MAINE

Mike and I have been to Maine a number of times. In fact we spent our honeymoon there. We were heading for Nova Scotia...in mid-June 1996, and we stopped in Maine for the night. I was so cold, I was wearing all sorts of layers, and we decided not to go farther north than Acadia. We were tent camping, and it was raining, as is often the case for the state of Maine. It rained, I believe, 14 out of the 16 days we were gone. It didn't dampen our spirits, though.

Waking in the heavy morning mist in a Bar Harbor campground, I was drawn to the see the water. I woke Mike up. He's a night owl, I'm a morning dove and he wasn't thrilled with getting up early. Being a good, brand new husband, he humored me and got up for a trek to the ocean. We marched down the damp, sandy road to the cliffside where the gulls screeched and the salt air was heavy with fog over the water. Suddenly there was the long, mournful sound of the foghorn. Oh! What a delightful sound that was! I was captivated. My insides somehow relate to minor key music, cellos, bassoon, and the wonderful melancholy tone of a fog horn.

We sat until the fog lifted and the gulls soared over the waves, singing without accompaniment from the distant horn that played the warning for sailors in the midst.

We must make it a point to visit Maine again...to eat the 'lobstah' and the New England clam 'chowdah', to feel the misty air, to smell the salt, to visit the lighthouses, and more important than all these, to hear the song of the foghorn that calls me now.

Writing Randomly

Random thoughts flow...nothing earth shattering, nothing of heavy interest. But, I want to write something, and since great authors advise that one should write 'something' every day, even if it has no intense meaning, I sit here and let my fingers dance freely across the keyboard, just to find out what is in my own head.

Actually, it seems to me that I am better inspired when I sit in a quiet corner with a tablet of paper and a pen that when I'm using my computer. However, this is where I choose to be at the moment, so this is where I'll seek inspiration.

Why is it, I wonder, that the best ideas come to me in the middle of the night when I should be asleep? One might answer that it's serene then and the mind isn't being called upon to pay attention to a dozen other things. That may be an honest and true answer, but this body does not relish rising in the cold, dark night to find writing utensils in which to transform the mere thought into an array of words that make sense to a reader.

Cold floors are not conducive to returning to a peaceful sleep, although they certainly would be prone to inducing a desire to return to a warm bed! With that in mind in the wee hours, I tend to stay put, attempting to file away the idea for safe keeping until such time as I might be more willing to hunt up a pen. Of course, what generally happens is that the smidgeon of material will automatically begin to divide and multiply, causing what was left of the sleep hours to disintegrate with nary another wink. Why can't these inspirations come at a more opportune moment?

I suppose that I should just keep a pen and paper at my bedside. I could reach out in my drowsiness and scribble the idea in some illegible form that could be developed at another point in time. Somehow I doubt that I'd ward off my sleeplessness if I did practice that approach. Usually, once I wake, my brain kicks into high speed, and that's the end of rest for the weary. For the record, the brain I have been given has no concern for what the clock face says.

With that, I will close this rambling. Someday I'll let you know all about my dealings with clocks, but for now, I think I'll go find a sheet of blank paper and a pen. I'll tap the pen upon the page, hoping for something to pop into my head, come magically down my arm and out through the end of the ballpoint. Wish me luck....