Caught Between the Full Moon and Blowing Leaves

I should be writing music. There's a perfectly good set of intervals in my head and they're starting to swim in patterns I can see - or at least what I call "see". It sounds a visual thing, I know, but if it could be easily put into words I'd be a novelist or some other kind of wordsmith, rather than a composer, an explainer.

Just got in from a walk to the local smoke shop - which also serves as a very overpriced grocery store, full of items obtainable much more cheaply elsewhere. Milk and cookies (well, Fig Newtons) for more than eight dollars.

The moon is clear and bright, high above, almost directly overhead. Its glow is aggressive and full, a rich vanilla disk floating in a dark velvet cloak, the lining pocked with stars.

I wish I could go back out - I probably will when I 'm done with this.

The difference between where I was one year ago: the start of my Orchard experience - and two years ago: my first realization that LField wasn't the heaven I thought it was - and three years ago: when the motor of my fear and loathing first began to spin - all of those differences define the distance I have moved, the places I have seen and left behind.

Four years ago? Arguing with superintendents and band parents.

Five years ago? Opening a new school and not even aware that I could do and feel so much more than I was.

The moon has always been there. It circles the Earth, it circles the Sun, the aspect of its face grows and wanes and grows again. It changes, it is the same.

I am the same way. I change by becoming more what I have always been, deep down inside.

Hiatus - day three

Having lunch at 2 Cats - very nice eggs and bacon, lot's of toast - more than I should have, probably.

It's turned grey and cloudy out - yesterday was partly cloudy - partly clear? and very bright.

Sat in a chair by the water and gave my best imitation of the mushroom in this picture.

Reading Dan Brown's latest, "The Missing Symbol" - actually read it in two sittings - yesterday and this morning.

Sleep was fitful until I got used to the soughing of the wind through trees directly overhead - combined with the sound of waves I couldn't help but hear rain everywhere - hard to sleep with the implied discomfort.

I'm sure others of my acquaintance - Matthew comes to mind - would be more carefully kitted and prepared. I borrowed a tent from the W's and headed north, buying the simplest of food and a ton of wood. Last time C and I were here - I'm at the same campground - it seemed impossible to get a fire going and then we ran out of wood. This time I want a roaring fire as long as I can.

There is something mystical and entrancing about sitting with a burning fire and the ocean waves breaking about 10 feet from your chair. A lot of very useful thoughts going through my head.

I'd share some but the lunch serving is done here at the "2 Cats" and my chair is being meaningfully swept under. I'll be on the road early - early - tomorrow - so I'd better get back to my "camp" and study.

Hiatus - day one

The Orchard is closed for the next four days - we're being rebuilt, with some new space added and other nice taradiddles.

There is a part of me that really wants to sit at home in front of a screen and write/edit - and I suppose at some point I'll have to.

The major part of me - and that part has won the day - is going to hare off to Bar Harbor, where C. and I spent last Labor Day camping.

It should be a lot of fun. I borrowed my traditional loaner tent from the W's - I should just buy the damned thing, as their kids have already outgrown it. Still, it's perfect for one or adults.

Meanwhile, today has been just a day to breathe. Slept late - or slept as much as time allowed. The day has been bright and once galleries from last night's Quarterly Meeting had been uploaded I grabbed my shoulder bag, complete with camera, and headed out into the town.

It was immediately apparent that a cruise ship was here in town. There were groups of somewhat over-tanned people scanning maps while standing on street corners, looking at buildings, taking videos of traffic.

Having lived here as long as I have I've gotten so I can tell the signs.

The group I chatted up seemed to come from the Midwest but not as far South as Oklahoma - Nebraska, I'd say - strangely we didn't get to the point. "What do you think of DiMillo's".

"What do I think of DiMillo's?"

It's hard to answer that. My first answer was that it's not the kind of place the locals go to ... when pressed, I wanted to say "because we all think it sucks" but that wouldn't be a gracious answer - so I improvised (which is always a terrifying prospect to those who know me well ...) that it felt much like any other mid-range restaurant in any mid-range town.

So I armed them with some other locations.

The numbers of the lost increased as I went closer to the waterside. A couple of the young larvae were sneaking up on the Guy-In-A-Lobster-Suit down by Brothers Lobster Company.

It gave me great pleasure to call them out. The one causing the trouble was pissed at me for spoiling his fun. I might have felt bad except he used the one phrase guaranteed to lose my sympathy, namely "I was only ..."

After that I walked away and let him splutter. "Jesus, kid, it's just a guy in a lobster suit". Not I like stole your lollipop - though I suppose, in a way, I did.

What a twink.

The roofs of a pair of parking garages gave me some new views of the town. The one next to the State dock gave me a next-door view of the ship. Farther away was the one next to the Residence Inn - very nice.

Shopping for spaghetti fixings at Miccuci's Market - how Italian is that - even in that rather run-down section there were isolated clumps of lost tourists trying to find the local brewery.

It was on the way home through Post Office Park - the scene of last week's "Fireflies" performance - that two distinguished men in prayer shawls were blowing a shofar and talking to the media.

Turns out it is Rosh Hoshanna - who knew?

David Bergman, president of Shaarey Tsphiloh Temple - the "Little Shul in Woodfords" - is shown with the shofar.

Once he warms up he gets a good tone.

Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld is not shown, as he was talking to the media. We all had a nice cross-cultural chat and I walked away with honey to celebrate the New Year.

So now I'm at the NorthStar for our bi-weekly (kind of) tango evening. The lesson is going on and the regulars are starting to drift in. I'm going to take the W.'s tent and spend the next couple of days camping on the edge of the ocean in Bar Harbor. More then.

Actually, kind of a nice day.

Flying Chickens in Food Sauce

As I've said so many times before "you see the strangest things on the streets of Portland".

...and I'm sure you'd see strange things both on the streets of New York and Kankakee for that matter. It's just that these are the strangenesses I'm looking at right now.

Still, it's kind of nice to know I live in a town where I can get food sauce if I need to. A lot of people go through life with just the regular sauce. Being able to put sauce made of out food - even specially processed food - makes a big difference.

On the (pause for modest cough) serious side of things - or at least things that are less semantically tortured - the Orchard is going to be shutting down for 4 days next weeks while we are remodeled. I can guess that this is a fairly unusual occurrence - at least it seemed to catch all of us on the hop.

This means that besides the two days off I was having this week already I've got the possibility of 4 days off next week. This might be a financial hit, but I will say that it might give me a chance to head out of town, if I can borrow a tent.

It might be nice to study for my qualifying quizzes sitting by the side of an estuary next to Bar Harbor - at the very least it will get me away from town.

If I can get someone to look after Sebastian then maybe it will happen. Stranger things have...

Speaking of which I've already been out to the Orchard, only to find out my hours have changed. This let me hare back into town to have blood drawn and thence to hit the Farmer's Market.

There was a juggler on the sward that was really good to watch. He had a nice patter and anyone who works with rubber chickens is OK in my book.

The fun part was watching a nursery school crew of kids being entertained. It's always a great thing to contemplate - or better still, actually watch - little kids experience something, anything, but especially the performing arts, for the first time.

The kids had to be shown how to applaud - when and how. It was really cute and the juggler worked the crowd very effectively. He told jokes, running a patter that caught the kids' imagination.

I very much remember the feeling of connecting with a performance. I could easily show you the place on Boston Avenue where I sat watching the Will Rogers High School Marching Band during the Tulsa Christmas Parade and heard the big bass drum go by. They were playing the "Manhattan Beach" march, by Sousa. I can still remember the sound of the bass line in the Trio's second part.

A very famous line.

A little later I'm going to help a friend out - again - and go in to cover a couple of lessons. This should be fun. Then two more actually scheduled days off.

So now I'm going to go out and poke around ... probably wind up in some kind of trouble. It's a lovely, almost too-warm, day and I intend to make the most of it.

Final First Friday of Summer 09

If there is any image that says to me "First Friday", especially in Summer = it's of this young man, whom C. and I dubbed "Mothman" - though at times he's also "Ribbon Man" and sometimes "No Props At All Man" - who is a totally free spirit who dances at almost all public music events.

First Friday tonight was especially fruitful.

At first there was the PanFried steel drum band from Yarmouth.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

They held forth in Congo Square - earlier scene of the Flamenco Affair - starting about 5 p.m. They played pretty well - I think they were associated with the Pan band attached to North Yarmouth Academy - a nice mix of ages, genders and abilities. I wish I could see - and hear - more group artistic performances. They hark back to the old Town Band movement - rather like the Chandler's Band that used to hold forth on Thursday mights in the Summer at the Eastern Prom Gazebo.

There used to be Gazebos used for such community-building purposes in town squares in every town in the U.S. - I wonder what happened to our sense of community art?

Anyway - they sounded great.

Next I wound up down at Post Office Park - my steps just led down there - I was looking for a hot dog or something similar.

What I found was Betsy Dunphy, an extraordinary local choreographer. She had erected large muslin cages in the park, lit them from the inside to eerie effect. She used this as the backdrop for 10 or so dancers, girls she trained in expressive movements.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

The piece was called "Fireflies" and was put on by the Elm Street Arts group. I've never heard of the Elm Street Arts group but I'll have to look them up as they did great work.

FInally, back down to the Monument, where my friends in the Goth community were presenting the last Dark Follies of the season.

Belly dancers, a devil-stick juggler (quite a good one) and fire dancers - it was quite the event and seemed to draw all sorts of people. Everyone likes belly dancers, I guess.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

By that time of the evening it's kind of hard to get the pics to come out right - not all of them do, but it's fun to try and I kind of like belly dancers too.

Diablo jugglers are also cool.

Wednesday with Scone and Fresh Grapefruit Juice

For the moment ... for this one wonderful moment - I'm back here at Mousse, on the edge of Monument Square, enjoying the crowds, the noise of trucks backing up, children and parents exploring the stands of the Farmer's Market - in short, another perfect Wednesday in August, here in Portland, Maine.

President Obama was down - up? - in Portsmouth yesterday ... I wish I'd had a chance to go be a part of the crowd. Work intervened, though it was an enjoyable intervention.

I'm getting fed up with all of the lies and manipulation - and inherent stupidity - of the current national "debate" (giving it more grace than it deserves) on healthcare. I don't have health insurance right now and am working out of pocket. The years since last I was in the position have seen a lot of compensatory mechanisms in place - generic drugs, special "$4" lists of medicines, things like that - but there's a lot more to be done.

So I guess the beauty of the day has a deeper emotional context. Which is what makes it so beautiful, as opposed to being merely "pretty".

Well. The scone, as shown, is lemon-cranberry. The juice was fresh-squeeezed - "squozen"? - as I placed my order. Grapefruit. My new favorite for today.

I'm going to rescue a pair of reading glasses from the Orchard, go visit a marching band in rehearsal (just to kind of gloat and to enjoy the ride) - then I have to sit down and really give the writing for "Inuk" a bash.

More on this later.

Tri For a Cure

It was a fine, fine summer morning - the kind that is so bright, warm, breezy and rich that folks living here in Maine are willing to forgive a whole Winter of misery.

We have to have days like that. It's almost an expectation, a demand; payment, if you will, for the real struggle that life can sometimes be.

On a day like that, Sunday, two days ago, seeing 770 women push themselves to raise a reported $440,000 to support the Maine Cancer Foundation, well, that is something that offsets what can seem like a lifetime of misery.

We're not talking the weather, we're talking about cancer. I suppose it's inevitable and maybe it's a foolish Native American attitude to think that there should not be a cure for everything. Some things just kill people and how we see the balance of life and death can be a measure of our maturity.

Doesn't mean you can't try to kick it's ass anyway. The Seminoles have never signed a peace treaty with the U.S. government - I don't see why we need to sign one with cancer.

So there is Cathy, Chief the Wonderdog's Mom, in a floral-topped triathalon suit, a little nervous but already a veteran of two races down in Orlando. Of course, Casco Bay and the Florida coast are different critters when it comes to hitting the water for a third of a mile, but Cathy, she's a gamer, she is, and off she went.

Her parents were there to see her as well. Next time they're not brining the chairs because A) they want to be moving to watch the various transitions and B) they're not going to have time to sit to wait for the transitions if Cathy has anything to say about it.

If you have to have a hero for something like this, Cathy is about as good as you're going to find.

One of the reasons I left teaching is the false dichotomy between "process" and "product", between "Feel good" and "grades/test". My experieince has been that working to build your grade point average strengthens you and that both are equal parts of the equation. The Universe is big enough for both.

Call it a foolish Native American Attitude.

The Tri for a Cure is proof enough. It's partly what you've done, it's partly who you had to become in order to do it.

I like that. People should go out of their way more to do wonderful things for each other - and themselves.

Well done - as if my opinion mattered ...

Check out the video I shot.