back home in east boothbay

I am home again after nearly two weeks spent in the mid-east. It was a not very fortuitous trip, though stimulating and ultimately valuable trip. I was briefly ill with stomach trouble in Jerusalem and caught a bad cold in Turkey.

I went with a group of friends from the Congregational Church in Boothbay Harbor, first to Jerusalem for 4 days, then to Istanbul, Izmir and Ephesus in Turkey for 5 days. Jerusalem I found to be an armed camp, regardless of which side of the West Bank wall you are on, and regardless of what religion. Returning home, I read Moshe Dayan's widow's story in the New Yorker about the death of Israel, and I couldn't agree with her more. And from what we heard, there is very little hope that Israel and Palestine will resolve their differences peacably. The lack of hope was palpable. The one bit of spirituality I found was a bird singing outside the window of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In Istanbul, however, I found a thriving, growing city full of pride for what it has become. Although the current government is conservative and Muslim, the separation of church and state is written into its Constitution, and the pride of the people in Istanbul is tangible.

One of the major reasons for going on this trip, besides curiosity over the presence of any form of spirituality in Jerusalem, was the Hagia Sophia. Ever since Prof. John McAndrew cut up his oranges and grapefruits in front of us in Art 100, thus demonstrating the ability of a round arch to support other round arches and barrel vaults, and thus to build the Hagia Sophia in 533AD, I have wanted to experience that space. Even today, it is the 3rd largest dome in the world, though it is over 1500 years old. I don't know the others, probably football stadium domes, but this surely beats them in impressiveness. It was built as a Christian church; its apse faces east. Today it is a museum but it was a mosque for over 500 years, and the small enclosure where the Imam reads the Koran is in the apse, slightly off-center, facing Mecca. (see above right-hand photo)It is a happy enough arrangement, with some of the original Christian paintings being exposed, even as they are covered still by the beautiful mosaics of the Muslims.

Our later visit was to Izmir, or Smyrna, Tardis, and Ephesus. The layers of civilization to be found there are stunning, as is the current countryside, and food! The cabbages are literally nearly 3feet in diameter; the yogurt so creamy! It was too much for this poor body and I stumbled back onto the plane in Izmir and have been sleeping for 3 days now. Finally I am beginning to come out of my cold-induced stupor. When I remember more, I will write more!

out of Jerusalem

I am glad to be in Istanbul, and out of Jerusalem.

camels etc

I am off to the land beside the camels land - to Israel and then Turkey. I hope to be able to post photos and stories, but first the planes have to get out of the way of a big Northeaster barrelling down on the coast! We shall see what develops.

A time to be born and a time to die...

A neighbor friend has died this past week. This summer she added a beautiful baby boy, Finn, to her repertoire of grandchildren; Jessie Marina Ullo was born just a few days before Chalmer died, too. So there are times when the population of our worlds turns over. Births come, and people go.

Inevitably, we search for the reasons why people go. Rarely do we find them, especially when they are the people that bring us together, that help us when we need help, that welcome us when we are new, that count for something positive in our world. As Clint says in the movie Unforgiven, " Deserves got nothing to do with it." It just happens, and we are left with the feeling, and the song, "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child."

Chalmer died of mesothelioma, a lung cancer that stems theoretically from exposure to asbestos. No one can pinpoint her exposure, but somewhere along the way something must have happened, and because she was sensitive to it, she acquired the cancer. It is a cruel one, and I am glad that I have not developed it.

We do not know what we will die from, before it happens, but we do know when babies are born. We celebrate birthdays, and we celebrate the people who leave us. We celebrate hope first, and then we celebrate the past. With the dying of the summer season, let us celebrate both the newborn babes, and Chalmer - who loved them.

Swimming?????!!!! in late September?

Grimes Cove at the end of Ocean Point in Boothbay looks nothing like Sand Beach in Acadia National Park. But I didn't go swimming at Sand Beach today, and I did swim on yes, September 25, 2011, at Grimes Cove. I planted tulips in my garden for my son's wedding next spring, and got soooooo hot, I just had to go swimming.

Not that it was a completely new idea for me. As I was driving around Ocean Point yesterday afternoon, I saw 4 floating heads - a la Mao in the Yellow River - and thought to myself that it might be nice to go for a swim. I quickly thought better of it though, as darkness was descending, and I was hungry. But today, after sweating through the planting of 75 tulip bulbs, it was a really GOOD idea, and off I went.

The four floating heads had the same idea, and the 5 of us went for a swim, out and around a buoy in the Cove. It wasn't a long swim, but the water was in the mid-high 60's, which is warm for around here, and as long as I held my hands out of the water occasionally - to thaw out - I was happy, and it felt really good. A crowd gathered to watch us, but no one else seemed willing to come in. Even a Golden Retriever didn't come in. Still, it was well worth the effort, and I'm quite proud of having done it.

Now the challenge will be the Polar Bear Swim on New Year's Day!

Gardens vs. Boats

Yes, that is a tomato next to a pumpkin. This summer has been an amazingly productive summer for the garden. And the tomatoes! They are large, or tiny, sweet and red, delicious and numerous. But really, I've had enough. My stomach hurt the other day for all the tomatoes and cucumbers I've been eating. I had to give up cukes and start pickling!

So I'm making a resolution to better balance my need to sail with my need to eat. Some might suggest, this resolution is a long time in coming, but I've only felt it now, and it's my body.

So, next summer, I vow to grow fewer tomatoes, cukes, and zucchini, more corn and onions and leeks, less lettuce and more arugula, less chard and fewer beets. This will be easy to do next year because a major part of the garden will be taken up with tulips for Dan's wedding on Memorial Day. So lots of things won't be planted until after tulip time, thus making the season shorter than it was this year and last. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm yanking up the zucchini plants, and tomato plants, and soon the cucumbers, after I get one more crop of mature ones for Nancy Bither's Bither Family Cucumber Relish from Houlton, Maine. The tulips will go in soon after, and hopefully be perfect - just in time for the wedding next spring! Maybe I'll get some late summer sails in now!

One Year Later, Ten Years Later

I'm tired of all the 9/11 talk and stories of firemen, and First Responders. I do not mean to deny their heroism, but there are other heroes, and heroines, in the aftermath of 9/11.

A year after 9/11, my son Ben and his wife Torrey had a six month old daughter, Sarah Kate. They were living in Denver then, having moved there after Ben graduated from medical school. Ben was doing his internship in the Emergency Room of Denver General.

On 9/11, Torrey was teaching 5th grade at PS 234, the elementary school next door to the World Trade Center. As happens in the first days of school after summer vacation, Torrey had the flu that day, and a substitute teacher took her class. Ben was doing a 6-week residency in Farmington, New Mexico, and driving to work when he heard about the planes flying into the Towers. He tried to call Torrey but couldn't reach her by cell phone or landline. So he called me, in California. He had to go to work; I could and did, spend the day trying to reach Torrey.

I finally found her at home, on the computer. She was OK and hadn't been at school that day.

But she spent the rest of that day and year, and really the last ten years, dealing with survivor's guilt. And she, like all the other teachers in PS234, dealt with the childrens' stories, their fears, their horrid memories of that day for the remainder of that year. The school, when it reopened two weeks later (?), opened in an old Catholic school, in the neighborhood. Three 5th grades had to meet in an old gymnasium. The class moved to a different place 3 times that year, trying to find a safe and secure place to meet.

Those children were ten years old then. Now they are twenty somethings. The memories that they wrote about that year, were the sights and sounds of the bodies falling from the sky as they were evacuated from their old school. And their relatives who died. I can't begin to understand the strength and courage that those teachers used to deal with the nightmarish lives of their kids that year. And the parents who were left.

The firemen who risked their futures working to clear debris and find remains are undoubtedly heroes. But so are the teachers, parents and children of PS234, who survived and have been dealing with the horrific memories of that day, for the last ten years. I hope they have found some measure of peace.