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More than ever, being in New England reminded me of how much I miss seasons. In the Keys we have the pleasant winter, and the terribly unpleasant summer. It works for some, but not for me. Most of my spirituality is wrapped up in what’s outside the door. Tide cycles, weather, seasons and the turning inward and outward that comes with passing through winter and into spring. More and more, I want to center our girls’ learning, and our family’s seasonal celebrations, on what’s unfolding outside. It’s very hard to explain a fall equinox to a three year old who can’t see the leaves fall off the trees. There are people who find their heaven here in the tropics. The clouds are spectacular, and I’ll never forget crossing some threshold in Biscayne Bay, where the water went from brown and murky, to the brilliant tropical turquoise you only see in pictures. It is beautiful. But wow, am I ready for a different kind of beautiful.
The second reason to love Maine- people! We bought our land five years ago after falling in love with the location. We don’t have relatives, or even friends nearby. We got a sense from the stores, libraries, schools, and innkeepers, that there were like-minded people in Brooklin, Blue Hill, and Sedgwick. There’s an organic food co-op. People build and sail beautiful boats. Our neighbors (who we’ve only spoken to by phone) have a wonderful off-the-grid house. All seemed good.
On this trip I took three or four walks in the neighborhood with the girls. We walked past a well-restored yellow house with a tricycle, a Prius, and a double stroller in the driveway. Sophie took note of their trampoline. Too much stuff to be summer people. And clearly, they had kids. I didn’t think much of it until I saw them setting up for a yard sale on our last day in town. We stopped by that night and as it turns out, Jim and Heather Cassidy moved to Brooklin two years ago after falling in love with the place. They have two young daughters, and in a few days, will move onto their sailboat (sound familiar?) to take a cruise down the Intracoastal Waterway. We have Jim to thank for putting us in touch with the local who’ll install our mooring, which we hope to be floating on next spring. We met some of the Cassidy’s friends- great people with kids who were super nice to Sophie. Walking away with our purchases, we knew it was perhaps the most gratifying hour we’d spent in Brooklin. Our suspicions were confirmed. We won’t be resident aliens. We’ll have our people in Maine!
Safe passage to the Cassidy family, and a toast to the arrival of fall, whatever that means in your neck of the woods.
Posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago. Add a comment
I’m cooked.
My folks have been here keeping the ladies busy while John and I work on the boat. Climbing in and out of a crowded hatch a dozen times a day is an act my body is having a hard time remembering. Crazy to think that soon I’ll be guiding two little bodies down into the boat, a dozen times a day.
But the work is so satisfying. It reminds John and I of a time when it was just the two of us. In the midst of the dust and drilling, the heat and the grime, it feels good to be together. It feels especially good to be finishing this little house for our little family. It is now and forever ours; our ticket to the world.
Meanwhile Rosy’s contracted some mysterious stomach ailment and poops all the time but hardly ever pees. Talk about tugging at the angst of a non-vaxing, swine-terrified mama. She’ll be fine, but she’s not sleeping when I’m sleeping (she’s fine until I get to bed, and then all hell breaks loose), so it’s been a rough three or four nights. As my mother would say, with kids, “there’s always something.”
We leave for our first real family vacation in two short days. Lazy, chilly mornings in Maine await us. I have to remember to print the inumberable confirmations and directions, to pack the appropriate reading material and DVDs and sweaters (!!). It will be thrilling to be back in New England.
And just think. We’ll be coming back to a home almost ready for a trip back home.
First off, a great blog John and I’ve both reading to get inspired about being aboard with kids. Mike, Alisa and their three-year-old son, Elias, sailed from Alaska to Australia over the past two years. Their blog, Once In a Lifetime is honest and endearing- a great read.
Meanwhile, the boat update. John has welded new steel frames for the large ports in the main part of the cabin. This week he’s going to install all new acrylic “glass” with fancy tape they use to attach windows in skyscrapers. Then it’s all about two tasks- preparing the deck for the mast! And preparing the interior for human occupancy. With the help of two babysitters/friends, and my parents, we are scraping together some “alone time” on the boat for the first time possibly ever (since children, but that’s an entirely different epoch). John will negotiate the exterior. Next week I’m aiming to get the overhead at least somewhat together, deal with the issue of a water supply (flexible water bladder in an old tank- my only trepidation is drinking from PVC?), and start scrubbing. Let the countdown begin!!
It’s been a busy few days. We got word on Wednesday that some old friends from Germany were in town. Like, two miles away! We invited them to stop by yesterday and we ended up plugging their RV in to an electrical outlet and parking them in the driveway overnight. It was so much fun. John met Tom Herbst and his wife, Chris, over ten years ago when our friend Franjo was working on Thompson Island, in Boston. They were traveling with their then-tiny kids, Sarah and Benedikt, and tell a great story about kayaking through the Harbor to find parking for their enormous RV. John was the ferry captain on their trip to the island.
This time the parking was easier. Sarah is 17 and Bene is 15, and their youngest, Hannah, is 8. We caught up with them four years ago in Germany. They were even lovelier than I remember- funny, smart, kind friends whom we look forward to seeing again soon. Sophie was wrapped up in the arms of the big kids, and loved every minute of it. We always laugh that Tom takes great pride in the fact that his house in Germany, “is older than your country!!” True. But I think he appreciate the fact that our house has a waterfront view.
I just finished reading this piece by Tabitha Tucker, a friend of a blog-friend, about her full-time parenting being a radical, political act. And it is. That’s the part that keeps me interested. Just like choosing the bike makes a statement, choosing to be home is a choice that we didn’t happen upon. We actively decided to have a parent at home with our ladies. Some days it’s mind-numbing, some days it’s wicked hard, but every day it’s a conscious decision we make to slow down our lives and the lives of our children.
Tabitha’s essay points out all of her small radical acts. “Radical” laundry on her clothesline, gardening, preserving food, cooking, walking, mending clothing. Rosy has a radical bum, I have radical boobs. Sophie is about to embark on a radical homeschool journey. We started our radical journey when we moved onto our boat. Fewer possessions, a smaller footprint, freedom to relocate. We have tried to keep ourselves as “small” as possible while living ashore- biking, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, eating fresh and local as often as we can, all of it is part of the picture. We are itching to pare down again and as soon as the boat is liveable, will be back in our tiny abode.
But what makes me laugh about the larger “Slow” movement- and it has become one, a movement to slow down, buy less, eat better, and stick it to corporate banality; what I love about it is that it draws upon the skills my grandmother and great-grandmother held dear. They were considered imprisoned by their laundry, their cooking, and their child-rearing. That is exactly the stuff we’re taking back. We want to simplify but we also want to work harder. I don’t buy jam anymore. I make it. Rather than buy paper towels, I use rags and take the time to hang them to dry. I want my kids to get the chicken pox, and I’m happy to spend the time to take care of them while they’re sick. John and I design our little homestead in Maine on a daily basis, with its chickens and maybe a goat, a big garden, and a root cellar.
It’s conversations like these that make me want to do a bit of time-traveling. Would my great-grandmother have a good laugh? Would she say, “Be careful what you wish for.” Or would she trade her relatively “hard” life for this one filled with BPA-lined cans and smog and the fear of global warming (and it is something I truly fear).
What I wish she would say, and something I’ll say when I’m the great-grandmother, is what Tabitha ends her piece with, “I’m not sure, but I do know that if I don’t do it, if I don’t seek to be the change I wish to see in the world, there is no hope.”
It is what gets me through the day. Being the change. Being the mom. It keeps me challenged and make me feel a little bit better about all of it.
