Greetings from Maine

Hah!  Heaven may be a state of mind.  Maybe for you.  Me?  I get mine in Maine.   FAR far far downeast in Maine.   Any further, I'd be bobbing and dipping in the swift current with the seals, between Lubec and Campobello.

Forgot my passport and my wetsuit, so right now I'm hunkering down across the street from this lovely sight, to pen a few lines in Lubec's Library.

Wanna come to Maine with me?

Here's the view beneath my campsite #7.   If I stay here, I'll be 12 feet under the 25 foot tide in a few  hours.

Hey!  I've got a new man with me! Right below my campsite, built entirely of rocks. 

There he is, down below, on the left, just below my site.

Inside my 'Ritz on Wheels', I'm a snug as a bug in a rug.

This afternoon, across the street in Lubec, I get to watch the seals frolic as the tide shifts.  There, on stilts, is one of Lubec's old sardine packing plants, vacant for decades.

One reclaimed sardine factory has been transformed into a restaurant and motel on stilts.  www.theInnontheWharf.com  Great food!

I wish I could package the soft sea breeze and easygoing accent and send them to you.  Maybe lobster?  By the time I leave Maine, I will have eaten so much lobster, next year is soon enough for me. 

Five days in, I'm nowhere near through.  Eight days to go, in heaven here.  I've got plans, this trip, same purposeful plans I have every time I come:  Get quiet enough to hear my soul's yearnings.  And Get close enough to God to hear her vast whispers over the Bay. 

Every year, I find She's spread herself out on Site 7, more than willing to share.    (It helps that there's no Wi-Fi or cell service at Cobscook Bay State Campground.)  I bring home a slice of heaven every year.

Wish you were here.  Lobster?  Crabs?  Blueberries?  Sea breezes?  Marshmallow s'mores, anyone? 

Happy Instead

Today's a very special day, and I want you to be part of it.  This day is a remembrance filled with love - the day we tied the knot.

We'd be on vacation every August 17th, usually camping in Maine, so anniversary dinner was steaming crabs over the campfire, or  ordering lobster at a roadside stand.  No candlelight, no flowers, but, oh so romantic, under the stars!  Ten out of the last eleven I've toasted our marriage under the same stars. Not this year.  Our campsite isn't available until August 27th.  And it MUST be THAT campsite.  Any new guy in my life would have to understand my little ritual.  And adore camping.

I guess at this point in my years, I'm mining my memories and taking the long view.  This is my story, the story of love beginning with day One.   A picture is worth a thousand words, so I've drawn my memories.  I hope you enjoy them.

That's me, on top of the triangles, as naked as the day I was born.  The triangle below is what's inside all of us, that large pool of motivations, assumptions - The unconscious. 

Day One didn't start out so well.

Birth - April Fool's day, 1953.  Uh, Oh.  Those eyes are Momma's

  Boo Hoo? Oops. Those eyes are still Momma's

Hello, someone?  Momma and Poppa are scaring the crap out of me

I had to grow up anyway...

  Hello? God?  You there?

Yes!

Yes!  yes!  Yes! August 17th, 1985

 This is great! ...Uh...

Have you seen my love?

Where'd you put Love?

Oh. Crap.  In THERE? ...

Ooh?....OOH?  Ooh?...Look here!

Hi...You..are you me?  

Hi you who!  It's me.  It's him. 

So how can I be sad?

The nicest people in the world are all in my heart, reading this!

Wherever you are, may joy tickle your funnybone,

love enter your heart,

and 'Sad' get drowned out with 'Happy'.

Rolling Along, on My Terms

Life is good.  Sixty-three years it has taken me, to realize I don't need to be on that log above.  I can be like everybody else. On shore.  Watching.

Let somebody else duke it out on chilly waters.  My time is up.

Life has been busy on lakeview drive.  Me, my kitty, my bike, my RV, my friends online, my friends offline, my counseling, my weeds, my flowers, my meals, my sleep, my housework, sleep.  I switched up the cat's routine.  If I feed my cat right before bed, I can sleep in later. Now it takes him three meals a day to keep my mornings quiet.  So what if he gets fat at his age?  I get more sleep.

RV prep continues. I don't head out for two weeks, but I grab any non-humid day to work on it.  Last week, I was privileged to clean out not only two mice nests in my RV, but one in my basement and one in my car's air filter box (the mechanic did that).   Three new supersonic speakers chirp out their annoying frequencies under the RV, inside the RV, and in the garage.  Supposedly only mice can hear it, and clear out, but I must have really good hearing.  I had a really good day last Thursday.  I unscrewed the A/C cover on top of the RV and cleaned out the nest built for eagles, it was so huge.  I was on a roll, so I recaulked the rooftop fan vent, too.  Only I discovered a little too late that one is supposed to stick a pin down the tube's point to break an inner seal before squeezing the caulk gun.  Someday I'll clean the goo that came out the other end. But life is good.  On Friday I washed and polished it.

I have one more big test - firing up the propane heater, which I haven't used in 15 years because I've gone out at the height of summer.  I'm nervous. Nights can get pretty chilly in Maine in September, so heat would be nice.  Do you think I should take it to my brother to test out?  He knows his way around a propane grill.  I've never been comfortable around propane.

Yep.  Ordinary RV prep.  Boring.  Maybe for you. Not for me.

The least boring stuff going on these past two weeks has been stuff inside my head.  You know the Recovery Marathon I've been writing about?  The PTSD recovery marathon?  It's over, of course and life after PTSD is CALM.  Now that I'm grounded,  I can look back and describe my PTSD as living constantly on a rolling log in a chilly lake, like the picture above.  No sleep for the weary.  BTW.  Did you know the first logrolling contest was September 7, 1898, in Omaha, Nebraska?  Now there are hundreds of logrolling programs at YM and YWCA's.  http://www.keylogrolling.com   I can tell you that you're never going to get me on a rolling log. Ever. Again.

Nope. Life without PTSD is like sitting in the Adirondack chair watching the logrolling contest.

One VERY IMPORTANT THING happened in counseling this past Monday.  You guys know what I've been addressing, that lack of a maternal attachment.  This is scary stuff, for a baby to not be able to bond with its mother.  Babies die without being able to bond with someone, or something.  Luckily, there's partial attachment, which is evidently what I did, or I wouldn't be here.  I got the 'trauma' attachment.  I got the rolling log attachment.  Hah!   Last Monday I let myself reach for a new attachment, for a new no-drama momma in my counselor.

OMG.  I felt the 'we' babies must feel with their good momma. It's the nurturing and safe bond!  OMG.  What a gift - kids that get this. More people need to experience this!  It would heal so much distrust in our world. So, everybody, I'm feeling the love.  It's amazing. The trick to learning anew is not mucking up our present experiences with prior interpretations.  I mean, it's like wiping out Windows 8 and upgrading to Windows 10.   A bit of an off-kilter experience, until you get used to it.  But the new operating system is elegant and user friendly.  I'd never go back.  Somatic Experiencing not a quick fix and it's not cheap, but it is worth it.

So now, ordinary I am.  Getting comfortable with my new 'momma'.  If this is too boring, well...  The politicians...they can entertain you as they duke it out on their rolling logs.  Or watch Michael Phelps do his thing again.  Or...

I hope you stay tuned, though :-)