Month: March 2020

“Goood morning Harriet. Check out that sunrise over there. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Absolutely breathtaking George. Look how the light begins to show. I bet it’s going to be a great day. Ahhhh, such peace and quiet.”

“Well it WAS until Frank over there starting pecking into that tree! Geesh, does he haaave to sound like a jackhammer every morning??”

“Honey, that’s how he eats. You don’t want him to starve do you?”

“Well my dear, have you seen him lately?? He could stand to miss a grub or two. I just wish he could be more quiet.”

“I understand. That’s just now how he’s made though. Come. Speaking of breakfast, let’s go fly down to that patch down there. I thiiiink I see some movement in the grass…”

“Oooh, I spy with my little eye a worm! Race you to it!”

And thus the day in the life of birds begins…

 

Okay, I don’t know about you but I have many special people in my life. How in the world do I pick just one to write about? They’re all so unique in their own way. Thinking…thinking…thinking…

I’ve got it! I’ll write about David.

Once upon a time, I was really into yoga. I mean, REALLY into yoga. I would wake up every morning around 3:30, hop on my trainer around 4:00 and bike 30 or 40 miles every morning before work. Then, I’d come home after a full day of work and go to the yoga studio for three hours. Yup, three hours. I’d do back to back classes. I was a little obsessive about it to say the least. One of my favorite teachers at the studio was David.

At first glance you’d be like “Is this guy a yogi??” He had long white hair, he was older, his skin and body were worn and ravaged by life and the passage of time. Yet, he had this childlike twinkle in his eye and this infectious grin. Once I got used to him (which quite frankly, wasn’t all that long), I was in all of his classes. He took to calling me “Pixie Girl”.

He would always have us work on a pose called “Hanumanasana”; pretty much a split. I would curse and grumble and he would laugh. I took to calling the pose the “(bleep) Monkey Thing” because of it’s origin…I swear he would put it into every class just to spite me.

He died suddenly and unexpectedly a few years ago now. I have his picture up in my classroom in a frame. He was an artist in the true sense of the word. He had his inner demons that he battled. He had his darkness and his light. He had amazing love for his family and students. He was open, honest and pure. He was wickedly funny and wonderfully humble.

Yah, my special person today is David. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll renew my efforts with the Monkey Thing; just so I can hear him laughing at me trying to do it…

 

When I was a youngling, every summer we would shut down our house in Vermont (that’s where I was born and raised) and we would move over to Nantucket Island. Keep in mind that this was back in the day when Nantucket wasn’t a popular place and it didn’t cost a bazillion dollars to rent a cottage. We would stay out at Surfside and live in a cottage owned by the Folgers. It was always the same one. There wasn’t any television, it always smelled musty and like the ocean, it was kind of dark and it was simple. I remember there was an alligator skin hanging on the wall. For a while it used to freak me out, but then I just began to talking to him and all was okay again. I had my own room and my brothers had to share a room. There was a family room, kitchen and bathroom. There was a clothesline outside that was always full of bathing suits and towels. There were swimming rafts, snorkels, masks, flippers and sand toys all over the yard. You could follow the dirt road down to the sand dunes, walk down the long rickety plank board walk and then you were on the beach. We would spend all day at the beach, sun up to sun down. We would play in the dune grass and get covered in ticks. My brothers would pull them off, drop them into Dixie cups and then drop in a match and listen to them pop. We would swim and skim board, picnic and lounge about. When the bluefish were running, my dad and I would go down in the wee hours of the morning and surf cast until we caught one. I had my Nantucket friends, Stevie and Kari. Kari still actually lives on the Island; she never left.

We would travel all about the island too. We got to know the famous Madaket Millie and we would always see Mr. Roger’s crooked house (it really WAS crooked). My dad and I would bike all the way into town and get ice cream at the Sweet Shoppe. My favorite flavor was malachite ice cream. It was their own secret recipe and I can still taste it to this day. We would have clambakes on the beach with the Jemisons and the Englands until all hours of the night. We would ride in jeeps out to lighthouses and race back before the tide came in. We would fly kites high into the sky and then daydream about being carried away by them.

I look back at silent home movies now and it feels like just yesterday when I was there. It was such a magical time; one never to be repeated. The Nantucket I grew up with doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s more of a destination place, full of boutiques and fancy shops. The cobblestone streets are still there though, and some of the older cottages are still adorned with beach roses and weathered shingles. On the outskirts of town life remains as it was, a nod to the past. The Whaling Museum still harkens to what life was like when whaling and fishing were the sole livelihood of the Island. The Tuckernuck Yoho still flies through the mist and guards his treasure; if you listen you can hear his scream in the dead of night. The Nantucket Bake Shop hasn’t changed any of it’s recipes since I was a little girl, and I’m most thankful for that. Surfside is still the best place to go for killer waves. The ocean breeze is still strong and the ferry is still the main way to get there. Some things I suppose remain the same; but most things have changed. However, it will always be “my Nantucket” in my heart and soul.

Today was the first day being at home. Weird. Just so weird. No, maybe “weird” is the wrong word; surreal is more like it.

I slept in this morning; not like me. Even the dogs slept in which totally threw me off. I puttered around and then logged in to Google classroom. Phew, Mrs. Marc-Aurele was there! Like her, I’ve been busy emailing and checking in on things. My dogs still can’t figure out why I’m here all day; though they seem to be adjusting. The cats; well, the cats are indifferent to my presence as cats will be. Ian, he’s on Spring Break this week so he’s casually keeping up on his college work and playing video games. We have a fire going and it’s very quiet. I take that back, the dogs are now chasing each other around and wrestling. So much for the quiet.

But, you guys are missing. The hustle and bustle of team 4/5 is missing. The hugs, the chatter, the general good vibes. I miss that already.

As Mrs. Marc-Aurele said, there’s always a silver lining. Now is the time to take care of ourselves. Slow it down but stay focused. Get fresh air and eat good food. Help with chores around the house but tend to your school work too. I think it’s also a time for the earth to heal. She’s been suffering. She needs this quiet time too. Things will look different on the other side of this, and hopefully a lot better. Maybe we’ll all be more mindful of how we treat the earth and each other. Maybe this is like pressing a giant reset button.

So here we are, getting into the flow of remote learning. An exciting and interesting time for all of us. Embrace it and enjoy the ride!

I think everyone has favorites of something. Mine, well I seem to have a lot. Most everyone who knows me knows I love being barefoot all the time, I love tea, I love seals and elephants (I still dream of having some real elephants roaming around in my backyard), I love to cook, I love the ocean, I love my dogs and cats, of course I love my son. The list goes on and on. But perhaps a little known fact about me is that I love to sword fight. Yup, with real live swords.

To me, swords are elegant. They’re versatile. They’re way cool. They become a beautiful, artistic movement if done well; a dance of sorts between swordsman and sword. But you know, they also hurt when they hit you.

So let me tell you a little story.

When I first learned to sword fight, I found that I took to it quite naturally. My son and I would spar in the back yard with our fighting sticks. He would teach me the moves and we would go round and round. After a time, a friend of mine made me my very own sword. It’s absolutely beautiful. She’s named Oceana, and she’s powerful. She was enchanted by the full moon, made from the wood of a 200 year old oak tree and steel that was tempered over a special fire.

Well, the blacksmith who created her came over to give me a lesson. There we were, in the backyard, practicing moves with real live weapons. It was April and there was still some snow on the ground. It was a sunny day. All was right with the world.

He decided, “Let’s try something new. I’m going to come at you with two weapons, one in each hand”

“Ummmm, okay?” I said.

So there he was, a sword in one hand and an ax in the other. He would swing one around in a semicircle and I would hit it, then he would swing the other one around and I would hit that. I was in a constant state of being on the defensive. As I was getting the hang of it, he started going faster and faster. A part of me felt like mentally he went somewhere else, like he was reliving fighting in a battle from long ago. But I kept on going. He came at me with the ax and I did the one thing you should never ever do…duck. But duck I did.

I dropped to the ground but I didn’t fall, I came down to one bent knee.  I still had my sword in my hand. I got back up and was like “What the??” I was mad. Mad I got hit, but so excited I didn’t drop my sword. Cardinal rule is you never drop your weapon. I went to go after him and he just stood there. I said “C’mon, you can’t just stand there. I didn’t drop my sword! We’re not done yet!”

Then I felt something go in my eye. I always have hair dropping in my face, so I thought it was that and I blew it away. I felt it again. I was getting annoyed. Then I looked down in the snow. There was all of this blood in the snow. I looked up at him. I looked down at the snow. It dawned on me that it was MY blood. I looked at him and yelled, “Did you hit me?? What the heck?? Did you really just hit me in the head??”

“Ian, go get your mom a towel, QUICK!”

Ian ran in and got me a towel, came back out and I stuck in on my head.

By this time I had blood pouring out of my head. It was staining the snow. I was mad. I felt totally fine but man, was I mad. Not mad at him mind you, but mad that I ducked and got hit.

Once it was clear that I was okay, Ian piped up, “Mom, I have to tell you. You looked SO epic with the blood pouring out of your head and down your face into the snow. You looked like a real warrior Mom. That was cool!” Just move me into the cool mom category for life now.

After a week or so I went to the doctor’s just to have her check it out. Not only did I have a gash (it healed up beautifully without a single stitch), but I had a concussion and an actual mark on my skull as discovered in the MRI.

I told her step by step the whole story of what had happened. When I was done with my story she stared at me in disbelief and said “You know, you could have lost an eye.”

Me: “Yah, but I didn’t”, I said with my finger pointed in the air and a big grin on my face.

Her: “Well you could have died you know.”

Me: “Yah, but I didn’t”, still with my finger pointed in the air and smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

She shook her head at me, not quite knowing what to say or how to handle this one. So she finally smiled and simply said, “Just be more careful next time, okay??”

So next time you see me, you may notice the scar and dent to the right of my right eye. It comes with a good story, as all good scars usually do. My lesson learned and one I pass on to you: when you’re sword fighting, fight all instincts and don’t duck…and don’t ever drop your sword.