The Beagle Loser

Joy Clough3 Comments

“Let’s get you on that scale, Toby!” she ordered.

Suddenly, the room filled with as much drama as could be mustered on a March morning in Rumford. Tom and I held our breath, waiting with hopeful trepidation. Watching the flashing electronic numbers climb, then dip, then soar again was like a moment straight out of my favorite TV show. Except there was no music building to a suspenseful crescendo, no Alison Sweeney in a tight dress and high heels wishing Toby luck (and making Tom wish for things he couldn’t have). And there was definitely no Dolvett the trainer waiting in the wings in Spandex, flexing his biceps and flashing his Hollywood smile.

“Thirty-eight point six,” she announced when the numbers finally stopped. “Toby’s gained over seven pounds!” Tom and I did a classic “agony of defeat” expression just like on the show, jaws dropped, shoulders slumped. But teammate Toby just whined a bit and waddled away. Nope, he was not The Biggest Loser and probably wouldn’t be for a very long time. He was an old, fat beagle, plain and simple. And that verdict was about to be unceremoniously verified by Dr. Kent during the dog’s annual day of reckoning at the Countryside Animal Hospital.

For the first time, Dr. Kent’s assistant had to use caution when hoisting Toby onto the exam table, lifting with her knees not her back so they could proceed to prod the hound’s expanding girth. Toby just tried to maintain his footing and a scrap of his dignity, too complaisant to put up a fuss, and much too simple to remember what happened on that cold, hard table last time he was there. A year ago, after an eye-popping search for his prolapsed prostate, the vet recommended neutering. “Plus, while I got him under I should really yank a bunch of those rotten teeth, too,” he said.

“Guess the poor dog needs help on both ends,” I agreed. “And whatever you do, don’t let us leave without a refill for his phenobarbital. Wouldn’t want to be back up in Rangeley and have him start seizing again!”

Seizures, we’ve discovered, are a beagle thing—almost as common in the breed as their unbridled urge to eat until they pop. Luckily, Toby’s seizures are kept under control with Phenobarbital and, luckily, he is the only family member on meds. Preventing his little brain from misfiring means administering small doses of a controlled substance twice a day,  blood tests once a year to check for side effects, and stockpiling a steady stash for him up in the woods an hour away from the nearest pharmacy. I’m pretty sure drug cartels are masterminded with less planning than scoring Toby’s pills!

“We’re hoping the poor guy’s liver isn’t shot from the medication,” I told Dr. Kent as he continued to poke and palpitate. “Seems like it’s distended. And his hind end is starting to give out a little. He can barely hold his tail up anymore. I read that was a side effect, too.”

The vet cast us a knowing smile. He was no stranger to old dog owner denial, and ours was a classic case. “This dog’s just fat,” he chuckled. “He’s getting old and he’s eating way more than he needs.” No liver problems. No masses. Just beagle blubber. Turns out that two cups of Purina is an excessive amount of dog chow, especially if the cup measure is an ancient oversized coffee mug, and the dog who’s chowin’ on it is devoid of metabolism-boosting testosterone. Plus the real Catch 22, according to Dr. Kent, is the poor pooch can’t exercise because he can’t exercise. Increased poundage stresses his joints making him unable to walk much faster than a turtle, which results in—you guessed it—increased poundage.

“It’s official, Toby,” Tom announced as we loaded our lard hound into the Subaru and headed back up Route 17. “You’re on a strict diet.” Toby just wagged his tail as best he could and stared out the window, oblivious. The reality of his new regimen would not start to sink in (if anything ever really sinks in) until later. His ritualistic dinnertime prance around the pantry would be rewarded with one measly scoop out of the food bucket and, a few gulps later, he’d be dumbfounded worse than ever as he stared into his empty bowl.

That was over a month ago. And while Toby isn’t saying much, we think it’s slowly starting to dawn on him like an overcast morning over a very shallow pond: his two-scoop days are over. Getting a peanut butter chaser to make his Phenobarb slide down easier is a thing of the past, too. And, instead of pre-washing every dish before it goes into the dishwasher, he’s now left standing in the kitchen, watching me with sad, gravy-colored eyes as I rinse the dishes myself, and his favorite bad habit trickles down the drain. It’s hard, we imagine, being on a doggie diet. He’s got no Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz, no buddy system or online support. He can’t “go out and do something special for himself” because he’s been good all week. He can only go along with the program, his unconditional love for us—his food dis-ablers—still somehow compensating for the growling in his stomach. In many ways, though, he’s got it easy. He has no dilemmas about working healthier eating habits into his lifestyle, no worries about midnight binges, no choice whatsoever in whether he’s going to slip up and put the food bag back on big time. And, best of all, Toby’s got company. So as to not follow in his fat footsteps, Toby’s brother, Kineo, is cutting back too. (He’s still young and pretty trim but, hey, he’s named after a rugged mountain on Moosehead Lake and can’t just be letting himself cave in.)

Toby Tubbette. Mr. Pin Head. Little Fat Boy. Sausage Pooch. Beagle Bongo Belly. As Toby looks less and less like a circus balloon dog stuck too long atop the air tank, our pet names for him will most likely change. But, for now, we’re just glad he stopped walking like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh while his brother gallops ahead, and that even his “erect tail dysfunction” is going away. Course we won’t get the official weigh-in till next March when we go back down the mountain for blood tests and another drug run. Meanwhile, Tom got an interim progress report the other day when he couldn’t help sneaking a peek on the bathroom scale. “Toby’s lost three pounds already,” he announced after weighing himself, then hopping on while holding onto Toby. Good thing for our beagle loser it wasn’t me getting on the scale with him! Then I’d be dropping pounds, but the numbers wouldn’t even budge for poor starving Toby Tubbette!

Working out….and up…and all over

Joy Clough2 Comments

My closer-to-the-city self used to think that working out meant getting in my car and then going inside. I’d drive over to Planet Fitness and schlep around from one piece of equipment to another, relying on the screaming yellow and purple color scheme and the gargantuan thumbs-up logo to make me want to jump on and go like hell. On good days, I’d  burn 283 calories while finding muscle groups I never knew I had, and watching Dr. Oz cure things I hoped I’d never get. Other days, not so much. If I timed it wrong, the TVs strung over the elliptical would be broadcasting soap operas or golf, leaving me staring out  the window at the parking lot, shuffling in place and feeling slovenly. Then, on May 5, 2010, I  shook up my fitness routine and thrust it into overdrive. “I’m moving to Rangeley!” I told the hello/buh-bye girl at the front desk as I shouldered my gym bag one last time. She shrugged, slid me some paperwork, and punched me out of the computer forever.

I found the Planet Fitness paperwork stuffed under some musty socks when I went to re-purpose my gym bag months later. Deep into my first Rangeley winter, I had to chuckle at my signature and all the fine print above it that placed me on my own—outside the “Judgement Free Zone.” I’d officially attested that, yes, I believed whatever new planet I was bound for would offer me a better deal for staying in some kind of shape than $10 a month.

But I was making that happen, I realized. With a bit of ingenuity and a lot more footwear, I’d learned it was possible to keep vertical, keep moving forward, and stay one step ahead of the potluck suppers and wild blueberry pancakes. I’d also learned that an extra canvas bag would be much more useful for lugging mail out of the post office or old magazines to friends than gym clothes.

As I said back in Homebody Building,  I am aware that Rangeley has the best health club ever seen in this neck of the woods. And I agree with my in-town friends—the view from there is spectacular. But I prefer to enjoy it from the back lawn, outside the building, especially when our local clinic brings up the Doobie Brothers and other bands to put on a benefit concert there. While I do miss the social aspects of club membership, I politely decline going inside to join up. I’ve done the math several times and 40 miles round trip to walk on the treadmill or splash around in the pool takes the wind right out of my sails before I even think about throwing my gym bag back into the Subaru. So I settle for sticking to my “at home” routine, substituting the extra car travel with just “getting out there” under my own steam. I may not be able to socialize in my sweats or ask my girlfriends what’s up while we’re getting pumped for water aerobics. But where else can I do the “road wave” to any neighbor who might pass by on my fitness circuit?

This time of year, with only a few of us non-summer stragglers left in my neighborhood, the road wave becomes less and less necessary. And, when it’s snowing again and still blowing a gale,  getting out there is more about blowing the dust off, keeping the shack nasties at bay, and choosing direct contact with the elements over DirecTV. My daily formula for not “letting myself go” 100% dormant becomes 99% stubborn commitment, 1% motivation.

“I’m going out there!” I declare from my back door, wearing my Elmer Fudd hat and layer upon layer of wind and water resistance. “And, dammit, I’m staying out there at least as long as it took me to get all dressed up to do it!” Most days I fit in a decent routine, solo or with Tom and the beagles. My Stair Master is now a hill across the road, my elliptical a pair of snowshoes and poles, and my view far more inspirational than a parking lot or even Dr. Oz. And although I don’t have any fancy equipment or giant thumbs-up (except those I give myself), I have managed to stay in stride with the latest fitness trends. Here’s how:

  • 10,000 steps: I don’t own a pedometer, but figure I get pretty close to 10,000 steps on my jaunts. And I’d bet anything some of my steps pack more of a punch than strolling around the mall. To those who do happen to drive by and notice, I’m the “seen you out walking” woman, hoofing it all the way to Bemis and back in all manner of conditions. In winter, that means stepping out with ice grippers strapped to my heavy snow boots—not the Yaktrax I raved about two years ago. Those were OK to keep in the car in case a stretch of pavement got a bit slickery. But negotiating the luge track formerly known as my camp road has forced me to permanently graduate to serious toothy, muckle-on-for-dear-life cleats. They’re my Rangeley “shape up” shoes on steroids. Once the snow and slush builds up under those babies, my calves think they’re jogging in deep sand on a beach somewhere until my frozen head tells them otherwise.
  • Circuit training: Back at Planet Fitness, there was a special circle of equipment that guaranteed to work out every muscle group in about half an hour. On really good days, I’d make my way around the circuit before moving on to Dr. Oz and the elliptical. I liked knowing that, unlike shuffling in place, the circuit exercises had a beginning and an end. If I made it all the way around to #10, the ab cruncher machine, I’d won. I’d done all the reps and pretended I might be able to hone a six pack. Out here, though, “circuit” training is not about machinery, but common sense and the laws of locomotion. It means ” If I go over there, or through this, or across that, I gotta come back.” And I gotta make it before dark and before the weather changes, or both. Whether I’m out on the lake or up the hill, the circuitous principle is a powerful distinction from any indoor regimen since I typically launch forth with considerable more vigor than I can muster on my return. My last snow shoeing trek was a prime example. I strode, hell bent and full speed ahead all the way across the ice to Toothaker Island—just me and my spring fever out there under the bright blue sky. But when I turned around to head home, my tracks stretched twice as far in the distance as the steps I had taken to get over there, I swear. I figured 3,000 going and at least 7,000 coming back!
  • Yoga/Tai Chi/and other meditative motions: My yoga mat has gathered a bit of dust in recent years, I’ll admit. But I still remember the moves, and I still seek the mind-body connection that comes from thoughtful appreciation of being immersed in nature, moving to the rhythm of creation. This time of year, that often starts with my version of “downward dog” as I jackknife myself to cinch up my snowshoe straps. Some days, I manage to rise up and perform many “sun salutations” and only a few gravity-defying contortions. Other days—after a poorly executed Tai Chi maneuver to shake snow off one shoe, or a misstep into some great white abyss—I add in more deep meditative moments. “Focus on your breath,” I tell myself, my face two inches from the snow, one leg buried, and the other skewed around next to my elbow. “Just let your body sink, relax into it. Deep cleansing breaths, in…and out. Good! Remember, you have the control, the innate strength—to bend, to stand, to step into your power always!” On good days, the mantra works.
  • CrossFit/core training: It’s all the rage, I know. Confuse my muscles and jump start my metabolism with a rapid fire sequence of burning and straining. I’ve got it covered, Rangeley-style, with a custom workout as second nature as brushing my teeth. I call it the seasonal “backwards recumbent stretch, sit and shake” and it goes like this: Open the door to the Subaru, keeping your arms extended all the way out. Maintain as much distance as possible from the covering of road slime on the apparatus as you angle your gluteus maximus toward the seat. While still holding the door firmly with one hand,  sit down, but make sure you keep both legs fully extended, toes pointed outside the car. Clap your legs together firmly several times. When your boots are free of mud and slush, swivel your legs in and close the door. Repeat as needed—at the post office, the IGA, and all around the loop. If done correctly, you’ll feel it in your shoulders, your calves, and especially your core.

 

Dashing, stashing, wedding crashing

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‘Twas the day before Thanksgiving and, as usual, the Oquossoc PO was abuzz over hot topics impacting our tiny community. Who was coming to dinner. Who was going away. Who had to cook what for which relative, and who found a new way to spiff up stuffing.

In true multi-tasking mode, I was making the most of my turn at the mail “sorting” station, fishing a couple official-looking envelopes out of the reams of high-gloss junk that, two years later, still finds its way to my cramped cubby hole inside a log cabin post office. I tossed piece after piece straight into the recycling bin, all the while keeping one eye and both ears open to what was shaking “in town” before the big day. “Eat lots of turkey!” folks called as they rushed off to get ready. “Safe travels!” Sending yet another Cabela’s catalog sailing toward the bin, I nodded and smiled. The sentiments would be the same no matter where I roamed. But, while talk of cooking and eating echoed holiday banter most anywhere, up here I know the driving part is a way bigger deal.

“Have a great holiday. Drive safe!” friends called as I headed off to do the rest of my loop. In Rangeley woman lingo, that meant, “If you’re the hostess, may your electricity stay on till the turkey is cooked, and may your family from afar bring all the fresh produce you need. If you’re the one traveling, may you dine in decadence that can only come from a different kitchen, with loved ones all around the table, plus a nice warm bed to sleep it all off in that night. But, above all, be ever thankful you don’t have to go out into the cold and drive back up over the mountain after dark!”

To most well wishers who asked about my Thanksgiving plans, but didn’t have all day to listen to my roundabout answer, I just smiled and said, “You, too! Eat lots of turkey!” I’d be surrounded by loved ones—at a table next to a giant volcano mural with not a scrap of turkey on it. And, while I wouldn’t be driving home after dark, I’d be going way out of the woods, over many rivers, to two airports, and through all manner of toll booths and traffic snarls before heading back up the mountain again.

“What’s that low humming noise?” I asked Tom a couple hours after we’d packed up the Subaru and headed south. He crooked his ear toward the dash and pondered a mile or so. “I think that’s the normal sound a car makes when it goes over 50 and it’s on a paved road,” he concluded.

Good thing highway driving is one of those skills we can rely on to come back to us as needed. By the time dodging traffic gets trickier than pulling over for a logging truck hell bent on its last trip to the mill, and we need our peripheral vision for more than missing moose, we get ourselves re-acclimated. “Cripe, there must be a traffic light every hundred feet or so!” Tom said when we chugged into Rochester. “Did we notice all this stop and go when we used to live down here?”

Yeah, probably, which is one of the reasons we decided to pack it up and move off the beaten track, saving long treks for special family get-togethers or bigger travel adventures. This time, our mission south was special indeed. If successful, we’d eventually get together with family out west, way down south, and a couple points in between. Tom would spend the holiday with his brother in camo out in the Idaho bush, while I’d be with my daughters and son-in-law ‘neath a pagoda in Saugus, MA. But first, Tom had to get to the Manchester airport, and I had to get north again to hold down the fort for a week before coming back down to Logan with daughter #1 (Helen) to fetch daughter #2 (Becky), who’d be flying in from the Bahamas for the weekend to be in her friend Amy’s wedding back in Rochester.

“Phew,” I sighed, pulling down my driveway after the first leg of holiday excursions. “Made it back just before dark!” The trip “uptah camp” was a long pull, especially the stretch of Route 17 between Rumford and Oquossoc when, if I didn’t know better, I’d start to lose sight of what lured me out here. Over the last two and a half years, I’d happily become one of those “can’t really get there from here” folks that people from the other states like to joke about. On the drive back up, as the radio stations went to static and I got too road hypnotized to fish out a CD, I pondered the transformation. Why, I wondered, could I motor for 20 miles into Rangeley to get groceries with a smile on my face, while a two-mile, stop-and-go pass along my old commuting route seemed so out of the way? And why, in comparison, did my long, roundabout ride home—seemingly into nowhere—feel so straightforward? I got my answer as I came around the corner onto the Height of Land and once again squinted down at my little dot of real estate on the tip of a big, wild lake. A few more hills and a bit of long, winding road, and I’d be home.

“If we go past a Walgreens, can we stop for just a sec so I can run in and get some contact solution?” I remembered Becky asking the last time we saw her. It was June and we were in a “busy” section of Portland, trying to find our hotel. Her dad, the driver, did not commit.  And the next day we shipped her out of the Jetport to go live on an”out island” in the Bahamas without a last detour into the corner drugstore. Growing up, she could convince us to drive for hours down logging roads in search of moose no problem. But stopping in the city when we weren’t sure if we’d get “turned around”—now that was a hassle.

I made it up to Becky big time, though. Since she wouldn’t make it farther north than Rochester this visit, I was doing what her island friends called a “mule run.” She’d given me a wish list of all the items she thought she wanted but couldn’t lug down there in June. I’d fish it out of the giant totes up in the garage attic, and bring it to our Thanksgiving day rendezvous. We’d see each other just long enough to stuff her belly with Chinese food and her honkin’ backpack with fresh clothing, and off we’d go our separate ways again till Christmas.

“I miss seeing Dad,” she said. “But I’m glad he’s having a nice time with Uncle Jon.”

“He is,” I agreed, cramming in an egg roll while the waiter served a round of tiki-bowl drinks. “Aunt Nancy’s fixing turkey and all the trimmings.” We’d actually be going back through Rochester right around the time of Amy’s wedding reception, I told her. But her dad would be exhausted, and we’d still have a long way to go to get back home. Good thing she’d have plenty of time to see him at Christmas.

Two days and another airport later, Tom was back in the driver’s seat and I was catching him up on my quirky turkey day with the girls. Maybe I distracted him with my verbal meanderings, or maybe something more significant was steering him, but suddenly we were both wondering how we got off course in the city we’d called home for 30 years. “Why’d I come this way?” he asked.

I shrugged, not sure why he ended up taking the “long way around” either. But when we pulled up to the next stop light, we got our answer. Straight ahead and to the left stood the Governor’s Inn, a Rochester landmark, its parking lot filled with guests who had just gathered inside for Amy’s wedding reception dinner. “I’m going in there,” Tom said, making a hard left, “and hugging my daughter.”

And in we went, standing just beyond the buffet table, searching for Becky. We spotted her as soon as we realized our island girl had turned into the prettiest bridesmaid ever. She found us, too, as soon as she realized the only guy wearing a Mooselookmeguntic hat was her dad–on a short Thanksgiving detour, following his heart back home.

Staying past September

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“Dock’s out,” Tom announced. “Boat’s out, too.”

“Yup, I know,” I said, even though I was pretty sure he knew I knew ’cause he saw me watching the whole process from my “office” window.

Out here, stating the obvious is expected. It’s a rite of passage, our way of keeping in touch with our surroundings and in synch with the seasons while keeping our vocal chords limbered up. And the longer we live here year-round, the more necessary it becomes.

“Wind’s come up,” one of us will report at least once a day, usually right after a stiff breeze has nearly blown both our hats off. “Yup,” the other will agree. “Lake’s gettin’ choppy.”

Casual listeners (if we had any besides the beagles) might say we sound like we should live closer to town or, heaven forbid, like retired folks. But I’m glad to be right here, watching ourselves move past summer and into another fall, sharing eye-witness reports.

Not too long ago, what went on “up here” this time of year was a hypothesis, a big grey question mark. We crammed as much Rangeley life as possible between Mother’s Day and Labor Day and, most years, even squeezed in Columbus Day. But try as we might to prolong every moment, the days between having summer sprawled before us like an open-ended promise and heading back home were like a screen door on a short, tight spring. I’d barely be unpacked, just about settling in, when zing… BAM! Suddenly it was time to stuff all my canned goods into an ancient Seagram’s box and lug it back down the mountain for the winter. We’d be away then until ice-out, home but not really home, pondering how things were surviving without us “up to camp.”

“Jeez, I bet it’s pretty barren up there right about now!” I’d muse from my other kitchen sometime mid-November. Munching on limp, sawdust-flavored graham crackers pulled from my Seagram’s box of “camp stuff,” I’d be dreaming of s’mores in July. With no year-round Rangeley relativity, my off-season imagination was filled with such conjecture, and enough cold-weather adjectives to convince myself I wasn’t missing much. Part of me knew the leaves fell, the loons left and came back, and the land critters tromped through the snow until April. But, without being right there to watch, it was all just a big theory.

Each year, when the calendar pages of our other life finally wound back around to May, we switched into “going back up” gear. “You start putting stuff away, while I turn the electricity on, get the water going. Then, I’ll go down front, check the lake level, see if there’s any trees down. Maybe tomorrow, we can get over to the building supply, get those parts to fix the dock so we can put that back in.” We’d pile out of the Subaru and scatter like squirrels, a flurry of divergent activities fueled by the common purpose of getting going with summer. Our agenda was long-winded and multi-directional—pulling us around, under, over and through—allowing us to pause for a couple tranquil breaths before driving away until the next time.

Now that we stay put, our sentences are shorter, our movements slower, taking us just a few steps off center. No more hypotheses. No more figuring that whatever goes on past September, it must be dark and pretty dreary just to console ourselves. Truth is, the loons take their sweet time about leaving the lake, gathering in long, farewell dances on the cooling water until they’re ready for their journey. And yes, the leaves do fall off the trees, sometimes one by one. Before they do the birches hold on a long while against the blue of the bare mountains, their last flashes of gold no less gorgeous than the first wild flowers blooming along banks of just-melted snow. Then, there’s a pre-winter pause when the naked branches stand in contrast to the evergreens, mottling the hillsides with warm magenta and pewter. Who knew? Now I do. Being here, with Tom as my co-anchor, I know colors change and weather patterns come and go, not necessary on schedule with calendar days or vacation allowances. I’m now at leisure to flow with it, my rhythm no longer set from knowing “time is wasting,” or my “time off” is short, but by knowing it’s time. Time for stopping, for starting up again, for pausing along the way.

“Outdoor chairs are back in the garage,” Tom announced the other day.

“Yup,” I acknowledged, even though I knew he saw me watching him trudge by. Bearing witness to the Adirondack chairs’ departure from our waterfront till May, I was glad to see it looked like a natural migration rather than a funeral march as in years past. I waved and smiled, knowing that, moments earlier, I’d been sitting in one of those summer chairs, watching the last leaves fall and the loons gather, long past September.

Funky shui

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Feng shui. I know it’s the Chinese art of arranging your household environment to achieve a balanced energy flow. I know it’s pronounced fung shway because, back when I lived closer to big universities, folks talked about getting theirs checked. They told me I could pay someone to come in, feel the subtle energies bouncing in an around my knicky-knacks, and advise how to get in better alignment. I never did. And now that I live up here in the woods, I’m pretty sure I don’t have any feng shui. I’ve got funky shui.

“Mugs are here in this corner cupboard if you get up before we do in the morning,” the girls tell first-time visitors. “Help yourself to coffee or tea but…ah…just don’t use this mug with the big fish on it, or the red one here, or the brown one in back of it with the picture of the Grand Tetons. You’d mess up Mom’s mug shui!”

Yes, I must agree, they would. It hasn’t happened yet—no one has grabbed the next mug in my hierarchical ordering scheme, forcing me to use the red Moab Cafe one on a day that I was supposed to be drinking out of the big striped bass mug that reminds me of my Dad. And what if someone did? Well, my world wouldn’t spin off its axis or anything too drastic. After a moment or two of staring at the corner cupboard—mumbling to myself in a hoarse whisper and rocking gently back and forth—I’m sure I’d make do just fine with the red mug or the brown mug or, worst case, a tiny flowered one of no special significance.

I’m not sure what the sages would say about my kitchen feng shui. I imagine they might pronounce my food prep surfaces to be inauspiciously aligned. And, although they believe green to be generally conducive to promoting healing and calm, I think they’d concur the particular shade coloring my walls brings too much of a Key West vibe to the land of moose and loons. Plus, what about placing a microwave where I have to bend over to use it because I ran out of counter space above knee level? Well that must definitely “shway” my kitchen off kilter. But, hey, as long as I’m standing in it drinking my coffee from whatever consecutively favorite mug is clean, I am one with all there is, in perfect harmony.

I’ve got some funk goin’ on with my bedroom shui, too, manifested in my inability to achieve total serenity out here overlooking the lake if my bed lies unmade past mid-morning. I blame it on the beagles and how I don’t want them to get dog fur on my sheets. But deep down, I know it’s a control thing, a coping mechanism for attempting mastery over my own little nest. The behavior began when, as newlyweds, our first apartment was nicknamed the Hobbit Hole. Stuck up under the attic eaves in a downtown Victorian, by the time visitors ascended past two floors of offices, they came hunched over the threshold eye-level with my bedroom. My floral Sears bedspread became folks’ first impression of my homemaking skills. (And, now that I think about it, back when I only had a set of “his and hers” coffee mugs, my only kitchen shui on my one open shelf was the Campbell’s cans lined up next to the Norge like art deco.) Then came many working-at-home years in our new split-level house when I never thought much about kitchen and bedroom alignment. I just knew the TV, refrigerator, and all the potential napping surfaces were upstairs while my potential desktop publishing surfaces were downstairs. Making my bed before “getting down to business” kept me aimed toward professionalism and productivity and away and from turning into a Dilbert character.

“What are you afraid of, that the bedroom police are going to come in and arrest you for an unmade bed?” Tom still asks when he finds me scurrying to make it before I start my day. “Don’t be silly, I’m not afraid of that!” I assure him. But I must admit that, while all manner of inauspicious alignment can be hiding in my closet and dresser, I do feel my yin and yang move into equilibrium as I smooth out the last pillow.

Optimal bedroom feng shui, I learned on the Internet, is really more about orientation than tucked in blankets. It requires laying out my sleeping quarters so my head points in the proper direction while I slumber. In my case, based on my gender and birth date, that would be southwest. Turns out, I’m almost OK with my current layout, as long as I sleep diagonally. And even though that would push Tom out of bed, it would actually be better for him since, based on his gender and birth date, he should be aligned diagonally the totally opposite way when he sleeps! Who knew that waking up side by side sharing our picture window view of the lake could be so skewed? To set things right in the same bed, we’d have to sleep crisscrossed like an old pair of skis hanging over the fireplace at Loon Lodge!

“Back when we first built here, we never knew we’d need room for a computer,” my neighbor up the road commented when she showed me her home office tucked into her upstairs bedroom. “Nope,” I concurred. “Never thought we’d have computers uptah camp.” Or kids that grew taller than three feet, or Tupperware with lids, or laundry shelves.  Heck, my original cabin never even factored in company who didn’t want to live on the screen porch playing Yahtzee around a citronella candle! And, when we finally decided to make the Big Move to live up here full time—consolidating 3o years of stuff into our expanded but still small space—we never once consulted an energy map, mystical quadrant or feng shui compass. We moved sticky note cutouts shaped like our furniture around on graph paper and hoped some magical, unseen force would help us make it all fit. So, when it comes to office shui these days, my teeny computer desk faces northwest because that is precisely where it has to point me. And the fact that it’s a straight shot across from the broadband Internet tower on Bald Mountain while sitting me smack dab in my best possible feng shui “work or study” spot…well that’s where miracles and coincidences intersect in my corner of the universe.

I do find it nice to know that, simply translated, feng shui means “wind” and “water” and the wisdom of aligning yourself with both. That’s what the online experts told me today when I searched from my place of auspicious contemplation. “Very interesting,” I mused, moving a few steps away from my desk and into my kitchen. With my back to the breezes coming down off the mountains and in through one window, and my face toward the big blue lake in my front yard, I smiled like a true sage and sipped coffee from my chosen mug.

A friend indeed

Joy Clough2 Comments

Would I think she was crazy, my friend Lisa wondered, if she came to visit me from her in- law’s place Down East and then drove back to her folks in Connecticut by way of Keene, NH, before flying home to Ohio? Yeah, kinda, I thought. But at least she’d be a good crazy—a sweet old Nana crazy—not the kind that makes you stand at the end of your driveway wearing a tin foil hat and barking at the moon.

Once she got here Rangeley would, of course, be worth going way the heck out of her way. But she’d soon find out that coming “up the mountain” and over to my side of the lake would be more of an adventure than her average drive in the country. It would take more than a quick peek at the Maine Atlas and, before she got to my doorstep, more than a few arguments with herself about the sanity of her circuitous trip planning.

“You call that a bridge?” I could almost hear her yelling when she got to the causeway—the “you can’t miss it” landmark I told her would be a sure sign she was getting close. Like most friends from away (and plenty from in town), the old wooden one-lane bridge marked a pivotal point in her journey. She could dismiss all former notions of marine-grade, Florida Keys calendar picture causeways, aim both tires toward the other side, and forge ahead. Or she could slam on the brakes and recalculate how much a visit to my little GPS grey area was really worth.

But, assuming Lisa chose not to flee or freeze and made it down my driveway, what then? Over the past 35 years, we’d only seen each other once in a blue moon and, even then, it was within a larger circle of friends. Our visits were news flashes shouted above wedding celebrations and New Year’s parties instead of the heart-to-hearts which, long ago, had exposed our common ground. Would what we found back in college still be there for us? Would the bond we had—pre-kids, pre-menoupause, pre-pretty-much-everything—still hold?

I didn’t have to wait till the road dust settled on her rental car to know the answer was yes. Easing down the driveway, she poked her head out the window, grinning like she’d just seen me yesterday, her familiar face framed by chestnut curls still barely tamed by barrettes. “This time, I’m driving a big black couch!” she declared. I had to agree, eyeing her dark Chevy “little old lady” sedan as we hugged hello. “That thing could fit Tom’s Yaris in the trunk!” I said. But it did get Lisa here, safe and sound, swearing she didn’t even mind the drive. And this time, we had some catching up to do.

Many years ago, I walked Lisa out to her car after our friend’s wedding near Framingham, MA, to plan her visit up to my house (then in Rochester, NH) for some quality girlfriend time. “My first trip with the brand new car,” she announced. “It’s a standard.” We rolled our eyes and giggled. Neither one of us took to the highway on a whim. Driving was a necessity. Manual gear shifting wasn’t. For me, negotiating Route 128 with a standard transmission would have been a jolting experience, indeed. “You’ve got courage,” I said playfully. But I really was proud of Lisa—for her quiet determination, for the scientific mind that lay quietly beneath her playful exterior, and for other reasons, personal and professional, I’d never found an appropriate time to express.

Back then, I’d set aside a day for just us. “Helen will be at school. Becky will be at day care,” I told her. “Meet you at my house about 10:30.” I was eager to tell her how I saw “computer literacy” opening new doors. I wanted her to tell me how she came to be cross-referencing DNA molecules. I wanted to do lunch.

But Lisa called me at 11:00 that day to tell me her new car had sideswiped an oil truck at the Berwick rotary as she was coming the “back way” toward Rochester. She thought she could still drive, but could I come to the scene of the accident for moral support? On my way there, I felt sorry I’d been so sure the country route was easier than going the slightly longer way with better roads. But then I imagined her little Honda Civic colliding with a tanker truck and I was glad I’d be able to put my hand on Lisa’s shoulder and tell her “It’s not that bad.”

Lisa couldn’t stop shaking while the police officer wrote up the accident. I couldn’t stop blithering on about all the fender benders and near misses and errors in judgment that characterized my driving history. Sometimes she’d smile as she shook, and I’d walk around to look at the front of her car, trying not to suck my breath in at the same time.

We spent the afternoon at my kitchen table waiting for the insurance agent to return Lisa’s call. Between bites of day-old pizza, we talked about being lucky, being foolish, feeling scared and feeling challenged. We agreed we’d take a campsite over a cruise any day. We delved into the mysteries of DNA and desktop publishing. We parted ways after a pilgrimage in the pelting rain to find a mechanic with enough time and honesty to tell us if the car was safe to drive. It was, and Lisa left with some of the confidence I didn’t think I could help her recover when we’d hunched by her battered fender that morning. She probably didn’t realize it during her eight-hour push to get home, but she helped me find a bit of strength, too. It came from not hearing her say “I owe you one” the way casual friends do, from not feeling funny about watching her cry, and from not having to apologize for day-old pizza. It came from knowing we didn’t have to wait for tough times to appreciate being there for each other.

“You know there is a blue moon coming up this month,” Lisa said on the second day of her Rangeley visit. After a lazy morning eating blueberry pancakes and looking at the lake, we were sitting on the dock cramming three decades of girl talk into the half hour we had left before she had to get back on the road. It was time enough, though, to figure out all we needed to know.

We still felt we’d have better hair days if only we could trade. I’d take her mass of wild, natural curls, and she’d happily accept my straight, fine strands, not even caring that mine got a little help from Miss Clairol and hers didn’t need any. Kids, we concluded, didn’t come with an owner’s manual or any guarantees. But, being teenager-hardened, I could bolster her up now and then, cheer her on as she checked off the milestones still ahead of her. We commiserated that we both plodded through life in clunky shoes, sharing much the same non-feminine footwear inferiority complex. But, even though we were scared to death of what we imagined people were whispering about our clodhoppers, we loved roller coasters, the steeper the better. And, over the years, we discovered we’d both been reading the same self-help books and, while we couldn’t yet declare ourselves maintenance-free, we could swap more than a few success stories.

Before Lisa left, we captured the visit on film, huddling in front of the camera in several attempts to freeze frame our best features while cropping out those we’d rather Photoshop. Then, just before she got back in her big black couch of a Chevy, we agreed that next time it was my turn to drive for a visit. Hopefully long before the next blue moon, I’ll head out to her house in Ohio. And I’ll go by way of Cedar Point amusement park, where we hear they have some killer roller coasters. We’ll do ’em all in our sensible shoes, letting our hair get all tangled together as we careen forward, laughing the good kind of crazy girlfriend laugh that transcends time, smooths bumpy roads, and drowns out any thought of aging gracefully.

Beyond the Facebook wall

Joy Clough1 Comment

Sleep walking through my morning Facebook check, I noticed one of us had left the radio on somewhere. And, even though most days I find music distracting when I’m at my desk, I started singing along: “What if God were one of us…..”

Just my usual before work, writing-for-pay Facebook peek, I told myself. I’d be “in and out” in a few points and clicks and on to the productive part of my day. Then, mid-screen, something caught my eye and held it longer than any of the TGIF-type postings I was scrolling past in speed-read mode. A friend, so new her profile picture was still set on the generic girl icon,wrote: “Traveling first class now! LOL :-) ” Still humming along about God sitting next to me on a bus, I had my usual reaction to ”wish you were here” updates like that:  jealousy-tinged curiosity. “Who was this? And why did she need to tell me she was somewhere more exciting?” I’d have to find out, of course, before going about my business. That’s when her username hit me and stopped me cold. “Mum” it said, short and sweet, in  hot-link blue.

I slumped back in my computer chair, then sat at attention. “Mum is on Facebook?!” I whispered to myself. “I don’t even remember seeing her friend request! And who could she possibly be traveling first class with? Not my dad. They always went coach or standby.” I leaned in closer to click her link for answers and, hopefully, a recent picture or two. Then I woke up.

“Woah,” I thought, staring up at the knotty pine above my bed and listening to the lake come alive. “I haven’t had a Mum dream in a long time.” At first, when I desperately wanted them, any dreams of her would be fleeting and bittersweet, leaving me feeling alone all over again. She’d be far away, out of focus, and I’d be running to catch up with her, tell her I loved her and say goodbye. I’d wake up still a lost teenage girl, mad at a God who’d taken my mother, my best friend, when I was just venturing out in the world. Eventually, as I learned to lose my anger and heal my grief, I slowly opened up to the possibility she was never really very far away. By the time I was 40, we were back to having mother-daughter chats and happier middle of the night visits. When she did check in with me, it was a fun, laid back “whassup?” sort of encounter.

“Hey there, just popped over to say bon voyage!” she chirped. She’d stopped by the condo I was about to rent in the Caribbean and was sitting on the lanai, perpetually tanned and relaxed.

“Mum, you’re here?” I asked. “How did you get to Bonaire before me? I’m not even there yet!”

“Well,” she said, squint-smiling out at the turquoise water. “When you can go anywhere you want anytime you want, you’ll be right here, too.”

Not long after that dream (and a dream vacation in Bonaire), Mum and I had another impromptu discussion about the logistics of our new relationship. “I’m so glad you still come to see me once in awhile now that I live up in Rangeley,” I told her. “Looks like having me three and a half hours farther north doesn’t make much difference between us. But I still really want to know about Heaven. What’s it like? Where exactly is it?” She didn’t answer in words, but sent me spiraling away, up out of the dream and back into my bed. And just before she laid me down surrounded by knotty pine and balsam breezes, she whisked me out over the lake and through the white birches, stopping to hover at the glider rocker where I sat most mornings having coffee and giving thanks for my new life.

“So not only does she have coffee and sit in the sun with me,” I marveled after the latest visit just before Mother’s Day, “she’s joined my social network! She’s on Facebook!” I hugged myself and stared up at the knotty pine for a long time, not wanting to come fully down to earth yet. When I finally did get up and about, the wispy veil between me and my dreams didn’t recede, but kept everything cast in a hazy realm of possibility. “Wouldn’t that be a cool?” I murmured. “That would add a whole new dimension to my networking.” I’d have Facebook “acquaintances” (those folks I sort of remember from around town and way back in high school); friends; close friends and family (who Facebook thinks you want to stay in step with every waking minute) and now, my family beyond. That new outer sphere in my online circle would hold a big chunk of family−assuming they all gained computer wisdom in the next life.

“I like an off-color joke, you know, but the ones that Jack and Gerie Spencer are sending…well, dear, they show pictures of orgies!” my step-mom, Prudy, exclaimed. It was back during dial-up days and I was helping her clean out her in-box after another long stay at Maine Medical. When I explained as best I could about email viruses−that Jack and Gerry didn’t really intend to send her orgy pictures−she heaved a big sigh. Living in Kezar Falls, she was tickled to keep up with her far away friends on a desktop my step-brother, John, hobbled together out of parts. But she was going to have to be less gregarious with her daily prayer, recipe and “Hallmark moment” subscriptions, I told her. She just didn’t have the bandwidth or storage capacity on her email server. “I understand, dear,” she said. “John told me those nice pictures would draw very slowly…something about all that ink coming down the phone line.”

Her password was “baldgranny” and we were blessed that she remembered it in between chemo rounds so she could log on and tell us how terrific it was to stay connected out in the pucker brush. Prudy did cross the bridge toward computer literacy, but never made it to broadband or past “clunking” with her mouse on a low-res screen. She’d be all over Facebook, though. And I’m pretty sure we’d have to convince Mark Zuckerberg to add a “Wonderful” button next to the “Like” one ’cause Prudy would want to clunk that like crazy!

What a new age that would be, I thought, if all of us could reconnect. Then, not only would I be allowed to chat with my daughters and many of their friends (having earned my status as one of the non-creepy online moms). I’d have a really special Internet Service Provider hooking me up to my moms and others beyond the wall. “Yup, I’m up to 209 regular Facebook friends,” I’d brag. “Plus, last I looked, about 12 spirit Facebook friends!”

Dad, I’m sure, would be sharing his biggest fish pictures ever. By now, he’d have blown way past his  dog-eared Maine Atlas and even Google Earth in his quest for mapping all his “secret” spots. I’m also pretty sure my father-in-law, Lee, would be a lifetime-plus subscriber to ancestry.com, posting links to Clough databases far beyond his off-line ’80s research. Peering over his shoulder, a comfortable distance from actually having to touch a keyboard, my mother-in-law, Ruth, would be happy to see “all those pictures you can’t take with regular film anymore.” And Mum, well she’d have graduated from Internet for Dummies with honors. With speed and grace honed from years of sharing everything she ate, said and did with her folks in Chicago by way of an Underwood typewriter, she would be a “real whiz” by now. No corny joke, cutesy quote, or “you gotta see this” clip that made its way on her wall would go unshared with me, my sister, Jan, and half of Heaven and earth!

“Then I really wouldn’t get any work done,” I concluded, slowly returning to my usual, semi-rational state. Between waiting to see if Helen and Becky’s chat buttons flashed green, keeping up with Jan “poke, poke, poking” me every few seconds, and posting my own riveting Rooted In Rangeley updates, I’d be glued to Facebook. Just like the social media critics warn, I’d be “forever stuck in high school” with my virtual friends−stuck, right where my Mum and I left off, swapping silly girl talk filled with smiley faces and hearts, and a few YouTube shots of her dancing in the kitchen.

For the first time this year, I posted a Facebook picture of Mum on Mother’s Day. I wished I could have found one of her out on the lake wearing her huge straw hat from Zayre’s department store. (The one I remember had a gaudy orange scarf attached to it so it wouldn’t blow off, and Jan and I swore if she ever wore it anywhere near shore we would act like we didn’t know her.) Instead, I had to settle for scanning in the last good Polaroid of her. The image was pixelated, grainy, but her trademark grin had never faded as it smiled back from my timeline.

It was only up on my wall for a couple seconds before Jan commented: “Miss you, Mum. XO Talk soon!″

(Author’s Note: I post this today for my Mum, my forever best friend, who died suddenly on July 25th, 1974. She’s found some very special ways to come back to me since. To read more about it, see my Come and Meet Those Dancing Feet stories.)

Procrastin-ista

Joy Clough1 Comment

You know the commercial. The girl’s never teetered off the pavement in her outrageously silly shoes. She’s wearing some sort of paisley scarf, a tweed skirt and a blouse more ruffled than a partridge on the prowl. Only the blouse is pink, and the necklace she’s draped it with looks like she didn’t bring enough money to a rummage sale. But she does have money—not enough to shop the high-end stores—but enough to go to TJ Maxx more than I brush my hair. At least that’s what she says when she stops mid-strut and smirks into the camera:

“I used to be a fashionista. Now I’m a Maxxinista!”

“Well whoopie for you, chickie,” I tell her from my TV chair, defiantly crossing my fleece-draped arms over my ancient jammie t-shirt. “I was a Maxxinista before you were born!”

Hard to believe to see me now, with my daily “look” featuring must-have items I pluck off a deer antler hook in the pantry. But I used to go shopping, as in actually going shopping. I’d drive to TJ Maxx, paw through the clothing racks, and drive home with whatever outfits survived me squinting at myself in the dressing room house-of-horrors mirror. Yup, I was a well-dressed up-and-coming working woman once, and I had the shoulder-padded tops and pleated pants to prove it. But that was back when I ran my own marketing communications business, and sometimes I had to match a skirt, blouse and blazer so I looked like I belonged in a boardroom instead of back home working in my basement office in my fuzzy pants. As it turned out, though, the classiness of my business attire was inversely related to my career success. The more skilled I got, the less my wardrobe looked like I drew a decent paycheck. By the time I’d made a name for myself in high-tech, I never got dressier than Dockers unless I wanted to start a rumor that I had a job interview somewhere else during my lunch hour.

Now that I’ve left my office job and moved up to Rangeley, I’ve got the no-nonsense, all-weather, mountain-to-shore wear to prove it. Gone are the blazers and most of the Dockers, and any footwear that can’t function as either slipper-shoes or boot-sneakers. All terrain Tevas are OK, too, as long as they’re loose enough to strap over wool socks. I stay in my computer chair for shopping sprees, pointing and clicking, and hoping for free shipping and a lifetime return policy. Yup, I used to be a Maxxinista. Now I’m a “remote” working-at-home-in-the-woods technical writer who works almost as hard to figure out just the right Rangeley outfit for any given moment. So far, I’ve been a couple weather patterns and a couple layers short of hitting it right.

As I said back in Fashionably Late, we don’t actually have summer, fall, winter and spring in Rangeley. We have summer (for about two weeks in August), almost winter, winter, and not-quite summer yet. Being weather-ready means having a huge row of deer antler hooks draped with all manner of L.L. Bean basics close at hand. It also makes putting anything under the bed or up in the attic because it’s off-season seem pretty silly. And you can bet I never bother to just “accessorize.” I don’t buy a plaid top just because one stripe matches a pair of mauve slacks waiting to be completed in my closet. All purchases must go with at least two other layers and, ideally, be water-repellent and wind-proof.

“Look at this cool top I’m buying,” I said to Tom. He gazed at the sporty little Spandex jacket on the Land’s End website and nodded his approval. “I’ll wear it over my bathing suit when I want an extra layer for snorkeling. It matches my suit perfectly! Plus it’s got some sort of sun shielding properties in the fabric.” Even so, long after I clicked “Buy,” I wondered whether I’d really get $50 worth of wear out of a bright aqua piece of beach wear called a “rash guard”.

“Hey, Mumma, do you think I’ll wear this?” Becky asked last month, “or will it just put me over the weight limit? I don’t want to pay a huge baggage fee for a yellow sweater that only goes with a few things.” Standing amid a sea of clothing, she was holding up a daffodil colored cardigan she’d plucked off one of her “maybe” piles. After spending a couple years living in the desert, a winter on the slopes in Colorado, and then a month rafting the Grand Canyon, she was packing to go teach in the Bahamas for a year. She was climatically confused, for sure, and coming to stay in Rangeley in May and June had messed her up even worse. “Maybe it’ll be good for layering if it gets cool at night,” she concluded, and stuffed it in the side of one of her honkin’ duffel bags.

“Hmmm, maybe,” I said halfheartedly. I was in her room to offer moral support and, hopefully, a bit of motherly advice. But what did I know? I was confused and more than a little off kilter myself. Stretched out on the bed, I was gazing listlessly at the tan still showing on the half-inch of skin between my sock ridges and the cuffs of my fuzzy pants. And I was pretty sure there was still some sun-kissed skin on my forearms where the sleeves of my little aqua Spandex jacket had left them bare and warm, even though I’d been too bummed to look for a month. You betcha, I’d worn the thing—not in Rangeley yet…maybe not ever in Rangeley—but on the balmy island of Bonaire. A month ago, it matched the Caribbean blue sea perfectly and had been my must-have layer for snorkeling and then sitting for hours sinking my sockless feet in the sand. “Yeah, layering is good, Becky,” I sighed, envying her upcoming destination but not her current location in cold, damp Mooselook surrounded by four seasons of gear busting out of giant Tupperware totes.

Ah, this was the year I was going to return to Rangeley with spring in full swing. None of that still winter, not-quite spring crap. This was the year I’d keep my island clothes close by instead of waiting to haul them all out again sometime in August. After all, ice out had come wicked early and folks told me on Facebook that, the minute I went away, it was 80 degrees in Rangeley—”the same temperature” I thought required a long flight south. Strategizing on the plane ride home, I had a smug grin a lot like the girl in the TJ Maxx commercial. I was going to think positive, stay on top of my fashion game, and swap tank tops for sweaters the minute I got home because I’d need that summer stuff soon! And, for the first year in my adult life, I’d done just that. I had all my woollies stored and my light ‘n airy clothes handy. No procrastination. No digging through Tupperware. I was ready to enjoy quality time with Becky, to guide her in being practical yet fashionable, to get her in the tropical spirit.

‘Course all that “it’s so warm we’re drinking beers out on the deck here in April” was only a cruel joke. When I got home, summer was still way far around a cold, rainy corner. It  didn’t get here till after Becky left and had been gone long enough to wonder what ever possessed her to bring a daffodil colored cardigan to the Bahamas in June. And, when summer finally did come, it blinded me. Still in the sweatshirt and flannel-lined pants I’d hauled back down from the attic, I was sweeping trailings from having to get the wood stove cranking in June out the back door. Suddenly, the sun came blazing out from behind a cloud and stayed there, intensely hot! I spun around on my slipper-shoes and went to dig out my cute little Spandex jacket, knowing it would double as a windbreaker over my bathing suit when summer changed its mind again.

From Daddy’s little girl

Joy Clough3 Comments

(Author’s Note:  The following is from my writing archives (circa 1988). I post it in honor of my stashed-away memories—of my dad, of spending my best Father’s Days in Rangeley—and, especially, of Helen and Becky and their awesome fishing/adventure buddy, Tom.)

Dear Dad:

Mom said I should make you a special Father’s Day card ’cause I’m such a good drawer. Plus I’m the big sister and little Becky can’t really hold onto a crayon yet, never mind write big girl words. Mom used to let me just point at cards in the store and then she’d buy whichever one sounded pretty good, but she doesn’t let me do that since I won that Mother’s Day card contest at Hannaford. Now I gotta send my very best to everyone.

I did sneak a peak at the store cards, though—the ones Mom says tons of dads would be opening up all across America the same time as you. Know what? Mom was right. None of ’em were really for you, Dad. They all had pictures of golf clubs or cartoon puppies holding up hearts or just “Father” in gold, squiggly letters. I only found one that showed a guy on a pond early in the morning but there wasn’t one trout rising, so that wasn’t any good, either! After all, Father’s Day is for fishin’ with your dad, right? Why else would it be on a Sunday in June?

So I started drawing some fish to decorate your card, but they sort of looked like hot dog buns with wings. Then I got a better idea. Remember how Wheaties stopped putting pictures of basketball players—and that little Mary Lou something or other from the Olympics who was kind of like Minnie Mouse in a leotard—on their cereal boxes?Remember how they just left a white place on the front and everyone was supposed to draw in their own faces? Well, we have a box that Mom’s been trying to make me eat ever since I begged for it in the store. She says it’s the breakfast of champions. I asked her if a champion was somebody who liked old flaky stuff with no sugar on it. She said: “No, it’s someone who plays a sport better than anybody else. Now eat up or you’ll be late for school.” So Dad, I drew you in the face on the box, with your fishin’ hat and your pole, and that silly grin you get when you pull in a lunker. It came out real nice and I was gonna cut it out for you. But then Mom hollered ’cause I’d been sitting there in my pajamas drawing for a really long time, and she grabbed the box and stuffed it back in the cupboard. That’s O.K., though, ’cause we should finish the Wheaties before I cut the box open, and you’ll probably need some this weekend to give you big muscles for turning that huge crank on your boat trailer. I betcha Michael Jordan can’t pull a boat right up out of water like that!

Mom says I’m pretty lucky you take me fishin’ all the time cause lots of dads go off by themselves instead. Wouldn’t that be kinda boring though? You wouldn’t have anybody to talk to just floating around all day alone. And who’d share their cheese curls with you and get your beers out of the cooler and tell you knock-knock jokes?

Thanks, Dad, for being my fishin’ pal. You’re the nicest guy in the whole world. Someday I hope you buy me one of those vests with the tiny pockets all over it just like yours ’cause I bet I could fit about 20 hundred mini Snickers in there and I’d never hafta go in for supper. Maybe when I’m seven or eight, O.K.? Boy, when I was four, I didn’t even know how to get the line to come off the fishin’ pole out into the water without making a helluva mess, remember? Now look at me, I can do it so good that my hook goes to the very bottom, right down in the rocks and weeds, and stays there. Maybe next summer you’ll let me push all those neat buttons on your boat. Like on that beeping box in front of your seat you said helps us find fish, and that giant up and down humming reel off the back of the boat you’re always playing with to catch ’em once you find ’em. How do they work…sort of like magic? If I push the buttons, too, maybe we’ll really find some fish!

You show me lots of things when we’re out fishin’, like how important it is not to talk to people we’ve never seen before. It was a good thing you didn’t answer that man over at Quimby Pond when he asked you what you were catchin’ all your trout with. You acted like you didn’t even hear him, which was very smart ’cause he was a stranger.

I want you to have the best Father’s Day ever, Dad. Maybe we could take the canoe down the Salmon Falls River to that cove where I went swimming once by accident. It was all mucky and weedy and you said pickerel like that kinda stuff. Too bad Mom didn’t. Or maybe we’ll try Winnipesaukee. I like it there ’cause it’s fun to watch all those boats racing around. Mom calls ’em “fancy assed” because they’re way sparklier than our boat and must remind her of the time I dumped glitter all over the kitchen floor. Do you think Don Johnson is a bass fisherman? I’m pretty sure I saw him go by last time we were out. Boy, I bet his kid was having a blast!

No matter where we go, I don’t want you to sit and worry about work and whatever it is you do there. And I sure hope we can find a spot where there’s not too much wind, where the water’s not too warm or too cold, and where there’s lots and lots of fish biting all around our boat. That’s what I’m wishing for you on Father’s Day, Dad, ’cause you sure deserve it.

Your daughter,

Helen

Songs of warmer weather

Joy Clough1 Comment

South of here, the sounds of spring would call me out of my seasonal semi-stupor even if I  was still hunkered down and had barely cracked a window yet. I’d be driving somewhere in a fog or maybe stuck in my kitchen, hoping that first blast of fresh April air would blow some dust off me. Suddenly spring would reach in and knock me upside the head.

“Peeeeeep…..Peeeeeeep…..Peeeeeep!” Peepers! Their familiar falsetto was loud enough to jerk me awake—to make me look hard for daffodils and other boisterous signs of the season I’d probably missed—and mesmerizing enough to make me leave the window open till the heat had to kick back on.

Once they caught my attention, I’d be all ears for the peepers. Standing on my back deck in my fuzzy pants each evening, I strained to hear them bring every little pucker brush puddle back life. As the tundra thawed, the crescendo swelled until, by May, hundreds of teensy frogs—wound to a frenzy in the circle of life—surrounded me in one, long tumultuous chorus.

Peepers weren’t the only species to wake me from my hibernation. During one particularly belated spring, I didn’t even need to open the window to hear the rhythm of pent up instinct bursting forth outside.

“FWUMPPP….Fwapp, fwapp, fwapp, fwapp….flop.”

I lay in bed listening and wondering. An early morning illusion perhaps, a figment of a pre-dawn dream state? “FWUMPPP….Fwapp, fwapp, fwapp, fwapp….FLOP.”

The only other noise it resembled was the coffee maker. But, this was way before Mister Coffee came with a computer chip to automatically respond to my brewing habits and—unless wishful thinking had somehow started it perking—the thing wasn’t even on. I shuffled out toward the kitchen to be greeted by the roundest-breasted robin ever perched on the deck railing staring at my dining room window. He peered up at the glass so intently it was obvious he wasn’t just admiring my African violets on the other side of the sill. He’d cock his head from side to side, take a running leap and FWUMPPP… right into the window he’d go. Then he’d hover and peck, perch and fly…FWUMPPP and repeat. Over and over and over and over.

Our first explanation was that he had the worst case of jet lag in bird history and was disoriented and starving. Five days later, we were still waiting for Nature to help him get his groove back when we finally went out to observe his view from the deck on the other side of the window. “He sees another big robin sitting all fat and sassy in a tree in his territory and he’s fighting back,” Tom concluded. And judging from the appearance of the deck railing, this feisty fella was at least a pound of food a day away from starving. Two days later, he was still defending himself against his own reflection and driving us completely batty. “What is that bird’s problem?” I hollered for the 15th time in a row.

Way too much bird-and-bee kind of energy, I figured. I was grateful that my friends the peepers could keep their spring fever percolating out in the swamp where it belonged and didn’t use it to propel themselves headlong into the house!

At the time I didn’t fully appreciate my little heralders of spring and their constant background noise. I didn’t realize that moving north would trigger a complete role reversal—that I’d be the one busting forth announcing to the world I’m ready for spring, yearning for an answer to my call. Sometimes I’m drawn to go outside in my PJs or even out in the yard till my slippers get soaked. Other times, I find myself on shores even more exotic than Mooselook.

“Ruck…ah…caaaauuw!” I sang off my lanai. It was early spring a year ago and, after a winter in Rangeley that almost froze off my tail feathers, I was more than thrilled to answer the call from the nearby plumeria trees. “Ruck…ah…caaaauuw!” (A couple mornings later, I’m pretty sure the folks from California on the balcony next to me were much more curious about my mental state than where I’d traveled from on the mainland.)

Luckily, by the time I migrate back to Rangeley, the songs of spring aren’t far behind. But, more than ever, I need to go out of my way to listen. “WhaWHO….WHO…ha…WHO….WHO…ha…WHO!”
Filtered through my R-25 insulated log walls, the first loons on the lake beckon. I rush outside, closer to the sound, tilting one newly-naked ear to the night air. Sometimes I answer, especially if Jim Beam comes with me. But mostly, I look out over the dark, ice-rimmed water, and smile. Soon, the Joy Birds will join in the song!

Much as I love peepers and loons, if I ever had to set my feelings for my Maine home to just one melody, it would be the Joy Bird’s. He’s been calling me back here ever since I was a kid, letting me walk without ever missing an IPod. “BOO..DOO…bum-ditty…bum-ditty..bum-ditty…bum!” To sing that sweetly, I imagined he had to be prettier than anything that came to my feeder before the squirrels took over. Must have lots of red on him to sound like that, or maybe blue, I thought. Then, when I finally got my first good look at the lusty whistler, I stood in disbelief for a long time before consulting Audubon and finding out my Joy Bird was actually a white-throated sparrow. A rather nondescript brown and white-throated sparrow, he was, with the tiniest thatch of yellow on his fervently singing head. “Fondly known as the ‘Whistler of the North,” my bird book said, “this sparrow heralds spring in the woods with his familiar song: Oh sweet, Canada, Canada, Canada.”

“Really?” I thought. I guessed BOO…DOO…bum-ditty…bum-ditty..bum-ditty…bum was too much of a mouthful for the Audubon folks.

Back outside with the bird book closed, my Joy Birds concurred. “BOO…DOO…bum-ditty…bum-ditty..bum-ditty…bum” they called, reminding me that the simplest creatures often sing the most beautiful songs. “Sweet Canada, my ass!” I chuckled, these little guys know the sweet spot is right here 40 miles from the Quebec border. Throwing my blonde-tufted head back until my parrot-bright tie dye peeked out from under my almost-summer fleece, I answered: “Oh, sweet warm, weather warm, warm weather!“