Bidding 'Bye to Bawlmer

I'm blessed on my final day here with a beautiful Bawlmer--it's how locals pronounce the name of this city--sunrise. A peach glow with light yellow fuzz streaks along the horizon and rises up into a marine-blue sky.

The water of the bay outside my window shimmers and shakes lightly as its eastern-most edge fills with light and life. The farther end huddles, still, in the dark shadows of night. At the end closest to me man-made lights--not sunshine--reflect their white columns across the length of the bay already aware that their night of protective illumination will soon be overtaken by dawn.

Oh, this has been a fun--but short--visit with my dear sister and brother. Weather shifted from the 22 inches of snow that preceded our arrival, to two days of rain and fog (yesterday was 48 degrees), to this beautiful clear-skied morning.

Yesterday ... another day of adventure. In the afternoon we visited the National Aquarium, a 15 minute walk from Mel's apartment. We thoroughly enjoyed the 4D theater showing of Polar Express. I suppose that 4D means you experience the movie as if you were in it. Consequently we wore 3D glasses and, at appropriate moments, were sprayed with water, surrounded by floating snowflakes and bubbles, and shaken in our seats as if we, too, were on the train to the North Pole.

We also smelled the hot chocolate that children drank on the train as well as the evergreen smell of the Christmas tree once our child hero returned to his livingroom. Brother Brett even felt the poke of a branch that came straight at us (though Melanie and I, thankfully, missed that experience).

It was fun to see a dolphin show too. It was much too high tech and multi-tasked for my taste (five or six trainers, an audience volunteer plus child volunteers, video screens, environmental messages, and ... dolphins, which is who I truly came to see afterall).

The main aquarium was fabulous, level after level of fish and sea creatures, an area filled with sharks and sting rays, and a wealth of written information. Innumerable children and adults, all of us childlike in our excitement and awe, bumped against each other as we pressed up to glassed displays and hung over bannisters to glimpse an elusive sea creature.

Afterward, we walked back to the pier across from Mel's apartment and stood, each of us under our own umbrella, and looked/listened/sensed the bay as it lay shrouded in fog. Then off ... to dinner at Dockside, a crab place in Canton. Mel and Brett shared a dozen crab--pounding the claws with wooden hammers on a plastic knife--and carefully picking out each tiny, sweet piece of meat. I'd already eaten my Caesar salad and shrimp before the crabs arrived so I watch their mining efforts carefully and was occasionally handed a small piece of flesh for my own edification.

After dinner we drove to a neighborhood about five minutes out of downtown where residents decorate their homes for Christmas. I'm not just talking decorate. I'm talking ... create an entire world of lights, blow-up figures, trains running on tracks, and handmade Christmas trees from hubcaps, bicycles, and tinfoil, forks, and spoons. Fabulous.

One man actually opened his home--the front room at least--to anyone interested in viewing his metal sculpture. He stood inside his open door as people filed through. When we inquired, he admitted that he allows people into his home for 30 days from Thanksgiving to New Year's. Last year, he said, he witnessed more than 27,000 people pass through his gallery.

Ahh, the sun just breached the horizon. Morning has broken, the day is begun....

Out from Under the Forest Canopy

My forest canopy has expanded into big city lights, an ocean harbor, fog and rain instead of snow.

Brother Brett and I arrived in Baltimore late Wednesday afternoon to spend Christmas with sister Mel. Thus far we've explored the Inner Harbor near my sister's home. The first night we dined at Bertha's Mussels based on a recommendation from a seatmate on the plane. The clientele was small but the food was fabulous.

On Christmas Eve we walked my sister to work, then shopped for groceries at Whole Foods. The variety and quantity of food there is mind-boggling. Still, Brett and I managed to select delectables for Christmas dinner and beyond. We were tempted--and fell victim to--pomegranate seeds (already removed from the skin), fresh-made guacamole, fresh pineapple/mango/blackberries/raspberries, a chicken stuffed with cashews, and other delights. What fun! Hey, when two people with diabetes are sent on a shopping mission, they will provide!!!

Morning was spent on projects in my sister's apartment before we explored the Inner Harbor with my sister's boyfriend, Frank, as guide. We viewed architecture, sculpture, water, people.... A brief stop at Barnes & Noble bookstore (of course!), then off to the Bond Street Wharf to meet my sister post-work at local bar, DuClaw's. That night we ate at Flemings--more fabulous food--courtesy of Frank.

Christmas was a day of rest and rejuvenation. We stayed in, cooked a large breakfast and dinner--set off the apartment fire alarms at least three times--and enjoyed each other's company. My brother shared pictures from his recent journeys to Portland, OR, along with other travel pics still on his camera (Greece, Egypt, Bangkok). 

Our last experience of the day ... watching Small Town Gay Bar, an intimate, heartrending, and insightful exploration of gay culture in small town America (i.e., Mississippi). It was difficult to see the tremendous discrimination that still pervades American culture when it comes to individual's sexual preferences. Still, it was encouraging to see the ways that gays and lesbians create our own families and support systems. The most powerful scene in the movie was at the very end. Here, individuals from the film stood silently in front of Rumors, one of the bars highlighted in the film. They were white, black, man, woman, drag queen, etc. and ... they were proud.

I'm filled with food and experiences and still have one additional day to spend in Baltimore. What lies before me? Only the day ahead will tell....

The Link between Humanity and the Earth

Wednesday I fly to Baltimore, MD to spend Christmas with two of my three siblings. The East Coast just experienced its worst winter storm in 100 years. My sister, vacationing in Las Vegas, planned to return to D.C. yesterday. She's now scheduled for a Tuesday AM flight. If she makes it home before my brother and I arrive, then all will be fine.

This is, of course, the slowest time of year for money-making here in Bayfield (as I wrote in my previous blog entry). Consequently it's prime time for me to indulge my passion for books and movies. Last week I came home from the library carrying an armful of DVDs and books. A few nights ago Frances and I watched "Ray," the movie about Ray Charles and his musical career. Fabulous! I watched a few of the "extras" last night as I'm yet unable to move beyond the impassioned music or the incredible performance by Jamie Foxx.

I already returned one book to the library because I knew that I wouldn't have time prior to Christmas to dedicate myself to a full, subterranean entrance into its fictional world. It's Barbara Kingsolver's new novel, The Lacuna, which is her first work of fiction in nine years. I read The Poisonwood Bible last winter and loved it. I'll revisit Lacuna later.

The other books I selected last week were, shall I say, eclectic? I quickly grabbed display titles that appealed to me: Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh, Philosophy for Dummies by Tom Morris, Ph.D. (my sister's boyfriend previously taught philosophy), and Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness by Lisa Hamilton.

When I read Hamilton's introduction to Deeply Rooted last night, I was hooked. I grew up on a farm, the same farm where my dad was raised. Hamilton ends her introduction with a description of conversations she's had with farmers:

As we sit and talk, the topics are sometimes technical, often political or economic, and always, ultimately, philosophical. And personal. If we start with a discussion of soil microbiology or a comparison of turkey breeds, inevitably we end up in family, history, ecology, faith, beauty, morality, and the fate of the world to come. For them, all those things are linked.

Yes. Aren't they linked for everyone? It's at times like this that I realize how much I am a product of my upbringing. How deeply rooted I am to the land and a way of life that seems to be rapidly fading. Or is it? As Hamilton also writes:

As they [farmers] see it, agriculture is not an industry on the periphery of modern civilzation. It is a fundamental act that determines whether we as a society will live or die. What binds these people is not a particular farming method, but rather the conviction that as humans, the contributions they make are essential.

It's likely that Deeply Rooted will accompany me to Baltimore. I'm traveling there with the brother who lives on our family farm. And I have no doubt that we'll talk about, among other things, our Christmas meal, relatives, and "ecology, faith, beauty, morality, and the fate of the world to come." For--to us--it IS all linked.

Be-ing in a Winter Wonderland

No doubt about it ... it's a cold, snowy winter in the north woods (and I'm not referring to myself). I shoveled almost a foot and a half of the white stuff off the deck today to create a small t'ai chi chih moving meditation practice area. Ran through my first outdoor TCC practice session this afternoon--since late summer or early fall--and it was fine. Shall I call the 12 degree temp invigorating?

I thoroughly enjoy my daily t'ai chi chih practice and blog. Both the moving meditation AND the writing energize me. They also inspire me to move toward something ... still not quite sure what.

Several friends mentioned recently that it seems like Sunday in downtown Bayfield when it's really mid-week. Yep. That's what it's like during the winter season up here. Things s---l---o---w down. It's frightful and delightful! Soon half of Bayfield's 600+ population will head for warmer climes and the number of cars parked on Rittenhouse Avenue (main street) will shrink to one here, another there....

This time of year the post office is The Place to visit. Cars and people come and go in a steady flow. Here you'll get the latest news ... written and otherwise. The Bayfield Carnegie Library is another hot spot. You can never predict what DVD will stand waiting on the "New Releases" shelf. Even better, what literary wonders will land soft as a snowflake on top of the New Releases bookcase?

Yes, it's "the most wonderful time of the year" here in Bayfield. Peaceful. Quiet. Slow mo. A true winter wonderland. With time to sleep. Time to read. Time to think. Time for conversation. Time to shovel. Time to warm up cars. And time to be....

Birth Day ... Start to Finish

My 55th birthday (Thursday, December 3) began in moonlight and ended with chickens. What can I say? … It was fabulous.

The glowing full moon revealed herself to me—briefly—from behind a dark curtain of clouds. As soon as she peered out at me, shining through the bedroom window, I heard a voice in my head. It sang, “Happy Birthday to you….” Ah. Mother. When Mother was alive, her annual birthday ritual was to call me on the telephone early in the morning, awaken me, and sing me said song.

For years this habit was a source of conflict and aggravation. I asked Mother to call later in the day. She didn’t. I tried to feel more grateful and understanding. I couldn’t. Now, of course, four years after her death, I’m delighted to discover that she’s found a way to connect. It occurs to me that perhaps she called so early each year because the memory of my birth was the immediate thought that entered her head when she woke up. I was, after all, her first born. Over all those years why had this thought never occurred to me?

I taught two t’ai chi chih classes in Cornucopia first thing. They were wonderful, as usual. Many of my students shivered through class since it was the first cold spell of the season and our practice space had not yet warmed and would not warm enough throughout the entire three+ hours of class time.

Driving home I was gifted with a close-up view of an eagle. Directly ahead of me on the road I saw a huddle of ravens and I slowed. Drawing closer I saw one of the birds carry away something white. I continued to watch the bird as it rose to circle back over the road. Aha. The white wasn’t carrion. It was the coloring on the bird’s back. And when I looked at the bird’s head it, too, was white. A bald eagle!

After a quick lunch Frances and I drove to the Bayfield Carnegie Library for my favorite birthday ritual: reading time at the library. My sister laughed when I told her how I spent my day. I guess she found my form of entertainment a bit odd even as she recognized it to be “so me.”

This passion for words has to be innate. I grew up loving my time at the library and I continue, to this day, to be enamored with it. My father was a writer. I am a writer. Nothing thrills me more than a vivid image cast in words or a mind-altering phraseology. These days, though, I only manage one afternoon a year to read quietly in the library. My other ventures through its doors are intended to snatch up a few DVDs or an appealing book or two or to make copies for a friend. This day Frances and I spend three entire hours reading newspapers and magazines ... heavenly.

We enjoyed a late dinner at Maggie’s, probably Bayfield’s most popular restaurant. It was obvious that tourist season had ebbed away along with the sunshine and warmth as we sat at one of only three occupied tables.

The grand conclusion to my day was a movie the librarian asked us to watch. She knows Frances and I are animal lovers. Hence, she requested our review of the proffered DVD, The Natural History of the Chicken. It’s an hour-long PBS home video, copyright 2000.

Now Frances is the chicken lover in this family. When I first met her, she had two pet chickens: Little Guy and Sweetheart. Each night during the cold winter she brought her beloved chickens into the house, perched them on the railing at the head of the bed, laid down a few sheets of newspaper beneath them, and bid them goodnight. They, in turn, purred and clucked quietly as they gradually settled into a deep sleep. They turned into unlikely statues but, with the coming light, Little Guy promptly performed his unbidden duty: cock-a-doodle-doo. Our alarm clock was alive and well … our day begun.

The Natural History of the Chicken was sweetly charming. In one brief hour it covered the gamut of attitudes and behaviors surrounding life in these United chicken States. Producers visited and filmed factory farms where chickens were crowded into layer upon layer of small pens with barely room enough to drop one daily egg out of each body into a moving tray below. These farms had one and one goal only: to harvest eggs and/or to fatten chickens to butchering weight as speedily as possible.

A suburban neighborhood was highlighted after a new resident moved in 100 roosters. Surrounding neighbors complained of the constant intolerable sound of crowing along with the equally disturbing assumption that these animals were being raised for cock fighting. Legal action eventually resulted.

In other featured homes chickens were treated as honored members of the family. These locations varied widely: one family farm allowed their chickens to range freely as they provided eggs, relationships, and, ultimately, meat for the dinner table. In another home the pet chicken lived in the house with its owner. In one memorable scene this owner swam in her pool clutching the chicken to her breast. In another she lovingly clasped her chicken to her heart as she detailed the many endearing qualities of her chicken friend.

Still, the film gave a brief glimpse into what Frances believes is the unique way in which chickens communicate with each other and with their humans … through their emotions. One surprisingly sweet story told of a mother chicken who risked everything to save her chicks, rushing across the barnyard to shield their bodies with her own as an approaching hawk dived down to scoop up lunch. Thankfully, everyone survived.

The history of chickens brought my birthday celebration to the perfect conclusion. What better way to end my day than with a warm and grateful heart and an inspiring story of chicken love … a devoted mother willing to sacrifice everything for her children. On my day of birth I came full circle.