Dear Sara Loewen . . .

(I have no idea why this showed back up here, when it was written a year ago. Oh, the mysteries of the internet . . .)

Why am I calling you dear?  I spoke to you for perhaps forty-five seconds at this year’s AWP conference.  You were manning the University of Alaska press table when I walked up.  I had no idea who you were, never heard of your book.  I’d attended a panel of Alaskan writers that morning and was actually there to purchase someone else’s book.  I don’t remember whose now, only that it wasn’t available and you told me I’d have to order it.  I’m sure I did, perhaps I’ve read it by now, or perhaps it’s sitting on my shelf;  in the stack of books waiting until I have more time.

But oh, my dear dear Sara Loewen.  You suggested your book, sitting on the corner of the table.  You said perhaps if I enjoyed reading about Alaska I would enjoy your book.  I liked the title, Gaining Daylight, and was taken by the subtitle Life on Two Islands.

 I spent years on an island.  I may have talked to you briefly about that.  But mostly I bought your book because you were there, and you pointed it out, and I would’ve been embarrassed not to buy it.  It would’ve felt somehow rude.  I wouldn’t have wanted someone to walk away after I’d suggested they buy my book.

I picked your book up last week, out of that pile of ‘to be gotten to’ books.  I picked it because it was small and light, because it was short essays that could be carried in my bag and read in waiting rooms.  I had no expectations.

Dear Sara Loewen,

 Your writing stuns me.  I read each essay slowly, once, and then again.  It’s been a long time since I savored a book as much as this one.  Every image is so clear, so bright.  Every word seems to be the perfect word, the only word that could possibly have been used to convey that idea, but that sentiment.  The things you write about and at the same time encompassing everything.  I don’t have the words to describe your words.  I’m not that good.

Dear, dear Sara Loewen.

 Whether you’re writing about salmon fishing, running your own skiff, substituting for second grade, whether you’re telling me about the Russians encamped on Kodiak Island, or Rose Tweed, the Bell of Kodiak during World War II, or baby humpback whales, it feels like everything you’re saying is true and right and important, and I want to know what you know, and I want to feel what you feel.  Do you know how rare this is to a reader like myself?  Do you know how good you are?

Sara Loewen, you inscribed my copy of Gaining Daylight.  You wrote “hope you visit Alaska one day soon.  You’ll love it.”

I visit Alaska.  In small, beautifully rendered, beautifully written essays.  I visit Kodiak Island and Amook Island.  I visit fish camps and beaches swept by fall winds, I visit the 1890’s Russian settlements, and the Army barracks in World War II.  I visit Rose Tweed Lake.  And it’s all because I happen to be in the right place at the right time on a snowy day in Boston.  And because of you, Sara Loewen.

Thank you.  Truly.

You can visit Alaska, too.

 saraloewen.com

It's got nothing to do with politics . . .

I called my sister last week, on what is still unfortunately referred to as Columbus Day.  I asked her what she was doing.

“Paying bills, doing laundry, cleaning house.” 

“I’m taking the dogs to the vet,” I said.  Then there was silence. Contented silence.

Every year for the past twenty-one years I’ve called my sister or she has called me on Memorial Day and Columbus Day.  The routine is always the same.  What are you doing?  Not much.  You?  The usual.

This little ceremony is in memory of the twelve years we were innkeepers on Cuttyhunk Island, when the calendar from Memorial Day weekend to Columbus Day weekend meant our lives belonged 24/7 to the Allen House Inn.

Memorial Day weekend was the start of the season.  We’d scan the harbor anxiously, waiting for the boats to come in.  We’d praise sunny days and curse fog and rain. 

photo nina brodeur

And we’d wait both dreading and hoping we’d get slammed with too many people.We never had more than a  skeleton staff that early in the season, but we needed the cash.

We took out a startup loan at the beginning of every year, and breathed a sigh of relief when it was paid off and we began to make money.  We busted our asses eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, from the end of June until Labor Day.  

photo courtesy A. Hinson

Then the business dropped off as we headed toward the end of the season; but so did most of our staff, who had to get back to school or jobs or both.  The length of the day stayed the same, but our duties were more varied as everybody who stayed on took on any chore that was needed.

Then, finally, Columbus Day weekend.  That last grand slam of business, and the incredible relief with which we saw the harbor empty out on Monday.

A week of intense cleaning always followed, the scrubbing of every surface of the kitchen down to bare wood or metal, washing and bagging up linens, tablecloths, curtains, putting everything a mouse might want to chew into a container that hopefully a mouse could not chew through.  But that last week, difficult as it was physically, was incredibly satisfying emotionally.  We had made it through another season with our bodies and minds mostly intact.

photo A.Hinson

Almost twice as many years have passed without the Inn as the number of years we ran it.  I rarely have the dreams anymore, the ones where I wake up in a sweat because it’s Memorial Day weekend and things are not done.  My sister rarely wakes up wondering who is on the schedule to close at night.

But we remember.  We remember the good, the bad, the crazy.  As the years pass the good gets better and the bad slowly fades. 

And twice a year we call each other and talk about the lives we used to have, that we were so glad to have, and that we are so glad have moved beyond. 

We remember.

And some people . . .

thought Cuttyhunk Island was remote.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/23/tristan-da-cunha_n_5675945.html

Earth's 'Remotest' Island Is Predictably, Awesomely In The Middle Of Nowhere

The Huffington Post  | By Lisa_Miller

Posted: 08/23/2014 8:00 am EDT Updated: 08/23/2014 8:00 am EDT

Print Article

Located over a thousand miles from the nearest landmass, Tristan da Cunha is really remote.

This little group of isolated islands is surrounded by miles and miles of the South Atlantic Ocean. It's 1,750 miles away from the coast of South Africa and 1,500 miles from the nearest landmass, making it the most remote inhabited island group on earth. There are six total islands there: Tristan Da Cunha (the main island), the aptly-named Inaccessible Island, Nightingale Island, Middle, Stoltenhoff and Gough.

Early explorers passed over Tristan da Cunha because of its rugged landscape, lack of natural harbor and harsh climate with heavy winds throughout the year. The island was settled by the Brits in 1816 and has since played important roles in various wars.

Today, the main island is inhabited by about 275 residents, and no new residents are currently allowed. The island's population is made up of 80 families with just seven surnames, meaning mostly everyone is kind of related.

Visiting Tristan da Cunha is a trek, but it's worth it if you want to experience true remoteness. All visitors must receive permission before they embark on their adventure. The island is only accessible by ship via a 1,750 mile, six-day boat ride from Cape Town.

Once on the island, visitors can explore the settlement area, called Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, which boasts shops, a golf course, houses, a school and the harbor. While remote, the settlement isn't totally disconnected -- there's television, radio and an online newspaper. AnInternet cafe opened on the island 2006.

The island is also brimming with wildlife and natural wonders include penguins, albatross, whales, a volcanic park and a variety of vegetation.

A visit to Tristan da Cunha is a true adventure. From the island's unique history to its extreme isolation, there's really nothing else like it.

I just got back

 from my week’s "vacation" on that island suspiciously similar to Bayberry Island, otherwise known as Cuttyhunk .  

So much crammed into five days on the island and two days of travel.  Time spent with older relatives and newer ones.  The newer relatives tended to have less hair and wear less clothing.  

Here is Will doing a brilliant imitation of his uncle Matthew at a similar age, and his great grandpa Jay in his later years. 

Notice the complete lack of butt and the chicken legs.  This seems to be a trait which has been passed down generations even when there was no genetic link.  

This also holds true for Will’s twin

sister Kenley, who has somehow managed to capture my mother’s dramatic genes out of thin air.

This was a week of family, on and off the island.  And it was a week of juxtaposition - of past, present, and future.

I began to write when I first lived on Cuttyhunk.  And here I am over thirty years later, and I’m doing a book signing as a fundraiser for the same Cuttyhunk library that saved my life those first quiet and lonely springs on the island.

My character Jessie  Silva and I both read our way through that library.

On this last trip I was witness to the Fourth of July golf cart parade, held this year on the fifth due to hurricane Arthur, who graced us with his presence on the fourth.  

I was around for the first Fourth of July golf cart parade.

And leaving the island after my whirlwind trip, those of us on the ferry were fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the Charles Morgan, last of the wooden whaleboats, restored and docked temporarily in New Bedford harbor.

I had no idea where this blog was going when I began it; but where it has gone is full circle.  From my father’s skinny legs

to my toddler grand nephew’s chicken thighs, seeing  my mother’s dramatic flair mirrored in my grand niece’s face. 

Three decades of a Fourth of July parade, watched this year from the lawn of the library that saved my sanity so many lonely winters and springs, that same library where I was setting up for a book signing of my own book, a book about a girl who lives on an island.  The island so suspiciously similar to Cuttyhunk, with an old-fashioned library almost exactly like the one whose lawn I sat on for the signing.

Whaleboats,

parades,

generations.

This is the second book I’ve written about this island, and there will be more.  It’s an island rich in history and full of potential for the future.  It is generations of drama, of continuity and of change. 

Leaving Cuttyhunk this past week I realize I may have had to add physical land mass to Bayberry in order to fit all my character Jessie’s adventures in, but even at its original size,

it’s an island far too full of life to fit into just one book.

So last night…

I gave away Halloween candy from the front door of my house for the first time in forty years. 

Ever since I left home I’ve been on the run from holidays.  The major ones (Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, Thanksgiving) I worked; first in the theater, then in restaurants.  The minor ones, Fourth of July and all the “days” (Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Presidents’ Day, Martin Luther King Day, Arbor Day) I either worked or did my best to ignore.

Holidays are easiest to ignore if you're in a strange town or city.  If I don’t know anyone, the hype and the decorations, the commercials and, around Christmas time, the ever present and infernal music don’t seem to get under my skin is so much.  I even found the luminaria lining the downtown plaza of Santa Fe

ok, so this is phoenix. it looks the same.

 and the sailboat masts in Charleston brightly lit as miniature Christmas trees sort of pretty.

and  i have no idea where this is but i think it's florida. sue me.

And Halloween.  That’s an easy one to ignore if you’re living in a strange town.  Just turn your lights off and pretend you’re not home.  I mean, it’s not your house anyway, even if it does get papered or egged.

truthfully, this is not my house

For years, when I wasn’t traveling I lived on an island. 

this island. i did live on this island. honest.

Halloween was a breeze there, what few kids there were (and some people brought their kids on island specifically for Halloween) all got together and rode from house to house in someone’s truck or all wheel drive vehicle that had been decorated for the occasion.  All the kids showed up at your house at once, you dispensed your treat bags and admired their costumes and went back to watching Jeopardy.

I don’t count that as real Halloween trick-or-treating, although I’m sure they did.

For the last fifteen years I’ve lived in the woods.  The only people who found me without invitation were the 2000 census taker and one set of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I’m still not sure how they did that.  

also truly my cabin in woods

I never had to put up Christmas lights, carve a jack-o’-lantern, or even put a political candidate’s sign in my yard.

Or buy Halloween candy.  Until this year, when we moved right into the center of town.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, even with three large mutts freaking out every time a stranger got close to the house.  Most kids passed us by, the combination of the front gate, the porch door and then the front door too daunting or too much trouble.

But I think I still prefer the day after Halloween.

Thanks for listening.  Here’s a pumpkin recipe for your trouble.

PUMPKIN FLAN

Sugar                     1 cup

Water                   ½ cup

Egg yolks                              5

Light cream                         2 cups

Pumpkin                              ½ cup

Cornstarch                          1 T

Sugar                     1/3 cup

Nutmeg                               1/8 tsp.

Cinnamon                           1/8 tsp.

Ground clove                     1/8 tsp.

Heat sugar and water, stirring frequently, until caramelized. Pour into 6 cups or ramekins. Mix together pumpkin, cornstarch, sugar, and spices. Beat in separate pan light cream. Add pumpkin mixture. Cool. Mix in egg yolks. Pour into caramelized dishes. Bake in a water bath for 1 hour at 350°.

Well it’s fall…

More importantly, it’s fall here in town.  I’m trying to remember the last time I spent fall in a city or town, and I’m coming up with somewhere around nineteen eighty.  Autumn is different in town that it was on the mountain, and different again from autumn on the island.

On the island seasons were subtle, especially the turns from summer into fall.  A few leaves drop, but the trees that are still standing don’t really turn colors like in the rest of New England.  The temperature change is more subtle there, as the water slows down the cold drops like a blanket over the rest of the East Coast.

What is missing from this picture? People.

Notice the absence of boats in the harbor

Down here in Virginia the mountains flame as brightly as any in New England.

 But when the leaves drop upon House Mountain they stay where they fall until the wind blows them somewhere else.  Here in town I see piles of leaves in yards, bagged on sidewalks, huge piles blown into gutters for the city to come by and pick up.

The whine of leaf blowers is gradually replacing the clatter and whir of lawnmowers and weedwackers, and I am still not used either sound.  Autumn on House Mountain was the ping of acorns dropping on a tin roof, the rustle of deer sheltering from hunters among the oaks, the sound of wind whistling through bare branches.

I miss the silence.  I miss being able to notice a full moon without having to look up.  I miss the stars.  I really miss being able to just let the dogs out to poop in the woods, without having to worry about picking up after them.

On the other hand, I can walk to the library, my drugstore, the movies, a coffee shop.  We ordered a gluten-free pizza from Domino’s and had it delivered.  If I forget something at the store it’s only three minutes away.  This tiny plot of land is a constant source of wonder.  I don’t know what’s planted here and new surprises keep popping up.

And although I don’t see this on my walk every morning –

I’m never going to see anything like this on House Mountain –

Oh my God.  For the first time in my adult life I’m going to have to buy Halloween candy.