more of this story, see my Come and Meet Those Dancin’ Feet series.) And, the Mumma energy came full circle in Helen, my mother’s namesake, and her sister, Becky.

“I couldn’t have chosen anyone better to become the mother of my child,” Tom wrote in my first Mother’s Day card. “Really?” I remember thinking, resting the card on my enormous belly. “Will he still feel that way a couple months—and a couple decades—from now?” I was seven months pregnant with Helen, my first-born, and my attitude towards motherhood had just barely switched from “Babies are cute, but keep them away from me,” to “As long as my natural instincts don’t fail me, I think maybe I could be a mom.”

Fast forward past college graduations, a wedding, and mother-daughter memories better than any Hallmark could anticipate. My Mumma energy is pumping just fine, I’m glad to report, triggered just as much by giving birth and from holding my babies as it is by having my daughters mother me back. It’s more ethereal than any biological process, flowing within the laughter that bubbles through the phone line, in long, tearful goodbyes, and those that went unspoken. It’s in the sweet, mysterious grace that keeps me here—alive and well—as a middle-aged mom, riding roller coasters and rapids, or dancing in a concert crowd to the songs that bind us together. Turns out, it’s the gift my mother asked for so many years ago, the one that never needs wrapping. I am grateful I found it, in the kindness of friends and strangers, in the courage to live my legacy, to create my own health and happiness every day. Thank you, Mum. Thank you, everybody. I really don’t need anything more.

Hoppin’ down the muddy trail

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Take ten miles of soggy Bemis track oozing along the cutoffs and swamp lands of lower Mooselookmeguntic Lake. Add about three more miles of private dirt road snaking up the shore still shadowed by snow banks. Mix in plenty of early spring snow. Freeze, melt, rechill and thaw until soft, and what have you got? A route to town that looks like Oreo cookie left soaking in milk too long and feels like a rodeo rink.

As I said back in Finding Community, we don’t really live in Rangeley. We live in a “suburb” of town given the Maine-unique distinction of a “plantation.” I always thought the name stood for a place with tons more trees than people. But, according to Wikipedia, in colonial times when Maine belonged to Massachusetts, this term came in use to describe a “minor civil division.” So, in Rangeley Plantation (population about 155) we don’t have councilors or selectmen. We have assessors. And Mother Nature keeps them plenty busy assessing and maintaining the stretches of roads and bridges that connect us back to the big town.

“We don’t live on this road,” I told a first-time visitor last April. “This is our main town road. Our place is on a side road off of this road a few more miles from here.” We were about midway down the Bemis Road—also known by those of us who consider it a major thoroughfare as the Bemis Track. “Back when folks came here by train, this was actually a train track,” I explained. “See how straight it is? But it all got washed out in the Great March Flood of 1936, so now it’s a road.” I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or scared. He just jostled back and forth in the passenger seat, peering out the window in silence. But I’m pretty sure I heard him haul in his breath as we motored across the one-lane causeway bridge at the southern tip of the lake. “Almost there,” I promised rounding a corner and chugging up a small hill onto my “camp” road.

Friends generally don’t come here during mud season. And if they do, they don’t come out this far. They get part way into the Plantation and either park it and call for help, or spin around and slide back down the mountain. Even UPS—the guys driving huge brown trucks, wearing brown uniforms who look like they could handle a little extra wet dirt—won’t venture out past the town package depot this time of year. But, with our address label officially stating we live on a trail, I can’t say as I blame them for dropping our boxes off in another zip code and having us retrieve them there.

After more than 20 years of negotiating our way from southern New Hampshire, Tom and I knew what we were “getting ourselves into” when we decided to retire up here off the beaten track. Money, house, road. Boiled down to their essence, those were our determining factors as our thoughts turned from “Wouldn’t it be nice?” to “How can we make it happen?” Would our savings hold out? Could we really turn the old camp into a house? What was the likelihood we’d got stuck out there? Plus, lurking in the grey area at the end of the money-house-road list were generic retirement questions about health and sanity. Would our health and our fondness for each other’s company last as long as our savings? But in the big game of chance called life, we knew that mental and physical wellness were cards we’d carry with us no matter what road we chose. So, as much as anyone could, we prepared for all scenarios, got our ducks in a row. We vowed to balance frugality with adventure, to eat from our garden whenever nature cooperated, and figure out how much homemade wine consumption would fortify our hearts and souls without jeopardizing our self-sufficiency. We packed up our life in the bigger city and made the one-way trip to Rangeley.

For our “back home” friends, the route from there to here does take a little getting used to. TomTom and Garmin help with some of the trip, but get confused when friends type in our “trail” and get warned they’re on their own from Route 17. From there, they have to rely on plain, old Tom’s highlighted squiggle on the Maine Atlas and their own senses of direction and adventure. Personally, I think the resulting candid commentary tops their barking GPS monotones anyways. Where else can you go from “See how pretty the lake is over there?” to “I think I might see the lake again,” to “What the hell were they thinking?” and back again all in less than 25 miles?

So far so good, though, I’m happy to report. The pantry is full. Most days, we still talk to each other more than we talk to ourselves or the beagles. We haven’t found ourselves standing at the end of the driveway wearing tin foil hats barking at the full moon yet, either. We’re even managing to take frequent trips beyond and back without calling for rescue. But we don’t kid ourselves for a minute that we can take all the credit. We get constant support from some very special people—two in particular. Thanks to our lead assessor/town road agent and the plow man hired by our private road association—who defy all geological, hydrological and meteorological laws to keep our travel lanes clear —we’re staying on track with retirement in the woods. Even during this worst winter/spring in memory, we have never been stranded, marooned or otherwise stuck out here 13 miles from pavement.

And Tom and I don’t need to kid ourselves that pavement is by any means better than dirt. For more than 30 years, we lived right alongside a real city, tax-dollar funded road. Salmon Falls Road, it was called, named for the river bordering New Hampshire and Maine it follows. Once a place of fishing folklore and sprawling farms, it is now mostly a commuter corridor for folks wanting to work closer to Boston. To say it was paved would be generous. It was a long stretch of tar patches connecting pot holes through swamp land that ate hub caps like M&Ms. On those unfortunate summer evenings when we were back home from Rangeley, a steady stream of tire thumping outside our bedroom window kept us awake, longing for loons and waves lapping the shore. We were only a couple miles from  hospitals, stores and all those other things our city friends want us to be able to get to now. But, most days, the route to those conveniences was an obstacle course that gave us much less bang for our tax dollar and more pounding on the Subaru suspension than driving down the dirt roads in the Plantation.

Getting out here is never what you’d call a smooth ride, though, not a cruise control sort of commute. I was reminded of that recently while driving alone back from town through a low spot in the road. A torrent of melted snow rushed down off Bemis Mountain and across the track on its way into Mooselookmeguntic where no amount of maintenance or tax dollars could have kept the dirt surface solid. My Subaru tires started to sink like four fudge doughnuts and I sucked in my breath and steered my way through. “What the hell were we thinking?” I started to say. But then I thought I could see a patch of open lake water through the trees…and summer somewhere right around the corner.

Out like a lamb-eating Yeti

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Good thing nobody said it, at least not within earshot and, in particular, not while I was looking outside on the first full day of spring. Watching fresh snow pile up on the glaciers not yet receded from my yard, I knew that somewhere somebody was saying it: “Gee, looks like March isn’t going out like a lamb this year!”

“Looks like! Not unless it’s a lamb to the slaughter,” I imagined myself having to reply with a fake giggle. Luckily, I didn’t have to respond or come up with any new twists on restating the obvious. Alone in my kitchen with the Weather Channel on mute and my cupboards full from my last trip to town, I had no need to socialize and no risk of rehearing the same, lame, lamb-to-lion analogy I’ve heard every March since 1956. So I just stood there, staring at the latest blizzard. And, except for a couple feeble, lion roar sighs, I kept quiet as a lamb.

It’s human nature, I know, to lighten our Man versus Nature defenselessness by making trite fauna and flora seasonal correlations. We find the rote repetition of habitual phrases soothing—especially this year in these parts. Way back when, somebody worth listening to must have looked to the heavens and made a proclamation, right? “In like a lion…out like a lamb!” he announced and probably etched out some pictographs to record the whole story. Some years, he must have been right. Most years, his clan must have pointed to the faded drawings and retold the tale while hunkered down in whatever could shelter them from the unpredictable March weather. And the saying stuck.

I’m not sure what sort of creature this March is, but I know my daughters would have fun drawing it. Back when they were the only kids in the universe not allowed Game Boys, they used to occupy themselves during long car rides to Rangeley by challenging each other to morph as many animals as they could think of into one sketch. “This time, draw a moose-leopard-eagle-rhinoceros,” one or the other would declare, and the car would stay quiet from South Paris nearly to Rumford. I found one of the resulting animorph masterpieces shoved in an old dresser yesterday. Not really in full spring cleaning mode, but feeling like I should start taking baby steps in that direction, I was sorting through some 20-year-old camp stuff. Folded up next to a dog chewed Barbie, I came upon a pencil drawn creature with a long alligator tail, and both bird talons and moose hooves to balance his lion-like head on his camel-humped body. It was enough to snap me out of any sour weather doldrums I’d let myself slip into.

“Just keep laughing,” I told myself. “It’s all good. Spring has been finding its way up here every year without you around to fidget over it, so keep the faith.” For an extra boost, I dug out my brightest spring green sweater and put it on. Over coffee, I changed my Elmer Fudd-like Facebook picture to a profile of me enjoying warm weather and a bright blue shoreline. But when those strategies failed to do the trick, I knew it was time to shift into full-throttle attitude adjustment mode—to rely on my tried and true home remedy for keeping my chin up and my thoughts prosperous: Put the right gear on my feet, point them away from the cabin, and just get out there!

The right footwear part of my plan is crucial to its effectiveness, I’ve learned. Choose wrong, and a brisk walk to gain fresh air and a new perspective can easily turn into a death march. In January, in Ice Road Tracker, you might remember me professing my love for Yaktrax which, back then, were just the thing for keeping me safe and vertical during my daily walks. Well, I’m much worldlier now, and my needs have matured. Once my road surfaces got really serious from repeated thawing and refreezing, I had to ditch my Yaktrax like a middle-school crush. Lately, I’ve been going out with real studs—metal ones strapped to my boots so I don’t cripple myself six ways to Sunday taking a walk. And, when I want a real fling, I can still strap on my snowshoes and get way out there.

“I guess we’ll still be walkin’ on the wild side a few more weeks,” I concluded as I reacquainted myself with my snowshoes. My gear of choice the other day, they helped me negotiate my luge track of a driveway till I was once again trekking up my favorite hillside across the road. As usual, it wasn’t long before my attitude fell in step as I made my way up the path that always brings me back to center. No matter what kind of footwear and how much resolve it took, I’d walked this path—in summer, through winter, and back into the promise of spring. And, along the way, I’d eaten raspberries sweet as the August sun, watched lupines bloom and hibernate, and a moose leading her yearling to browse. On a snowy day not so different from this, I’d brought my first Rangeley Christmas tree down off the hill with me. Once again reaching the top on the first blustery day of spring, I paused to appreciate my place overlooking the lake and mountains, and the reasons why I was there came back into focus. As I pointed my feet homeward, I could feel the sun gaining strength and hear the gurgle of melting run-off finding its way down Bemis  beneath the snow. Spring was under there somewhere, I could feel it.

By the time I reached home, my Elmer Fudd hat was crusted over with new snow again. But even though I had to inch down the driveway like a drunken penguin, my smile didn’t fade. Not much can stop me from strapping on gear and getting out there, I’ve determined. I have given up, though, on trying to decide exactly what kind of creature the month of March is. He’s a gnarly one, I figure, with thick fur and long, ice gripping talons on the end of his paws—a beast that eats little lambs for breakfast. Whatever he looks like, I sure hope he lets spring come to Rangeley sometime before April showers bring May flowers.

Signs of spring

Joy Clough2 Comments

When the phone rang the other day, my heart did its little “Ooooh…somebody’s checking in on us!” dance and my feet had to join in to carry me to the other end of the house by the third ring. Caller ID said it was Becky calling from Moab, Utah, and I got breathless. What a nice girl, calling to check in so we won’t worry about her making it through the long, harsh winter all alone out there!

“Hi, Mom! It’s 65 degrees and I’m in flip-flops, shorts and a tee-shirt!”

“Great, honey…awesome!” I said. Although I kept my voice light, my upper lip instinctively curled into the kind of snarl a dog does when you put a treat just out of reach and then snatch it away.

“How about you guys?” she wanted to know. “Got much snow left?”

“Yeah, you might say that,” I said, shuffling back to the window. I knew I could give her a Rangeley weather update without up-to-the-minute visual clarification, but I still needed to look one more time just the same. No longer propelled by happy feet, my walk slowed to the pace I get when I go on food recognizance in the IGA. I gazed outside with that same expectant look I get when I survey the grocery aisles—thinking maybe if I search really hard, I’ll see something new—my favorite tea, or maybe more produce from distant, exotic lands. But, once again faced with the evidence, I must accept what’s right in front of me. The snow piles and contours in my back yard are just as I remembered from the last surveillance. I can look away, blink a bunch of times, or hide my head like a spoiled kid. But when I look again, not much will have changed. Although I am starting to see some bare roof shingles on my out buildings, and I’ve heard tell there’s a patch of pussy willows somewhere between here and Stratton, for the most part it seems spring is hiding away in the land of gourmet tea, green, leafy vegetables and flip-flops.

“Remember those pictures I posted of the back yard on Facebook?” I asked Becky. “That was two storms and another foot of snow ago.”

“Woah,” she said. “The grass is all green here and I got a sunburn playing volleyball yesterday!”

“Humph,” I replied. “Well, I’m down to just one layer of underwear, I got to leave my ear flaps up all day yesterday, and if the dogs jump really high I can see them out in their pen above the drifts. So, no grass yet, but there’s a big brown spot up the end of the driveway we’re hoping is dirt!” Thanks for sharing, I told Becky, and to make sure she put sunscreen on. Right after she hung up, I’m pretty sure she called her sister and asked her to drive up from New Hampshire just to double-check on us.

I’ve known for years that these Western mountain lakes generate their own weather and the winter-to-spring cycle can run slower than cold molasses. Now that I’m here year-round to actually witness the process, it must be like watching the proverbial pot boil, and Old Man Winter really isn’t taking any longer than normal to loosen his grip and let spring take over. But I’m thinking there is some twisted connection between our prolonged winter and the sign out in front of the Oquossoc Grocery. As of this posting, it no longer reads “Do the Snow Dance!” which we apparently did with abandon. Now it declares “Snow All Year Round!” I’ve never actually seen anyone out there changing the letters on that sign. The words just somehow appear in the middle of the night. If I wasn’t so petrified of ladders, I just might get up there and alter its cosmic energy pull. Something like “Spring: It’s a Fun Season Too!” might do the trick.

Folks in other social circles are blaming this year’s tough winter on a mixed up Ground Hog’s Day prediction. Back in February, he emerged from his hole and said spring was just six weeks away. The nerve of that wood chuck! How could he and his stuffy handlers come out with all their pomp and circumstance and say that? Aren’t there laws against false advertising? Shadow or no shadow, I wasn’t paying all that much attention. Up here, we don’t have Punxsutawney Phil or anything close. We have a bad ass red squirrel who hangs out in the shadow of the wood shed hogging all the bird seed, and he’s not real prophetic.

Tom and I did manage to have ourselves a little spring fling when we learned we’d be getting some money back on our taxes. It wasn’t a terribly huge sum as far as those things go, just enough for us to splurge on some California vegetables to go with supper, and to dive into the Margarita mix we’d kept cold since summer hoping for such an occasion. Thanks to springing the clocks ahead, we could still see the big expanse of white that used to be our lake from the dining room window. We toasted to that, to our most memorable winter yet, and to warmer days ahead. By a few sips in, we started to feel downright tropical. A few sips later, we recalled a winter vacation when we tried to describe Rangeley to our boat captain in the Turks and Caicos. Tom told him that yes, we had a boat of our own, but since our lake was iced over we had to wait till May to launch it again.

Our guide gazed down at the turquoise water like he was trying to form a picture that just wouldn’t come into focus, and slowly shook his head. “Only ting ice be good for, mon, is puttin’ in drink!” he said.

He did have a point, we agreed, swirling our frozen Tequila around in our drinking jars. But ice had also come in real handy for holding us up on our snowshoes out on the lake too. “It sure was pretty out there this winter,” we concluded. Not Caribbean pretty, but a different, breathtaking kind of pretty that warmed our hearts and invigorated all our senses. We drank to that, too, and did a little spring dance.