I don’t know what the national coverage is, but I don’t think they’re exaggerating this storm.

It’s difficult to photograph snow to convey accurate depths – too much redundant white, plus I’d actually have to venture outside -but here are two from this morning.

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Afternoon
I’m a bit embarrassed to post these snow blowing photos, but I do have an ulterior purpose – for a change. You might think, gee, look at that guy braving the elements, clearing his driveway to provide safe egress for his family should any unforeseen disaster befall. Or, more mundanely, should one of us decide to go to work or school. And that would be okay.

However, if my mother were the shutterbug her son is, she would post similar photos of my father throwing snow back against mother nature. Except he is ninety and he would be using a shovel.

My ulterior motive is to thank my brother-in-law for the snow blower. He called me three times, before each previous snowstorm, urging me to retrieve it from his garage. Yesterday, finally, I did. And this beast with tank treads is the snow blower equivalent of Mike Mulligan.

I pulled it out the bed of my truck, it landed in the snow, buried but for the long handle. It started after two pulls and barreled through twenty inches of snow like a second grader through the frosting on a birthday cake.

Photo sent by Dan of his driveway.

Cheryl, Diane, and Wayne Mellin
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Bonnie and Greg Downing. Saco River, 1981.
Oh, and Diane in the stern which means she is steering?
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Emma’s room

I’m at the Finlay’s painting Emma’s bedroom. It’s late afternoon, Kate calls needing a ride home and Emma’s my navigator as we wend our way through the back roads.

As pure dialogue, this conversation sounds morbid. It wasn’t at all.

“My birthday is in five days?”

“Five days? I thought your birthday was in May?”

I had no idea when her birthday was.

“No, it’s January.”

“What are you going to be? Sixteen, seventeen?”

“No, thirteen.”

That much I did know.

“Emma, Do you dream?”

“No.”

“I mean, do you remember your dreams?”

“No. Do you?”

“I used to remember them better than I do now. I have a recurrent dream where I’m lost and I don’t know how to get where I’m going and sometimes I don’t even know where it is I’m going.”

“My friend Molly had a dream that lasted three nights.”

“Three nights? What do you mean? Like she’d get up in the morning and then that night she’d take up where she left off?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. She should write it down. Do you know what it was about?”

“Did you see The Dawn of the Dead?”

“Yes.”

“It was like that… .”

“With dead people crawling out of graveyards?

“Dead people that were infected. One of them crawled through a dog door.”

“And died?”

“He was already dead. The good guys didn’t think he could crawl through the dog door but he did.”

“And he killed the good guy.”

“Yeah. I died in the third dream.”

“How did you die?”

“I don’t remember.”

Spurred on, perhaps, by our discussion, I scored a trifecta this morning. In one dream I was lost AND I was running in molasses. In another I was to give a speech in front of a group of people, but I was in a panic because I had forgotten to prepare.

Peter, Diane, Eileen and Linda. Moving day, Acton, 1983.
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In response to rakkity’s crotchety comment: those hidden bays and forlorn islands are still there, we just hid from them. The outside was grey, cold and windy. I know, in our youth… .

Dear Susan,

We had a most relaxing time. God is it important to get away, even briefly. I’m going to post a pic or two and it’ll look like all we did was bar hop, and while that is not a bad thing, we didn’t drink all that much. For instance, we drove to Cooleens in Woolwich searching for musical entertainment, but the band, Goldirocks, got lost and arrived too late for us.

The town was virtually shuttered, which maybe shouldn’t have been, but was, a surprise. We had three restaurants to choose from. We rejected out of hand, Chinese/Coastal Fare, gave up on, you need reservations but here’s a table right by the door(if hyphens are needed, you add ëem), and settled for a Cheers-like restaurant with multiple screens showing the Steelers Jets game.
Sitting at the bar were mostly Patriotsí fans, which meant a crowd largely cheering for the Jets. However, the lone Steeler-hatted employee was the most vociferous. Until the last interception. The food was better than good, which was also a surprise. I had fish and chips with a taste bud caressing gin (no cheapo Seagrams) and tonic. Diane’s rice pilaf was so fine, she failed to save room for a broiled sea scallop or two. Sacrilegious, if you know Diane.

Diane also noticed how much friendlier everyone was than back home, and I refused to agree, despite all the evidence, until, finally, on our way back we stopped at a health foods store in Portsmouth. There, a Matthew-aged girl at the register apologized for the moments she spent talking to a pierced, tattooed , leather dressed, eyebrow shaved boy about a CD she so desperately wanted to give her boyfriend. Kasabian, she told us – a UK group named after Manson’s driver. Also, she looked at me and asked how I was doing in a way that young people never seem to engage us older folks.

We did our usual bookstore browsing/buying. Diane bagged four good ones: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, Where You Once Belonged, by Kent Haruf, Amsterdam by Ian McEwan and Ann Tyler’s The Amateur Marriage. While she was collecting, I was content to skim Dana Sawyer’s Aldous Huxley:A Biography. Particularly the chapter describing his meeting with Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Andrew Weil. Diane devours books like a Great White, small fish and spare tires. The Life of Pi will keep me busy because all I have the energy for these days is the Globe crossword. In the bathtub.
Which was the only thing lacking in our suite at the Admiralís Quarters Inn. No bathtub, but a view to kill for, spacious rooms with a gas stove in the bedroom and a solarium to hang in with its own stove, a plush couch, magazines, gumdrops, cookies and always fresh hot coffee. We heard there were others at the Inn, but we met only one other person, and that was at breakfast. He had driven up to attend to his aging mother-in-law. She is nintey-eight, infirm, living alone and needing the Boothbay equivalent of Concord Park. He said she would never go willingly, that sheíd have to be carried bodily. I told him it worked for us.
Diane reading ; the photographer voyeuring.

I’m at the Finlay’s painting Emma’s bedroom. It’s late afternoon, Kate calls needing a ride home and Emma’s my navigator as we wend our way through the back roads.

As pure dialogue, this conversation sounds morbid. It wasn’t at all.

“My birthday is in five days?”

“Five days? I thought your birthday was in May?”

I had no idea when her birthday was.

“No, it’s January.”

“What are you going to be? Sixteen, seventeen?”

“No, thirteen.”

That much I did know.

“Emma, Do you dream?”

“No.”

“I mean, do you remember your dreams?”

“No. Do you?”

“I used to remember them better than I do now. I have a recurrent dream where I’m lost and I don’t know how to get where I’m going and sometimes I don’t even know where it is I’m going.”

“My friend Molly had a dream that lasted three nights.”

“Three nights? What do you mean? Like she’d get up in the morning and then that night she’d take up where she left off?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. She should write it down. Do you know what it was about?”

“Did you see The Dawn of the Dead?”

“Yes.”

“It was like that… .”

“With dead people crawling out of graveyards?

“Dead people that were infected. One of them crawled through a dog door.”

“And died?”

“He was already dead. The good guys didn’t think he could crawl through the dog door but he did.”

“And he killed the good guy.”

“Yeah. I died in the third dream.”

“How did you die?”

“I don’t remember.”

Spurred on, perhaps, by our discussion, I scored a trifecta this morning. In one dream I was lost AND I was running in molasses. In another I was to give a speech in front of a group of people, but I was in a panic because I had forgotten to prepare.

Peter, Diane, Eileen and Linda. Moving day, Acton, 1983.
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We’re off to Boothbay Harbor and a night in the Admiral’s Quarters Inn . Thank you Auntiesue.

Eileen Foley and Peter Miller.
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Adam listened to many tales of Peter and Eileen’s year-round living in Ed’s cabin on Grok Hill, in Gilsum NH, before he made his first trip past the Preston’s, past the wide metal gate, past the tree-ringed field that served as the Rakitty’s wedding chapel, down the steep hill and up again, left onto Beech Lane, past the Littel’s and finally the long trek up to the hand-crafted cabin heated by wood stove and lit by candles. The first words from an uncharacteristically silent Adam as he poked his head into the cabin? ìWhat a woman!.”

Emily Hopkins
Unrelated to any of the above. Martha’s Vineyard, summer, 1982
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The South of France somewhere near St. Tropez. July 1981.
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Last night was a night
For the constellations
Slept with the window open
The cold sky on my cheek

Watched the earth turn towards the sun’s
Light, moving down every edge of Tantalus
And across the Ko’olau peaks
And the grey dawn shade to blue

Standing not too far from that cow trough; the view across the valley. I’m afraid rakkity is going to tell me this glacier is mostly gone.
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French Alps
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