Legacy of Ocean Point II: My Aunt Elizabeth

Aunt Elizabeth's cottage in Ocean Point, Maine

I wrote this poem to Aunt Elizabeth sometime in the 80's when I  had just crossed the threshold into middle age. Aunt Elizabeth survived until her late 90's and died in 2001. She was born and raised on the coast of Maine and her spirit and the spirit of Ocean Point (where she and her family spent their summers) were inseparable. When she could no longer maneuver her aging body across the coastal rocks, she would set out in a skiff, rowing from Grimes Cove all the way out to open sea.

To Aunt Elizabeth

You were the one

Who taught me to work with clay,

How to wait out a rainy or foggy day
Creating clumsy replicas of birds
Like the ones who came to your feeder.

You taught me to mark the weather's change
By the pattern of morning cobwebs
On the lawn,

And where to go for blueberries
With a bucket over my arm;

And I followed where your grownup feet would go,
Lithe under branches, supple over rocks.

Yours was the hand I could always let go of,
Wading through slippery rockweed up to my waist,
Small and exposed on the margin of the sea.

You warned me sometimes, but only in a way
That a seasoned explorer might warn
A bold apprentice.






And now you are old:
Your reluctant bones resist
The crags and contours of this granite coast,



And I wander alone,
Lithe under branches, supple over rocks,
A mile down the coast, alone
To the places both of us loved.







I have wondered at times whether it is best
To leave you behind or refuse myself those pleasures
Of the hidden caves:  the Dragon and the Witch,
Or the wide and shallow tide pool you call Diana's Bath.

I know you don't want to be helped
Like some antique statue boosted across a rock
That you cannot climb yourself,
Or carried like fragile cargo across a crevice.

You cannot possibly know
How much it hurts to lose you,
Like seeing the ocean slipping back,
Revealing, bit by bit,
In tidepool and in tiny crack.
So many small and vulnerable lives.

I will try not to burden you with this,
But respect your freedom
As once you respected my own.

The next wave coming in will be mine alone
To take its thrust with courage, or else give in;

Mine will be one of the hands
You can let go of.

The Legacy of Ocean Point. Part I: Almost Paradise

Maine. Just hearing that word as a child would induce in me a sudden stillness of anticipation. Are we really going this year? When? For how long?

During my early childhood we drove there by car from Washington, D.C. with my father swearing over clogged traffic in the Baltimore Tunnel. Later, Mother and I took the train (two trains actually) all the way to Bath. Then we'd take a bus to Wiscassit where Aunt Elizabeth would pick us up in her car and drive us to Ocean Point.  At every stage in the journey, excitement would rise in me until I thought I might burst for pure joy.

That was our destination -- Ocean Point, a peninsula with Linikin Bay on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. Huge ledges of solid rock (mostly granite)  led down to the sea. At low tide the lower rocks exposed rockweed, sea lettuce, Irish moss, barnacles, mussels, starfish and a million other varieties of marine flora and fauna. Offshore the landscape was broken with islands. So many islands. Closest to us were Green Island, Fisherman's Island, Ram Island with its lighthouse, Outer Heron and the two White Islands. "What's your favorite?" someone would always ask. I  usually flip-flopped between Green Island with its tiny cap of grass and  sprinkle of conifers  and the larger, thickly-forested  Outer Heron.

Cottages built in the New England style line the shore. Many of them have been handed down from generation to generation. Most of them have gardens and I am not speaking here of tidy plots of  limp petunias and stunted marigolds coaxed from unfriendly soils. What I am referring to can best be described as a botanical explosion-- enormous hydrangeas ranging from pure white to marine blue to amethyst. Yellow and orange day lillies, purple loosetrife, giant daisies and black-eyed Susans. These plants are uncommonly well fed, their roots feasting on the richness of moist forest loam.

Ocean Point is Nature in a frenzy of generosity, frantically emptying her conucoepia  into the brief few months of the New England summer.


In fact, Ocean Point was the best of all my summers and what sins I committed there from bratty childhood to stormy adolescence to young adulthood were overwritten, outshouted and upstaged by the magnitude and splendor of all that surrounded me. Bad things could happen there but they were like small burnt places in the earth so quickly overtaken by new growth you scarcely remember what accident or act of ill will caused the brief deformity.

In the end what I remember most is leaping from rock to rock past the Witch's and the Dragon's Caves all the way to Diana's Bath  which is an enormous tide pool, replenished but never entirely covered by the sea.

What else?  Toasting marshmallows over a wood fire on rainy days, wading through tide pools rockweed swirling round my bare legs, reaching through crevices to retrieve an escaped lobster buoy, swimming in Grimes Cove with the cold salt waves bearing me up then pulling myself up onto the wooden float to lie down and let the sun warm my skin that tingles pleasantly.

I remember when blueberries still grew in small open places of the woods, how Aunt Elizabeth would bake them into pies, pancakes, cobblers or just serve them in a dish with cream.  They were smaller than their commercially-grown cousins  -- sweeter, too.  We picked raspberries, also, and those have remained through the years so that in July of 2012 my daughter and grandsons step off the road to reach in gingerly through thorny branches plucking one or two to devour on the spot.


Is this a paean to some earthly paradise? Not  entirely. If humans love Ocean Point, so do mosquitoes and the dreaded black flies. From an anthropomorphic prospective, these pesky inhabitants serve to remind us that we have not, in fact, died and gone to heaven. 


Bug bites notwithstanding, leaving Ocean Point is invariably heartbreaking.  I have been fortunate to have visited and/or lived in several of earth's uniquely beautiful places. Why Ocean Point stands apart I cannot quite explain, perhaps because it is the product of so many memories, so many experiences of joy and shared love.


Sometimes waking from a dream or walking to the laundry room in my apartment building, I imagine I can smell fir balsam mixed with rockweed and mossy loam.  As for the slap and hiss of wave against  granite rock, I can do no better than quote Yates and say...


"I hear it in the deep heart's core."

The Main Cause for Rejoicing

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Last year the city of Los Alamos did not celebrate the Fourth of July.

Half the town was empty of residents due to the Las Conchas Fire which still burned nearby on the slopes of the Jemez Mountains. It was, however, no longer a threat to the town.

My family and I, having just returned from our one-week evacuation stint in Albuquerque, met with a friend outside of the local pizza joint and watched the mountains burn while indulging in dark humor. My grandsons played in the parking lot, and, for some reason we were all quite happy.

Well, you can't  remain sad forever without going crazy.


This year, Los Alamos was spared the worst of the Southwest fires and did celebrate the Glorious Fourth, but without fireworks.

We resumed the tradition of the family picnic at Overlook Park. This involves buying a ton of food and hanging out together in a large field flanked by food stands and inflated bouncy structures. Families do this either through genuine feelings of kinship or a begrudging sense of familial obligation. Or both.
After we'd positioned the folding chairs in some rough approximation of a circle, my daughter took me aside and pointed to where the superintendent of schools was strolling across the field. "Remember to watch your mouth," she cautioned me. I have a tendency to think of swear words as just...well, words.  I'm half deaf, too, so whatever I say tends to get yelled out rather than spoken. It's just one of the many ways I have of embarrassing my daughter.

My son-in-law's family arrived, lugging numerous folding chairs, a canopy and several ice chests and looking rather disgruntled.

My middle grandson and his cousin, ages eleven and twelve respectively, soon took off, merging with a cluster of school friends, including girls. Both of them, a it turns out, are quite the ladies' men.

My youngest grandson, age seven, darted hither and yon, clearly loving the open space, the food booths, the people and the holiday atmosphere. He is the one who loves -- openly and unconditionally -- every single member of his extended family. Because of this and because he is cute and charmingly eccentric, his affection is amply reciprocated.

My oldest grandson, age 14, hung out with the adults consuming cookies and complaining repeatedly that all his friends were on vacation.

My daughter's father (aka my ex-husband) who was here on a brief visit, amused himself by purchasing various beverages including a mango latte.

At some point, the high school band proceeded to play a medley of patriotic songs.

Then the clouds moved in...

...a huge cumulus siege engine, dark and menacing.  Like a great celestial cannon, it began firing what felt like cannon ball- sized raindrops that were almost, but not quite, hailstones. Everyone began scurrying about packing up the food, taking down the canopy, collapsing the folding chairs, etc.

Then the heavens opened and we were all instantly drenched in pounding rain.

I grabbed my youngest grandson, along with two bags of uneaten food and a chair and dashed off to find the car. Our route to safety took longer than it should have because I can never , for the life of me, remember where we parked.

Wet to the skin, we climbed into the van where my daughter had already taken shelter. The rest of the family followed eventually.

Once we were all settled, my daughter turned to her father seated next to me in the car, all soggy and shivering.  "Welcome to the monsoon season," she said.

By now the storm was moving off. That's the way it goes in the Southwest -- brief, violent thunderstorms that begin sometime in the afternoon or evening. This time, at least, the lightning didn't come close.

I stared out the window, happily taking in the myriad puddles, dripping foliage and scampering people in rain-saturated clothing.

"This," I thought but didn't say, "is the best thing that's happened all day."

Not to mention that what's left of our forests have been spared for another year. Definitely, the main cause for rejoicing.

The Cost of Greed

I 
I live on a plateau seven thousand feet above sea level in North Central New Mexico. This habitat is called the Pinon-Juniper Forest though the dominant tree here, apart from juniper, is Ponderosa Pine
A bit higher up, in the Subalpine Zone, pines mingle with fir and spruce.  Verdant meadows  moistened by melting snow promote diminutive wildflowers harvested by bees and brilliant butterflies. There are chipmonks, squirrels and small black and white woodpeckers. Dragonflies patrol the more sluggish sections of streams and garter snakes glide harmlessly through knee-high grass.


Two years ago, I called this region paradise. I don't know what to call it now.

Not that we weren't warned, and so what has happened should come as no surprise. I'm referring, of course, to human-caused global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. In the Southwest this translates to extended periods of drought which turn the landscape into an open invitation to forest fire.



There have always been fires, of course, but not of the ferocity, frequency and extensiveness of what we have now.

In the year 2000, the Cerro Grande Fire destroyed 400 homes in the city of Los Alamos. Last year the Las Conchas fire destroyed over 100,000 acres, and recently, the Little Bear Fire near Carlsbad Caverns has burned nearly 5,000 acres and is still not completely contained. Each new wildfire is labelled the worst in recorded history.

Among the many examples of human ingenuity is the ability to turn Lothlorien into Mordor in the space of a few weeks.


Zombie sentinels.  Those are the words that came to mind during my latest trip to the Jemez Mountains. The slopes are crowded with the arrow-straight, blackened forms of what once were the soft contours of native conifers. And yet, to me, these trees don't seem entirely dead as if some dark will could still muster them into action. "When Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane..."

 Around these solitary trunks new growth flourishes, enough to convince some people that forest fires are really not such a bad thing after all. So long as they're kept away from human habitations.

But the new growth is not the same as what was there before. Locusts,  miniature oaks and various low-growing shrubs but not pines or firs or spruce. Those will not come back for many years, if they come back at all.

Recently a guide from our local environmental center predicted that our once-forested mountains will become a shrub land. And so from the ashes of the inferno comes life -- a new and different life, a competitive tangle of rambling, ground-hugging plants replacing the towering pines, the majestic spruce and fir.

I wish I had not lived long enough to see this. I wish I had protested harder, fought more fiercely on behalf of the natural beauty that I love. For, if I place the lion's share of the blame on corporate profit-seekers, I must also place part of it on myself.

On TV shows such as Law and Order the cops always say to the families of the victims, "I'm sorry for your loss."

Such a feeble, inadequate sentiment yet it comes to mind now because it's all I can think of to say to my grandsons' children who will probably never wander in the shade of the Southwestern forests.

I am sorry for your loss...

Strength

An onomatopoeic word:
The initial "s" is steeling oneself;
The "t" is defiance of fear;
"Reng" is mental or physical force;
And the "th" as in "So there!"

Sss...t...rreng...th!

Strength is movement of muscles:  biceps, triceps, deltoid;
A ballet dancer's legs, a construction worker's arms,
A woman balancing a toddler on one hip and on the other a grocery bag;
It is made of frown lines, compressed lips, curled fists, a determined stare...

Strength is measured in buckets of sweat,
Liters of tears held back,
Blood coursing through veins like a river in spate;
It is made of "No, I will not!" and "Yes, I can!"

Sometimes strength is going back
Into the burning building, the sinking ship;
Then forward, ascending, rock by rock
With someone who trusts you clinging to your back.

And also strength is getting up
Out of bed when there's nothing to do,
And no one (anymore)
To do it with.

It is summoning the breath
To blow out the candles on your birthday cake -- your ninety-first
And, on the whole, being glad that it's not too late,

,

Even now, it is not too late (though it may be mistaken for stubbornness)

To be strong.

Coping with Clinical Depression

It seems I have a hard time staying happy.

One of the reasons is that my brain is incapable of regulating the neurotransmitter known as serotonin. I take medication for this and mostly it keeps me away from the edge of the pit. The latter, however, is always in range of my peripheral vision.

In truth, I have as many reasons for being happy as I have for not being happy. It's really a matter of which list pops into my mind at any given moment. I do have some control over this but not total control.

Some people still think that clinical depression is a fabricated disability promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. These same people think ADD is a mother's self-justification for being unable to control her child and that autism can be cured with a good spanking.  I've also heard people claim they're much too busy to be depressed.

The truth is you can be the busiest little bee in the hive and still wake up in the belly of the pit.

The logic of the pit dictates that doing your laundry is futile because your clothes will just get dirty again. Similarly, there's no point in making your bed so that you can unmake it sixteen hours later.

In the pit all books you try to read are aimed above your level of comprehension. Either that or they are insufferably boring. Assuming, that is, you are able to read at all. Music of any genre is an assault on your eardrums. Food tastes like cardboard and leaves you feeling bloated or sick to your stomach. Trying to follow a conversation is like trying to discern meaning in the chatter of monkeys.

In the pit every action, however small or ordinary, is exhausting. The mechanics involved in taking a shower or a bath seem so daunting that the thought of doing either one brings tears of frustration to your eyes.

You are certain that the vast majority of people hate you, that your very essence exudes a pernicious form of mental contamination.

You lie down with your eyes closed and pray to be able to sleep. Flash bulbs explode like firecrackers on the inside of your eyelids. Your body is assaulted by random aches and pains. You turn this way and that in your bed, seeking relief. There is a dense, heavy pressure inside you making it impossible to breathe normally.

Despair is no longer an abstract noun; it is a physical presence that has taken command of your mind and body -- heavy, hollow, dark, and all-encompassing.

Getting out of the pit is difficult even with all that medical science has to offer. Not everyone can do it and not every brain is receptive to pharmaceutical solutions, talk therapy, etc.

I am one of the lucky ones. I did not expect the SSRI drugs to work but they did. That is to say, they make me feel what I assume is normal. Or close enough to it.

Contrary to what some people think, anti-depressants do not get you high. They may numb you to a certain extent. You may find that you no longer cry even in situations where crying is appropriate. You may also find that they dull your sex drive -- but who cares since existing in a state of depression pretty much kills it. Mostly the SSRI drugs raise you to an emotional state where you are able to cope. But that state can become tenuous from time to time.

Physical activity helps, there's no doubt about that, whether it be swimming, running, walking or spending thirty minutes a day on the treadmill. Becoming absorbed in a project, any project, is also a good strategy. I don't mean busywork, though. I mean something you care about.

In truth, though, if you are genetically prone to clinical depression, you are never all that far from the rim of the pit.

You simply have to train yourself not to look down.

At West Park Pool

.

In the beginning there was the usual scene with the usual mix of people. In the roped off area a woman was attempting to swim laps while various tots and their misdirected projectiles strayed into her path.

Over by the diving pool, a chubby, generously freckled boy positioned himself on the lower of the two diving boards. Head down, arms extended he leaned forward as if to execute a dive, then apparently changing his mind, straightened, pinched his nose, bounced twice and jumped, plunging feet-first and creating a torpedo-sized splash . He did this three times in succession, so perhaps it was all part of a ritual he'd made up.  A diving board ritual.

On either side of the long ends of the pool two men, in furious competition, hurled splash bombs back and forth. One of the men was very pale, bordering on chubby, and wore American flag swim trunks. His light hair was shaved almost down to his scalp. The other man was swarthy and hirsuite and somehow less obtrusive. Or so I thought.

Young men and women in life guard attire issued occasional warnings:  no running, no flippers when you dive, etc.



The big clock on the wall near the dressing rooms showed quarter to one when the very old woman arrived. She was clad in a one-piece dark blue bathing suit, the kind that serious swimmers tend to prefer. Her legs and arms were incredibly thin though she had a slight paunch due, probably, to long- expired stomach muscles. She wore a bathing cap covered with plastic hibiscus flowers in various lurid colors.

With the aid of a walker, she made her way cautiously down the ramp from the dressing room and around the side of the pool that led to the diving boards. Even children, who rarely look where they're going, managed to stay out of her path as she maneuvered around lounge chairs,  ice chests, spread-out towels, and various swim parphenalia.

She progressed all the way to the diving board, discarded her walker and began ascending the ladder to the lower board. A look of abject horror took possession of the life guard's face. He rose from his perch, his body poised for action, but said nothing. By now, at least half the people at the pool were staring at the old woman. "Hey, lady!" the man with the American flag swim trunks shouted, but the woman proceeded as if she hadn't heard him. And maybe she hadn't.

"She's planning to commit suicide right here at the pool," I thought and covered my eyes.

When I looked again the woman was in mid air having just executed a forward somersault. She made contact with the water head first, creating a modest splash. She swam over to the ladder, then gestured toward her walker. Her demeanor had the force of command and someone -- a teenage girl -- hurried to retrieve the apparatus. The old woman nodded her thanks and proceeded again over to the ladder.

This time she performed a perfect swan dive.

People began to compete for the retrieval of her walker and when the old woman executed a reverse double somersault, three-quarters of the population of the pool applauded.

"This is impossible," I thought. "This has got to be a dream. What about heart failure? What about osteoperosis?"

"She dives like an eighteen-year-old," someone commented, admiringly.

"Like a professional," someone else amended.

Positioned, once again, at the tip of the diving board, the old woman paused, glanced at her audience and made a gesture with her hands. Within seconds, I realized she was using sign language and that what she was telling us was that she would do one more.

And she did. Another perfect swan dive.

After that she floated on her back for awhile, facing skyward. The expression on her face suggested both utter weariness and total euphoria.

On her way back to the dressing room, people attempted to approach her but she waved them away.

Clearly she had done what she had come here to do and now...

now she was ready to go home.