in-great-deeds-something-abides

No Time Like the Present

2012-01-06T20:14:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about time. Of course, with all the inane chatter about the Mayan calendar ending in 2012, time, or the end of time, is a popular topic. The inappropriately named History Channel is getting a great deal of mileage out of that. That's not the scope of time I'm thinking so much about lately, though. I'm thinking more about my personal, individual time. What does it mean to me? What can I do with it? To what will I devote my time and from what will I deny it?

I have a lot of things to accomplish in 2012. The real estate market is still down and out in its fifth or sixth year of hangover from the bubble bender it took in the early 2000s. If I want to stay in this business - and I do - I'm going to have to spend more time than ever trying to cultivate leads, find quality listings, and sell property against some pretty enormous odds. While it galls me that our government was hand in glove with the big banks and Wall Street that are ultimately to blame for this mess, and that the taxpayer has been handed the bill, that doesn't even matter from a practical perspective. This is the hand I'm dealt now, and it's going to take time - a great deal of time - to try to make a living in this field.

Toward the end of 2011 I launched Parris House Wool Works (shameless plug: http://www.parrishousewoolworks.com), and realizing that I needed another creative head to put together with my own, I asked my friend Jen Rosenburg to join me in the venture. So far, we have spent a great deal of time working on organizing this fledgling business and it is only a few months old. 2012 will have to be a year of relentless brainstorming, creating, and marketing if we are to have - maybe five years from now - a well established presence in our craft community.

And 2012 is the year I write - or at least get the main text down for -a book project I've walked with like a rock in my shoe for the past three or four years. It is with me every day. It's time to get it out. Today I spoke to an academic at Wellesley about a parallel project she is working on, and we plan to get together to compare findings. That will be time well spent.

2012 is also a year for continuing to improve my health and fitness, because if I don't have that all other projects are moot.

Am I over-reaching? On first glance, I think yes - that's impossible - that's like three full time jobs - who can do that? In fact, even though I know with careful time management I can accomplish these things, I have had a nagging lack of confidence about them. Until today. Today I had an uncomfortable altercation that drove home this truth: there is time for what you really want if you purge out what you really don't want.

OK, that seems simple and I admit again that I am a slow learner, but I am easily distracted at times and I need some big unpleasantness to slap me around now and then in order to regain focus. Some distractions are relatively benign. I have been too distracted by Facebook at times. There was a great article in this month's Writers & Poets magazine about how we are too fragmented with social networking and technology in general to get to that still, focused place of inspiration from which we can write (or work, or create anything for that matter). I took that article to heart, especially in light of my goals for 2012, and have shut Facebook down quite a bit lately. However, sometimes the time wasters have to be so obnoxious that you draw your line in the sand and shout - at least in your mind - NO MORE!!!

I live in a small village in which a few residents are under the misguided impression that their address makes them, to recall George Orwell, more equal than others. I got a little tangled up with a couple of them today on an email thread put out by a community organization. It was inane. My last communication was to simply ask to be taken off the email list for that group, citing a lack of time for the drama. As I received many private emails from other members of the group offering support and agreement with what I had been trying to communicate, I realized how my time might better be spent. I invited some of those people, who I have not seen in some time, to dinner or to coffee, so that our dialog could be worthwhile and personal. I was not using time well in engaging with the small social bullies of a tiny rural village, but I am redeeming the experience by using time well in the future to connect with some of my friends again.

There is a common expression, "No time like the present." I think it would be even more precisely true as, "No time but the present." Time is that thing that we are asked to budget and manage so carefully without knowing how much of it we will have. Perhaps it is best to assume that we'll never have enough. Thirty one years definitely wasn't enough for my brother, who died so young, and yet when my mother died at the relatively "normal" age of eighty three this past April, I still did not feel as though she had enough time. Or certainly I had not had enough time with her. It's a Buddhist principle, and a natural truth, that all we have is the present. All concepts of past and future are more or less illusory; what is the truth of the past becomes more muddled with each passing moment - just ask a historian trying to figure it out. What exists in the future in not only unknown, it is not even a guaranteed reality on an individual level at any given moment.

No time but the present. No time for wasted time. That is my mantra for 2012. Let's see how I can do.

Ignore Those Ads Sometimes...Vote NO on 2...and 3

2011-11-03T08:14:00.000-04:00

If you are reading my blog prior to the November elections in Maine, you may notice that AdSense has, in its bot-like fashion, identified my blog as a Maine blog, and therefore it has attached a giant "Yes on 2" ad to my left column. You may or may not see this ad, as they seem to randomly scroll through a variety of ads throughout the day, but trust me - it appears. Being a bit of a newb with AdSense, I have no idea how to remove this ad, which offends me and would probably offend a fair share of my readers. For this, I apologize.

I have blogged before on how heartbreaking I find the prospect of casinos in Maine to be. I am also pressed for time this morning. I hope a post I wrote last year about my thoughts on gaming in Maine will help to clarify my position while I am finding out if there is any way to edit what AdSense attaches to our blogs. Vote NO on 2 and 3 next week. Just. Say. NO.

http://in-great-deeds-something-abides.blogspot.com/2010/10/in-whose-footsteps-to-follow.html

Fall is the New Spring

2011-09-21T10:59:00.001-04:00

My boys chide me for my love of fall. In a sarcastic voice they say, "Oh, isn't it beautiful!? Everything's dying!" Maybe I'm a freak of nature, but for me the new year doesn't happen in January, and new beginnings don't occur to me meaningfully in the spring. Last spring I got baby chicks and planted a big garden, but I still wasn't feeling the "new beginning" state of mind. If anything, I was just reeling from a series of endings. Still, if it were just last spring that didn't move me, I could chalk it up to circumstance. In reality, in every year fall is the time of year I feel most renewed, most ready for change, most open to possibility. I don't see the turning and falling leaves as millions of individual deaths. I see them as a shedding of the old, and not just any shedding, but a "going out in a blaze of glory" shedding.

For me, the year runs from September to August. In the past year I survived a number of deaths, one literal and many figurative. The actual death of someone you love is the hardest to bear and defies language for expression, so I'll leave that alone. The figurative deaths of this past year are starting to assume a place in my overall perspective, and I am seeing those as more and more analogous to falling leaves. Fallen leaves add a layer of organic material to the ground or forest floor, spending the rest of the fall and winter in decay providing nourishment for the new plants that grow out of them in the spring. We have no control over this process. There is not a word or thought that can reasonably keep a leaf ready to detach stuck to the tree. Heroic actions to keep the leaf attached (for example, in New England we might try duct tape) would be ridiculous and, in the long run, actually harmful to the tree and its environment. So it has been with the figurative deaths of the past year. I am seeing a great deal of good that's come of each of them, and I would not change the course of even the most painful of them, or go back to the way things were before they occurred. Every gardener knows there is no substitute for excellent compost.

So what's so great about fall? What's not great about fall, at least in New England? The trees go spectacular and, in turn, the mountains with them. The lakes lay still and reflect the passing clouds, eagles in flight, and colorful trees along the shore. The hazy heat of summer is gone, so the sky pops clear autumn blue over the peaks, speaking of which: fall provides the best hiking weather ever.

If you're a gardener, this time of year is what all that dirt under the nails, tired back, critter avoidance, and occasional anxiety were for. The root vegetables pop their tops up from the ground as though to shout, "Pick me! Pick me!," the corn is ripe, the pumpkins are...getting there, the shell beans go in to Ball jars and look cool and retro, tomatoes are made in to indescribably fragrant sauce, and pickles, pickles, pickles, pickles. The apples just make like leaves and drop to the ground announcing that, hey, you should have picked them yesterday already.

Those baby chicks I acquired last spring are now full grown chicken size and just starting to lay eggs; tiny adolescent chicken eggs that always come before the giant double yolkers (ouch...) later in the season. Fed on a combination of layer feed and all possible scraps from the kitchen and garden, our hens are robust. Not a single one was lost. I can assure you that there seemingly will be no end to the number of eggs our twenty hens will produce. In this sense, fall is definitely a beginning - the beginning of an as yet unresolved egg over-abundance situation.

From the compost of the previous year, there is all of this. It's truth in matter - nothing fake, nothing that's not nourishment, nothing that causes pain or suffering. Fall is a great time to apprehend and appreciate truth in matter, and truth in spirit as well. Seeking both, we land where we belong. Fall is cool and gentle. Its beauty provides a spiritual strengthening that comes in handy during the six months of winter that follow. It teaches us that all earthly things end, and that we can watch these endings in awe of their very order, with an eye toward the beginnings they contain.

A Different Kind of Injured

2011-04-26T12:03:00.000-04:00

Over the course of the past year or so, getting seriously back in to recreational running, I have been injured a few times. I had a calf strain, I had a sore knee for a while, and last fall I developed a hip and upper leg issue. All have been resolved and I now run pain free. I have a half marathon coming up that I've trained and planned for for quite a while now - in fact, it's coming up fast - on May 7th, and I still believe I can complete it. However, I am injured again. And this time, it's a totally different kind of injured.

My body is strong and my mind is somewhat clear, but my spirit is injured and, as I am learning, I don't run very well when my spirit is injured. I know there are all those stories out there about triumphant runners who are at their best in the face of anguish or grief, but I don't think I'm one of them. Maybe I just haven't been running long enough. Or hard enough. But when I feel defeated, my body doesn't seem to want to move like it normally does, or go the extra mile, or push the pace even a little bit.

My mother died less than a month ago. I miss her very much. To say anything more would simply be to open a stream of consciousness that would soon fill pages. With the support of my sons, some very good friends, and some family members, I am doing ok. "Ok" is a relative term, of course. I'm "ok" in the sense that, "Given what has happened, I'm doing ok." This is the primary source of injury, but on top of this I am dealing with a personal situation - a betrayal by the person I have always trusted most - that will probably remake and reorder to some extent who I am, what I believe, and how I move forward in my life. And I think that remaking and reordering is going to come crash course style in some ways.

I really didn't run much last week. I don't know if I'll run much this week. Getting out of bed this morning seemed hard with my injured spirit balled up in the center of myself, somewhat contracted in pain. But I will run some, because, as I told my friend/coach recently when we met out on the road (running, of course, just in different directions), "I need to do this." What I am still mulling is whether I "need" to run that half marathon next weekend, or whether I need to just pull back and heal myself. Physical injuries and mental breakdowns are usually treated with rest. But what do we do with a bleeding spirit? Can we "rest" that? Or is it best to just keep on keeping on, full bore, without missing a step. I don't know.

My friend Bob just last night posted a note about stepping back - for now - from a writing goal that is, for a serious poet, the equivalent of an ultramarathon for a runner. I admired his wisdom in knowing his personal limits, and I knew as I read his post that he would come back from regrouping even better and stronger as a writer than he is now (and that's saying something). I saw the wisdom in that and also the providential timing for me in reading it.

So, I don't know what I'll be doing on May 7th. I had hoped to be running a half marathon in the party atmosphere of the Big Lake Half in Alton, NH. But my spirit is not in a party mood, and I don't know if I can get my feet to follow where my spirit won't lead.

Book Review: "Ravenous: A Food Lover's Journey from Obsession to Freedom" by Dayna Macy

2011-03-14T19:56:00.000-04:00

Dayna Macy is ravenous, and has been for most of her life. Like many of us, she'd like to understand why, but unlike most of us, she actually goes on a spiritual and literal journey in search of an answer. In her book, "Ravenous - A Food Lover's Journey from Obsession to Freedom," Macy takes the reader on a culinary odyssey, visiting the farmers and artisans who are responsible for bringing the tastiest morsels to our tables. But more importantly, Macy honestly and poignantly takes us along on her personal quest to understand her complicated relationship with food and its psychological and spiritual meaning in her life, and by extension, in ours.

One of the most striking and engaging aspects of Dayna Macy's writing is how unflinchingly personal it is. Her story includes vignettes from her past. Her difficult relationship with her father and its unfolding, from her childhood through his illness and death, is interwoven with memories of particular foods, traditions, and recipes. She describes time she spent with a lover in Europe, shortly after her father's death when she was still sorting out her grief and conflicted feelings. Macy openly confesses her attraction toward a meditation teacher and chef she visited during her journey in writing this book, even though she is happily married to writer Scott Rosenberg. Her visit to a humane cattle ranch and her witnessing of the slaughter leaves her deeply affected; she describes retching at the sights and smells, yet does not make a decision for vegetarianism. And, over and over again, she opens up about her inability to reconcile with the lack of control she has over food in her life. There's a lot of heavy, thought provoking material here, punctuated at the end of each chapter with wonderful, healthful recipes meant to nourish the spirit as well as the body.

This book however, is not all unfathomable depth or darkness. There are many light and even funny moments. Macy has a gift for bringing her readers in to her wonderful family with its Jewish traditions and making us feel at home there. There are warm scenes of her cooking for and with her husband and sons, and of a joyful Passover seder with her extended family. Her matzo ball soup recipe appears on page 107, the recipe that finally satisfied her mother's palate. Throughout the book, Dayna Macy urges readers to experience food with joy, and she also demonstrates her commitment to sustainable agriculture and food production practices. The book is never preachy, yet she does question the impact of big corporate interests on not only the quality of our food, but on how we view it and relate to it in our culture.

"Ravenous" is an extremely readable and touching book, and one that certainly many readers will relate to. Its short chapters are each a story in themselves, each taking us to a different farm or artisan's shop, or to a new aspect of the meaning of food. Each chapter ends with a delicious recipe that is not overly challenging to prepare. The only negative here is that some of the foods and experiences which Macy describes are probably not accessible to the average American. Macy and her family live in the Berkeley area of California and have the access to and means to purchase some very high end artisanal foods. Additionally, Macy is able to consult with yoga instructors, chefs, and other culinary professionals that most of us do not have access to. Nonetheless, this is all the more reason to read the book. It brings readers in to a culinary world that perhaps could be at least partially explored given the resources that might be available to us in our own home towns.

So does Dayna Macy truly find her way "from obsession to freedom" by the end of "Ravenous?" Well, like any conundrum in life, the answer is really not that simple. I was left feeling as though Macy, like myself, is still on that journey but feeling more and more comfortable with her relationship with food and its meaning every day. I highly recommend reading this beautiful book if you would like to judge for yourself.

Disclosure and purchasing information:

I was given this book by its publisher, Hay House, in exchange for writing an honest review based on my opinion of it. Fortunately, I was able to truly say that I thoroughly enjoyed the book! What follow are links for purchase, should you also like to read this compelling story:

Hay House
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Chapters Indigo (Canada)

Specific Training, or Becoming a Slinky, or Stream of Consciousness, or Something

2011-01-23T21:21:00.000-05:00

Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like...Slinkys.

(No, I have no idea if the plural of "Slinky" should be "Slinkys" because it's a proper noun, a product name, OR if it should just abide by the "ending in Y" rule and be "Slinkies." I really don't know, but I'm going with the former. Because this blog is my party and I can do what I want to.)

Slinkys are great. A Slinky is simple, flexible, durable, has classic style, and only occasionally becomes hopelessly entangled with itself. (On rare occasions this is fatal to it - not usually because it gets irreparably bent out of shape, but more because whoever is doing the untangling loses patience and hurls it in to the trash.) On a stairwell a Slinky propels itself effortlessly along, going with gravity, trusting in the next step below, and when finally there is no step below, it composes itself neatly and calmly and waits for the next play time. (Well, again, most of the time. I think we've all witnessed a Slinky/stairwell disaster; you know, when the nice, even "slink, slink, slink" of the Slinky goes horribly wrong and is replaced by the "cling, clang, thud, thud, twang" of the Slinky/stairwell rhythm gone awry.) Overall, the Slinky is an admirable plaything. I'd like to be more like one.

How did I get on to Slinkys? I started out thinking about the phenomenon of specific training. I had training specificity smack me upside the head (figuratively, of course) earlier this week when I decided I was going to do a cross training workout that included the XC ski machine, the rowing machine, and the elliptical. Everything was fine with the elliptical, which is a motion I'm accustomed to and much like running, but the rower took considerably more effort, and the XC ski machine? Wipeout. I lasted ten minutes on that. I'm passably strong and fit. I've run almost ten miles at a go. But I couldn't make 15 minutes on a Nordic Track.

I know, the thought path to Slinky is still not clear here.

My journey back to being a runner, and being more fit in general, keeps generating life analogies for me. This recent collision with the reality of training specificity brought forth another one. It's common knowledge that the body adapts best to what it does most often, but what about the mind? What about our lives? Just as a runner who only runs may lack flexibility, literally in terms of muscle tightness and figuratively in terms of his/her inability to perform well at other physical tasks and sports, a person who has settled in to a narrow and routine way of thinking or living may also experience limitations. These limitations are not due to the person's true and natural limitations, but are rather a result of self limiting thoughts, habits, or lifestyle. This analogy crossing my mind led to the question: Where is the mental version of training specificity limiting my life? What are the aspects of my life that feel like the Nordic Track wipeout, caused by a simple lack of "cross training" in my thinking and doing?

I'll be mulling that one over for weeks now, because my mind is sometimes obsessive like that.

Still no Slinky. I know.

I always like to put a photo on my blog posts just to be entertaining, or capture attention. I Google Imaged (is that a verb?) "flexibility" and after a few scrolls through the images (some of which were really disturbing -check it out), there it was: the classic Slinky. And I LOVE Slinkys (for all the reasons listed above), so I went with it intuitively. Slinkys are great cross trainers, and usually - usually - when something bad happens to them they just resettle their rings and live to play another day.

I am the master of the ridiculous analogy, I realize, but this is how I sometimes resolve my own metaphorical self-entangled rings and clanky trips down life's stairwell. Here's to cross training for mind, body and spirit.

Inspiration and Perspiration

2011-01-18T20:39:00.000-05:00

We've all heard that old quote, something like: "Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration." I don't even know to whom it is attributed - maybe you do. What you see in the photo above is definitely perspiration. This is a photo by Jen Rosenburg of her husband, Daniel, and me shoveling my son James' SUV out in a bona fide Maine snowstorm. My son James is not a slacker. No, we had asked to borrow his truck to go take a look at a house for sale in the midst of this blinding northeaster. I do believe this was Dan and Jen's first experience with a big Maine snowstorm, and, as you can see, they were not the least bit intimidated. We went out in poor visibility and on crappy roads to see what may be their next home.

I was originally planning to blog this week on our now infamous new governor. You know, the one who told the Portland NAACP to "kiss my butt." But he's gotten plenty of media mileage - none of it good - out of that one. Stephen Colbert even made satirical hay out of it on his show this week. I came to realize that everything I could possibly say on that matter has already been said, and that my feelings of disgust would best be dealt with by focusing on something more positive, and that thing is inspiration.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am inspired by certain historical figures: Henry David Thoreau, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the Founding Fathers, John Muir, and this week, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr. It's easy to draw inspiration from people whose words can be found on on-line quotation websites, and whose books are widely available on Amazon.com. For inspiration I read Eckhart Tolle, the Dalai Lama, the Bible, etc. as do millions of other people. But sometimes...not uncommonly...inspiration is right here, right now, in the guise of the "ordinary person."

Such was the case for me this past week. My friend Dan -the industrious shoveler in the photo above - and his wife Jen, their two boys and a floppy adorable dog arrived in Maine for a visit the weekend before last. They have no history here, but they have a desire, much like I did when I lived in NJ, to make a new life in a new place. That's borne of inspiration. But their dream is not so much what awed me this past week. No...we all dream, right? It was the "perspiration" factor they demonstrated - the sheer will and bravery of looking at schools, looking at houses, seeing a lender, checking out cities and towns, and interviewing for jobs (with incredible success) that pretty much blew my mind. They don't have a big extended family here. They don't have a career network. And no, they aren't nuts. They're just determined. They are feeding their inspiration with perspiration - in the bravest possible manner - and they are shaping their dream, very surely, in to a solid, well founded reality. The gazillionaire author of The Secret has nothing on these people. They've got the manifestation formula - it's working - and it's coming straight from their hearts and minds, not from the pages of a New Age manifesto. I found myself truly inspired by their efforts, and honored to be able to help in any small way I could.

We had a great time together. After lots of Colonial maple bacon, various types of wine, and unconscionably late nights yacking, it was time for them to go back, temporarily, to their home in Tennessee. It was at that point that I realized that my running coach, Angela Bancroft, was doing the Charleston marathon that very day. I knew she was going to do really well (see her account of the race here: http://www.angesdrivetotri.blogspot.com/), but when she clocked a PR at 3:10, smashing her last PR at that distance by a LOT, my head nearly exploded. For those of you who don't want to have to do the math, that's approaching 9 mph - for 26.2 miles - on foot. HELLO???? Ange is the mother of three beautiful and very busy boys, a wife, and working woman - she is co-owner of TriMoxie Coaching (http://www.trimoxiecoaching.com). She's essentially one giant bundle of inspiration, at least to me. I'm a back-of-the-pack runner just working toward my first half marathon this spring. But you don't have to be a newb like me to be inspired by this woman - she inspires elite athletes as well to be their best. And that best does not come without perspiration, quite literally. Angela is out on the roads putting in the kind of training that I can barely imagine, in weather I can barely stand, at hours I am barely aware of. She achieves spectacularly with a grace and humility equal to her athleticism, and still takes the time to sincerely care - on a very human level - about how my training is going.

Why am I thinking so hard about inspiration/perspiration this week? Well, because life is freaking hard. If our only examples of courage, perseverance, grace, and no-excuses-achievement were those famous heroes in the history books or on TV, wouldn't it be easy to just excuse ourselves from our own potential for personal greatness by thinking, "I can't do that - I'm just ordinary." Fortunately, inspiration can often be found much closer at hand - in the perspiration inducing acts of friends with goals and dreams, for whom life is also hard in one way or another.

There's a New Agey notion very popular right now that life doesn't have to be at all hard. Well...I'm sorry to burst that lovely bubble, but...yes it does have to be hard to some degree, and it is. It doesn't mean it has to be bad, but let's face it, achieving most goals involves overcoming obstacles, pushing past comfort zones, planning for outcomes, and - for some of us - asking the assistance of a higher power. Often, all of these things need to be done while we'd rather be lying in bed with a cup of tea and a good book. But we are on this journey together, this journey toward actualizing whatever dreams we may hold dear. This week I could have focused on yet another embarrassing incident brought upon Maine by her hack governor, but I made a conscious choice instead to count some blessings. These blessings came in the form of the Rosenburg family, and my friend and coach, Angela, who showed me the better angels of human nature, the inspiration within the human spirit, and the perspiration we all must expend to live our dreams. To them, I extend a grateful "thank you."

I Has a Bucket...List...

2010-11-15T21:03:00.002-05:00

At forty five, am I still too young to have a bucket list? I don't think so. I probably think a little differently than some people on this because I've been carrying the angel of death on my shoulder, whispering in to my ear, since my brother was killed in an accident in 1986 at the unfathomably young age of 31. There has never been a time after that event when the possibility of death, for myself, or anyone I loved or knew, has been out of my consciousness. For a long time this was a heavy burden. But it's not anymore. I've learned to look at this angel on my shoulder as just that...an angel with all of the benevolence that that name implies. She reminds me that life is short, life is of unpredictable duration, every day is a gift, and we'd better not only have a bucket list, but fulfill it in a way that is satisfying without being panicked.

So what's on my bucket list? Like many people my age, my bucket list is a bit of an untidy mess. Maybe you could say there's not a neat bucket in my mind for holding my bucket list items. Instead, my bucket list stuff is strewn about my mind like a toddler's toys on the living room floor, because I rarely think about it or organize it. I'm too busy living the mid-life life, raising my teenage and young adult sons, working, taking care of the properties, training for my half marathon, trying to squeeze in a Masters program course occasionally when I can dig enough change out of the couch cushions, and still trying to be a decent life partner to my patient husband. In the midst of this disarray something will catch my attention as bucket-worthy. I think to myself, "Wow, put THAT on the bucket list" and then drop it where I found it, but not in an actual mental bucket. I need some mental Mom figure to walk in to my mind and say, "HEY! Pick this shit up and put it away! Whadya think you live in a barn?"

I want to be like the walrus in the internet meme "I has a bucket!" - only, um, thinner. I want to has a bucket. (And yes, I'm perfectly aware that the "bucket list" is named in reference to the expression, "kicking the bucket," but I'd rather just envision an actual bucket filled with my dreams, thank you.)

What would I put in my bucket? What's on the list? Holy crap. I'm not completely sure, but I'll give it a try, in no particular order. These will be things over which I have control. Of course I'm looking forward to my sons' graduation from high school and college, achieving their dreams, having children (my grandchildren - yay!), but those things are theirs to achieve as they choose. The bucket list is, necessarily, about me. And when you're finished reading my list, I do hope you'll share yours. (Drum roll on a bucket, please...)

1) Through hike the Appalachian Trail
2) Run a marathon (there, I've said it)
3) Eventually own my own real estate company, preferably the one I work for now (the way the past few years have been in this industry, this earns me my masochist merit badge)
4) Visit Tuscany (too predictable?)
5) Publish several books, the ideas for which are also currently strewn about my mind messy-toddler style
6) Camp and hike in every National Park in the United States
7) Visit every Civil War historic site
8) Get back to a size 6 and stay there
9) Visit Bordeaux and drink lots of French wine
10) Alaska
11) Visit a real Buddhist monastary somewhere in the East
12) Convert Sunset Haven to a year round home and live there a lot more
13) Learn fly fishing
14) Negotiate the Allagash
15) Become a competent gardener and actually raise a lot of my own food

As I look over my bucket list, I realize that I am woefully short on two things: time and money. Some of the items don't require much money, some do, all require a fair commitment of time. There are a couple of items on there that, at this time, I don't even see a clear path to. In fact, one or two are not looking hopeful at all at this instant in time. But just as the angel on my shoulder taught me that life can change catastrophically in the span of instants, so has she taught me to recognize that life can also change for the better, either suddenly, or gradually. In fact, if I have the courage to take a long view, the items on the list - even the ones that seem lost to me at this moment - seem possible again.

The beautiful thing about a bucket list is that it can be approached with a relaxed - not a desperate - sense of hope and will. I may achieve every item on the list. Or not. I may change the list scores of times before the end of my life. I don't have to live in the future of the bucket list to be constantly achieving it. For example, my 10K race earlier this month was a step toward that marathon which may not even take place for several years. As a wise friend pointed out not too long ago, if your dreams cause you to be unsatisfied or unhappy with the here and now, they are not dreams but rather the contributors to a nightmare. Patience does not come easily to me, but ironically, having a bucket list is an exercise in patience I can handle in spite of the urgency its name suggests. And if my life is shorter than I'd like it to be, the list won't matter anyway.

I has a bucket. What's in yours?

A Not So Sentimental Look at Blessings & Disasters

2010-11-13T22:49:00.000-05:00

"I never learned to count my blessings. I choose instead to dwell in my disasters." - Ray LaMontagne, "Empty."

This line from Ray's song, "Empty," has always struck a chord with me. Ray doesn't mince words here. I especially hear the word "choose" in this lyric, because hey, sometimes that dwelling is a choice. Whenever I hear this line it feels like a rebuke - a rebuke because I recognize myself in it. But what about the real disasters? What do we do with those?

This evening I found out that a friend had been a long time victim of domestic abuse, and I never knew. This friend is not someone I know extremely well, nor is she someone I've spent a great deal of time with, so I suppose it could be said that there's no reason I should have known. But that does not keep me from wishing I had. Or wishing that I could have been there for her in some way as she endured it, and as she recently chose to endure it no more. I never felt very comfortable around her husband, who I only met professionally once or twice, but I brushed that off at the time thinking, "There's no telling why some people get together." I never thought much about it.

There's no excuse for domestic abuse. I could tell you all of the reasons why my friend "didn't deserve" to be abused. I could tell you how spiritual and gentle she is, and how she took the time to have lunch with me when I first really started to study the teachings of her inspiration, Thich Nhat Hanh. I could tell you how professional she was in her career. I could tell you how much I admire her for our shared affinity for nature and the outdoors. But what would be the point of that? Does it matter what an amazing person she is? No, it doesn't, because no one deserves to be the victim of domestic abuse. My friend is a beautiful soul, but if she were not that would be irrelevant. Abusers want us to believe that their victims somehow deserve what happens to them, because it is in that belief that they find their own twisted absolution. They may absolve themselves, but we can choose - as women, and as a society - not to grant them that acquittal.

By now you may be wondering if my friend would object to my blogging about her situation, but she is open and forthright about the situation in an astonishingly courageous way. And it is my hope that her courage will embolden other women to come forward, to stand up, to shout out that it is their abusers, not they, who are inferior, who are sick, who deserve consequences - real consequences.

Where do blessings come in to the picture? The obvious blessings that I need to count are my husband and four sons. These are men and boys who love, respect, and see women as equals. I think they are literally incapable of abusing a woman. Having grown up in a difficult environment, and buffered from it primarily by the love and devotion of my older brother, I know what an emotionally unhealthy family dynamic looks like, and I know what it does to the human psyche. It is a great blessing that my sons, led by the example of their father, can not conceive of a home environment that is withering and abusive. I do not live in fear, and the men and boys I live with are loving and affectionate to me. I have no daughters,and I can only imagine that as the only woman in the household my life would be a living hell if my husband and sons were disrespectful or abusive.

But there are other blessings in life that are mixed, and there are disasters. My friend will be a great blessing to other women as she continues to tell her story, to let abused women know they are not alone, they are not to blame, that there's a future, that there's hope, that they can find peace. Is it a blessing that she knows of what she speaks? I think "no." It would be much better if she never knew the heartbreak and betrayal that domestic violence brings. It would be so much better if no woman - or man - ever knew this tragedy personally. I can tell, however, that my friend is taking action - action that will not lead her to dwell in her "disasters" but instead not merely count her blessings, but actually become a blessing to others. That takes courage. That takes transcendance. It is humbling to witness, and a costly blessing.

Keep Smiling

2010-11-11T21:06:00.000-05:00

I just keep coming up with the life/running analogies, don't I? Are you sick of them yet? If "yes," read no further. Don't say you weren't forewarned.

Like life, sometimes - especially for newbies like me - running is a slog. The photo above was taken by the encouraging, smiling photographer from Maine Running Photos who shows up at many races across the state and documents them, so that, apparently, nearly every participant can go on line and see photos of themselves taken during the race. This photo was taken in October at the Waterford Fall Foliage 5K toward the end of the race. I did ok at that race, in spite of negotiating a fairly long hill toward the end. I would not call this race a slog...but I was definitely glad to be approaching the finish line. My time, relative to the rest of the pack, was poorer for my first 10K last weekend, but that's ok. I now have a time to beat - one that I hope will be easy to beat by this time next year.

As I scrolled through the photos on Maine Running Photos website, looking at my race pics from both this fall's 5K and 10K, I noticed that in each of them I was smiling. It didn't matter that I was kind of tired during the last mile of the 10K. It didn't matter that I'd just run a long hill in the 5K. I was just happy to be out there, and even at my turtle pace, running is better than...well...not running.

So it is with life. (Here comes that analogy...)

Today's training run was a slog. Six miles of slooooooooog. My heart rate during the first mile was at times exceedingly high, or else the monitor was malfunctioning - who knows? My legs and breath simply never engaged. I walked some of the hills on beautiful, but somewhat brutal on this day, Mt. Mica. In short, it sucked. And I probably contributed to this sucky experience by letting the chatter in my head go over-analogizing. "This sucks. Why don't I feel good? I felt pretty good for Saturday's 10K - what the f**k is going on now? Isn't this just like my life right now? Real estate's a slog - can't any freakin' contract go smoothly, or go at all, for that matter? The bills keep coming. I need a second job...but not one that's going to exclude my practicing real estate. The damned casino question passed and Paul Lepage is governor - my beautiful Maine is going to hell in a hand basket and fast. I have friends working through their own problems and it hurts me to see it. Oil prices are rising just in time for me to heat my big old drafty house for six months. Why does everything have to be so damned hard????"

Well, because. Sometimes running's a slog. Sometimes life's a slog.

Recently I put up some Scrooge-like Facebook status about not feeling too excited about the upcoming holiday season. A dear, lifelong friend pointed out that I pretty much needed to get over that bit of negativity because as long as we're "on the right side of the grass," aka not "pushing up the daisies," we ought to be happy. And, of course, she was right.

Running is always better than not running. Living is always better than not living. And there are a lot of ways we fail to live, not just by literally dying. We fail to live when we forget that living itself is a miracle. We fail to live when we stop smiling. The instant we allow negativity to take over, life feels like a roller coaster car zooming ever faster down the back side of the hill. I've been doing some serious backward zooming lately.

I am smiling in the images captured by Maine Running Photos. I'm smiling because I'm happy to be out there. Running reminds me with every foot fall and every breath - and every twinge of pain or monster hill - that I am alive. I may be slow and uneven in my performance now, but if I persevere my way will be increasingly swift and smooth. And if it is not it will not be for lack of trying. So in life, and on the roads and trails, I will keep smiling.

Running: It's Fair, and More.

2010-10-22T21:49:00.002-04:00

There's a commonly heard adage: Life isn't fair. It does seem true. I've had a hell of a week, in which I have come face to face once again with evidence that life isn't fair...or at least, it doesn't feel fair. In the American mythology if you work hard, you will be rewarded. And...you know...it's probably true that in the long run, if you work hard, success will eventually follow. But over the short term, and sometimes even what seems like an agonizingly long time, "life isn't fair" can sometimes feel like a more apt saying.

I am a real estate broker. As such, I work on commission only. And, I am regularly treated to media articles telling me just how awful my career prospects are. The articles range from the overall condition of the housing market, to lists of "worsts jobs in America" on which my job is superlative...in being bad right now. I really don't need the ever-so-informative media to tell me how tough it is to be a real estate broker today. I get that loud and clear in the real world practice of my profession. And sometimes - like this week - I am confronted with just how very tough this business is at this time. In my work world, hard work never equals a guaranteed paycheck. We don't count - or even calculate - our commissions until we are leaving the closing table with the check, even in the best market. So uncertain is our income that we have amusing superstitions, things we do and do not do lest we "jinx" a contract. But I think we stay in it because we honestly love serving our clients - we want the best for them - and when it works out there is a sense of satisfaction and meaning. And we get kudos and referrals, and if we're in it long enough, we serve multiple generations of clients. After seven years in this work, I just got my first "second generation" client, the young daughter of a former client, who is buying her first home now with her husband. That's why I stay in this - even if the work/reward ratio is sometimes painfully disappointing. This week was pretty bad.

Life is also uncertain. For the past couple of weeks I have been involved in a political campaign to defeat yet another casino proposal. I am devoting a fair amount of time and effort to this, although not nearly as much as some of the others in our campaign group. Some of these individuals are working so hard, on top of their "normal" work loads involving job and family, that they can only be described as superhuman. And we are all volunteers. We are simply working hard and working smart and hoping for a favorable outcome for our campaign on election day. Our opponents have $3 million for their campaign. We have a few thousand. Life is unfair. Life is uncertain. We don't know what's going to happen on November 2nd on a referendum question that's outcome has the potential to permanently damage our beautiful community, and drive our small businesses under.

There are very, very few things in life where outcome exceeds effort - I'd say raising children is one of the most obvious examples of a life experience where the reward so far exceeds any possible effort that the joy involved is simply without limit. And there are also very few things in life where the outcome even equals the effort; but I've found one of them, and that thing is running.

Running is beautifully, inherently fair. I love running. The more I run, the fitter I become. The more I run, the healthier I become. The more I listen to my coach, the better progress I make. I can decide I want to run a half marathon, and a year later - IF I put in the work - voila! - I get to run a half marathon. Except for the occasional injury (which is also, unfortunately, "fair" due to pushing too hard, running through pain, or some other training mistake against the advice of my coach), there are no surprises. You put in the time, the effort, the heart, and you're a runner. I ran a 5K in May and kept training. I just ran another 5K in October, and guess what? I was much faster this time. I couldn't run a mile without stopping last year this time; now I can run over seven and feel great. Effort = outcome. So simple. So fair.

In my part of the country, running involves hills. There's no avoiding them. But again, the more I run hills the stronger I become. We encounter "hills" in our work life, our family life, every aspect of life, really. Sometimes I "climb hills" and even "jump through hoops" for a real estate contract and end up with nothing when that contract falls apart. Like...a couple of times this week. But with running every single hill I tackle makes me stronger - mentally, physically, and even spiritually. There's not much else in life that's so consistent, so fair - an activity and lifestyle you can love that loves you back.

I was feeling pretty crappy today after having a week that left me feeling defeated. I knew, though, that when I went out to do my four and a half miles all would be right with the world. The cool (bordering on cold now...) fall air would clear my head, the spectacular foliage, now just past peak, would calm my heart. The hills would remind me that I'm stronger every day, every day, not because I'm lucky or unlucky, not because someone else did or did not do what they were supposed to, but because I'm putting forth the effort. With running there are no extreme variables to trip you up - no unpredictable clients, no greedy foreclosing banks, no ridiculously well financed campaign opponents (who also have a penchant for lying), nothing of the sort. There is just you - you, and the road or trail, and your shoes (or lack of shoes - I just spoke today to a local "barefoot" runner). When I run, everything's up to me. You don't have to be a control freak to appreciate the beauty of that.

When I got in from my run this afternoon I realized I was already visualizing the next one - a seven and half miler on that breathtaking route I described in an earlier post. When the rest of life is unfair, or unpredictable, or just plain painful, running comes through. As long as my legs will carry me, and as long as my heart - both literally and figuratively - stays strong, I'll be putting in the effort. I'll be reaping the reward.

In whose footsteps to follow?

2010-10-17T19:51:00.002-04:00

This is Cornelia "Fly Rod" Crosby, Maine's first Registered Maine Guide. Yes, indeed, the first Maine Guide was a woman. But this was not Fly Rod's only accomplishment - she is known as the "woman who marketed Maine." Fly Rod Crosby traveled America doing exhibition shows in shooting and outdoorsmanship, and expounding on the natural wonders of her native state. It was, in part, her genius that contributed to the boom in ecotourism (oh yes, that is not a new thing to the state of Maine) that led the 19th and early 20th century rusticators from urban areas south of here to come and vacation. We owe our "Vacationland" status - and our thriving tourism industry - in part to the efforts of Fly Rod Crosby. And let's not forget that some of those rusticators settled in places like Bar Harbor, and eventually donated much of the land that is now the breathtaking Acadia National Park. What was clear to Cornelia seems less clear to Mainers today: Maine's exhilarating natural environment is unique, and can be marketed in such a way as to create a viable eco-economy. But in order to continue to market that brand, we have to protect what we have. Environmentalism is not just a hippy notion espoused by tree hugging idealists; it is an economic necessity in a state that has been catering to vacationers and sportsman for over 150 years.

This November the people of Maine are confronted with a choice...again. It's not the first time, and unfortunately, will most likely not be the last as long as naked avarice lives. We are being asked in whose footsteps we will choose to follow: Cornelia Fly Rod Crosby's or Steve Wynn's? In case you are unfamiliar with the name, Steve Wynn is the big casino developer who is credited with revitalizing the Vegas Strip, and who also had a significant hand in the development of casino gaming in Atlantic City, NJ. Our local mini-Wynns are the investors in an enterprise known as Black Bear Entertainment. Fly Rod's vision of Maine does not resonate with them, well, unless you count the pretentiously "rustic" architecture they have in mind for their "four season resort." "Four season resort" is the more palatable name they've come up with in playing semantics with the public. The reality is that their project, with its caricature "Maine lodge, " is really a casino. And while Black Bear Entertainment (BBE) will not grant the voters/taxpayers the courtesy or respect to disclose the casino's exact planned location,we do know it would be somewhere in Oxford, Maine.

Oxford, Maine. Oxford is at the heart of the Western Lakes and Mountains region. This area of Maine is a breathtakingly beautiful area replete with some of the best hiking, fishing, skiing (Nordic & Alpine), snowmobiling, camping, canoeing and kayaking, leaf peeping, antiquing...need I go on?...activities in the state. There are farms, forests, villages on the National Register, outdoor markets, restaurants, quaint Main Streets, food cooperatives, churches, schools, mountains, lakes, rivers, everything that puts the Oxford Hills area on the cover of Yankee, Downeast, and other magazines from time to time. A beautiful New England paradise with everything...everything, some say, but jobs. And this is where the casino opportunistically comes in.

As is always the case, the casino developers promise jobs to a population struggling in an economic downturn. In this particular case, that downturn is of historic proportions, but not just locally, nationally. A casino is not the answer, here or anywhere else. I have spent a great deal of time in the past months speaking to people and writing on social networking sites about the issue. I have explained the social costs, the infrastructural costs, and the law enforcement and emergency personnel costs that are never covered by the casinos themselves and fall heavily on the taxpayers, subsidizing the rich casino owners and their out of state management teams. I have made people aware of the unethical behavior surrounding the acquisition of the Oxford County Fairgrounds race track by BBE investors. I have related my own experiences growing up in southern NJ before and after the casinos came. I have explained why the jobs promised are just a mirage. I have helped to update a FB page devoted to opposing the casino, and have created a Twitter feed for the cause. I have argued on the basis of statistics and facts, relayed news stories from around the country and the state on how the casino industry is weakening in general. I have taken the facts and stats road, but that is not the purpose of this post. This is my blog, and this is where I get to say that what is at stake here is the heart and soul of the last unspoiled and wild place in the northeastern United States, and a culture unique not only to New England, but to the world.

When Henry David Thoreau (come on, now, did you really think I could complete a post without mentioning Thoreau?) explored the Maine woods in the 1850s he was astonished by both its wildness and sheer power, and by its obvious vulnerability. By that time the logging industry had taken a firm hold, and Thoreau worried that those great North Woods would be cut out of existence, tree by tree. But logging is a business that can be conducted using sustainable methods, and that produces a tangible product, creating real jobs. As it turns out, the North Woods are still there - threatened by the disastrous Plum Creek plan - but still there. Thoreau was a naturalist and environmentalist, but above all things, Thoreau was a philosopher and spiritual seeker. Thoreau stood atop Mount Ktaadn and had his "Contact! Contact!" moment, then attempted to express the inexpressible in his book "The Maine Woods." The experience changed his life.

What the hell am I talking about? What is this "inexpressible?" What is it? I don't know exactly. But I do know that it's why I came here. It's why I stay in spite of crushing financial challenge. It's why I took Fly Rod's example to heart and became a Registered Maine Guide. It's why I will die and be buried here. It's why I want to share this place with everyone I love. It's so much a part of who I am that I can not separate myself from it. As I said in last month's post, I am not in this environment, I am of it. Within it can be found the very nature of God - whatever God is.

It's not the cry of the loon on Little Sebago, but it lives in the cry of that loon. Similarly, it lives in the white caps on Pennesseewassee Lake on a windy day, in the spectacular foliage viewable for miles around from the top of Streaked Mountain. It lives in the pine trees that tower 5 or 6 stories in the air, and in the eagles' nests that sit atop them. It lives in the White Mountain National Forest and in the rush of water at Screw Auger Falls. It lives in the sacredness and awe the heart senses on a stone silent and scintillating snowshoe trail in January, and in the joy experienced on that same trail in March when the brook breaks through the ice. It turns the Cornwall Preserve and the Roberts Preserve in to sanctuaries that put the great man made cathedrals to shame. I can't tell you what it is - I can only tell you I know it when I see it, or more accurately, when I feel it, when I am it. And I'm not the only one.

People come to Maine from all over the country and all over the world to experience this. To come back to the temporal from the eternal for a moment, they come here for whatever it is and spend a lot of cash doing so. The beautiful thing about this arrangement is that we can have a thriving tourist economy based on it and, at the same time, have both the spiritual and economic incentive to preserve whatever it is. Casinos don't do that. They preserve nothing. They cost much. And long after they are gone, the natural world they spoil, and the native culture they debase, can never be recreated.

So in whose footsteps do we follow? Do we follow Cornelia's path to an economy built on ecotourism and sustainable businesses friendly to our greatest natural resources and assets? Or do we follow our mini-Wynns, Black Bear Entertainment, to low wage jobs, increased crime and taxation, gambling addiction, extinction of existing small businesses, and all of the ills found in other casino towns in the pursuit of a project that does nothing to perpetuate the Maine "brand?" Maine is not about casinos. Maine is about something much more profound. I will follow Cornelia's vision. I will vote NO on 1 on November 2nd.

"Die and be buried who will, I mean to live here still; My nature grows ever more young, the primitive pines among."
- Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods - Ktaadn

Why I do this...

2010-09-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

I'm a newbie runner. I started waddling my way around Western Maine a little over six months ago, and almost 20 pounds heavier ago, and definitely a jeans size larger ago. It was hard. It was still cold outside, and it's about to get cold again. Some days I wasn't sure why I was doing it. Not too, too long after I started I realized that if I didn't work with a coach, or a personal trainer, or a drill sergeant, or some combination thereof, I'd probably succumb to the "I can't do this" mantra that played over and over in my mind when my legs screamed and my lungs burned. Sometimes on those earliest runs I'd have the sensation that my sinuses were bleeding a little from burst capillaries. Doesn't that sound motivating? So...I got in touch with an Ironwoman. Yeah - as in, literally. My friend Angela Bancroft is an elite triathlete with so many recognized athletic accomplishments in her sport, I can't begin to list them all. But since I've known Ange for quite a few years, I knew she wouldn't be intimidating...although she sometimes comes through on the drill sergeant portion of the program and I like that. About that maximum heart rate test...

But I digress. I ran my still sloth-like (but improving!) pace through six miles yesterday and realized why I do this. It's not the weight loss. It's not that my legs look better. It's not just Angela's excellent coaching (although I could not do this without that). It's not that I like a challenge (even though I do). It's not about my cool Garmin running watch or the races I get to do with my boys. It's not about being able to say - I hope! - by this time next year that I've run a half marathon. It's not even that I no longer end up in the cardiac care unit with atrial fibrillation/tachycardia when I get stressed, run down, or have too much caffeine.

It's about the run. The run itself. Yesterday was one of those exquisitely overcast fall days in Maine. The temperature was around 55 degrees and there was a very light mist. I had nineteenth century style fiddle tunes on my iPod and I ran a country road between Paris and Buckfield that is simply breathtaking. In the first mile or so I encountered spectacular foliage and miles long red, orange and yellow mountain views over the valley. In that stretch there is also an antique cemetery where those who loved this land and were sustained by it are buried. Around the two mile mark I had to slow for a flock of wild turkeys crossing the road. As I ran this road littered with fall leaves, I thought about the men and women whose pastures had once been bounded by the painstakingly assembled stone walls that now ran through relatively new growth forest. At mile 2.75 the Cooper Spring provided the coolest, sweetest mineral rich water you'll find anywhere. The quarter mile to my turnaround point, at mile 3, was a steep up hill climb - steeper than the rollers that make up the rest of the run. Somewhere in this area I remember looking over the roofs of barns and noticing cows lounging in the pasture below. As I was coming back down this hill a chipmunk darted out in front of me, looked startled that I was there, and darted back in to a pile of roadside leaves.

I drove this road this past summer in my topless Jeep, and with a dear friend at that. That was a good and memorable ride. But there's something different about negotiating a country road under your own power - no car, not even a bicycle - just your own two feet - no glass between your eyes and the surrounding scene, no heat, no artifice like air conditioning, nothing to keep the mist off your face. That eternal energy that animates the scene, that gives life to the trees, the turkeys, the spring, the stones - yes, even the "inanimate" stones - is palpable. I was not in this scene, I was of it. Every breath I drew was the breath of the Maine countryside, which, if I may wear my love for this place on my sleeve, I liken to the breath of God. No church can rival it. No man-crafted creed can add to or detract from it. These close encounters with the full force of nature's supremacy is the "why" of "Why I do this."

Soon - all too soon, as spring and fall are such short seasons in Maine - the scene will change again. The warm colors of fall will give way to the crystalline white of snow covered roads and naturally flocked evergreens. I can't wait. I am of these scenes; just me and my running shoes, and maybe some old time fiddle music to remind me of those who went before and felt the same exhilaration, in this precious natural world, in our beautiful Maine.

Where to begin...

2010-08-03T20:48:00.000-04:00

It's probably not unusual for people to come to points in their lives where their lifestyles are simply not working for them. Either these lifestyles never worked for them, or they did...or seemed to...at one time and simply no longer do. Maybe the awareness of this comes as a gentle feeling of disconnect between the daily routine and what the soul actually desires. Or maybe it comes as a full blown chafing in which the widening gap between lifestyle and values causes increasing friction and discomfort . Never being one to take the subtle approach, my own experience is of the full blown chafing variety. This is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to articulate, but I'm going to give it a try. It is not difficult to articulate in the sense of, "Gee, I hate to admit this..." but rather the disconnect is coming from so many interwoven directions that I am finding it hard to sort the issue in to a coherent and organized explanation.

To say that I am disillusioned with our modern American culture and society would be the grossest of understatements. We have an entitlement driven, materialistic, pop star worshiping, junk eating, superficial, corporately and govern-mentally corrupt society that, on the whole, cares little for human rights and liberty as long as it is fattened and sheltered with its various opiates. There are able bodied people fraudulently collecting disability payments and trashing the rental properties of hard working land lords while our finest young men and women are being slaughtered in Iraq in a war whose justification has never been fully explained to us. Yes, that's right - we are slaughtering our treasure while we are supporting our trash. But we may not hear about that on the evening news because it's ever so much more interesting for the media to air stories about Lindsay Lohan and her rehab plans, or give us a preview of the next season of American Idol. Many of us who have no idea if and when retirement will ever be a financial possibility in our lives are too busy chugging through the current economic depression to keep up with the pop culture cotton candy others find so irresistible. We don't even really have time to stop and think too hard about the government and corporate bedfellows who brought this depression on through their avarice, recklessness, and quest for power. So intertwined is big government and the oil industry, for example, that even the environmental catastrophe wrought by BP in the Gulf is being publicly minimized and, it would seem, outright lied about. The bottom line for me, I'm realizing, is this: If this is what American society and culture have come to, I want out - or at least as out as is practicable and not batshit crazy.

Does this mean I'm going to go live on an uninhabited island or up in the North Woods in a Thoreau hut? Well, no. While I may feel like doing that at this juncture, I know it is not possible. But what it does mean is that I have to make real changes in my lifestyle so that I support this culture of greed, waste and corruption as little as possible. This is not as simple as "going green." In fact, I fully expect the green movement to be increasingly hijacked by big business and big government just like every other movement that threatens the status quo (e.g. "clean coal" - come on...really???). I know I can't fully withdraw from society. I know I can't single handedly change the world. I can only change myself. Not only can I, I must.

When I graduated from college with a degree in Business Administration/Marketing in 1988 I thought I wanted the usual trappings of so called "success." Over two decades later, I have some of them. But Thoreau said it best when he defined success this way: "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." After living in the relatively affluent Princeton, NJ area long enough to sicken of the pervasive yuppy lifestyle there, we came to Maine to raise our four sons in relative freedom from materialism and ridiculous and soul withering definitions of "success." Overall, Maine can provide a reasonable shelter from the extremes of superficiality we saw in NJ, but in order to live a quality life anywhere, it is our own values and choices that have to be consistent and healthy.

By Thoreau's standard, I am presently impoverished. There are too many things I can not presently afford to "let alone." While a total withdrawal from society is not only impossible, it would be pathological, a purging of the unnecessary, the burdensome, and the meaningless from my life would be a real step in the right direction. Thoreau is also quoted as saying, "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Ironically, the quote itself is actually not simple at all - the implications of doing just that are deeply profound. And for most of us, sorting out what to keep and what to purge, both in terms of relationships and the material world, is one of the most difficult decision making processes we will ever face. For example, my well loved but large and inefficient old home has become a real object of questioning in the current economy and the accompanying predatory oil pricing. What to do? Attempt to sell it and downsize in an imploded real estate market (again, the result of greed and irresponsibility on the part of Wall Street, big banks, and big government - but they got bailed out so who cares if individual homeowners are suffering, right?) or keep it and make it "work" better? I don't know. I do know this - in its 19th century hey day my home "worked" indeed. There were chickens providing eggs (as there are today), a cow providing milk, and gardens supplying fresh produce that was put up for winter storage. (That fresh food and winter storage did not involve weird, harmful artificial foods and preservative chemicals invented by and pushed on consumers by big food and agra companies, which then resulted in epidemics of obesity and disease, physical and mental, to keep big pharma companies thriving.) There were no balmy 65 degree room temperatures in winter - rather, more likely, wash water would freeze in the bedrooms if left in its basins. We may resent economic forces (or rather the abuse of the common citizen by government and big business) that cause us to have to do with less - much less - but there's a part of my being that is ready to take on that very challenge. Indeed, the value system I increasingly subscribe to demands it. Doing with less, and doing more by oneself instead of purchasing services, leads to a self-reliance that was expected in previous generations and has been lost today to such a degree that many Americans expect government (or taxpayers) to take care of them cradle to grave.

For some in this economy, doing with less means going without necessary food, shelter, and medical care. This is inexcusable. A recent article on NPR's "Marketplace" highlighted the obvious - the wealthy and elite are getting richer, and the middle class and poor are getting poorer. Big business and Wall Street are prospering. Small business is barely hanging on. The real kick in the ass is that the bailouts, which were advertised as "necessary" to help the average citizen, benefited only the upper echelons. I saw that outcome as obvious at the time. I begged my Senators and Representatives to vote against the bailouts. Deaf ears. Broken society. I want out.

While hiking in Acadia National Park in July, I came across the most amazing and lovely sight in the Schoodic Peninsula area. We were fairly high on the mountain we'd climbed, and so we were surrounded by much granite ledge. Granite, as we all know, is hard, unrelenting, and forms great expanses of seemingly impenetrable ledge with only a few cracks to break its surface. And yet, there in one of the cracks I found a little garden of plants, roots, and mushrooms. In spite of the tough granite surrounding them, these little life forms had taken root and flourished. Their surrounding "society" was harsh, inhospitable, and seemingly devoid of that which gives and sustains life. But there they were. And here I am. I have to make difficult decisions, be very creative and resilient, and remain true to myself and my values to survive with peace of mind in a time in our history that has left so many disillusioned and lacking hope. Thoreau found his philosophical inspiration in nature. In that regard I am his kindred spirit. Surely part of my plan for mitigating my uneasy relationship with our unnatural modern society and culture will be to spend more time outdoors, looking for the signs of the eternal, the messengers of truth in the natural world.

The Jeep Wave...the Human Wave?

2010-01-20T15:26:00.000-05:00

This is my Jeep Wrangler. It's a 1993 YJ, to be specific - you know, the funky Wranglers with the square headlights? That's what mine is. Shortly after acquiring this low speed thrill ride late last summer, I was made aware of "the Jeep wave." For the uninitiated, the Jeep wave occurs when two Jeep drivers pass one another and wave. It's that simple - although it has numerous variations - the fingers just lifted from the steering wheel wave, the peace sign wave (my personal favorite), the full big wave out the window, or, if the top is off, the big overhead wave. There are more, but you get the idea. I LOVE the Jeep wave. I mean, truly, really love it to the point where I miss it when I'm driving anything else. Sometimes I'll be driving one of the other vehicles, see an oncoming Jeep and have to squelch my impulse to "Jeep wave." It's just not done if you're not in a Jeep. And this is common. From my home to my office - which is just a distance of perhaps 6 or 7 miles - I can encounter the Jeep wave up to 5 times on a good day. Granted, I live in Maine, and there are a lot of foul weather Jeeps up here, but still - this gratifying phenomenon is rampant.

This morning I received a Facebook friend request from a young man in NY for no other reason than that we were both in to Jeeps. I gladly accepted his request and remarked on his wall that this kind of connection was like the on line version of the Jeep wave. I look forward to getting to know this young man over our common gaga enthusiasm for Jeeps. But then I started to think...

Why is it that, as human beings, we have to have something as lighthearted as this in common to create a solidarity that culminates in the Jeep wave? Think of all the very deep things we have in common with one another as human beings - our need and desire for love, our propensity for hopes and dreams, our search for meaning in our lives. Shouldn't that be enough for us to establish "the Human wave?"

During the holiday season I noticed that people were nicer to one another. I saw more non-Jeep waving, more patience in long store lines, more spontaneous smiling, and more well wishing "for no reason." It's a known phenomenon that the "holiday spirit" leads to this type of behavior. I remember thinking back then, "Why can't it just be like this all the time?" I think I know the answer.

There's a Jeep slogan that I sometimes throw around when my family can't understand why I love my primitive, cramped, loud, and distinctly uncomfortable old Wrangler: "It's a Jeep thing...you wouldn't understand." We all laugh at this. But just as we Jeep owners have our own harmless private "wave" and our own belief that non-Jeepers "wouldn't understand," so do we as human beings often believe - creating great harm - that the next person won't understand where we are coming from in life. "It's a me thing...you wouldn't understand." We do this on so many levels that we plant the seeds of alienation from one another that manifest at their worst in bigotry and, at the extreme, even genocide.

Now, I realize that the actual implementation of "the Human wave" would be most impractical. I mean, really...we can't just go about waving to every person in whom we recognize our own humanity. But what if we just thought it? This brings to mind the meaning of the word "namaste" - or, as the infamous Wiki defines it:

"I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me."
"I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One."
"I salute the God within you."
"Your spirit and my spirit are ONE."
"That which is of God in me greets that which is of God in you."
"The Divinity within me perceives and adores the Divinity within you."
"All that is best and highest in me greets/salutes all that is best and highest in you."
"I greet the God within."

What if the Human wave could be as simple as our stopping and thinking - if even to ourselves - "namaste" when in the presence of a fellow human being? What would our world look like? What would our relationships be like? I can't help but wonder.

It's my choice to Jeep wave to my on and off road partners in the joie de Jeep. And until the Human wave becomes as common as the Jeep wave, I guess it's my choice to as to whether or not to practice it as well, because, after all, it has to start somewhere. Indeed it already has as I know many people already practicing this mindset of human compassion. In the meantime I guess the world is still a better place because of the Jeep wave, which is the Jeeper's namaste: "The Jeeper in me greets, honors and shouts, 'Woooot!' to the Jeeper in you."

Learning to Ski from Peter and the King's Falcon

2010-01-19T17:21:00.000-05:00

I recently pulled my cross country skis out of our upstairs "sports closet." This closet holds everything from frisbees to helmets to snow shoes to skates and skis of all kinds. My XC skis had been in there un-used for a long time and I literally - as well as figuratively - had to dust them off. I brought them down stairs and set them in a corner in the kitchen wondering if I could still figure out how to use them. My 13 year old son Peter is a captain for his middle school XC ski team, so I asked him if he would take me out on the trails last Sunday and give me a much needed refresher course.

Wow. I'm sure Peter had no idea what he was getting in to. But his patience never wavered. Not when I almost fell down, not when I kept asking the same technique questions over and over again, and not when, after almost 90 minutes on the trails - and after we both lost our bearings because we failed to pick up a trail map - I jettisoned my skis and chose to walk the short rest of the trail back to the lodge. I found myself not physically exhausted by the effort, but rather mentally exhausted. My focus had been so intense on getting the technique back down, and on wondering if I was doing it "right" (I wasn't most of the time), that I was at burnout after an hour and a half. And then there was the fear factor. (Permission to laugh granted.) I noticed I was actually afraid of falling down. Sure, the trails were icy because we had not had snow in a little while and they'd sort of glossed over, but really...what was I afraid of? Once I asked myself this question, many life analogies started to pop in to my head. Aren't we often afraid of falling? And isn't that the very thing that keeps us from that beautiful smooth stride we hope to hit in life?

My fear of falling kept my stride truncated. It kept my poles safely within stabbing distance of the ground so that if I even started to feel a spill coming on I could plant those poles and save myself. The shortened, choppy stride and the ever ready for the ground pole position made my progress slow and clumsy. I was safe, but was I enjoying myself? Was I experiencing that freedom of the glide where a good XC skiier seems to float over the snow with the breeze in her face? Um...no. The moment a ski seemed to be ready to carry me with it - a necessary part of the XC glide - I tensed. I wanted to control the motion. I wanted to be in charge. I wanted to, well...NOT fall. Or that's what I thought I wanted - but really, that's what my fear wanted. And fear was in charge.

It's no different in life. When fear is in charge our lives are clipped and limited. We may feel safe, but for what purpose? Is safety worth the price? A poem by Rumi opens, "When you give a noble falcon to a fussy old woman who knows nothing of falconry, she will clip its wings short, for its own good." My fear kept me from falling, allegedly for "my own good." The poem continues...

Young man, where has your mother been

that your toenails have gotten this long?

Those talons are how the falcon hunts its food.

The old woman fixes him tutmaj, dumpling stew.

He won't touch it. Too good to eat my tutmaj, huh?

She ladles some broth and holds it to his beak.

Her anger builds, and suddenly she pours

the ladle of hot soup over his head.

Tears come from those beautiful falcon eyes.

He remembers his former life, the king's love-whistle,

the great circling over the ocean,

the distances that condense so quickly to a point.

Falcon tears are food for a true human being,

perfume for Gabriel.

Your soul is the king's falcon,

who says, This old woman's rage

does not touch my glory or my discipline.

We are often products of our life's conditioning, but at some point we have to let go of the fear instilled in us by others "for our own good." I am making such good progress with this in most every area of my life that I was taken aback at the fear of falling that hindered my refresher course on the XC trails last weekend. Peter was so gracious - so kind - and such an example - on the trail ahead of me with no fear, body and spirit flying along together in a beautiful textbook XC glide. Every little while he'd stop, look back smiling, and wait for me to catch up - wait for me, and my heavy pack of anxiety, to catch up. I couldn't help but think, "And a little child will lead them."

It's been snowing for two days now and is supposed to continue through the night. The ski trails will be a soft packed powder - the ice I encountered on Sunday will be well beneath the new groomed snow pack. I plan on getting a season pass to our local XC ski center, keeping my skis in my Jeep, and just going as I have time to practice, practice, practice. And I plan to fall. A lot. But I have promised myself, and Peter, that next time I head out on the trails I will leave my fear behind. Our souls - and our bodies with them - are as the king's falcon - meant to take chances, be free, and fly.

The Kindness of Strangers...the God in All of Us

2010-01-03T22:57:00.001-05:00

The photo at left is of an authentic Lewiston, Maine Bates Mill bedspread, made, to the best of our knowledge, in the 1990s shortly before Bates went out of business. If you Google "Bates Mill, Maine," you will find that this company dated back to the 19th century, employed hundreds of people, and produced high quality heirloom textiles that are collected and prized all over the world. When Bates closed its doors, some of its former employees took over the same machines and patterns and now make beautiful linens under the name "Maine Heritage Weavers," but they are not original Bates linens as they can no longer carry the Bates name. I have wanted an authentic Bates bedspread for a very long time. The bedspread at left is the Abigail Adams pattern in pewter, and it's mine. It arrived on Christmas morning as a gift from my husband, Bill. Or was it a gift from him? It was, and it wasn't. But it certainly was a gift with a story - in a way, a gift from a universe that seems to come through for us in the most astonishing ways.

Bill has known for a long time that I've been looking for a Bates spread, and he intended to get me a Maine Heritage Weavers bedspread as a gift. He had given up on finding an authentic Bates bedspread and went to a store in the Auburn Mall that carried Maine Heritage. As he was speaking to the woman there, he told her that he worked with someone who had worked at Bates Mill named Pauline. The woman said that she had worked with a woman by the same name at a shoe factory, but the age of the woman the store clerk knew seemed too great for her to be the same woman who worked with Bill. Because he did not find the Maine Heritage pattern he was looking for in the store that day, he did not purchase a bedspread there. But he did go back to work and tell Pauline about the woman at Maine Heritage Weavers and how she had known a shoe factory employee with her same name. Pauline proceeded to tell Bill that although she was not the same woman, she too had worked at a shoe factory. Bill explained to her how much I loved Bates bedspreads and how badly I wanted one, at which point Pauline said that she had several in storage at home and that it would be her pleasure to give one to him for me. Needless to say, Bill was stunned by the synchronities that were in operation here - not only was he going to find the Bates bedspread that I so dearly wanted, but it was going to come to him for FREE??? He protested, and offered to pay Pauline for the bedspread, but she would not hear of it. At first Pauline seemed concerned that she would not have a bedspread in the right size, as most people, she explained, want the Queen or King sized spreads. She asked what size I was looking for and Bill said that our bed was Full sized. She became very excited because she had a bedspread in that size and promised to bring it in for him.

Pauline went home and she and her sister took the bedspread out of storage. They carefully washed and folded it and Pauline presented it to my husband at work. He again offered to pay for it. While he did not know exactly what the bedspread was worth, I know that a brand new Maine Heritage bedspread in the same size and pattern retails for around $200. What its original Bates counterpart would go for on eBay or a similar site I do not know. But I do know that Pauline again refused to accept payment for this beautiful item that I will treasure and hopefully pass down to future generations as an authentic piece of Maine craftsmanship and history. We are still thinking of something we can gift to Pauline in return, as her generosity and kindness can not fairly go unanswered.

This is not just a story about a bedspread. This is a story about intention. It's a story about a manifested outcome. And it's a story about human kindness. We find in our lives, over and over again, that if we but hold an idea in our minds and go in search of fulfilling it, the way to that fulfillment will be shown to us. It can be something as relatively small as a Bates bedspread coming out of the blue, or as relatively large as the unfolding of our move to Maine once we fixed it in our minds to come here. It would be so easy to just say that we "made it happen." But that's not how it works. We can't take full credit for any of the blessings in our lives. Just as Pauline's incredible kindness and generosity led to my lying here right now under a warm and beautiful Bates linen, so the benevolence of many people along our path and of a friendly universe made our move to Maine and our subsequent lives here "work." It does, however, start with intention. And following intention, with an openness and receptiveness to and expectation of good things to come.

Bill told me on Christmas day that he could hardly restrain himself from immediately telling me the story of how the bedspread went from an intention in his mind to a bundle in his arms within a very short time. At the same time I had purchased for him as a gift Dr. Wayne Dyer's book, "The Power of Intention," which, of course, is about this very phenomenon and how we can attract more of this into our lives. The most important things we can manifest through intention are not bedspreads, houses (although I have worked with real estate clients who have clearly manifested their dream houses in the most amazing series of events), cars (my Jeep came to me in a way as serendipitous as the bedspread), or any other material thing. The most important things we can manifest through intention are healthy, happy, and loving relationships with other human beings. In the case of my Bates bedspread, every time I look at it, wash it, put it on the bed, or just snuggle up under it, I will think not only of how beautiful and well crafted it is, not only of my husband's love for me in trying to acquire it, not only of the Maine textile heritage it represents, but of a woman I don't personally know who gave it out of affection, selflessness, and kindness to my husband, to make a stranger very happy on Christmas morning. If that is not an example of the God within all of us, I don't know what would be.

Don't veterans deserve an easier path to home ownership?

2009-12-07T15:33:00.001-05:00

Over the past year I have had the honor and privilege to work with two veterans and their families as buyer clients. Confidentiality prohibits my telling their stories in much detail, but I will say enough to make clear that the Veterans Administration does not make it as easy as it should be for our veterans to purchase homes. This has been weighing on my mind since the summer, when I assisted my first veteran client of the year. Time passed, I became very busy, and pushed the issue to the back of my mind. But I am now working with the second veteran client, and the issue is once again fresh. And once again, unbelievable to me.

Veterans who have put themselves in the line of fire, who have spent months and years away from home, who have watched buddies die, who have had to break the news of deaths to next of kin, who have been injured and sometimes permanently disabled themselves, who have tended to Iraqi and Afghan children, and otherwise witnessed things most of us can only imagine in our worst nightmares, should not - should NOT - be hassled by VA when they apply for a home loan. VA asserts that its rather stringent guidelines for both qualifying the veteran financially and assessing the condition of the home to be purchased are for the protection of the veteran buyer. That sounds great - if you can get past the almost instant recognition of irony that VA is now nannying a man or woman through a home purchase when that same perfectly intelligent and professional man or woman was recently surviving a combat zone without the beneficent oversight of VA. Still, all irony set aside, guidelines ARE good given that there are predatory lenders, dishonest home sellers, and yes, unethical real estate agents out there in the world. None of these constitute the majority of lenders, home sellers, or real estate agents, but they do exist and therefore VA is smart to want to protect not only our veterans, but the VA itself as it signs on to guarantee these loans. But how conservative should they be? I only know that right now, they are creating obstacles for veterans that are simply unreasonable, and in some cases, unconscionable.

I am not suggesting that unqualified buyers - whether veterans or civilians - should be able to obtain home loans. Unqualified buyers obtaining home loans is the very sin that has caused the housing meltdown and all the economic ills associated with it. In the cases of my two veteran buyers this year, both were extremely well qualified financially - one an officer with some years of experience behind him, and another a very young veteran working long hours to earn a solid income. Both men had great credit scores. Both men had a history of serving ably and responsibly - sometimes heroically to my way of thinking - demonstrating that they could be trusted with the lives of others, let alone be trusted with timely payment on a home loan. This blog post would be much more powerful and engaging if I were at liberty to tell you their personal stories, however, privacy and confidentiality do not permit that. Suffice it to say that these men are both heroes in my eyes and I was appalled and angered when they were BOTH hassled by VA in the course of purchasing their homes.

In the first case, the hang up was with the property itself. VA requires a home meet certain condition requirements in order to pass what VA refers to as an "appraisal." Like typical real estate appraisals, VA does assess the market value of the property to make sure it is in line with the contract price of the home - again, this is good - but VA appraisals also include an assessment of condition to make sure that the home does not have functional or safety issues. Again, this is, in general, a good thing. However, I learned last summer that some VA appraisers - certified to be VA appraisers - are really rather incompetent. Extreme delays of weeks caused by first the appraiser's failure to review the house in a timely manner and then additional failure to submit the report in a timely manner were only the beginning of a myriad of problems and issues for my client. Lack of expertise in the type of home being appraised, and incorrectly citing defects compounded the delay in closing as my veteran client, his wife, both the seller's agent and I, and the banks involved grappled to untangle the issues and satisfy the VA guidelines. There was no lack of expediting on my part, or on the part of others involved. Short of sitting on the appraiser's lap and doing the work for him, he was not to be moved. I had recently sold my client's previous home, and because he and his family were gracious to their buyer, they declined to ask for more time in that home when it came time to close on it. This put them in to a position where they needed temporary housing - quite stressful and expensive for a family, and wholly unnecessary had VA carefully and properly chosen a quality appraiser for this transaction. While VA guidelines for the condition of a home are significant, in this case the guidelines themselves were less of a problem than their choice - probably with no first hand knowledge - of an incompetent appraiser. Our veterans deserve a better experience than this.

In the second case, my buyer was hassled over his financial qualification. Confidentiality is very restrictive here - I can say very little about this except that my buyer demonstrated clearly that he had the financial wherewithal to make the purchase, but VA guidelines for acceptable income verification were so convoluted and seemingly arbitrary that approval was not a sure thing until we had already missed our contractual loan commitment deadline. When a buyer has demonstrable income, but VA refuses to accept certain components of that income based on its rigid guidelines, we have a problem.

I know that based on what I have been able to say here, without being able to include some of the important salient details, many arguments could be made in VA's defense. For example, a taxpayer might argue, "If VA is offering to guarantee low interest rate, 100% financing, why should they not be demanding in terms of home condition and buyer qualification?" And the answer is, they should be. But they are too much so. Not only are the guidelines too restrictive, but the process itself is red-tape-ish and frustrating for the veteran. As mentioned, sometimes VA chosen professionals are not up to the task assigned, leading to costly and maddening delays in what should be a smooth transaction. Additionally, and relevant to both of these cases, often foreclosed properties do not meet the condition standards VA has set, prohibiting some veterans - especially those who are very young first time home buyers - from buying as much house as possible within their qualification limits. If I am dealing with a young veteran in a first time home buyer price range, VA is not going to finance many of the homes available in that price range.

Which brings me to another maddening aspect of VA's failure to properly accommodate our vets. VA is, of course, a government agency. The same United States government that includes VA, is the same government that hands out money - with very little, if any, accountability - to big failing banks, Wall Street firms, and corporations. Apparently Uncle Sam can't trust his veterans too, too much by guaranteeing their home loans unless they jump through multiple and ever narrowing hoops, but he CAN hand out your money and mine to the likes of the very banks and financial firms that caused the housing crisis to begin with. These are the same banks, by the way, who often a) will not work with homeowners to refinance predatory loans written during the hey day of the free for all mortgage and b) will not put their now vacant, foreclosed properties in to the kind of condition that VA would approve. One of the biggest offenders here is FNMA, or, as most of you know this nasty wench, Fannie Mae. I speak to many, many real estate agents who have had the same experience I have with FNMA owned properties and other bank foreclosures: We bring a full or near full price offer to the foreclosing bank from a qualified buyer. However, that buyer's financing might be via VA, FHA, MSHA, etc. Those programs have certain condition parameters for the property to be purchased. Sometimes the foreclosed property needs very little to be brought in to compliance with the buyer's financing guidelines. Will the selling banks make the minor repairs??? Hell, NO! No. Instead, they will refuse the offer and wait for a cash, "as is, where is" buyer who will pay - are you ready for this? - perhaps half or less than the offer my qualified buyer - who in at least one case was a VA buyer - for the property. That's right, folks. The banks you are paying to bail out have no incentive whatsoever to maximize their profits when they sell the foreclosed homes they refused to fix up for a qualified full price buyer (after they obviously refused to work with their own client to keep them in the house). How does this relate to our veterans? Well, it just narrows the choices and opportunities of our VA buyers even more, especially those who may most need to be looking in the affordable housing price range.

Veterans are going to continue to come home from war wanting good homes for their families. After WWII this demand was so great that the famous (or infamous? - heck my first house was one...) Levittown houses sprang up to meet the need. VA financing is very attractive for these men and women because it is one of the only 100% financing options left in the lending market, and interest rates are good. FHA has just announced that it will be raising its minimum down payment and tightening other requirements on its program, which may make VA an even more obvious choice for our veterans. When our service men and women come home, I think it is only right that they be cherished and that normal civilian acts like home buying be made as easy and normal as possible. As I said in the beginning, being able to serve a couple of these vets has been an absolute privilege for me. VA would do well to streamline its process, certify and hire only the best professional associates, and make guidelines reasonable and flexible. Yes, I said "flexible." For the kind of money taxpayers spend on pork and entitlement programs gone awry, I think we should be able to staff VA well enough to take good - and personalized - care of our veterans.

This problem isn't going to go away any time soon. There is no end in sight to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (in spite of the recent "news"). And even if those wars ended tomorrow we still have military personnel stationed all over the globe. We have, and are going to have, veterans who are among our finest citizens. Let's make their path to home ownership as easy as or easier than anyone else's, not harder.

What love is?

2009-12-04T11:25:00.001-05:00

Does anyone remember a company called "Home Interiors"? When Bill and I bought our first home in 1988 it was a little Levittown, PA post-war tract-built cape. Four bedrooms and 2 baths squeezed in to what could not have been more than 1200 or so square feet on a little corner lot. Faced with decorating my first home, with very little money, I attended more than one "Home Interiors" home decor party and snagged a few cheap prints that - pardon my lack of sophistication - I am still using today. The one in the photo is a pastelly pink and blue affair that is admittedly no longer "me," but I love what it says and it has sentimental value because of how long I've owned it. It hangs to the right of my bathroom sink. I see it every morning. And that is very good because the words on it are from First Corinthians:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

How unoriginal, right? How many times have we zoned out when this passage is read for the bazillionth time at a wedding? Bill and I actually did not choose this passage for our wedding because it was so "common." EVERYBODY uses this for their wedding, if that wedding is of the traditional Christian variety, or at least that was true back in the late 80s when we got married.

The passage seemed trite, surface level, as fluffy to me as the colors in my little "Home Interiors" print. Two decades on I no longer see the passage that way. The words have not deepened in their meaning, but rather I have deepened in my understanding. That understanding has come about precisely through the experience of NOT understanding First Corinthians in a more than academic way. But once one has lived the result of ignoring these wise words, they start to become fresh, and deep.

First Corinthians may not have much meaning if you believe that it explains what love is as if love is dropped from the sky - a thing you either "have" or "don't have," which to your mind is beyond your control. Rather, you believe that "fate" or "providence" decides whether or not your love will be that First Corinthians ideal. That's a set up for a rude awakening, and is sometimes responsible for estrangement in relationships. I'm not here referring only to romantic relationships - I am referring to any relationship involving love. And what really separates a "romantic" relationship from any love relationship? I think we often treat romantic relationships as somehow exempt from the unconditional love and freedom we might, or at least should, give to a child just because our expectations are so skewed by the "Knight in Shining Armor," "Prince Charming/Beautiful Princess," or just "this person/love relationship is going to solve all my problems" popular culture. At our highest level of being, all of our relationships - from that with our family to that with our grocery check out clerk - should involve love but few of us ever attain that. I know I am not there yet.

If we look at another "trite" and "common" quote, it becomes clear that First Corinthians is deep, and not only deep, but a challenge to us. That quote is: "Love is not an emotion. Love is a decision." This quote appears in so many forms in so many places and is so part of the conventional wisdom of love that I can't even give it a solid attribution. But I can see its connection very clearly to First Corinthians. First Corinthians is not saying that its words describe "what love is" - in some kind of vacuum - as much as it is saying, "This is who you are when you choose to love." Love is an action. Love is a big decision. And love is a million little decisions over the course of a lifetime. When we want love to just "happen" for us, we are asking the impossible of the beloved. When we want love to be easy, we are asking our beloved to be perfect. And when we are asking our beloved to be perfect, we are asking for control. As I outlined in a previous blog, I believe strongly that control is incompatible with love. When we seek to control who the other is, we love our vision of perfection, not the person.

I recently had an ugly argument with my husband of 22 years, in a relationship that has spanned 29 years. I was not patient. I was not kind. I boasted. I was proud. I was rude. I was self seeking, easily angered, and hauled out my record of wrongs. I did not protect or trust, and I had flashes of lost hope and lack of will to persevere. Love did not fail. I failed. I failed because I allowed emotions to rule, not decisions for love. I failed because instead of watching my emotions as the Zen "one who watches", the reality of who I really am, I allowed myself to be buffeted and controlled by those emotions the way a leaf is tossed in the wind.

All of our love relationships are up to us. This does not mean that anyone should stay in an abusive or harmful situation, because love applies to ourselves as well. But in the normal course of non-abusive relationships, much of the outcome is up to us. First Corinthians is not a description, it's a recipe, the not so secret formula, the path. Love is an activity, a decision making practice that follows the words of First Corinthians. When put into practice, in the full meaning of the word "practice", love never fails. May I continue to practice until I too never fail.

"1001 Reasons to Love Maine" - Note 1

2009-12-04T11:18:00.001-05:00

Upon waking this morning one of my first thoughts was, "Wow, this is not a very Maine-ish day." We have positioned our bed on the north side of the house, third level loft area, with the head board directly against a window. The first thing I see in the morning is a view of the day's weather, over a beautiful field rimmed by stone walls and the Mahoosuc mountain range in the near distance, the Presidentials in the far distance. It's actually one of my favorite parts of the day, because, being a night owl, mornings in general are not my fondest thing. The gorgeous view literally just beyond my pillow every morning softens the blow of realizing that it IS, in fact, morning.

This morning's view was very wet. Pouring rain pounded against the window glass. There was not the slightest hint of frozenness to it. A little while later, taking Corgi Tru out for her morning walk, I was further surprised to find that it felt more like late April than early December with temps in to the 50s. Again, I thought, "Yuck, this is more like NJ than Maine."

But I was so wrong. This day so far has been very Maine-ish.

I arrived at my friend Julie's hair salon at 8:30 for a desperately needed haircut. Julie is also a colleague of mine at Village Square Realty. Like many people in Maine, she has two careers, and she's fantastic at both of them. When you go in to a rural Maine hair salon you are not faced with disco balls and life sized posters of glamor kings and queens bordering the ceiling so that you can know what the "next big thing" in hair is at that moment - although Julie did have a pretty pimpin' silver Santa on her work station that I not so secretly admired. Nor are you faced with the next big thing in prices. If I had a dollar for every time I told Julie she undercharged her clients I'd be rich enough to pay for an overpriced haircut in an urban salon. What you do find there are local people, having thoughtful conversations about local, national, and world events. You also find people having conversations so local and personal that Julie - like most people who work in salons - should really just receive an honorary degree in psychology and counseling. She's earned it. There's no pressure to look like the latest pop tart - instead you are asked what you want - Julie listens very carefully and attentively - and then gives you the best haircut of your life at an value price. This never happened to me in my urban/suburban past.

After I left the salon, I went by the bank and then decided I'd stop by The Lake Store on the shore of Norway Lake for an iced tea. We didn't have the likes of The Lake Store where I came from ten years ago. First off, we didn't have a little single proprietor grocery and deli that had breathtaking views of a lake, or that you could patronize via boat. But that's not really what's so great about The Lake Store. Even before you enter the building you are transported back to roughly 1955. The exterior of the store is plastered in old Coca Cola tin signs giving the entire building a vintage appearance. Once inside, that feeling just intensifies. But the retro - authentic retro, not contrived or reproduced - look is out-charmed by the feel in the store. Again, people were congregating for their morning coffees and freshly made fried doughnuts (plain, chocolate, with and without sugar sprinkled over them - OMG...), and chatting with one another. One woman had her dog in there. While shoes and shirts are required in The Lake Store, the rule does not apply to dogs, who are always welcomed, even if naked. ;-)

From there I went to the home of Frante Giasson in Waterford to pick up the hand made wreaths and fir roping I ordered yesterday. I know that Fran stayed up late last night to make the 36 inch diameter barn wreath I order every year. I blogged about Fran last year around this time, so I will not go in to a lot of detail now, but Fran is an elderly lady of French descent who works a regular job three days a week and makes the most beautiful Christmas greens in Western Maine every single year. She drives a giant Chevy Silverado and was explaining to me this morning that she can't understand why cops sometimes pull her over to make sure she's ok when she's driving late at night. She is one of the kindest and most industrious people I have ever met, and I will not buy Christmas greens from anyone else. I took her out some of our fresh eggs and a jar of home made fruit preserves and she responded as though I had brought the Holy Grail. I could buy my wreaths at Wal Mart in Oxford, in some anonymous interaction, and receive inferior goods. That's the kind of transaction I was used to before I lived in a rural area, but I could never go back to that now.

So it has actually been a very Maine-ish day, not even mentioning the fact that my travel to and from each of these places included the usual views of mountains, pretty country roads, and Norway's old fashioned down town area. In a little while I am going to go to my office for the afternoon for work. I will not report to a cubicle where I am either just a social security number or the object of office politics. No, I will go to my home away from home, a small independent real estate office that I share with four other women, each of whom is amazing and accomplished in her own way. The environment is professional, but personal. We are colleagues, and we are friends, and we support one another in providing the best possible experience for our clients instead of competing against one another in our own small interests. I did not experience this working for a giant defense contracting firm in NJ. The environment there was more akin to "The Office" only it wasn't funny - it was often tragic. And instead of feeling 100% great about the service I was providing as I do now, I wondered if the product I was helping to produce was really completely in line with my deepest held beliefs and values.

Maine is a hard place to live. Our economy perpetually lags behind that of other states, not because of a lack of resources, but because of very poor government in Augusta. The winters are long - as in about 6 months long and some years maybe even a little more. I've been here going on a decade now. When I left NJ there were those predicting, "They'll be back." I can't imagine it, or if I do imagine it it's literally in the occasional bad dream. I'm not one of those refugees "from away" who wants Maine to become just like where I came from - in fact, I dread that - but I would like to see Maine people suffer and struggle less than many currently do. With different policies in Augusta, Maine could be very prosperous without the destruction of its fundamental character, but that's another blog. Not much we can do about the weather, but as I tell potential fellow refugees, you have to get out and play in whatever Mother Nature brings, and then you'll enjoy it. Well, until about late February anyway.

I keep a photo album on Facebook titled "1001 Reasons to Love Maine" whenever I want to share the delights of my home state with my friends. Sometimes, though, more explanation is required. That's why I chose a note for this particular morning's experience. It is a very Maine-ish day after all.

The Nature of Control

2009-10-27T09:02:00.004-04:00

"In my dealings with people, I don't chastise, nor do I issue edicts or lay down a blueprint. My appointed work is to awaken the divine nature that is within. This is my calling, to open doors of truth and make people think, to arouse others from their apathetic and lethargic state, and get them to seek out for themselves the inner peace which dwells within. This is the extent of my undertaking, I can do no more. The rest I leave to a higher power." - Peace Pilgrim

For anyone who does not know who Peace Pilgrim was, I encourage you to Google her. In a nutshell, she was a woman who, in middle age, began to walk coast to coast in North America on a quest for peace. She carried nothing with her except a comb and her mail. She did not take a coat, but rather wore a tunic that simply said, "Peace Pilgrim." That was her chosen name. She said her "identity" prior to her pilgrimage was irrelevant and that a name does not reflect who we really are. She ate when offered food and took shelter when it was offered to her - otherwise she slept outside in all manner of environments. She did this for decades. She walked by faith alone and was fearless in her quest. After her death in the 1980s those whose lives she touched published a book of her quotes and sayings, and I keep that and re-read it every so often. Last night I came upon the quote above and thought about how the universe - for the past couple of years - seems to have me enrolled in a life course on the issue of control.

My personal story is not relevant here, and those who know me well know the background to my more-than-academic study in control, and controlling people. What I have learned is what is important. And there are several important lessons I think I have been taught:

1) Control is incompatible with love. If someone tries to control another "for his own good," that is not borne of love. That is control. The two are mutually exclusive. Peace Pilgrim, in this quote and in her other writings, expresses her belief that more good can be accomplished by awakening the God consciousness within a person and then allowing his free will and his higher power to lead him to answers that are right for him. Who are we to know what is best for another human being? Only the indwelling God can know this. How would our entire world be different if we could all just step back and allow one another this freedom? How would our world be different if in our homes and churches we taught our children that God is not external - that God is indwelling and that the big life answers do not come from an external playbook?

2) Fear is incompatible with faith. And fear is the basis of controlling behaviors. Even those in our lives who are well meaning can attempt to exert control because they live in a world of fear. Fear that we will not do what they want us to do. Fear that we will be hurt by following our own way. Fear that our choices will "reflect on them." Fear that God is not sufficient in Himself to lead us to the right path if we but listen? Peace Pilgrim says in her quote, "I can do no more. The rest I leave to a higher power." Once fear is released, the urge to control evaporates. This realization has led me from a place where I felt genuine hatred for those who aimed to control me to a place where I now feel pity. They are missing a deep truth - that their "heroic" measures to save me from myself - or to save anyone from themselves - are rooted in a faithlessness and terror. If they recognized the God within themselves, they'd know that God dwelled within others too, and that their "assistance" is not only unnecessary, it is damaging. Parents would do well to learn this and watch their children's lives unfold like individual flowers, rather than attempt to control them and create "mini-me's" to feed the parental egos. Spouses could learn to appreciate one another's differences and life choices and enjoy the surprises, rather than try to hold another in a "no growth" zone in order to meet someone else's expectations.

3) Fear and control exist on a micro and on a macro level. If you look carefully, you will find that most of what is dysfunctional in this world, from a single relationship between two people to the causes of World Wars, is rooted in fear and control. Wow. It's so simple. But it's not. Apparently.

As is believed in Eastern traditions, I believe completely in reincarnation. I've seen too much evidence for it in my own life and the lives of my friends, and I have also found the existence of infant souls and old souls too obvious to ignore. The infant souls are the most controlling and fearful, and I have needed to learn to look at some infant souls in my life with compassion in spite of what they have done to me and to my family and friends. They're taking their baby steps and they have to come back around a few times to evolve into higher functioning human beings. I do not say that condescendingly, as I am a very imperfect being myself. I am finding that one of my life lessons is to shed my own fears and controlling behaviors that I took for granted as "normal" by my upbringing. I am increasingly finding that fear, cynicism, hopelessness, the need for control, pessimism, and other negative behaviors are instant road blocks to anything that I want to achieve. They literally beget failure. Positive intention and hope, applied even to the most difficult situation, act as an accelerating force to success. In the recent national election we were sold "hope," but we have to understand that hope has to spring from the indwelling Spirit to inspire personal action and transformation, not be focused on some external "hope" on any external god, government, or leader to take action for us. That taking of action "on our behalf" goes full circle back to control.

So, anyway, these are my thoughts this morning after I had slept on my Peace Pilgrim readings of last night. I seem to be led back to this issue again and again - as I said, it is my current life course, assigned by the Master Professor. Perhaps when I master this one another will come along. In the beginning I faced my course in control with a great deal of fear and hopelessness. I hope when the next assignment rolls in I will be able to face it with composure and faith.

Politically homeless...and loving it!

2009-10-05T08:17:00.010-04:00

"Do not follow the idea of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize unity in all things." - Dogen

Sometimes the signs all around us point out a direction we think we'd rather not take. Or, we fail to listen to the "voice within" that Dogen asserts leads to total clarity. I think I was failing to listen of late when I was looking for a political "home" base from which to become involved in what I think our nation needs - an all out revolution. I long ago accepted my "religious" homelessness, realizing that no organized church or religion on the planet could hold or define the infinite and unknowable God I perceive everywhere, and yet prefer not to box, limit, or package for mass consumption. I'm really comfortable with religious homelessness, as I feel very spiritually at home in my own skin. But political homelessness was chafing at me...and so I searched.

Last month, three events took place that really prodded me into awareness. These events may seem unrelated, but each one made me take a fresh look at what I really believed, and whether or not I could compromise by shoe-horning myself into one of the sadly limited options our current political scene offers. These three events were the LURC decision to rezone an incredibly large piece of land and Moosehead Lake shoreland for large scale residential and resort development, the acquittal of a cold blooded murderer whose crime was - I am convinced and evidence supported - at least in some part an anti-gay hate crime, and a meeting I had with a candidate for office in the state of Maine during which my concerns regarding the LURC decision were literally dismissed.

Why these three events? Why did these three events together constitute the death rattle for my attempt to find a political "party" within which I might be able to work for a better state and nation? Because each reminds me of the political status quo in one way or another - a set of attitudes that exist amidst the party faithful on both sides. I call myself, at times, a "small l libertarian" but even that doesn't really work when I realize the frank horror with which I view the contamination of the North Woods by short sighted ticky tacky development. Even a casual and incomplete viewing of the recent Ken Burns project, "The National Parks," shows that those who were opposed to preserving this country's phenomenal wild places have become the goats of history, the people whose vision was so myopic they could only see as far as the change jingling in their pockets. The great myth of the Plum Creek development at Moosehead is that it will be the savior of the northern Maine economy, and that it is the ONLY option for this alleged salvation. Nothing could be further from the truth - in other places in this country we've seen this all before, and yet those who have not witnessed the fruitless raping of a region so that much of the proceeds could exit the state or end up in the hands of a few developers could be forgiven for falling prey to the illusion. It's harder to forgive well educated politicians who have had the benefit of nationwide and international travel, who insist it "can't happen in Maine," refuse to "even have this conversation," and who liken development in environmentally sensitive areas of the North Woods to a mere grain of salt on a vast cafe table.

That's how it is. Most of the Republicans I've spoken to have no room in their party for someone who wants to save the North Woods, while still doing the hard work necessary to bring real and lasting economic viability to the people who inhabit that region. And some Democrats I've spoken to seem blind to the economic agony and desperation that leads to this kind of environmental debacle. My libertarian friends, with whom I am most sympathetic, feel that the landowners have their rights, and what they say goes. As a real estate agent, I get that. My entire career is about assisting people in buying and selling the "bundle of rights" that each property deed represents. But does a single land owner have the right to destroy some of the most wild places left on the east coast - a place so compelling that Henry David Thoreau experienced his "Contact!" moment there and that has inspired so many people to work for its designation as a National Park? I can't say I believe that land owner has that right in the higher order of things. I wish I could. I take great pride in my libertarian, Constitutional, and patriotic mind set. But I can't come to terms with a pure form libertarianism on this issue. That "voice within" says "just say no."

So, I've addressed the LURC decision, and I've addressed talking to politicians, both up close and personal and in general. What does the murder trial acquittal have to do with all of this? Well, again, I believe this acquittal came because the victim was gay, and as we all know, marriage equality is currently a raging debate in Maine. Gay rights groups all over the country are watching carefully to see what Maine voters will do in November when the referendum on whether or not to uphold the gay marriage law in Maine is voted on. Most mainstream Republicans are against marriage equality. Most libertarians and Democrats support it. I support it. I have blogged several times before on why this issue is a no brainer in a free society. No government has the right to tell two consenting adults that they can not enter into a covenant with one another. No government has the right to regulate or define my heterosexual marriage, and therefore no government has the right to regulate or define my friends' gay marriages. But this issue runs so much deeper than just the legal or Constitutional issue. Or whether or not civil liberties are violated when marriage rights are denied ( they are). Or whether or not government is bringing religion into a civil matter when marriage rights are denied ( it is).

No, although I use all those civil libertarian issues when I argue with someone for marriage equality, at the core of it - what is really driving my plea - is the issue of human equality - and the issue of hate and intolerance. People can argue on and on for all the reasons that gay citizens should be denied their marriage rights, but what is at the root of it? If it's religion, that's ok for a personal and religious organizational point of view - in a free society freedom of religion should be absolute and no person or church should have to accept gay marriage if their religion forbids it. However, our government is a secular body, and must protect the inalienable rights of all, not follow the precepts of any one or group of religions. One can certainly not base opposition to marriage equality on the Constitution. The Constitution provides government no authority whatsoever to regulate marriage. (Of course, the Constitution provides no authority whatsoever for government to regulate health care, education, etc. - here again, I part ways with most of my Democrat friends.) So what IS the basis for opposition? Could it be...discrimination? Bigotry? Misunderstanding of what homosexuality is and is not? Ignorance? Not knowing and loving any gay people or families personally? Hysterical stereotypes about gay people being "perverts" ("Lock up the boys, Myrtle - there's a fag in the neighborhood!")? I'm sure by now I've offended some people - but the truth is, we have to LOOK at this. If we don't look at the ugly side of anti-gay discrimination, we will end up with more injustice - and I would say danger - in our society. The acquittal that came in Oxford County, Maine in a murder case in which the victim was a young gay man - a hardworking, beautiful person by all accounts - is the worst reflection of the biases we hold in this culture. And I can not be part of any political group or party that contributes to that in any way. How sad that the party that was mainly responsible for freeing the slaves is the party that would still deny this significant segment of our society their inalienable right to marriage and family life.

In considering all of this, I realized that I can only be who I am. I'm not going to find a "party" or "group" to join and work with in the present day political world. Because in order to do so, I'd have to compromise some strongly held beliefs about justice, liberty, and the responsible protection of Creation. I also can't play the game - I have no real stomach for debate with politicians whose fixed agendas are mostly about fitting in to some ideological box containing the most votes. I may never find a political "home" - and I'm getting more and more comfortable with that every day. In the meantime, I am fairly certain that ideologues - in their infinite need to box themselves and others - will label me in a variety of ways that do not reflect my true beliefs. And that's ok too. In the meantime, I'm going to support those issues I believe in on an individual basis, as an individual, independent of party or affiliation. In shaking off my preoccupation with political pigeonholes of all kinds, I think I can actually become a more effective advocate for those things I am passionate about, secure in the knowledge that, although we have no party, there are millions like me. And ultimately, although it will take time, true liberty and justice will prevail in America, because it is the nature of who we are.

Who is your American Idol???

2009-05-21T18:39:00.009-04:00

This morning I hung my Gadsden flag out in the brilliant sunshine of the first truly hot, summery day here in Maine, and sat down to check my Facebook. OK, so I'm a little addicted to FB - every morning I check it to see "what's new." And every afternoon. And every evening. But that's beside the point. This particular morning a good friend had posted a status that expressed his wish that we, as Americans, were as engaged in caring about the nefarious actions of our government as we are about who wins on "American Idol." I have to confess, I should not judge "American Idol" as I have not seen a single nanosecond of the program, but I have a sneaking suspicion a nanosecond might be too long to hold my interest.

Don't get me wrong. I DO have American idols in my life. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is a serious American idol for me (and ever so much hotter than that guy on tv's "American Idol" wearing the guyliner). George Washington. Henry Knox and his amazing cannon escapades. William Tecumseh Sherman (I know - controversial...). Albert Einstein. Ron Paul. Abigail Adams, often reminding her husband to have a cool head and a long range view. Andrew Wyeth. My sons. My brother. My grandmother. I have international idols too, but I'll spare you the list.

One of the reasons I have not watched "American Idol" is that I can't get past the name of the show. I don't WANT a pop star for an idol. And I don't want an idol for reasons as simplistic as "he's a nice person" or "she sings really well" or even "he's overcome so much adversity." An idol, and an American idol, for me, needs to represent something of gravity, and something much larger than him or herself. Our founding fathers - worthy of the name "American idols" - signed the Declaration of Independence on a similarly sweltering day to this one, knowing that if this revolution thing failed they would all be executed for treason. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, his 20th Maine, and let's not forget the men of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York, held the Union extreme left under the most improbable of conditions at Gettysburg on yet another impossibly hot day. Everyday soldiers in our Revolution, our Civil War, our World Wars, and every conflict since have given their "last full measure of devotion" so that we might be free. That's what Memorial Day is for - to remember this mind boggling sacrifice over hundreds of years by real, true American idols.

These men and women did not die so that we could sit by in a reality tv induced stupor while our government hurls us headlong into ill advised or unjust wars. They did not sacrifice their quiet enjoyment of home and hearth so that we could casually dismiss the erosion of civil liberties and the trampling of our Constitution. The founding fathers (and mothers, I'd assert) were not joking when they pointed out that threats to our freedom, our sovereignty, and our natural rights to life, liberty, property & the pursuit of happiness could be both foreign AND domestic in nature. Thomas Jefferson made clear the "right of revolution" in the Declaration of Independence - not just a right, actually, but a sacred duty to throw off any government that became oppressive to the rights and liberties of the people. These people are my idols.

Increasingly, it seems, the "ends justify the means" in America. As long as we can rationalize something as ending in some "common good, " it seems not to matter whose liberties are squatted upon or what socialist or fascist path we take to get there (e.g. the "Patriot Act"). Gun control advocates would trash the 2nd Amendment "for the greater good." Some of those who find flag burning as distasteful as I do would "make an exception" to the 1st Amendment so that they didn't have to watch this form of expression anymore. The 6th Amendment can take a powder if a public school official wants to search a student's car "for cause." "Eminent domain" laws allow the government (and in some cases developers!) to seize private property "for the common good." Government defines marriage. Government defines adulthood. Government defines what makes a "good education," although the government schools are ironically some of the poorest choices for education. And all of this government defining is justified by "the greater good." Where is Ayn Rand when we need her? Or Patrick Henry, eyes ablaze declaring, "Give me liberty...or give me DEATH!" Or one of my personal favorites, John Brown (oooh, I know...really controversial...) although I'm not really fond of the violence thing. Harriet Beecher Stowe, after all, did more to further the cause of abolition in the long run with her pen than John Brown did with his cache of firearms. But the guy had wicked hair. His hair might have even won him a spot on "American Idol."

But I digress.

To get back to the point, I was immediately sympathetic to my friend this morning, who was clearly exasperated by our culture's obsession with a silly television show while the very foundation of our freedoms is under threat, and while our foreign and domestic policy is so corrupt and so detrimental to ourselves and others. One person on Facebook made the point that America is still the best country in the world, and that if one doesn't like it here, they are welcome to leave, as others are clamoring to our shores. This defensive posture is neither intelligent nor truly patriotic. American malcontents are our conscience, our movers, our shakers, and our guardians of freedom - we'd damned sure better keep them here rather than inviting them to leave "if they don't like it." We are not called as Americans to relative liberty - as though being the "free-est nation on earth" is somehow good enough as long as we're "free-er than they are." No. Freedom is an absolute. We have our own standard of freedom in America. Our true American idols set the standard - and some more American idols over the centuries have improved upon the standard. Who are we to stop making noise if those standards fall to relativism or are weakened?

This Memorial Day weekend take some time to think about what liberty means. Google the texts of the Declaration of Independence, of the Constitution, of the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, MLK Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech, Thomas Paine's "Common Sense, " or some other treatise on freedom and civil liberties. And remember - memorialize - freedom's defenders. Better yet, be freedom's defender.

Patriots criticize. Patriots protest. And, if it comes down to it, patriots die for their beliefs, and for freedom, and for us. They are the real American idols, even if they can't sing a note.

A word from Thomas Merton...

2009-04-20T10:53:00.003-04:00

Last night I responded to a thread on Facebook and then went to bed and started reading Thomas Merton's essay, "The Street is for Celebration." It was amazing that this very essay was saying - in such a better way - what I had been trying to express in my thread response. I copy a segment of this essay here, but the entire text can be found in the book "Love and Living" which is free for the reading on GoogleBooks.

"We can dance in the street, but that will not change the fact that our buildings are lousy, the rent is too high, the garbage is not taken away, and back yards look like bomb craters.

Never mind. We can begin now to change this street and this city.

We will begin to discover our power to transform the world.

He who celebrates in not powerless. He becomes a creator because he is a lover.

But celebration is not for the alone.

To pull down the blind and empty the bottle and lie on the floor in a stupor: this may help you forget the street for a while, but it is surrender. It is the crowning submission, the acceptance of powerlessness, willingness to admit you are nothing. The alienated city isolates men from one another in despair, lovelessness, defeat. It is crowded with people who are not present to each other: it is like a desert, although full of people.

Celebration is not noise. It is not a spinning head. It is not just individual kicks.

It is the creation of a common identity, a common consciousness.

Celebration is everybody making joy.

Not as a duty (you can't manufacture joy out of the duty to have fun).

Celebration is when we let joy make itself out of our love.

We like to be together. We like to dance together. We like to make pretty and amusing things. We like to laugh at what we have made. We like to put bright colors on the walls - more bright colors on ourselves. We like our pictures - they are crazy: the craziness of not submitting even though "they," "the others," the ones who make life impossible, seem to have all the power. Celebration is the beginning of confidence, therefore of power.

When we laugh at them, when we celebrate, when we make our lives beautiful, when we give one another joy by loving, by sharing, then we manifest a power they cannot touch. We can be the artisans of a joy they never imagined.

We can build a fire of happiness in this city that will put them to shame.

They with their gold have turned our lives into rubble. But we with love will set our lives on fire and turn the rubble back into gold. This time the gold will have real worth. It will not be just crap that came out of the earth. It will be the infinite value of human identity flaming up in a heart that is confident in loving. That is the beginning of power. That is the beginning of transformation. One day, you'll see!

Meanwhile, we have an answer to the question: "Can the street become an inhabited space?" "Yes, when it becomes a space for celebration."

- Thomas Merton, from "Love and Living"

I would argue that we can exchange the word "street" for something like this:

"Can our lives become an inhabited space?" "Yes, when they become spaces for celebration."

If you are unfamiliar with the life of Thomas Merton, Google him. I have always wondered if, had he lived, he would have eventually become a persona non grata with the Church as his delivery of the teachings of Jesus was rather stripped of all dogma and agenda, and he hung around with Buddhist monks like Thich Naht Hanh, who he referred to as his "spiritual brother." Thomas Merton was no Polyanna - he witnessed the worst this world can dish and still tried to be "Bread in the Wilderness." I would say he succeeded.

Used Car Lot

2008-06-16T19:05:00.000-04:00

35 Mile Long Used Car Lot
Current mood: disgusted
Category: Life

I guess it's yet another sign of the times. You know, one of those signs that the Bush Administration ignores? You know, like when they put out economic statistics that EXCLUDE the price of fuel and food?

In the past couple of weeks I've had occasion to do the 35 mile drive between my home in Paris and my cottage in Gray, Maine quite a few times. The road between these two points is state route 26. I could not help but notice that this stretch of highway has become one long used car lot. There must be more than a dozen cars for sale along this route - all parked out on the road with "For Sale" signs plastered on their windows. Last night on my way back from the cottage I stopped to look at a Honda CRV, thinking it might be a good alternative to my gas guzzling Suburban. Lately I've been thinking a lot about buying a cheap used car in the fall to save gas. I figure by then gasoline will be about $6/gallon. The CRV, however, was $6500 - way beyond my budget for a cheap used car.

Just as I've never seen so many foreclosed homes in a single area, I have never seen this many cars for sale by private owners either. I think the reasons are many - the SUVs, big vans, and trucks for sale are probably being exchanged for more efficient vehicles. But how to explain the Honda CRV, or the other small efficient vehicles? It's very possible that for some families a car has to be sacrificed to simply survive, or plan to survive, the coming winter's heating prices, and ever escalating food prices.

The best price we've been able to find for heating fuel for this coming winter is $4.83/gallon for our residence, and $4.89/gallon for our duplex rental property. At those prices, our rental property may not be profitable. Like the Katahdin Paper Mill here in Maine that has recently had to close because the extreme fuel prices have turned an extremely successful plant into a fiscal loser, our apartment building may also cost more to heat than we can possibly recoup in increased rent. Be it large scale or small, the fuel prices are putting people out of business and out of work.

People in Maine are already talking about closing off parts of their homes (we are included in that group), or literally shutting down their homes for the winter and sharing space and heating costs with friends and family.

Where are the protests? Where are the riots? The FRENCH, of all people, are currently staging protests over fuel prices - where are the AMERICANS? What will it take? Will it take the first wave of New Englanders freezing to death in their homes for lack of fuel? The fuel assistance programs can't keep up with the demand. Will it take the massive layoffs as more and more companies can't make ends meet and close? WHAT...WILL...IT...TAKE?????

This is the question that keeps coming to me and for which I have no answer. Just as I don't know exactly where the limit is for Americans as we are increasingly robbed of our civil liberties - where is the breaking point? At what point is Revolution inevitable?

This is a question that throughout history has been difficult to answer. Even in hindsight historians argue over what that "last straw" actually was before the outbreak of a revolution. I don't have the answer. I don't know what the last straw will be. But I believe it's coming. The decision for me, and for you, is whether to be a part of it, or whether to lie by complacently while greed, corruption, and power plays (including the intentional squelching by our gov't and the oil interests of the alternative fuel industry) rob us of our quality of life.

Used cars will continue to pepper the 35 mile route between Paris and Gray here in rural Maine. I no longer see them as just cars. I see them as a sign of a revolution in the making.

Speechless for a change...

2008-04-07T13:13:00.001-04:00

Speechless for a change
Current mood: grateful
Category: Life

I have been trying for quite a few days now to configure a blog post about the trip I took last Friday to Concord, MA with my oldest son Rob to visit primarily the Thoreau and transcendentalist sites, but also to see North Bridge and briefly go to some Revolutionary War sites.

I find myself in a rare state - still speechless. The task of writing a post on what it meant to me to spend that day with my son, who is a kindred spirit in all things historical, philosophical, political, etc., in a place sacred to both of us is proving to defy expression. Add to this the inevitable fact of his departure from our every day lives in August as he embarks on life at college, and my inability to express my feelings adequately intensifies.

Instead I present to you his blog post on the subject, which can be found at:

http://darksaturos.blogspot.com

and his photos - all taken by him with the exception of the ones in which he appears. You may view these on my "pics" in the Concord, MA folder.

I will relate one moment that will be impressed upon my memory for the rest of my life, along with the feelings it brought with it. Rob was stopped on the footpath at Walden Pond, in the rain - it was raining all day, contemplating how to capture what he was seeing and feeling with the camera. Suddenly he stripped his coat off, spread it over the wet muddy ground, and lay down on it in order to get the photo from the ground level. It reminded me of a knight spreading his cloak over a puddle so that the fair maiden would not muddy her feet, but in this case it was simply a young man dedicated to his quest to take this experience, this feeling, these emotions home with him in digital format. As the coat hit the squishy path my first instant reaction was that of a typical Mom - "Oh Rob, that’s going to be a mess!" - but I soon shut that down and realized that this was one of those moments I would never forget. As I watched my son carefully frame his shot, and get up smiling with satisfaction at having captured it, I knew I’d witnessed something sacred in my own story of parenting and his story of becoming his own man with his own very deep philosophy of life. He casually brushed off the back of his coat and put it back on, and as we continued down the path to find the site of Thoreau’s cabin I noticed in amazement that his back was without a spot of mud.

Free Tibet - One Boycotted Product at a Time

2008-03-28T08:11:00.000-04:00

See this article at CNN. com and watch the associated video.

http://edition. cnn. com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/tibet/?iref=mpstoryview

If the monk nearly in tears pleading for freedom does not move you, perhaps you’d better check your pulse. You might be legally dead.

This is a big deal. If the United States does nothing to stand up and help, in some way, Tibet achieve freedom it will be recorded in history that we were a shameful pawn of the Chinese government. We are hundreds of billions of dollars in debt to the Chinese government, and our trade deficit with them is enormous as well.

Do you know what that means?

They own us. We are owned by a totalitarian communist regime half way around the world. And, sadly, it appears that as such, they own our policy and we have surrendered our moral compass and deeply held belief that all people should be free.

The Iraqis should be free, but not the Tibetans? Oh yes, Iraq doesn’t own us.

Boycott the Beijing Olympics. Vote for real change in local, state, and federal government. Boycott Chinese products to the furthest extent you are able to. I know this is extremely difficult given the combination of the glut of Chinese products on our market and our extremely weak economy, our collapsed domestic manufacturing base, runaway inflation, and the cost of heating fuel and gasoline squeezing everyone near to death financially. But try. Please.

Boycott to the extent possible for you every single one of the Beijing Olympic sponsors.

Again, you can find their names at:

http://en. beijing2008. cn/90/53/column211995390. shtml

Your body will thank you for skipping that Big Mac and so will your conscience.

Our leaders will not take a stand. But we can, if even in small ways. Until we regain our own freedoms, our own economic footing, our own moral compass, we will be powerless to stand by Tibet as a nation in any meaningful way. Vote for change. Look actively for change as a material fact, not as a slogan - seek it out - and vote for it.

Real I.D. in Maine - latest news - freedom quotes

2008-03-26T09:20:00.002-04:00

The Real I.D. fight in my state & some asskicking quotes on liberty
Current mood: disgusted
Category: News and Politics

For background, here is the article from this morning’s Lewiston Sun Journal:

Baldacci seeks Real ID extension

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

AUGUSTA (AP) - Gov. John Baldacci asked the federal government Tuesday not to penalize Maine travelers if the state misses a deadline to make driver’s licenses more secure, saying the state is making progress in upgrading the security of state-issued credentials.

Baldacci sent the letter to Secretary Michael Chertoff of the Department of Homeland Security as next Monday’s deadline looms for states to request waivers that give them more time to comply with new licensing standards under the Real ID act, an anti-terrorism law enacted after Sept. 11, 2001.

DHS says it will impose new air travel restrictions on residents of states that do not seek waivers from the Real ID act and will deny them access to federal buildings when the federal requirements take effect on May 11.

Without directly asking for a waiver from the government’s deadline, Baldacci asked the department not to penalize Mainers. He said Maine "has been at the forefront in the national discussion of identity security" and has worked closely with Homeland Security on the issue.

"We remain committed to improving the security of our credentials," says Baldacci’s letter.

The wording closely follows that of a letter from Montana. Even though it did not ask specifically for a waiver, Montana was given one last week, said Baldacci spokesman David Farmer.

"We’re asking for equal treatment," Farmer said.

Other states including South Carolina and New Hampshire also have not sought waivers. New Hampshire asked to be exempted, but federal officials do not view its letter as a legally acceptable request and the Granite State has not received an extension.

Gov. John Lynch’s spokesman, Colin Manning, said Tuesday that New Hampshire had not received a response from the federal government.

Maine, like some other states, has enacted a law forbidding its motor vehicle officials from complying with Real ID. Baldacci said Maine, along with other states bound by such laws, will continue working with the government on credential security issues.

But complying with Real ID could cost the state $200 million, according to Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, who is in charge of Maine motor vehicle regulation. Privacy issues are also being raised.

"I share the concerns of other Maine lawmakers that Real ID could put in jeopardy the personal information of every Maine resident," Baldacci said.

Dunlap said a likely alternative to Real ID requirements will be a passport, passport card, military ID or other federal identifying document&183;

Baldacci’s letter drew statements from the Maine congressional delegation. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe asked Chertoff to allow Maine IDs to continue to be accepted for federal purposes following May 11.

"As the state and the nation continue to grapple with a sluggish economy and widespread budget shortfalls, this is the wrong time to force an undefined federal mandate on the state that, by all estimates, it cannot afford," Snowe said.

Democratic Rep. Tom Allen expressed doubts that Real ID will enhance security and said no state is in compliance. His letter to Chertoff calls the May 11 deadline "arbitrary" and says, "I believe that your agency has recognized that Real ID will not work in its current form."

If you read between the lines here, you can see that my state, under the leadership of a Governor I detest but am at least glad is not rolling over on this issue, is fighting for its life in this battle. The Department of Homeland Security (another Orwellian term) and its totalitarian commander Michael Chertoff seem to be threatening to impede travel for Mainers by not accepting our typical form of i.d. at airports and other travel hubs - that would be, normally, our Maine issued driver’s licenses. We are not the only state under threat and I am hoping that those states who have chosen not to comply with Real I.D. can band together and stand up to the federal bullying being doled out by this administration. You see, this President and his posse don’t know their world or American history, and they don’t understand that the moment you start trading civil liberties for so-called security (which is doubtful even in its effectiveness), your free republic is dead. "Live free or die" is not just a slogan that our forefathers came up with to sell tee shirts and coffee mugs - no - they were deadly serious and truly willing to die rather than live enslaved or have their children enslaved.

Please - wherever you are - educate yourself on Real I.D. I’ll try to put up some resources on this blog site and on my MySpace site at http://www.myspace.com/parrishouse. We have to fight this, and we have to win. Contact your representatives, go to protests, vote for freedom loving and seeking candidates, write blogs, write to your newspapers - do whatever it takes to have your voices heard.

I have vowed that I will not carry Real I.D., and I will not be chipped (which is on the table as a possibility). I don’t know if this means that I will not be able to travel in future, or that other public services will be withheld from me. But for my part, I am already much too much of a data point for the federal government via social security and other invasive records. I can not take this additional step, nor would I even if I believed that it would improve so called "homeland security" - which I do not believe.

The following great quotes on liberty were found at: http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_freedom.html

Check out the site for the complete list, if freedom is of interest to you.

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." - Benjamin Franklin

"When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered." - Dorothy Thompson

"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." - Edward R. Murrough

"Human history begins with man’s act of disobedience which is at the very same time the beginning of his freedom and development of his reason." - Erich Fromm

"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will." - Frederick Douglas

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." - Goethe

"The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe." - H.L. Menken

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." - H.D. Thoreau

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams

"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. (1790)" - John Philpot Curran

"Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom." - Marilyn Ferguson

"For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of ’brainwashing under freedom’ to which we are subjected and which all too often we sere as willing or unwitting instruments." - Noam Chomsky

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" - Patrick Henry

"For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you." - Ramsey Clark

"Freedom lies in being bold." - Robert Frost

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Sam Adams

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." - Somerset Maugham

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." - Thomas Jefferson (one of my favorite quotes of his, I might add)

"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." - Voltaire

"Patriotism does not oblige us to acquiesce in the destruction of liberty. Patriotism obliges us to question it, at least." - Wendy Kaminer

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." - William O. Douglas

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Wendell Phillips

Fly the Gadsden Flag

2008-03-24T10:14:00.003-04:00

Gadsden Flag
Current mood: determined
Category: News and Politics

This is the Gadsden Flag. Most of you with a clue about history will recognize this as a flag from the time of the American Revolution. I have been reminded of this flag again in watching the John Adams series on HBO. A bit of the history of this flag can be found at http://foundingfathers.info, but one excerpt written at the time stands out:

"In December 1775, "An American Guesser" anonymously wrote to the Pennsylvania Journal:

’I observed on one of the drums belonging to the marines now raising, there was painted a Rattle-Snake, with this modest motto under it, ’Don’t tread on me.’ As I know (it is the custom to have some device on the arms of every country, I supposed this may have been intended for the arms of America.’

This anonymous writer, having "nothing to do with public affairs" and "in order to divert an idle hour," speculated on why a snake might be chosen as a symbol for America.

First, it occurred to him that "the Rattle-Snake is found in no other quarter of the world besides America."

The rattlesnake also has sharp eyes, and "may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance." Furthermore,

"She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. ... she never wounds ’till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her."

Finally,

"I confess I was wholly at a loss what to make of the rattles, ’till I went back and counted them and found them just thirteen, exactly the number of the Colonies united in America; and I recollected too that this was the only part of the Snake which increased in numbers. ...

"’Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces. One of those rattles singly, is incapable of producing sound, but the ringing of thirteen together, is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living."

Many scholars now agree that this "American Guesser" was Benjamin Franklin. "

I could not help but feel that the times are right again for the flying of this flag. As I prepare to go to the April 15th tax day protest, the state convention in Augusta as a Ron Paul delegate, and then to the Revolution March - I hope - in Washington this summer I truly believe that America is poised to fight her second grass roots revolution for independence (no offense to y’all in the South, who might argue that this is our third). This time we are seeking independence from the socialist agenda of the left, the liberty withering fascist agenda of the right, onerous taxation which is sometimes double and triple and often without representation (as an example - how many Americans support this war for which they are paying dearly - and for which we are becoming increasingly indebted to China, a nation known worldwide for its human rights violations and a political philosophy antithetical to everything we are alleged to stand for?). We are seeking independence from a broken Federal Reserve system. We are seeking independence from big corporations which dictate our foreign policy, our monetary policy, and set our fuel prices. We are seeking independence from a government that thinks it knows best how our children should be educated and whether or not gay Americans have the right to define their relationships as they see fit. We are seeking independence from a government that wants to dictate how doctors may treat their patients and whether or not holistic and alternative medicines will be squashed in the marketplace because the big pharmaceutical companies have purchased our FDA. We are seeking the freedom to keep our 1st and 2nd amendment rights. We are seeking the freedom to assemble without a permitting process that discriminates on the basis of the message of those assembled. We are seeking independence from big media which wants to tell us who is or is not "electable" and packages the messages according to the whims of its corporate sponsors.

I could go on, but by now I’m sure in your minds you’re begging me not to.

Here’s my point. If you go on line and Google "Gadsden Flag" you will find many fine companies where you can purchase one. I urge you - if you are sickened by the state of our union today - to fly this flag in protest. The American flag is very dear to me (although I detest and am sickened by its burning I would fight to the death a person’s first amendment right to burn it) and that is the flag that generally flies beside my front door here in Maine. However, this year it will be the Gadsden flag, and it will continue to be that flag until true liberty and freedom, as envisioned by the founding fathers and as protected by many American and allied veterans, is restored to our nation. Perhaps I’d better buy several really good quality flags, because this revolution is going to take a very long time to fight.

Take April 15th off and join us!

2008-03-22T18:41:00.001-04:00

A Message for Mr. Bernanke

2008-03-17T08:30:00.000-04:00

Message to the Federal Reserve
Current mood: disgusted
Category: News and Politics

Someone needs to get a message to Mr. Bernanke that the financial implosion currently under way is now beyond the control of the Federal Reserve. I woke up this morning to news that the Fed had again cut interest rates - on a Sunday night. Here’s a quote that says it all for me, straight from the AP news story:

"The Fed acted just after JP Morgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy rival Bear Stearns Cos. for $236.2 million in a deal that represents a stunning collapse for one of the world’s largest and most venerable investment banks. Just on Friday the Fed had raced to provide emergency financing to cash-strapped Bear Stearns through JP Morgan. Days earlier the Fed announced a set of other unconventional steps to thaw out a credit marekt in danger of freezing shut." - AP, Jeannine Aversa

Does anyone else think that Bear Stearns at $236.2 million smacks of "fire sale"?

The desperation evident here is predicted by Wall Street analysts to lead to a massive sell off on Wall Street today. It will be interesting to watch the markets. In any case, even the most bullish of analysts are standing by the sidelines shaking their heads in disbelief that the Federal Reserve could still be under the delusion that it has any control whatsoever over an economic house of cards already in free fall.

Inflation is a fact. Our government has been trying to doctor the numbers by leaving such factors as, oh, oil and food, out of the calculations. Generally in inflationary times, the Fed raises interest rates. Moreover, the Federal Reserve cuts have NOT been resulting in lowering mortgage or consumer debt rates for those suffering the most excruciating financial pain in our economy. Mortgage rates are NOT going down, and again, it is not rocket science to understand why. The financial institutions who, in a fit of gluttony and greed, over leveraged themselves on bad loans and hoodwinked many many borrowers into bad deals, can simply not afford to pass on rate cuts to the end consumer. No, instead they have to hang on for dear life to every penny of interest they can extract, both on mortgage loans and unsecured consumer debt.

So what gives? We have inflation that is strangling the American consumer daily, and yet the Fed continues to drop rates in a nails-screeching-down-the-cliff effort to save the big boys who are in severe hangover mode from the last bubble party. Well, they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they start raising rates, which is the typical modus operandi for the Fed in inflationary times, consumers will tighten their spending even more (if this is possible) and the economy will...well...tank. The Federal Reserve, our government, the big banks, our foreign policy, oil prices, our sale of ourselves and our nation to China every time we shop at WalMart and every time our gov’t needs money (that "economic stimulus" check you’re getting in a month or so - thank China - Bushie is borrowing from them again because we’re broke as a nation), the record low of the dollar - need I go on? - make up a perfect storm environment in which the Federal Reserve is impotent.

Meanwhile it is the every day person who is suffering. I was in the hardware store on Friday afternoon picking up a new paintbrush and the conversation turned to the foreclosure crisis. I learned from another person there that people are starting to burn down their foreclosed homes in a final desperate act of either attempting to collect insurance money (very unlikely) or simply eliminating the home so that "if they can’t have it, no one else can." Bill reminded me later that it sounded like the farm burnings during the dust bowl the last time the economy was completely out of control.

Here we are. Can someone get the memo to Bernanke? Because the message is loud and clear to us on Main Street, USA, and to the rest of the world as well.

"John Adams" on HBO breathtaking...

2008-03-16T23:23:00.001-04:00

If you have not seen the first two installments of "John Adams" on HBO, you have missed something truly remarkable. The historical integrity of the sets, the acting, the story - I’m really speechless. Please don’t miss this. If you read David McCullough’s book and loved it you will not be disappointed. I just can’t say enough good things about it.

And all this from HBO, which is usually a wasteland of trash and tripe.

You will forgive me for indulging in one more comment - this country that the founding fathers won for us, that our ancestors bled & died for, that our foremothers sacrificed so much for while the men were at war - this country has been taken from us in the chipping away over decades of civil liberties, self determination, and true freedom. One side of the political spectrum would have us enslaved in a comfortable cocoon of socialist policy and runaway entitlement programs. The other side would have us sacrifice our liberties for so-called "security" - for example, the Orwellian named "Patriot Act." The founding fathers did not foresee our nation as empire, nor did it foresee her people cowed by onerous and unsustainable taxation.

History matters. Let not our Republic die an even more rapid death than republics throughout history before it. Do something really American - think - and then act.

Thinking warm...

2008-03-08T16:39:00.002-05:00

If it can’t BE warm, then might as well at least THINK warm...
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Life

It's been several years since I attempted a garden. Those who know me know that, to put it at it's very most optimistic, gardening is still a "developing skill" for me. I remember feeling a bit demoralized about our last garden, even though we had gotten some nice vegetables out of it. But we had fallen to some classic pitfalls - loss of control over weeds, planting a little too close together, and, the worst - having the racoons raid our entire corn crop the very night before I was planning to pick it. I had even told my corn-loving father, "Tomorrow night we are going to have the BEST corn ever - do NOT miss this!" I think his disappointment even exceeded mine when I went out the next day to find bare cobs littered all around - not a stalk was spared. I was livid. Had I had a weapon I would have trudged, Elmer Fudd-ish, around the property looking to blow the heads off the little bastards who ate my perfect sweet corn.

OK, so, I was feeling pretty crappy about the whole experience when that fall I walked into a local gift shop and noticed a calendar with the most beautiful photo included of corn stalks and red sunflowers (not real common) just beyond a stone wall and a very ancient apple tree. As I looked at it I had a very strong feeling of recognition. Then I looked more closely - the caption was something like, "Sunflowers - Paris Hill, Maine." Then I knew - that was MY garden. The photographer had gone behind the stone wall at the back of our property, into the old cemetery, and snapped my corn and sunflower rows on a beautiful Maine summer day. I supposed my garden had borne some fruit after all - it had brought beauty and joy to as many people as had bought that photographer's calendar. I contacted the photographer and she was kind enough to print and frame the photo for me - well, for $50, of course. I had kind of been hoping for a print-in-return-for-inspiration deal, but framing is expensive, so...ok. That print has hung in my kitchen ever since, reminding me that I really NEED to try again for a garden.

Now, I do have chickens which are producing at a prodigious rate - in fact I have so many eggs in my fridge right now, frankly, I'm ready to set up a winter farm stand. And, we also have a few apple trees which, every other year, produce bushels and bushels of apples, which are then eaten whole, turned into pies, apple fritters, apple cake, occasionally apple sauce (although this is a skill I never really learned all that well from my mother, who is very good at making this), and strange recipes my boys make up. One of these is the "apple tortilla" - one apple, cut up, on a tortilla, then butter, cinnamon, chocolate chips - all melted in the microwave, rolled up and eaten with a grin. So, I have these sort of self-sustaining agricultural ventures, but...it's time for a garden...THIS year.

Here's the plan for what we're going to grow...all chosen from the catalog for hardiness, cold resistance, short season/quick growing, and idiot resistance:

Sweet peppers, hot peppers, sweet corn, radishes, cantaloupes, cucumbers, winter squash, beets, watermelons, summer squash, bush beans, peas, red onions, carrots, tomatoes, pumpkins, catnip, sweet basil, dill, and...skyscraper sunflowers.

I know it sounds ambitious, but as the cold rain falls today, poised to turn to ice later this evening, I'd do almost anything to be outside digging in dirt with a little sweat beading on my brow. I may not find that thought so romantic come July when I'm keeping down weeds, but, right now, seems like an attractive vision.

So here's the bottom line. I know I can pull this garden thing off, but any advice you master gardeners might have - particularly those of you who garden in New England - would be really welcome. This year, when the corn and the sunflowers tower over my head, I will remember how long and tedious this winter has been, and I will not need a photographer's art to remind me how grateful I should be for the garden, whether it is objectively "successful" or not.

In Honor of General Philip Sheridan's Birthday

2008-03-06T10:25:00.002-05:00

Today is the birthday of U.S. Cavalry General Philip H. Sheridan, born 1831. I found this nice U.S. Cavalry tribute video on YouTube and thought it appropriate to the day:

When Tourism goes BAD...

2008-03-02T17:42:00.008-05:00

March 2, 2008 - Sunday

amused
Category: Travel and Places

Well, we went up to Bethel, Maine this afternoon to see the "World's Tallest Snow Woman." I must say, the snow woman is actually pretty impressive. Here are some photos of her, but keep reading because this is not just going to be a photo post:

Of course, we had to have the obligatory "family posed with the bigass snowwoman pictures"; don't my boys look THRILLED?:

Oh, and in case you were wondering (which you weren't, of course) where the webcam for the live shot I put up on the Bulletins the other night was:

It's up in the left hand window. I wouldn't have bothered to photograph that but my husband is really into small technical details and he's happy now.

As notable as the giant snow woman was, what was more notable, and funny as all hell, is the opportunistic tourist activity surrounding our giant frozen floozie. Now, Bethel is already a tourist town. Sunday River Ski Resort, a world class ski and golf center, is just to the north in Newry and therefore the town of Bethel has heavy year round tourist activity. Surrounding towns get into the action, of course, and on the way back down we stopped in Greenwood at a shop known to have some really good fudge. My husband and boys can NOT pass up fudge, so we had to stop. Here is a classic photo of a Maine tourist trap:

There are two things to take note of here: 1) the sign in the window advertising "Snow Woman" souvenirs (OMG...) and 2) the hyper expensive Audi parked out front with a Massachusetts tag (the i.d. numbers have been "painted" out to protect the guilty). While Maine residents regularly refer to the good citizens of Massachusetts as "Mass-Holes" same said Maine residents never mind our neighbors to the south coming up, dropping a load of money at tourist spots, and then going back home (the soonah the bettah, thank ya!).

OK, people, BRACE YOURSELVES, for THIS is what you encounter the moment you step inside the shop:

My kids are totally creeped out by that. I mean, it's a robotic cyberborg tourist trap trinket hawking.....uh...what?...THING. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. Good God in heaven...anyway...

Once inside we saw the following high class, fine quality snow woman products for all of your snow woman accessorizing needs:

AND...this has nothing to do with the snow woman but is a special photo for a few of my MySpace buds...you know who you are:

Our tourist trap exposure trauma absolutely complete, my son Rob & I got a couple of coffees and the rest of the family picked out a pound of fudge (get a load of these flavors they chose - pumpkin spice, raspberry amaretto, chocolate, and peanut butter chocolate...mmmm...mmmm....mmmm). See below this display of fudgy tasty goodness:

The serious part of all this, of course, is that the Maine economy is extremely dependent on tourism. Unfortunately our governor and legislature don't really understand the economics of this very well. By continuing to raise taxes on tourist products like lodging, ski lift tickets, "hospitality services" the boobs in power think that they're just shoving the bill onto "out of staters." This is insanity on two levels. For one, many, many Maine residents ski, eat in restaurants, stay overnight at lodging establishments (we have a VERY big state - to travel even IN state is not always a day trip). etc. The second reason this is insanity is that we have NH right across the border - in my part of Maine I can be in Conway, NH (the Mount Washington Valley) in under an hour. Our visitors can simply go there to vacation if the tax on EVERYTHING in Maine continues to spiral upward out of control. And that hurts all of us. As much as we gripe about our people "from away" and "summer complaints" the truth is they bring a great deal of revenue into our state, and in general, do no harm either. I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to simply say that we need more Ron Paul libertarians everywhere at all levels of government (you didn't really think I'd talk about taxation without plugging Ron Paul, did you??? In fact, Rob suggested today that we put up a giant snowman bigger than this one and call it Frosty the Freedom Man in an effort to
FINALLY get Ron Paul some media attention.).

Enough seriousness. If you would like to keep an eye on Ms. Olympia Snowe-Woman (that's her name, after one of our U.S. Senators) go to:

World's Largest Snow Woman Webcam - Bethel, Maine

That's the webcam - 24/7 - lights at night and all. Keep in mind that the World's Largest Snowman, Angus King of the Mountain, that was built in Bethel several years ago, did not melt until JUNE 10th of that year!!! So, you've got plenty of time to watch, you know...if you have nothing else to do

Whitewashed Prison Entry

2008-02-29T08:29:00.002-05:00

Whitewashed Prison Entry (Warning: More Thoreau)
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Life

"I ordinarily plod along a sort of whitewashed prison entry, subject to some indifferent or even grovelling mood. I do not distinctly realize my destiny. I have turned down my light to the merest glimmer and am doing some task which I have set myself. I take incredibly narrow views, live on the limits, and have no recollection of absolute truth. Mushroom institutions hedge me in. But suddenly, in some fortunate moment, the voice of eternal wisdom reaches me, even in the strain of the sparrow, and liberates me, whets and clarifies my senses, makes me a competent witness." - Henry David Thoreau, May 12th, 1857, age 39

While it is tempting to make some analogy between the ever narrowing streets and sidewalks here, hemmed in in some places completely by massive walls of snow taller than I am, and Thoreau's "whitewashed prison entry", I will refrain. I'm just NOT going to talk about the weather...too...painful...sob...

No, instead I'm going to address Thoreau's actual meaning here. I'm not sure much explanation is required. Who of us does not recognize the "whitewashed prison entry" of everyday life, our destiny obscured, our light nearly extinguished as we go about the day to day. Thoreau goes further to say that in this state he is limited by "mushroom institutions" - perhaps like work (in his case, the incomprehensibly uninspiring pencil business), organized religion, social obligation. Thoreau was always banging on the iron bars of this prison, then, cat-like, gracefully slipping through and around them.

What both surprised and reassured me in this passage, actually, was that Thoreau felt this way at all. By the time he was 39 he had a mere five years yet to live, and he had already packed in a great deal of living and thinking. He had studied eastern religion extensively, had lived at Walden, had had many epiphanies (enlightenments?) that I might have guessed would have immunized him against those "grovelling" moods (spelling Thoreau's). After all, in the easter traditions, and in Christianity for that matter, holiness and meaning can be found specifically in the every day tasks that count for most of us as "drudge." Thoreau was well aware of this, and had experienced this - his writings leave no doubt that this was something he understood at his deepest self. So why this lament?

I think it's the contrast Thoreau is drawing between that "whitewashed prison entry" and the "fortunate moment"s of "liberation." These moments are so infused with light, that even the holiest of ordinary moments seem so relatively dark.

One thing I am learning about Thoreau right now in reading his journals is that he was extremely auditory. Sounds were incredibly important and inspiring to him. He waxes positively poetic about the "telegraph harp" which is simply the humming that emanated from the then somewhat novel telegraph lines strung throughout Concord. The journals are filled with accounts of sounds of birds, turtles splashing in Walden Pond, the wind, voices of townspeople, the piano downstairs, ad infinitum. He also talks about the power of music to transcend other forms of expression. For someone whose primary form of expression was writing, this is interesting. And it's through a sound that he illustrates the arrival to him of the "voice of eternal wisdom", delivered through the "strain of a sparrow."

I can't help but think of my husband Bill when I read this. In this most dreadful of winters (I know, I said I wouldn't talk about the weather...but, this is relevant), he is positively desperate for what he calls "birdie sounds." (No, he's not 5 years old...this is a running joke with us.) He just so absolutely desperately wants to wake up and hear the birds - that early spring sound when you can crack the window, get a rush of "spring earth smell", and hear literally hundreds, if not thousands, of birds chirping and singing all around. He is, like Thoreau, looking for that moment that "whets and clarifies" his senses after, in this case, a brutal winter.

But it's Thoreau's last words in the passage that strike me the most. Not only does this awakening refresh and sharpen his senses, but it suggests a resultant responsibility - to make him once again "a competent witness." It would be hard to argue that anyone in American history was a more competent witness than Thoreau, both of nature and of human history. Thoreau spent his life witnessing in the most painstaking detail, but not passively - rather so actively that he was able to then interpret what he had seen in ways that challenge us still today to live differently, live more in awareness, and live more truthfully. He took to heart the eastern concept of "mindfulness" and lived it. What is reassuring for me, a novice in mindfulness, is that he still sometimes saw "whitewashed prison walls" and still needed the illumination of the great light of "fortunate moments". His mindfulness had not reached perfection. It was, as the Buddha insists, a conscious practice. Jesus had perfected this, it would seem. I suppose that it would be unfair to expect such a feat of Henry Thoreau of mid-19th century Concord, Massachusetts.

My son's senior project is to create a curriculum piece on Thoreau, and so I will need to escort him to Concord this spring, and also up through the Maine woods where Thoreau traveled what is now the "Abenaki/Thoreau Trail." To walk in the footsteps of Thoreau with my young son in the spring before he leaves for college will be an honor that is difficult to put into words. I have been gifted with a young man who "gets" Thoreau's transcendental philosophy, believes in "fortunate moments", and the judicious use of civil disobedience. I can not think of a person with whom I would rather walk Thoreau's path. It will be, for me, an experience filled with "fortunate moments" that are possible only in this here, and this now, and I must be careful to practice mindfulness lest I miss even a single one.

When I get into this mode of thought I feel a lot better - about my life, about the weather (oh God, I've mentioned it again...), about everything. Thoreau continues to inspire, continues to rise from his whitewashed prison of pencil manufacturing into the transcendent fortunate moments of not only his history, but mine.

Hebron Academy Ski Team

2008-02-22T14:33:00.001-05:00

Hebron Academy Skiing
Category: Life

Nice photo of one of Jamey's team mates going down the mountain. The lake to the right all covered in snow is Moose Pond in Bridgton. This ski mountain is Shawnee Peak. From the hill we live on at night we can see the lights from this mountain's night trails.

Our sweet James:

Team mates on the lift...I'm always afraid someone's going to fall off:

Team mates lounging...James was not nuts about the spandex:

Ron Paul wins Paris, Maine!!!

2008-02-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul wins Paris, Maine!!!
Current mood: excited
Category: News and Politics

Oh yeah. This is my boy registering to vote for the very first time. OK, so we had to register Republican in order to vote in the caucus for Ron Paul, and now we feel a little dirty because we're not registered as independent or libertarian, but we had a great outcome - the town of Paris officially went to Dr. Ron Paul! (If you look closely you'll see that Rob is signing on the copy of the Reagan Diaries he's reading - but I swear, he's not a Republican!) Admittedly there were only 4 votes for Dr. Paul, but when you only have about a dozen people in the room this matters. We met a very nice couple there who will be getting in touch with us for more campaigning activities and also to touch base before our...........

TRIP TO AUGUSTA IN MAY AS DELEGATES!

Only in America, people, can you show up at a caucus having no idea what the process is and walk out a delegate to the party's state convention. This should be fun, but at the same time we are taking it very seriously and plan to prepare ourselves well for the convention. What a great experience for Rob - I wish I'd had this kind of opportunity at 18.

We know that John McCain is the "presumed nominee" (kind of like the "anointed successor"?) but we don't care. This campaign is about promoting the philosophy of liberty - and as long as there is still no nominee we're going to keep promoting libertarian ideals. In fact, long after there is a nominee, and long after there is a new president, we have to keep promoting freedom, adherence to the Constitution, small government, free markets, non-aggressive foreign policy, and the protection of civil liberties for all people. Should Ron Paul not win the White House, we will still keep looking for candidates to elect at all levels of government who represent the protection of life, liberty, and property. If you are unfamiliar with what Dr. Paul stands for please see http://www.ronpaul2008.com.

To all of my Ron Paul MySpace friends, let me know how it's going in your neck of the woods. I know Sarra is a Delegate in her state, as, I believe is Aracos here in Maine plus I think he also chairs the county organization (is that right, Michael?) and a bunch of the rest of you are working hard blogging and campaigning to get the message out. Let's keep it going! :-)

The Good Death Still Lives

2008-02-16T19:22:00.001-05:00

The Good Death Still Lives

I opened the Lewiston Sun Journal this evening and was deeply saddened to see the obituary of an acquaintance of mine who leaves behind twin teenage daughters who were friends of my son James. Only 54 years old, he succumbed to cancer. As I read his death notice, however, I found the manner in which he chose to die, and for his body to be taken care of afterward, extremely inspirational.

I knew this man just a little bit. I had listed and sold an investment property he had in my neighborhood, and I had seen him at our kids' school with his daughters. I had also shown him some properties in our area before he decided finally to settle down in Portland with his second wife. He was a man deeply attached to nature and the arts, and at one point during a ride we took together we talked about religion and spirituality. He was very open to God as an entity way beyond the pigeon holes mankind has created, and was acutely aware of what Thich Naht Hanh refers to as "interbeing" - the impossibility of anything or anyone existing discretely, but rather that all things and all being exist in an interdependent and integrated way. Thoreau says something very similar to how our conversation went in a journal entry from 1850:

"I do not prefer one religion or philosophy to another. I have no sympathy with the bigotry and ignorance which make transient and partial and puerile distinctions between one man's faith or form of faith and another's-as Christian and heathen. I pray to be delivered from narrowness, partiality, exaggeration, bigotry. To the philosopher all sects, all nations, are alike. I like Brahma, Hari, Buddha, the Great Spirit, as well as God."

This man I knew was a massage therapist, an artist, a dancer, a great father, a nature lover, a traveler - just an extremely interesting person. He was very vigilant about his health and it must have seemed terribly unjust to him and to his loved ones when he became ill with cancer. He chose to treat it at least partially with alternative and holistic medicine, and he did not die in a hospital hooked up to machines and tubes. He died surrounded by loved ones at a cottage on a nearby pond. His body was transported by sled the very next day over the snow to the opposite shoreline or hillside for interment. His girls will be able to visit his grave in familiar surroundings, in a place that he and they loved together.

In generations and centuries past there was something called "the good death." This was prior to our modern habit of shrinkwrapping and packaging death in an aseptic container so that it can be cleanly and handily thrown out of our everyday lives. The aseptic death would have been a ludicrous impossibility in the days when death was so prevalent and so truly every day that it could not be sidestepped. Post mortem photos of the loved one's body were taken as mementos and viewings were held in the home. I have no idea how many caskets graced my front parlor between 1818 and the modern "deathless" period we now find ourselves in, but I am actually comforted to know that not only was life conducted here, but good and honest death. Our culture could stand to have "Memento Mori" on road signs perhaps every 20 miles on the turnpike to remind us to live while we are here, and to die well when we must.

As I wrote a card of sympathy to the bereaved daughters and their mother, who is a friend of mine, I could not help but think that their father had given them a great last gift. So often we think that we must engage ourselves in teaching our children to live a good life - and we must - but how many of us get the opportunity to teach them about a good death? I am certain this man fought with his whole being to remain alive and to beat the cancer - he loved life and would not have wanted to leave his girls. But when it became clear that there was no hope of life remaining, he died with those he loved, in a place he loved, and went back to the earth in a spot sacred to him and to his family and friends. No machines, no tubes, no heroics, no embalming, no commercial cemetery - just a man releasing his eternal spirit back to its source and his body back to the earth. I cried when I read of his death, but I am inspired in the way he chose to achieve it and am grateful for the little time even I, a peripheral acquaintance, had to spend with him while he was here.

Civil War Valentine

2008-02-13T08:06:00.000-05:00

MY LOVE
'Mid bugle's blast and cannon's roar,
And 'mid the battles angry flame;
'Mid clashing sabres red with gore,
I fondly breathe they much-loved name.
I feel thee near at dead of night,
When I my vigil lone am keeping--
Thy image guards me, angel bright,
In dreams when wearied I am sleeping,
Each northward wind wafts on its breath,
To thee a yearning kiss of mine--
On glory's field or bed of death,
I live or die thy Valentine.

Courtesy Kansas State Historical Society, http://www.kshs.org/cool/coolval.htm

Can a house be "farby"?

2008-02-11T21:12:00.000-05:00

OK you re-enactors, historic preservationists, and just general old stuff people, here's the question - what are the definitional limits of the word "farby"? I must admit that this is a word I had to learn in the year I've been on MySpace. Not being a re-enactor I had no idea what this word meant, where it came from, or in what context it was used until I met up with some of you. I got the general gist of it and then one day - like a great epiphany, a eureka moment - I realized that as a real estate agent in the state with the oldest housing inventory in the country, I have had a parallel experience in walking into a home and realizing that some dastardly "update" is "far beyond" the period of the home. I realized that the chagrin, disgust, sadness, disappointment, horror, nausea, urgency to help, unnatural loathing, etc. that re-enactors express when encountering a "farb" at an event is very, very similar to my reaction when some otherwise exquisite antique home is clad in vinyl siding. Or perhaps the unforgivable aluminum frame and panel drop ceiling I might see in an 1850 farmhouse. Or the downright evil practice - which I have actually seen - of ripping the original butler's pantry out of a Victorian.

Maine Preservation (http://www.mainepreservation.org/) has put on its top list of endangered "properties" this year Maine's old windows. I felt particularly gratified and vindicated for this. My house has most of its original 6 over 6 and 12 over 8 windows. They are drafty, single paned, monsters that cost me more in heating oil than I care to calculate, however I can not imagine getting rid of them. Ever practical and rarely preachy, Maine Preservation actually has a site you can go to to learn how to properly restore these windows so that they are fairly air tight and efficient. They assert that even though there are companies that make aesthetically appealing reproduction windows for antique homes, these windows are inferior in quality to the real deal. I can believe this as my windows are nearly 200 years old and in quite fine shape structurally, with most of the original wavy, bubbled glass panes still intact. I do have friends up near Rangeley who have had an individual craftsman re-create windows for their 19th century cape, but this is a pretty expensive venture.

While I am pretty passionate about old houses retaining their period detail, at the same time I am not an old house snob. I realize that sometimes concessions have to be made. For example, if you want indoor plumbing as opposed to the "three-holah out in the bahn", you're going to make a concession to modern life. If you want to hit a switch and let there be light, you're going to have to bend. If you want heat in an 1818 home like mine, and you want it authentically, you won't even have a wood stove, because those came into common use later into the 19th century. If you want microwave popcorn...well, you get the idea. Occasionally a person comes along who actually lives pretty close to the real deal - Tasha Tudor, for example. If you don't know who Tasha Tudor is, get thee to Corgiville via http://www.tashatudorandfamily.com/.

Sometimes compassion has to trump passion when it comes to period correctness also. Several years ago my 83 year old aunt found herself a widow caring for her own then bedridden mother. This was a very trying time. Rather than worry any more about painting her early 19th century Pennsylvania cape (which she and my uncle had done together every time necessary for decades), she had it vinyl sided and also installed vinyl replacement windows. My initial "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" was almost instantly replaced by "I totally understand" in about a nanosecond of thought when I heard the news. I was a little sad about it, but much sadder for her than for the house.

I don't want to imply that my house is a Sturbridge Village model of period authenticity. In fact, I nearly didn't buy it because of one major farby faux pas. I'm sure you'll see it immediately in the following photo (and I don't mean the farby exterior storm windows over the original windows - yeah, farby):

Now, my house is pretty special. It has a very unique history (alluded to in other posts), is in a National Historic District, and is a fairly unusual example of a gable-end Federal. Most Federals are broad side to the street, but mine is gable-end and these are a sort of regional anomaly from what the local historians tell me. But, do you see the evil, black-hearted, unforgivable architectural bastard child lurking just behind the screen porch? The thing from outer space with the crazy ass dormer? Yeah. It sucks. This is a yuppy master bedroom addition that a perfectly lovely post & beam carriage house/ell died for back in the '80s when a feuding couple who subsequently got divorced anyway had an aesthetics war. See, the wife loved antique homes and the husband was from the mod squad and THIS sin against all that is right and holy was constructed as a "compromise." Why couldn't they have taken their marital strife out on some other house? The thing doesn't even belong in the state, let alone on the back of my house - it has cathedral ceilings over an unheated garage - translation: a nightmare to heat during a Maine winter. If I were a Rockefeller I'd tear the damned thing down, hire a craftsman, and have an authentic repro of the original structure rebuilt. But that's not going to happen. So structural farbiness lives on.

We're lucky in that the interior of our house has a lot of original features. 95% of the house has either its original wide pine planking (one board in the kitchen is 20 inches wide), or very good repro planking. Those shutters seem to be original and we were pretty heartbroken when a storm ripped a couple off, tossing them to ground and shattering them (welcome to Maine), so rebuilding will be in order. There's no vinyl, no drop ceilings, lots of original horsehair plaster, original newel post and banister, original moldings & doors, lots of original hardware and old doorknobs, the aforementioned windows, and some really great ghosts (again, see an earlier post). However, the original keeping room bake fireplace is gone, although a very handsome repro fireplace with a nice mantle is here. There are places where recessed ceiling lighting has been installed (Mother of God!) but we do still have the original big shelf lined pantry where oldsters in the neighborhood remember milk sitting out to separate after the family cow was milked. We have the original post and beam barn which now houses our chickens, and our attic is a trip through time with the bark still on the big beams that have been holding the roof up since 1818. Recently, I've spent every spare moment repainting the interior, as it has not been done really since just after we moved in 8 years ago. You can't get up close and personal with a house like this without feeling the spirit of the home, of the generations past, and without an overwhelming humility that one never "owns" a house like this - one just acts as steward for this generation and tries to preserve as much as possible for the next.

So when is a house "farby"? Or is it fair to even apply the word to something that simply can not practically BE frozen in time? I have a friend who said that one of the charming things about an old home is that it's not really ever strictly a period piece, something almost static in time. But rather a home is a living entity that, when things go well, picks up the best of each era it survives. The Victorian marble hearth decidedly does not belong in my north parlor, but it's gracious and beautiful and I would not remove it. The claw foot tub in the bathroom is definitely not Federal period, but it has an antique charm everyone seems to enjoy. The wall that someone took out that used to separate the kitchen/dining area is one thing I would put back in if I had the choice, but I have to at the same time admit that my family has spent many happy hours and holidays in that bigger expanse of wall-less space. Perhaps even the evil master bedroom addition from hell will have some redeeming quality in time. Or...maybe not.

I don't know if in my retirement years I will ever take on re-enacting. It takes a lot of time, money & knowledge, and I'm lacking sorely on the time & money part at the moment and while I know my history pretty well I don't know all the details of period dress and accouterments. In truth, I may always just leave this particular public service to others. If I do, however, I will well remember how I felt when I walked into yet another antique home and saw some crime against historical architecture that had been perpetrated there. Keeping that in mind, I will be ever vigilant not to fall into the ways of a "farb."

It's a blizzard...like, really...

2008-02-10T16:37:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been snowing pretty much constantly for months, but this particular episode is a little more intense than usual. Don't neglect to have your sound turned up.

Lincoln's War Time Retreat Opening 2/18!

2008-02-07T19:37:00.000-05:00

The story of Lincoln's summer retreat has been in newspapers and on-line in the past week as it is prepared to open to the public on February 18th. This is a major historical treasure, and yet, it has sat ignored, according to the story, for over a century. If any of you get to visit this before I do (may try to go in April when we are in Gettysburg again), please tell me of your experience there. Here's the AP article that's been making the rounds:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Until now, a summer cottage three miles from the White House where Abraham Lincoln paced the floors, contemplating the end of slavery, was largely unknown to the public.

After a seven-year, $15 million restoration, President Lincoln's summer cottage is opening to the public.

Few locals knew it was still standing on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, and tourists searching for Lincoln sites in the nation's capital were far more likely to stop by the Lincoln Memorial or Ford's Theatre, where the 16th president was assassinated.

But in the late 1990s, the house was "rediscovered" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and, in 2000, declared a national monument by President Clinton. Now, after a seven-year, $15 million restoration, President Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldier's Home is set to open to the public for the first time -- on President's Day, February 18.

"This is one of those places that is kind of hidden in plain sight, and yet it's one of the most significant historic sites," said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Like other Lincoln enthusiasts, Moe had heard of the president's summer wartime retreat -- the Camp David of its day, mentioned in a few history books -- but thought it was long gone. Then a friend showed him the home in 1998. It was structurally sound and had housed administrative offices for the veterans' home.

Lincoln's cottage had been located on a sprawling property landscaped with trees from around the world and surrounded by farms. It was a modest, four-bedroom, two-story home, made of brick, covered with stucco. Historians say the Lincoln family used the summer home for several years of the presidency, including during the Civil War.

But until recently, little was known about what took place inside the home due to sparse information in government records. Instead, much of the available history has been pieced together from diaries, letters and newspaper accounts. Many of these details have been compiled in a 2003 book, "Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers' Home," by historian Matthew Pinsker.

Also missing were actual furnishings from the home -- or even interior pictures that would have helped curators recreate most of the 1860s decor for visitors. So curators had to make do with the few details they had, which allowed them to recreate curtains, carpet and other items. They secured some furnishings from the Civil War era and a replica of Lincoln's desk, based on the original kept at the White House.

"This is a different kind of historic house," said Frank Milligan, director of the new museum. "Don't go in there looking for the bed that Lincoln slept in."

Instead, visitors will get to know who he was as a person, Milligan said. Audio and video of actors portraying the president, first lady Mary Lincoln and their associates will recreate stories from the cottage.

The decision to emancipate the slaves is the most prominent theme at Lincoln's retreat. Some historians believe Lincoln may have written the Emancipation Proclamation here, though there's still debate.

"Our position is that he may well have written it here, but he surely thought it through here," Milligan said. "He paced these floors thinking about the right direction to go."

Lincoln's cabinet was divided on emancipation. Some advisers thought courts would decide it was unconstitutional. They debated back and forth, and political opponents met with Lincoln in private at the cottage, Milligan said.

The president ultimately pursued emancipation as a military strategy to help end the war, but he was fully aware of its significance.

"If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it," Lincoln said at the document signing.

A signed copy of the document, from a private collection in New York, will be on view at the museum's opening through April.

Students and other visitors can play the roles of rival cabinet secretaries and debate emancipation through the museum's unique multimedia room. Individual computer screens show the diaries, pictures, letters and arguments of individual secretaries to help spur the discussion, and a moderator can work with teachers to link the debate to classroom studies.

"They're getting multiple perspectives because the cabinet members really did represent all views," said Jill Sanderson, curator of education.

Lincoln lived at the cottage with wife Mary and son Tad from summer through fall from 1862 to 1864. Lincoln's older son, Robert, was away at college much of the time. Other presidents used the retreat, which was built in 1842, but usually only for a few weeks at a time.

In part, the Lincolns were seeking privacy to grieve after the death of 12-year-old son Willie, who probably had suffered from typhoid fever, Pinsker writes. It also was an escape from the hot, swampy humidity of the National Mall. The cottage, on one of the highest points in Washington, received cool breezes and provided the family with a view of the city and the Capitol dome under construction.

"I'm convinced personally that he would have stayed here year-round if he could have," Milligan said. "He didn't like the White House. We do know that. He called it the damned old house at one point."

According to Pinsker, Lincoln preferred to conduct his business at the White House -- and leave it there. Unfortunately for Lincoln, the visitors found him at the cottage retreat. And the president, who was under enormous stress, lost his temper with one visitor who intruded on his personal space. But true to his nature, he apologized the next day.

Other exhibits on the hour-long guided tour at the cottage will recount the family life of the home and Lincoln's hiring of an ex-slave, Mary Dines, as a "domestic" -- or servant -- as well as Lincoln's daily commute on horseback to the White House, tipping his hat to poet and city resident Walt Whitman regularly as he passed by.

The commute was a risky proposition. At first Lincoln insisted on riding alone through Washington's streets and up present-day Georgia Avenue into the country to the privacy of the cottage. "It's amazing to think that a wartime president would take the same commute route every day. In retrospect, it's mind-boggling," Milligan said.

Later, Lincoln's advisers insisted on sending a guard regiment with him, according to Pinsker. About 180 troops also were assigned to guard the cottage grounds as well. The president often wandered over to the soldiers' camp on the property for long chats. Milligan says some believe he preferred their coffee to his wife's.

Despite the added security, someone shot at the president during his commute in 1864, and aides found a bullet hole through his top hat, according to Pinsker. Private John Nicholas recalled that the president wanted the incident "kept quiet," the author wrote.

Confederate leaders knew of Lincoln's route. And Lincoln's eventual assassin, John Wilkes Booth, had planned an abduction, but it was never carried out.

Curators are expecting plenty of Lincoln enthusiasts to make their way to the home, and they're hoping more documents and details about the home will be uncovered as more people hear about the site. The museum is budgeting for 45,000 visitors in its first year. Tour guides will be trained for all age levels and will be prepared to discuss the sometimes conflicting views of the Civil War.

"What we've learned to do in this business is to tell history as it happened," Moe said. "It's not always pleasant."

Prominent Lincoln historians, including Allen Guelzo, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Douglas Wilson have consulted on the project.

The goal is to eventually create a Center for the Study of the Lincoln Presidency at the site to support further research and scholarship in conjunction with sites like Ford's Theatre and the Lincoln Presidential Library in Illinois. Their first challenge, though, is to draw people to the cottage, nestled on the grounds of the veterans home in a northwest Washington neighborhood. It's a hike from the city's popular museums and memorials.

"It is off the beaten path, but I think that's one of the real values to it," Moe said. "It gets people off the National Mall ... and that's what Lincoln did. I think it will be a real destination."

If you go ...

President Lincoln's Cottage: http://www.lincolncottage.org or 202-829-0436.Admission, $12; ages 6-12, $5. Groups of 15 or more: $8. Reservations recommended. Tours limited to 15 people. Cafe and shop at the visitor's center.

Getting there: Located on the Armed Forces Retirement Home campus in Washington, D.C. Enter at Eagle Gate at Rock Creek Church Road NW and Upshur Street NW. Parking is available. The closest Washington Metro station is Georgia Avenue-Petworth. From there, walk northeast on New Hampshire Avenue NW. Turn right on Upshur Street NW. Upshur Street ends at Eagle Gate. Also, the H8 bus stops across the street from Eagle Gate.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Let's work to stop Big Brother now...REAL I.D. must fail.

2008-02-07T19:34:00.000-05:00

REAL I.D. - From Advocates for Self Government

This is taken from the Liberator On-Line. Make no mistake about it, though, this article is not some kind of Libertarian "propaganda." This issue has been in the news in Maine for quite a while now because Maine is a state that refused to accept "National I.D." from an abusive federal gov't that is trying to cram it down our throats. The article is accurate. Read it. Think about it. And then think of ways you can be involved in stopping it.

Oh, and if you haven't read "1984" or "Animal Farm" since high school, now may be the time.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, UNBELIEVABLE NEWS

by James W. Harris

Showdown: The Final Battle Against REAL ID Has Begun

The national ID battle, brewing for years, is now underway in earnest.

On January 11, the Department of Homeland Security released its final rules on
what states must do to implement REAL ID, the national identification law
Congress passed in 2005.

Homeland Security has taken the gloves off. States have until May to accept the
plan. Beginning May 11, 2008, says Homeland Security, residents of states that
have not agreed to implement REAL ID will not be allowed to use their state
drivers licenses to board airplanes or enter federal buildings. They can use a
U.S. passport or possibly other documents in some circumstances, but they must
expect to "suffer delays due to the requirement for enhanced security
screening." In other words, take your shoes off, pal, and get in that LONG LONG
line over there.

States that agree to comply may be granted extensions of several years to fully
implement REAL ID. But when REAL ID is in place, notes CNET NEWS, in addition
to flying and entering federal buildings, "REAL ID could in theory be required
for traveling on Amtrak, collecting federal welfare benefits, signing up for
Social Security, applying for student loans, interacting with the U.S. Postal
Service, entering national parks" as well as purchasing firearms.

In practice, it may be impossible even to get a job or open a bank account
without REAL ID. REAL ID is widely expected to become the standard ID for the
private sector.

And that's just the start. Homeland Security is already floating additional
uses for the cards, including "reducing unlawful employment, voter fraud, and
underage drinking," and monitoring the purchase of over-the-counter medicines.
The REAL ID Act explicitly says that REAL IDs shall be required for "any other
purposes that the Secretary [of Homeland Security] shall determine." A more
open-ended grant of power could not be written.

REAL ID requires all states to make major changes to their driver's licenses, turning them into police-state national ID cards that will be loaded
with sensitive personal information, all of which will be tied together in huge
databases. These databases will make it easy to routinely track, monitor, and
regulate the movements and activities of all citizens. The cards would also be
computer-readable, allowing government and private-sector scanners to collect
the personal information on the cards.

The stakes are incredibly high, says former U.S. Congressman and current
Libertarian Party National Committee board member Bob Barr.

"The massive database that would be created by the REAL ID Act, containing all
manner of private information on citizens, is potentially one of the most
privacy-invasive laws in the history of our country," Barr says. "Anything less
than scrapping this offensive national identification card law is
unacceptable."

The ACLU points out that the REAL ID "will become tantamount to a license to
leave your house," since it will be required virtually everywhere you go. "The

end result could be a situation where citizens' movements inside their own
country are monitored and recorded through these 'internal passports.'"

And so the stage is now set for a massive battle right out of the movie "V For
Vendetta": Big Brother at its most evil and intrusive versus outraged citizens
who cherish civil liberties and privacy rights.

A true grassroots rebellion against REAL ID is forming. So far, 17 states have
passed laws or resolutions rejecting REAL ID: Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia,
Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.

Twenty-one other states have either introduced legislation or had legislation
pass in one chamber opposing REAL ID.

But all those states are facing tremendous pressure from the federal
government.

Like so much recent statist legislation, REAL ID was sneaked into law. It was
slipped into a May 2005 emergency-spending bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq and provide tsunami relief. Such bills are almost impossible to
defeat. It passed the House 368-58 and the Senate unanimously. There was not a
single debate on the Act in the Senate, and insufficient discussion in the
House. President Bush, who, his spokespersons once said, "does not support a
national ID card," strongly backed it and quickly signed it into law.

There have been attempts to kill the REAL ID beast in Congress. Legislation has
been introduced in both the House and Senate to repeal the act, but thus far
they have not progressed.

As this battle begins in earnest, state by state, no one should be fooled into
thinking REAL ID has anything to do with fighting terrorism. The federal
government has pushed for a national ID card for years, well before the 9/11
terrorist attacks. Previous justifications have included health care, the War
on Drugs, protecting children, and controlling immigration. Any excuse, it
seems, will do. This is all about massive, Orwellian control of Americans by a
federal government run amok.

As Ron Paul said when the bill was introduced in 2005: "National ID cards will
be used to track the law-abiding masses, not criminals."

REAL ID is a Real Bad Idea: a giant move towards a 1984-ish police state where
the government monitors and controls everything you say and do.

It can still be stopped. But it's now or never.

(Sources: EPIC: http://epic.org/press/011108.html
ACLU: http://www.realnightmare.org/
Libertarian Party: http://www.lp.org/media/article_557.shtml
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-healey22jan22,0,5551102.story ) Homeland Security on REAL ID:
http://www.dhs.gov/xprevprot/programs/gc_1172767635686.shtm

Playing Thoreau...

2008-02-04T17:10:00.000-05:00

When I went in to my office this morning I realized that it was the perfect day for snowshoeing. It's about 35 degrees, sunny, and thanks to some icy rain a few days ago there is a crunchy crust on the snow surface. With a great incentive, I finished the work I needed to do today, went home, grabbed my snowshoes and went back to a place just down the street called the Cornwall Preserve. Alice Cornwall was a wealthy woman in our neighborhood who left a gazillion wooded acres to the town to be used for hiking, snowshoeing, horseback riding, XC skiing, etc. By the time we arrived in Paris, Mrs. Cornwall was quite elderly. We first met her a day or so after we moved in - she stopped by to give home baked cookies to our boys. You're thinking "Awwwwww..." but make no mistake about it, Mrs. Cornwall was also a tough and intelligent business woman. At any rate, I knew that it was forecast to rain ice and snow all day tomorrow and I thought, "This is an opportunity that can not pass." We get a little cabin fevered out sometimes by February, so it was a carpe diem moment.

I don't have much to say about this experience - the photos will speak for themselves, although not nearly as articulately as I would have liked. I can never seem to capture the pure breathtaking quality of the winter woods up here with a camera, but you'll have to use your imagination. One thing I really can't convey via a blog is the sound of the brook bubbling up through the ice and snow. No words.

Sunny day for a change:

Strange fungi:

Looking up:

I don't know what made these holes:

More strange fungi:

Moss under snow, just as green as in springtime:

Water bubbling up under ice:

Rock peeking out from snowbank:

Leaves still falling off trees after all these months:

Long shadows:

The trail itself:

Hope you've enjoyed a little bit of Maine winter.

Priceless...

2008-01-29T07:57:00.001-05:00

Hillary Clinton... $90,935,788, Barack Obama...$80,256,427...
Category: News and Politics

Caroline and Ted Kennedy endorsing Barack Obama...Priceless.*

Next to meeting Ron Paul yesterday, the most interesting thing that happened to me was watching the news footage of Caroline and Ted Kennedy endorsing Barack Obama.

Now, by now the people who read my blog know that I am not a Democrat. They also know that I do not support most of the policy that Barack Obama is proposing. However, the Kennedy endorsement yesterday echoed what has been rattling around my mind for weeks, if not months..."This guy reminds me of JFK."

Whatever your beefs are with Barack Obama's politics (if you have any), it can not be denied that he is a major breath of fresh air not only to the Democratic party, but to the political process in general. He's relatively young, he's got some fresh ideas, he's without a lot of the political baggage weighing down his most fervent rival like a pack mule, and, perhaps most importantly of all, he's on message and he's positive. After the pitiable, negative, and toxic performances of late by Bill Clinton "on behalf" of his "stand by your man" wife (now there's an outdated approach to marriage...but that's another post entirely), who could possibly blame Caroline and Ted for abandoning the Clinton ship?

Likewise, who could blame the voters of South Carolina for overwhelmingly choosing hope and positive messages over the withering, cynical rhetoric of the Clintons and, in a state that I believe is something like 30% African American, the Clintons' unabashed playing of the race card. Isn't it sad that in our country, in 2008, it's still the white candidate (or candidates - plural - depending on how you interpret the Clinton candidacy) that's the first to leap on the race card? Hillary Clinton wants to be the African American president, the Latino president, the gay/lesbian president, etc., depending on what "block" she's pursuing that campaign day. What Barack Obama understands - perhaps because he's young, perhaps because he's fresh and relatively undirtied by American politics as usual - is that Americans want to hear that he's going to be the American president, and by that he means that all of us - ALL of us - are Americans with equal rights under the Constitution; that dividing us up into "voting blocks" isn't the way into our political hearts. Here is one very rare point of agreement between Obama, Paul, and the now out-of-the-race Dennis Kucinich. These guys seem sincerely to want a united America.

Another affront to the American voter is most likely the Clintons' obvious sense of entitlement to the nomination. Yesterday as we were driving down to Portland and listening to NPR, a story came on with a brief sound bite from Hillary Clinton speaking in front of a church group. Now, keep in mind that when Barack Obama speaks in front of church groups he at least attempts to remain self effacing and respectful, something I think he pulls off rather well. He may indeed sincerely BE self effacing and respectful, but I don't know so I can't judge. On the Hillary sound bite we heard yesterday morning Mrs. Clinton addressed the crowd thusly, in the most self-satisfied voice imaginable: "THIS is the day the LORD has made! Let us rejoice and be GLAD in it!" It's a bit hard to replicate in print - look up the wav file on Google if you can find it - but the implication was that perhaps...well, maybe likely even...God Himself will be voting for Hillary Clinton. My son and I just looked at each other in disbelief - disbelief at the ego and arrogance in her voice, but also disbelief that a politician could be so stupid and disconnected from the electorate as to not realize how completely offensive this was.

What the Kennedys wisely recognize is that Americans are as turned off by toxic politicians today as they were in 1960. They want a Democrat in the White House. They want a new day for the Democratic party in America. They want dynamic, positive change. They literally had to endorse Obama, because the Clinton campaign has positioned Hillary as the antithesis to all of that. Perhaps Senator Obama has studied his history better than Mrs. Clinton has. Or perhaps he just naturally and sincerely wants to offer positive change.

Hillary Clinton doesn't "get" America. She's out of touch with the American people and how seriously they are suffering right now - economically, socially, politically - because she is focused so much on herself and her own ambition. It's not "morning in America" in 2008. It's about midnight in America, it's dark and it's cold. By putting Bill out there to play "bad cop" (which is only a cowardly way to reflect a side of herself without actually doing the dirty work herself) she's alienating some of her most ardent supporters and perpetuating the fairly common perception that the Clintons will "do anything to win." Obama has taken a higher road, and, if things continue this way - whether I like it or not (and I don't) - that road may lead straight to the White House.

*With apologies to that credit card company...you know the one. Also, fundraising totals sourced from http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp.

Ron Paul at the University of Southern Maine

2008-01-28T17:14:00.001-05:00

on Paul at University of Southern Maine
Current mood: excited
Category: News and Politics

Some kids beg their parents to take them to rock concerts.

My kid begs me to take him to see Ron Paul. While there was no mosh pit involved in today's event, Dr. Paul's unbridled Constitutional ideas on freedom and liberty definitely rock.

Here is the photo I had hoped to get from the moment I found out that Ron Paul would be at USM today:

The following photos were taken by MySpace friend Aracos, aka Michael Berube, a very talented professional photographer whose work can be viewed at http://www.GoodPhotos.com:

Here is one more that I took of Rob listening to Dr. Paul answer some questions:

Here is the much coveted autograph Rob got for his Ron Paul 2008 lawn sign:

Dr. Paul took a few moments to talk to Rob about Gettysburg College, where Rob is going and from which Ron Paul got his undergraduate degree. He was very sincere, very genuine, without a hint of "plastic politician syndrome." Dr. Paul was also completely unscripted. He arrived at the podium with no note cards, no script, no notes, and spoke for over half an hour about his ideas and his vision of an America no longer embroiled in foreign affairs where it has no business, no longer bankrupting its middle class, no longer beholden to oil companies and special interests, and no longer trying to legislate morality. Ron Paul believes in individual freedoms as outlined in the United States Constitution and that government's role is to protect the individual's freedom to life, liberty, and property - every individual's right - regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion or any other personal characteristic that other politicians seem to enjoy using as instruments of division.

Also strikingly different about Dr. Paul is his grasp of economics. I have been profoundly disappointed in our government's and our candidate's catastrophic ignorance regarding economics. Now, really, I was not an economics major. I was a business administration major. But even the 4-5 courses I had to take in economics better prepared me for understanding what's up in the American economy than, apparently, our candidates, our speaker of the house, and our current president. The "economic stimulus" plan currently on the table may have to be the topic of another post - but I can tell you, Ron Paul will tell you, and actually, the average American on the street can tell you that sending out checks to the tune of $145 billion (add THAT to the already staggering national debt) will NOT even begin to solve the economic woes this country is facing. Ron Paul confronts our economic debacle head on with - what is this???? - truth. He talks about the elimination of our manufacturing sector by sending our production overseas. He talks about the destructive policies of the Federal Reserve. He talks about the crushing income taxes. He talks about the elimination of the gold standard, which, we must remember, only occurred in 1972, and the plummeting of the value of our currency. Perhaps one of the most disturbing things he speaks of is our indebtedness to China and other foreign nations. Today he reminded us that many of our political leaders are Keynesians, people who believe that government management of the economy leads to prosperity. How many of you reading this feel prosperous in relation to previous generations, or in relation to the level of effort you are expending every work day? All of these factors can be found in a blog post I put up several weeks ago about our faltering economy, and it was validating to hear a 10 term Congressman with a truth fixation speak publicly about what I've been ranting about privately in our home for a couple of years now.

OK, well, all of that is really heavy. How about a couple more photos from today...

Here's Rob in a veritable garden of Ron Paul signs:

Here's Dr. Paul at the podium:

Here's the exterior at USM this morning - we knew we were in the right place!

Please check out Ron Paul's web page at http://www.ronpaul2008.com. If you like what you see, get involved in the campaign and help this man's ideas spread throughout our country. Vote Freedom. Vote the Constitution. Vote Ron Paul.

Lullabye in the Bathroom

2008-01-25T09:17:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the unexplained is charming...
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Life

Yesterday evening around dinner time, my youngest son Paul came out of what we call our "antique bathroom" and asked me if someone had been humming a lullabye very nearby. I said, "No, why?" He explained that he had clearly heard a woman humming a lullaby from the outside (as in wall to the exterior) corner of our bathroom upstairs. This room, like all the rooms in the house, would originally have been a bedroom as, of course, there was no indoor plumbing here until probably the late 19th or early 20th century.

Here's the area where he heard the woman humming (by the way, we don't have frosted glass in this room - that's ice...):

This part of our house is pretty active, actually. A few months ago my husband clearly heard a man ask "Are you there?" in our bathroom, which is back to back to this one and is in an area of the house that used to be what New Englanders call "the ell" and what some locals in the village call our "carriage house." Recently also our third son saw a full body sized mist in the attic that evaporated as he watched it. Footsteps are heard up there not uncommonly.

You might assume that we'd all have white hair standing straight up, but in fact, whatever/whoever is causing these phenomena are not frightening at all. The house has a benign and warm feel to it. That's not to say that these incidents don't leave the hair on the backs of our necks standing up a bit - they do - but overall, it's not frightening. I will admit to having one son who will NOT, under any circumstances, shower in the bathroom above because he says he feels like "someone is watching."

I always wonder WHAT these things are. Are they just consciousless replays of something that happened in the past, via some property of time that we don't yet understand? Or are they entities we could actually interact with if we tried? I believe I have identified one of them; meet Pedro (far left image) who lived here in the 1850s until his death in 1860...for his story see: http://www.lymanestate.org/resources/articles/pdf202.pdf

This is a watercolor painting Pedro did of his journey as a captured slave in Africa through his time of freedom in Paris, Maine. The white house in the painting is ours:

Pedro's presence is unmistakable here. Don't ask me how I know; I have no idea. But apparently previous owners of the house have had similar "impressions."

But to get back to the woman humming the lullaby in our upstairs bathroom. Last night I went to the viewing of a young mother I was acquainted with through Scouting and through our local elementary school. Just 38 years old, she died in car accident on Sunday, leaving behind two sons exactly the ages of my youngest two, 10 and 11. I was talking to some of our friends there about how I did not fear death itself, but feared leaving my children or not seeing them grow up, and that I was so sad that this woman had been robbed of the rest of her life as a mother to these boys. But when does motherhood end really? Does it ever? While it makes this woman's death no less tragic - I'm afraid I'm a realist about this death - it's unfathomably painful for loved ones left behind, it's appalling, it's utterly tragic, something about the lullaby in the bathroom really struck me in the context of my lost acquaintance. Somehow, somewhere in time, a mother is still humming her baby to sleep in my house. Or, if she is not, the energy - the beautiful energy a mother expends on her baby - is caught in time and manifested itself to my son last night. It is at times like these when the unexplained is not frightening at all, but rather a charming reminder that love, or the energy it leaves behind, remains forever.

Not Your Suburban...

2008-01-12T13:37:00.000-05:00

This is the Tata Nano which was recently unveiled in India with a sticker price of $2500. It gets 50 mpg, has no a/c or power anything, and seats 5 modestly (or immodestly, depending on how pressed together they are I suppose). I know the Indian government, and already many environmentalists, are correctly making the point that if the Nano takes off and many families there trade their bicycles for the little car, carbon emissions will increase drastically. In other words, in the context in which it has been introduced, this little vehicle is not very green.

But why should the Indian people not have a safer way to transport their families than by loading them up on bicycles and scooters, as is reportedly common? And who is the Indian government to tell them "no"?

And what about over here? I freely admit to owning a 2000 Chevrolet Suburban that our family of six uses for camping trips, vacations, towing things, and way more every day driving than we should, although at almost $100/per tankload we are using it a lot less. In the face of extortionist gas pricing (that's another blog post entirely) we are actually driving a little 1996 Honda Accord which we bought used for $3200 and which is delightfully efficient and comfortable. Last fall my son and I made the trip to Gettysburg in it with no complaints. With the experience of the Honda Accord, which is a luxury car next to the Nano, I feel that I'd be perfectly happy tooling around in a Nano for my every day driving in fair weather. I'm not sure how it would handle a Maine snowstorm, but we have the Suburban for that.

Which brings me to another point -

As a person who believes in letting people make their own choices, I would certainly never say that the average urban yuppy should be banned from tooling around the city landscape in a full sized Hummer, but what exactly is the POINT? On the rare occasion that I am forced to travel back to (or thankfully usually just "through") NJ I am always amazed at how many glittering Hummers and all manner of giant SUVs I see amidst a completely urban/suburban environment. If people need some kind of status symbol wouldn't a Rolex watch be more efficient? They could hang it out the window of a more sensible car, maybe, if they wanted more exposure. Or, if it has to be a car for maximum societal impact, how about a little Porsche or something? Or if it's space that's required, not status, how about a Honda Odyssey?

Which, of course, brings me back to our Suburban. I really can't justify it. Sure, it could climb a completely vertical ice wall in 4WD low, and it's large enough to minimize the "He touched me! Make him stop! He's bothering me!" aspect of four brothers on a family vacation. And, I feel a little sheepish to admit, it was free - my in-laws gave it to us when they purchased a new Suburban. Which is, of course, why we have it at all, and I would be a major deal liar if I said I wasn't eternally grateful for the car, because I am. Worse than that - and in the continued vein of true confessions - I LOVE this car! It's even got heated seats, for God's sake. But every time I drive it I think I see flames shooting out of my purse and the efficiency gods warming up their "lightning will strike you dead for being such a hedonist" machines. Of course, this may also be attributable to genetically induced Catholic guilt.

I do think little cars like the Nano could really have a future here. Well, at least with people like me who just want to save a buck and maybe be a little more efficient. My sons, on the other hand, are ironically poorer candidates for such a thing. So young, so penniless as all teens are, and yet so established in what a vehicle should be. My 17 year old drives a 1994 Jeep Cherokee (when he can afford the gas) and likes it because it's both "manly" and can run over boulders, trees, 12 foot snow banks, and perhaps a few moose without anyone noticing. My 14 year old, who is already salivating over his future driving, has announced that he'd like to find a good used small pick up truck, for no reason given other than he can then "pick stuff up." So even the very young are quite concerned about what their vehicles "say" about them; it's almost as if they care about "who" the car is as opposed to "what" the car is..

I want my vehicles in future to just say that I'd like the oil companies to go stick their products and their bought off politicians and media moguls. The Nano, and cars like it that may follow - hopefully running on something other than gasoline, might just help more people make that statement, at least in a country where the prevailing culture tells us to get into massive debt to purchase or lease a vehicle, to hang part of our personal identity on what or who the car is, and to then feed its insatiable engine at intolerable cost. Juxtapose this against the market in India where people are just excited about the Nano because it's an enclosed space for family travel, and they can finally afford to be a little safer on the roads. The associated problem of increased carbon emissions will have to be dealt with in some way other than saying "no" to people who have waited far too long for a very basic mode of travel.

Letters to a Spiritual Seeker

2008-01-11T22:45:00.000-05:00

I bought this book as Christmas gift to my son Rob and have taken some time to read it while he reads some of his other book gifts first. If you love Thoreau, or even if you just love 19th century American history, this is a wonderful read. Editor and independent scholar Bradley P. Dean has done an incredible job of editing these letters from Henry David 'Thoreau to his friend Harrison Blake, which were written over a period of 13 years. His many footnotes put the letters into the familiar context of events in Thoreau's life and give the reader a more informal, more personal peek into Thoreau's thinking and philosophy. As a student of New England Transcendentalism, I can not tell you how inspiring, and at the same time, reassuring, reading these letters has been to me.

I originally thought the next blog post I wrote was going to begin, "I want to want to go to church, but I just don't," both "want to"s intentional. In other words, I really want to have the desire to attend church, but each Sunday that rolls around finds me apathetic at best about getting myself into a traditional house of worship. This morning I was reading over the editor's footnotes on Letter Thirty-Eight. It explains that Thoreau's essay "Chesuncook" (which now appears as a section of "The Maine Woods") had been appearing serially in the Atlantic Monthly until that journal's editor James Russell Lowell deleted, without Thoreau's permission, the following line: "It (the pine tree) is as immortal as I am, and perhaps will go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still." Lowell saw this as heresy, unprintable in the Victorian era Atlantic Monthly. Thoreau found the editing out of this line unacceptable and stopped further publication of "Chesuncook."

Thoreau's letters and writings are chock full of this kind of "heresy". Thoreau saw himself as inseparable from the mountains he climbed - at one with them - his very physical and spiritual substance being one with nature and the universe in a way that would be much more familiar and natural to a Buddhist than to a 19th century American raised in the Christian tradition of his time. But Thoreau found himself unable to reconcile his profound experiences at Walden, and in the wilds of Maine, with the relatively narrow Christian beliefs of his time, and in some quarters still, of our time too. I truly believe that Jesus would have recognized Thoreau's spiritual orientation as infinitely more familiar and sincere than he would, for example, the conventional practices some modern mainstream "Christian" churches. I have spent the last several years reading Emerson, Thoreau, Swedenborg, the literature of the Shakers, Buddhist texts and modern day Buddhist monks, Thomas Merton, and Catholic mystics. And now, I suppose, I am "ruined" for church.

It is not that my church here in Maine is at all constrictive. To the contrary, my church here is pastored by a woman who keeps a copy of Thich Nhat Hahn's "Living Buddha, Living Christ" on her nightstand. She is quite progressive and always ready for a great conversation on world religions, ecumenism, and philosophy. If ever there were a church ready to accept my spiritual peculiarities, it is this one. But as each Sunday rolls around I am less inclined to round up the kids and pack them off to church than to pack them up and go cross country skiing, or, as we're all waiting for nicer weather to do, to finally stand in Thoreau's ancient place at "Ktaad'n" as it was spelled then.

I suppose I am in good company. Just today I was reminded again that one of my great heroes, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, took a trip to Egypt in the early 20th century, quite late in his life, and while there took a great interest in Islam, reading the Koran (along with his Bible, of course - JLC was a devout Christian in a very real way). This is no surprise. JLC spoke, I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong, please!) 8 different languages and was a man with a sharp, learned, and philosophical mind. I could not begin to compare myself to him. However, what little I can understand of this is that here was a man this great, and so assured in his relationship to Jesus, who must have known that there is no defining God in a neat, orderly, or singular way. Surely his experiences on the battlefield would have profoundly affected the breadth of his spirituality, having seen things that defied articulation or explanation anywhere but in the soul itself.

Maybe this is the wrong time in my life for church as we know it. I know my father-in-law, a devout Christian and a Mason, stopped attending services a long time ago. When I was younger I couldn't understand why he sent my mother-in-law alone to church every week, why he still served the church in terms of helping with the building and grounds, etc. but still rarely attended services. I get it now. At some point in his spiritual development the weekly routine ceased to be relevant for him. I want to emphasize "for him" because I am not suggesting that regular church-goers are somehow less spiritually evolved than those who somehow don't feel called any longer to attend. In fact, it may be that regular church-goers are more evolved, because they are able to find an inspiration in a limited routine that is eluding me (and apparently my father-in-law and others I know) at the moment. I can't judge that. I honestly don't know. For some reason it's not working for me. And clearly, it didn't work for Thoreau, who when once invited by Emerson to go to a lecture/sermon during the daylight hours declined because he could not imagine why anyone would waste the daylight indoors listening to someone else's idea of the divine when he could be outside witnessing the genuine face of God.

To get back to "Letters to a Spiritual Seeker," what a great book. Letters give us an insight of a different tone into the minds of their authors. The sad thing is that none of Harrison Blake's letters survive to add to the context of HDT's letters to him, but even without Blake's letters it is clear that Thoreau was a spiritual mentor to Blake - a challenging, forthright, sometimes not-so-gentle mentor prodding Blake to LIVE. The letters also demonstrate that Thoreau was anything but pessimistic or dark - he is a deep man - but a fundamentally happy man. He is frustrated by the many worldly cares that take him away from what he sees as the "real" work of life - he grumbles about having to do surveying, work for his father's pencil factory, and other mundane tasks that seem spiritually empty to him. And yet some of the basic tasks of "getting a living" in the 19th century, such as getting wood for the fires, he finds full of spiritual meaning. I think most of us can relate to this aspect of the letters - how many of us sit down at the end of a busy day and think, "Well, did ANY of that have ANY eternal meaning at ALL???" Thoreau nudges us to spend more time living, more time with the true God - not necessarily the god of a neatly packaged religion - and in his letters as presented in this book we can share in the mentoring that Blake received.

OK, I guess this is my REAL blog...

2008-01-11T22:16:00.001-05:00

This is my first post on Blogger. I actually have a MySpace page, which I have used for about a year, and will probably continue to use. But recently, a friend said to me, "You know, you should get a REAL blog," because he thought my posts were wasted on what is primarily a social networking site and not a blog site per se. So here we are - this is my REAL blog site from here on out. I will probably sometimes post on both sites, and I will probably bring some of my favorite posts from http://www.myspace.com/parrishouse over to this site.

Just a brief introduction:

I am Mom to 4 amazing sons, and am fortunate to live in the Western Mountains of rural Maine, although I am originally from the relatively urban central NJ. While I sometimes miss the cultural opportunities and conveniences of that area, I would never move back. I am very happily married to an exceedinly loving man who I have known for over half my life and we make our home between an 1818 Federal in a national historic district and a lake cottage on Little Sebago Lake in Gray, Maine. The life we have made for ourselves here in Maine is the ongoing fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

I am also an American history and Civil War nut, a libertarian (with a small "l"), and a real estate broker by profession. My real estate page can be found at http://www.mypace.com/mainehomes.

My teenage sons will have to help me figure out how to use Blogger, I'm afraid. Just when I had MySpace pretty much figured out too...