We Went to Maine to Get a Girl

We went to Maine to pick up a girl who wasn't quite done with her classes. 

We got there on the Monday before Thanksgiving quite late, after my bedtime, but she had people she wanted us to meet.

It made us happy that she wanted anyone to meet us, so we pulled ourselves together and ran around in the freezing night with her, from building to building, meeting her friends. We kept going back to the car and our suitcases for more coats. 

The first thing Phoebe showed us was the effort made by the first year students under her care as a student advisor. They'd been working for several nights on "Fantasy Flock," and had gotten this far. They were trying to get it done before we arrived. I was impressed! The blues are ever the hardest part.

I was thrilled to pieces to see my new friend Merlin Tuttle's photograph of a lesser long-nosed bat feeding at a saguaro flower. It graces the cover of a biology textbook used at Bowdoin. What a lovely convergence of beautiful things. 

The students who'd been knocking themselves out trying to finish this puzzle paid tribute to the artist who was causing them so much agony with her dang sky washes.

It was quite humbling and very sweet. Mingo's laughing in the middle. 

When we'd finished meeting everyone, we finally got to bed at our dear friends Dede and Dave's house, about a half hour away. Bill, Liam and I were tuckered out, having flown from Ohio and driven to Maine from Boston that evening. Phoebe wanted us to accompany her to her BioGeoChem class the next morning, to get a little taste of a Bowdoin class. It was fascinating, relevant, well taught and accessible. Phoebe wants to understand what's happening to the earth, so she's planning to declare an Oceanography and Earth Sciences major, with a minor in Spanish. 

What a wonderful place to do that!

On our way to class I spied a big fatbottom campus gray squirrel and knelt to make his picture. I called my little family over and gave a short lecture on Bergmann's Rule, which says that the colder the climate, the larger and bulkier a species becomes. Bodies become burly and tanklike. Extremities may get shorter; ears, which radiate heat, will shrink; fur thickens, of course. This squirrel looks only superficially like our southern Ohio squirrels. Sort of the polar equivalent. Phoebe needled me, saying that the only genetic difference is that this squirrel lives near Moulton (a dining hall). So FAT. I begged to differ, and went all Science Chimp on her with the Bergmann's Rule stuff.

We found some cheap storm windows on a building across the alley from it reflecting most magically on an old brick wall. WOW.

Although I hadn't had much sleep, I got up early that morning (not hard in Maine, where even in late November, it's getting light at 5:30 AM). I ran for a couple of hours before we were to meet Phoebe for class, exploring some new marsh and woodland in Freeport. I have to explore when I'm in a new place, on foot, as far out as I can go in the time that I have. I'm compelled to do this, and I'm so glad that I do. I meet people and see things and get a feeling for the land under my feet, for the birds that live there, for the trees and the earth, too.

 I find that my hosts, rather than being put out by my disappearing for a couple of hours, seem to understand and appreciate this. I figure as a guest that getting out of their hair in the morning is the least I can do.

The best stuff happens then. The best light happens then.

I approached these fallen apples with high hopes for a nomad's breakfast, but subfreezing temperatures had turned them to rocksweet mush. There were apples everywhere. It was as if winter had caught the trees unawares. 

I missed my running buddy something awful, but he was back home, staying with Wally for a few nights. He was happy there, but I could feel him missing me as he woke and wondered where I was running. I felt sure he could see this sandy coastal road in my mind's eye, as I envisioned him nosing through the cold brush. I think he gets my pictures. Sometimes I get his, too.

Not far from here I heard waxwings calling, but they weren't cedar waxwings, whose every whistle, burp and ahem I know by heart, having been mama to three of them. The trill was about an octave too low-pitched and throaty to be made by a little cedar waxwing. They had to be Bohemians. I searched and searched the pine tops, but I couldn't find them. There were two, and I didn't see them. It would have been only the second time in my life to see them. Western Newfoundland, 1983, I believe, was the last time. Sigh. But I heard them, I was near them, and that is something. Better than not hearing them and being hundreds of miles away from them.

I stood dumbfounded at the light and the sky in the marsh. The mirrors were ringed with ice.

I tried to imagine seeing this every day, watching the marsh turn from green to molten gold as the ice came in. 

 And then to see it all go to white. I'm not sure I'd want to see that, color junkie that I am. Oh, Maine. You're breaking my heart. So beautiful, but so cold!

We're Off to See The Redhead

 I had decided not to go to Maine to see Phoebe at Bowdoin over Halloween Weekend. I really couldn’t afford it. What's more, I would have to give a talk in Ohio on the Sunday of Parents’ Weekend, and it made me really nervous to be that far away on Saturday. A lot of people would be disappointed if, say, I missed my flight or we got snowed in. Which we very nearly did. But Phoebe and Bill and Liam worked on me, and a kind friend gave me a fiscal kick in the pants, and I caved. Oh how I miss that girl. How we all miss her! Hadn't seen her since late August, and that's the longest we've been separated in 18 years.

 I got so excited as the time drew near. Honestly, with a $200 round trip from Akron nonstop to Boston (thank you, Southwest!!)  how could we not? We could never buy the gas to drive it for that, even if we had the energy and time to make a 15-hour drive up and back. It is such a miracle to be able to sit on a plane for 1.5 hours and get off in Boston. From there, we would rent a car for the 2.5 hour drive to Brunswick. 

That's because you can’t really fly to Maine from Ohio. You can try, but ultimately it isn’t worth the hassle or the cost. Get yourself to Boston, and figure ground transportation out from there.

The first night at dinner with Phoebe's fabulous roommate Anna. What a joy to see her close to her roomies. Three girls share a bedroom the size of your average walk-in closet, and they're best of friends? How does that work? Note that Liam just lights up around his sister. He's done fine here with us, but She Who Must Be Obeyed is #1. 

Parents' Weekend had lots of organized activities, but all we wanted to do was have Phoebs show us her favorite buildings, rooms, places, and people. Hubbard Hall featured large in her panoply of things she loves about Bowdoin.

We did do one of the organized activities, joining about 50 other people in a night tour of Haunted Bowdoin. It was Most Excellent. The rest of the time, we drug her around the Maine coast, ate, shopped, hung out.

They really know what they're doing, holding P.W. on the last weekend in October. The maples were on fire; the skies were mostly blue; it wasn't too cold. It was heaven on the most beautiful campus I've seen. I suspect that Phoebe takes after her mother in that beauty, and its pursuit, are her prime motivators.

We got out and about. Stopped to smell the Rosa rugosa.  Liam. Honestly. He makes me laugh.

I love so much about these kids, but near the top of the list is how much they love each other. They went around like a couple of Harry Harlow's rhesus monkeys, joined at the hip and shoulder.  Sorry if that reference is a bit obscure. Bio Anthro major here.

Because it was Halloween night, Bill staged a spooky attack on the photographer...do you see it? 

Phoebe and Liam were stricken with a headache at the same moment, before a statue of the Goddess Migraine. Spooky! Speaking of spooky, I direct your attention to Liam's right hand. Incredible. I've never seen hands like his. We call him Fingers. Pianist or surgeon? Probably neither. I'm not sure I'd want Liam to operate on me. At least not without some training. Gibbons have long fingers, too.

 I am partial to Boston ivy, and this was one of the best displays I'd seen in awhile. The stately building reminded me of a jacked up pickup fresh from the flame painter. I wouldn't have been surprised to see it peel off, stage left.

Just outside, the sweetest lady Lab waited for her person. She had such a dignified mien that I took her for a service dog at first, and fought back my urge to stroke that sweet head. She was trying not to be noticed, intent on her job of Waiting.

When I got closer she thumped her tail and flopped over on her side.  I have a soft spot for Labs, and I'm not alone. What a wonderful dog.

We'd checked the weather, and planned our Phoebe-led campus tours for the sunny bits. This was truly the last hurrah of the sugar maples, and we were so glad to be there for their full glory. Old November was lurking just around the corner in his moth-eaten gray suit, after all. 

Does it get any better than this chapel, these trees, this mackerel sky?

Only if you put a redhead in the picture.

 Traveling will be our reality for the next four years, as we strive to keep in touch with our Red Comet. Seeing her in her new element, in the embrace of new friends who are smart, funny, kind and delightfully diverse, brought an unexpected lump to my throat. Really, this whole experience plumbs untried emotions in me. She's launched, and all we can do is hang on and savor what time we have with her.

Is She Really Going Out to Maine?

I've made it a policy since starting this blog in December 2005 not to apologize when I miss posting. I do my darnedest to get three posts up each week, but sometimes life rolls right over me like an ocean comber and it doesn't happen. I know that if you're here in the first place you probably are happy to see a new post whenever it goes up. Especially if it has a dog in it.

Gratuitous Chet/Demon photo.

Silver-browed Chet's finally mellowing at 9 1/2. He only bites Demon about once out of every four times we see him now. But note his spraddle-legged power stance. Turd-tail out straight. Gotta be The Boss. Always overdressed in a starched tuxedo shirt, too.

Chet and his best friend Wally get along great because Wally doesn't care who's boss.

Back to the blogpost at hand. Part of what's got me so tizzied and tied up is Phoebe's imminent departure for Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Which feels like a very, very long way away from Whipple. And is. Good for her. She's stepping out fearlessly on the untraveled path.

We're buying things like detergent and desk lamps and little rugs and extra long twin sheets. And seeing other parents buying those things too, a slightly lost and stunned look on their faces. Is it really all over, this fast? In August?

Friday night we threw a party for her and her school friends. 44 people showed up. Almost everyone we invited came. It was amazing. Bill and I were hopping for two whole days beforehand. When your catering staff is but two, and you're determined to cook, if not grow, everything you serve yourselves, it's a lot of work. But we'd have it no other way, and it's so worth it. Because in our world, growing and serving delicious food is a way to love your friends and family. 

The morning of the party, I got a call from someone on our county road that there was a hawk hopping around her meadow, and it had a hurt wing. Well, what I didn't need with 44 people on the way was a busted hawk. But who ya gonna call? I couldn't say no.  Out I went, gloves and cat carrier in hand. The second I stopped the car and raised my binoculars to look at this young red-shouldered hawk, it began hopping toward the woods. So pitiful, to see a hawk brought low. It knew I was coming for it. Hawks miss nothing. And they put two and two together. They are not slow.

I had no trouble catching it before it made cover. It was pitifully emaciated, and according to the homeowner a wandering cat had attacked it. The cat had been hunting rabbits in her field for several days. It takes quite a cat to kill a rabbit, and I believed her about that cat, because a cat like that would attack a grounded hawk. When I examined it, I found that the @#$#%#$ cat had broken the hawk's right wrist and dislocated its elbow, too. No hawk worth its salt should be attacked by a feral cat.  I knew from its painfully thin condition this bird had been struggling for awhile. Some young ones just don't get the hang of hunting, or they get hurt. And they don't make it. 

Hoping I could reverse this craptastic turn in its short life, I took it home and stuffed it full of raw chicken thigh and Ensure. Chet Baker told it that I was OK, that it was safe now, and with a full crop for the first time in weeks it slept peacefully in our basement while we went on cooking for the party. 

I put out an appeal on Facebook, and within minutes our wonderful Managing Editor at Bird Watcher's Digest, Dawn Hewitt, volunteered to take it to the Ohio Wildlife Center that same evening. I met her at a gas station as she drove on her way to Indiana, handed her a cardboard box full of hawk and a plate of nice party food, and she dropped the bird off that same evening. It needed antibiotics and perhaps surgery, and it would get that at OWC. If I had any extra  money I would send it to Ohio Wildlife Center.  Thank you Dawn. Thank you, OWC. Even if it doesn't make it back to the wild, we will all have done our best by it. 

When I looked up from feeding and housing and preparing the hawk for its journey, it was noon. And 44 people would arrive in five hours. YIKES! I started dragging ingredients out of the fridge, made two quiches, prepped a watermelon to chill, set the kids to shucking some of the 50 ears of corn Bill had brought home, made two confetti cakes and the frosting to go on them (Phoebe loves my almond buttercream!), helped Bill peel potatoes for mashed (she loves those too). Bill was grilling the chicken and vegetables and icing the drinks and bam! the party started.

Arrive they did, and it was wonderful. I really tied one on. Had two beers. I'm usually a party with one. Two? Look out. Sumpin' gonna go down.

Bill climbed up in the tower (you can see his shadow!) and got a rare photo of me sitting down (just beneath his shadow!) Oh, it was magical. Phoebe's in the middle of the little clot of girls at the left side of the circle. They're all playing with her hair. The almost full moon rose on the gathering and nobody wanted to leave, but eventually they straggled back down the driveway, bellies full of smoked chicken and garden vegetable quiche, mashed potatoes, Witten's sweet corn, homemade tomatillo salsa, watermelon and birthday confetti cake. 

Liam and Bill and Phoebe and Chet and I sat around the little fire Bill had built, and the katydids rang so loudly we could hardly hear the coywolves howling. And I thought about what a magical life these kids have had, growing up here, and I was grateful to have been blessed to raise them here.

As I was finishing this post, Phoebe came in, fresh and smelling of ozone, from a long bike ride on our steep foothill roads. She was bursting with the news that she'd found two stands of rose gentian and a red-headed woodpecker. 

She's going to do fine in Maine. She is a creature of the moment, a creature of place, one with roots that go deep and strong. And I will miss her like I miss the summer when November rolls around.

But we will still have the irreproducible and irrepressible Liam here, and he's going to get all that extra love, and we get to watch him blossom as we did his sister.

You don't get luckier than that.