The One Who Can Be Many Places At Once

....which for those of you with a particularly genre-centric mindset is another term for the Kwisatz Haderach.

Hope I cleared THAT up.

Writing from above the Market House - using the two-fingered technique that seems to work best for me.

It is dramatically different than the last time I was here - then Monument square was draped in snowy blankets - now it's bright, sunny, almost warm (if you ignore the sea breeze).




Last week I drove to Wells to visit an Indian store on route One. It's been there for what seems like generations,filled with that strange, evocative air that old stores full of strange objects can generate.

I was buying gifts - mostly $1 arrowheads and other trinkets - for the Inook cast. The day was bright, sunny, somewhat cool. On the way down I noticed a railroad viaduct over a stream, on the right while southbound.

Made a note which I acted on by stopping to walk along the railroad track on my way back north.

Not sure which rail line it is - don't know of a passenger line (the only one being the Downeaster - and that runs through Old Orchard) in the area.




Still, I've been a sucker for trains and trainyards since childhood - blame my Uncle Louis Benge, who was a brakeman on the old Midland Valley line back home. It was fun to walk up to the big steel bridge, then along a right-of-way that had obviously once been a two-bed line and now only served one line, accompanied by snowmobiles.

The actual stone-arched viaduct was almost invisible from the tracks. I had to spot it by looking at the stream. My first thought was to film it from the safety of the tracks (assuming no trains came blasting through).

Looking at it closer - the flinty ballast of the trails, the thick granite chips that supported the built-up right-of-way - made me decide to gingerly pick my way down the slope to the stream.




It was a rewarding risk.

I suppose that now, a week later, the sprouting greenery, the soggy runoff plain it covered, all would be closer to an impassable mess, full of trippings and feet plunging into mud, ankle deep.

But a week ago we were just that much closer to the slumber of Winter and the growth had not awakened enough to impede me - much.

The water was moderately deep, moderately swift. There were trees fallen, either by weight of snow or movement of earth, into the water.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very glad the days are warmer and I need to work on my tan as much as anyone else - well, kinda anyway ....




But I do miss the way you see the bones of the land when they're laid bare by Winter. There's an austere beauty to it that is appealing. That and the anticipation of change.

So I got out safely, unscratched, one brand-new sneaker not so branded anymore. There are all sorts of little urban faux wildernesses all around here and I love them.


-- Post From My iPad