My Quiet Place

This is where I was born and brought up.  Just around the other side of this inlet is  Collins Cove.  I was born on the ocean and spent my entire youth there, living in the same neighborhood until I married at 21.  It was not a luxury neighborhood by any stretch of the imagination.  Now, though as I look back, it was my foundation in finding peace and quiet at the ocean and then that carried through to even lakes, streams and rivers.  The ocean was where I went as a little girl when things were not good at home.  Back in the 50's and 60's no one worried about you being "at the beach" by yourself.  All the kids were at the beach by themselves.  I'd take my lunch (whatever I could find) a blanket or a towel, I'm a little fuzzy on this, my doll and my radio and I'd walk down the end of my Street, cross over to the park and at the end of the park was a lovely, sandy beach.  I'd set up shop and before to long someone would come along.  We'd stay all day, swim, sleep and build sand castles and no one ever came looking for us.  We stayed for the peace and quiet and just for the sheer joy of being outside and out of the house.  

Actually, it started long before me, this love affair with the ocean.  My Grandfather was from Nova Scotia. His family home sat right on the Atlantic ocean.  He was a long shore fisherman and sometimes would be gone for months at a time.  On one of those trips, his first wife died in childbirth while he was gone.  He had such a hard time reconciling that loss that he left his baby girl with relatives and came to the United States where, at some point, he met my Grandmother., who was also from Nova Scotia but not on the ocean side.  I think though, it was his love of the ocean that landed us so close to it.  We all, with his guidance and my Mother's perseverance, would go to the mud flats when the tide went out and we would all dig for clams...dinner that night would be steamed clams.  Delicious and plentiful. On other occasions, off we all go to the Beverly bridge with our drop lines and fish.  Flounder was abundant in those days...we'd take our catch home, my Grandmother would clean, skin and de-bone it...supper again.  It was a hard life but we never starved..came close a few times but the ocean always gave back.

So now, this lesson of where do we find our quiet place, was so easy for me. It was funny when I started to think about it.  I knew it was water.  Then I pieced it together.  First the ocean, then the lake.  Waterfalls, streams and rivers and ponds.  All connecting me to a calm and spiritual quiet.  When I'm stressed, happy or just need a boost of "everything is o.k."  I head to the water.  I am fortunate that I am surrounded by water, everywhere I go and can easily be at the ocean in 15 minutes.  I have passed my love of the ocean on to my kids and now my grandkids know how to relax and rest on the water.  My son, lives on the ocean, just as I did growing up.  He walks to the beach and he is good at going to give his mind a rest.  Jenna takes to the water whenever she can. Making a point to plan it into her year.  The boys constantly ask, "when can we go to the Maine house"...I spend hours photographing in and around the water.  It is where I can be alone and never be afraid.  It is always fascinating and different.  Places of water are changing constantly so you could go every day and capture a different scene.

So here's how it works...bring a chair, blanket or towel...sit.  Close your eyes for the first few minutes and just feel the warmth.  You will also feel the stress physically lifting off your body and out of your mind.  You will know there is magic in the sound of the ocean lapping on the sand, or waves crashing into boulders and spraying up into the blue sky.  The sound takes you away.  It transforms you into a lighter and easier state of mind.  All is well.  I then gaze out at the diamond's dancing on the ocean, I watch the loons travel by.  In their beauty, they are in no hurry.  Boats sailing along, kids playing in the sand of in the water swimming, without a care in the world.  I smile, knowing that they also found their quiet, peaceful, stress free zone. 

Twenty three years ago we bought a little house on a lake in Maine.  We have added on but not enough to change the basic reasons for why we are there.  It is not the ocean but it feels like it.  It offers all the same low key energy and stress relieving agents as the big blue sea...it is my quiet place in any season.  We love it more than any place we go.  When we are alone there, Jim and I, we can hear the quiet.  We can feel the gifts of nature in there natural state.  We know we are in another zone and we are thankful.  We run away to Maine as often as we can.  The kids still come, and now the little guys.  I made a rule when I bought that house and I have only had to state it again maybe twice.  That house is my happy place.  If you are not happy, take it someplace else.  There is also a sign in the Maine house.  A sign that has been there for many years.  It's what makes that house a peaceful and quiet place.  The sign reads KINDNESS MATTERS.  I believe that to be true more today than ever before.  

I wish all of you could come to my Quiet Place...It wouldn't take you long to pull up that chair, take a nap in the hammock or swim in the lake with the Loons...to know the gifts of the water.  Then when I have to go home, no problem...my ocean is just down the street.

 Come and sit awhile on the deck..I have saved this rocking chair for you.  It faces the lake.

A nice way to spend an afternoon.  Pack a lunch and a good book.  Head out into the quiet lake during the week and no need to even drop an anchor. Just shut the engine and drift.  Rest, read, relax and a nap is always a good thing.  Don't forget the camera...you might find Loons and eagles and beautiful reef's. 

 

Even in Maine, the ocean is not far away.  A walk on the beach, gentle waves and seagulls fishing...water is always in my life.

At days end, God paints you a sunset.  He uses his most brilliant crayons.  I can never see this enough. This is the view from my deck at the Maine House.  If it was a clear night you would be looking at Mount Washington and the Presidental mountain range..an impressive sight.

Memories being made, enjoyed and photographed.  The boys on their path to the ocean.  Barefoot and fancy free...Jaxson walks Gracie..she just goes along because she love the ocean also.

 

You would think that being surrounded by ocean and lake that when I traveled I would go in-land. Sometimes I do.  In the middle of the winter, when I can't see the lake for the frozen ice and snow and when the ocean is whipping the wind so hard, you freeze to death, I head to the Caribbean where I know that the warmth of the sand and sun, with it's lovely aqua water is waiting for me.  For three weeks I find my quiet place again.  It restores me over and over..just with the landing of that plane.  The ocean and lakes fill me up, bring me balance and tell me life is good.  It has always been that way for me.  I am a water girl.  I am an Aquarian...makes perfect sense.

"We are inspired by water — hearing it, smelling it in the air, playing in it, walking next to it, painting it, surfing, swimming or fishing in it, writing about it, photographing it, and creating lasting memories along its edge. Indeed, throughout history, you see our deep connection to water described in art, literature, and poetry. "  

Excerpted from “Blue Mind.”

 

Out With the Old...In With the New

Also, a bit of a book review.  It's been awhile since I've been here.  It feels good to be back.  I had my issues with 2015 but she's gone and I'm moving on. So just to get started I wanted to tell you about a new class I'm taking with Christina Greve, called Slow Down with Stills.  Each week we will receive a prompt to help us stay focused on slowing down while taking stills. She is such an awesome person and her posts each week are so inspiring.  This is for week one.  It's a combination slowing down lesson for me but also a book review for you.  I'm way behind in my book reviews.  

This weeks prompt is nuanced textures of life. It is to showcase a part of my daily life that I wish to pay more attention to. That was so easy for me.  I feel like I pay so much attention to everything else and yet I let my one big love down every year...No, not Jim.  The book pile.  Each year I promise to read more, give myself permission to do the things I really love and stop putting them at the bottom of my to-do list.  I want to move them up to Top Priority.  Although I did o.k last year, I didn't read as many books as I wanted to.  I also spent more time fluffing through magazines than reading hard core books and photography lessons.  So this year...I've doubled my expectations for myself.  I've already carved out slots of time and I've stopped some wasteful magazine subscriptions.  Feeling good about making space, everyday, for reading.  Feeling good about lesson one being complete for Slow Down With Stills and feeling very good about being back...

Just a quick review from some of my favorites from 2015:

One of my favorite writing books this year was Stephen King on Writing.  Five stars from me.  It was different and unique and because I loved it so much my husband gave me his newest book of short stories for a Christmas gift. The first half of this book was surprisingly a mini autobiography which was utterly fascinating and the second half was his thoughts about writing. Some really good tips and a different spin than most writers, and purely entertaining.  Honestly, I couldn't put it down.  

I also read Ernest Hemingway on Writing.  Such a really enjoyable book.  It's very easy to read, has lots of quotes and he tells his story in small tidbits so you can pick it up and put it down easily.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.  The first book I ever read of his was The Old Man and Sea, which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. I could not get that book out of my head and continue reading him time and again.

The last writing book I read was by Jeff Goins, You Are A Writer.  I think it is worth a read. I found lots to underline and to look back over.  Some very good tips.  I read with the hope of finding something that sparks me, even if the entire book isn't overflowing with advice.  That's what I found with this book, but honestly, I found enough to keep me going.

Moving on to some fun and entertaining books, which you have probably read by now because I'm so late reporting on them...but just in case you haven't.

I read one Memoir, The Liar's Club by Mary Kerr.  The reason I read that book was because I have heard so much about what a great writer she is.  So I thought I would start with her story.  Honestly, I didn't finish the book.  Very dark and depressing and maybe because there was a similar string that ran through that book for me, I decided to leave it.  She has also written Cherry and Lit, which I have heard good things about but I'm thinking those are also biographical so I probably won't read them either.  This was the only book that I did not finish and I tried really hard.  I got to page 149.  In this new year if I notice that a book isn't doing it for me, I'm letting go a lot sooner than that.  

A quick read that I loved...if your a fan of E.B White you might like Here is New York.  In the summer of 1948, E.B. White sat in a New York City hotel room and, sweltering in the summer heat , wrote a remarkable, pristine essay, Here is New York.  If you love E.B.White or New York, you will love this little book.

Two other small ones that I'll group together here.  Steal Like an Artist..a good one. Then The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly...love this book.  I would recommend both of these and they are keepers.

Just for pleasure...I loved them all.  After You, by Jojo Moyes.  A good read but not as good as You Before Me..but a good book.  All The Light We Cannot See...love, love, loved this book.  Rumi and the Red Handbag, by Shawna Lemay...you may have heard of her.  Enjoyed this book.  Finally, for now, Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue..simply a fun book to read. 1748 working class London. Very descriptive of London in those days, and the story of a strong willed girl.  I just sank into this one.  Emma Donoghue also wrote the book Room..which I read a few years ago...that was a fantastic book also and now it is out in film in the states.  

So there you have it...some of my very favorites.  This year my goal is to read two books at a time, one technical and one for fun.  It seems the technical never get read because the fun books speak louder.  Not sure how it will all end up but I'm off to a good start.  I'm on my second book and I'm almost done with a book of poetry...Thanks for stopping by and happy reading...

"All my life I've looked at words as though I was seeing them for the first time."  Ernest Hemingway

"Books help me breath better.  It's that simple."  Nina George 

Christmas Cans

It's been a bit of a different Christmas here this year.  Less of everything including decorations, gifts and baking. Even the weather has decide to take a break from the norm this year, and I told you earlier that Frosty had to cancel. Some things though have to stay the same.  That's the cans. One year my son gave me a can filled with lots of little gifts that were so thoughtful and useful.  Most were local items that he found shopping in the town he lives in, Gloucester Massachusetts.  It is one of the few towns that still supports a local downtown shopping area with every kind of shop imaginable, many run by local folks selling their talents.  That first year, I was so excited as I unwrapped the contents of that can.  Each item was so personally selected.  I knew that a lot of thought went into his choices, from the jams, homemade candies to little books that I would love. A heart shaped paper weight, incense for my meditation table.  Even a jar of sand from the local beach to burn my incense in and  vases for flowers.  Not only did I love it, but so do everyone else. From that one can, a new tradition was started. Everyone now has a can and it is the gift that we all look forward to the most.  Tiny things tucked into tissue paper, pencils and crayons for the boys. A deck of Old Maid or Go Fish. Hearts for those who need one this year, cleaning supplies, body lotions and always books in each can. Each can also always has a hand-made card or envelope with a note for time spent. A gift that we give for an outing someplace during the year.  Just for the giver and recipent to enjoy together.  So we gave up hanging stockings and now we do cans.  Chris now does one for both me and his Dad and I do one for everyone else, sometimes I even tucked in a few bucks just so they can shop for something that Santa didn't think of.   Six years we added a can for Liam and 3 years ago Jaxson got his can.  I love watching them get excited over chocolate covered peep snowmen or a tin for saving their change in and each year they get a new pair of hand made mittens from Nana.

 

The cans took on greater meaning this year when my friend Sherry Galey told me about a project her sister was working on. After thinking about this project, it came to me that the cans represented that wonderful idea of the 5-H Giving. Thank you Elena Galey-Pride for your work on this project. So now I'm sharing it with you.  Perhaps you have a tradition that your kids introduced to your family gathering.  Maybe your tradition was carried forward from a past generation.   However you came upon your tradition, I hope you think of the people who instilled that tradition in you. That to me is what the holidays are about. Keeping the love of our family alive, both past and present, sharing our common likes and getting to know each other through the sharing.  To give and receive, to continue this year after year, generation after generation, to incorporate tradition into our lives keeps the spirit of Christmas in our hearts all year long.

 

Wishing you all a most wonderful Christmas of making new memories and sharing in the old memories that come to you still. Thank you for all your lovely  visits, comments and friendship over this past year.  Each one of you brings such joy into my life when I see your name pop up on my blog page.  Wouldn't it be nice if in 2016 we all took a step into the future with love and peace in our hearts.  Now, wouldn't that be a lovely year long tradition to start.  I sense though, that I'm preaching to the choir because I believe all of you here have those qualities in your hearts already.  Now all we have to do is convence the rest of the world to join us.  Peace and love to all of you..from me.

Do The Trees Speak

Do the trees speak back to the wind

when the wind offers some invitational comment?

As some of us do, do they also talk to the sun?

I believe so, and if such belief need rest on the evidence, let me just say, Sometimes it's 

an earful.

But there's more.

If you can hear the trees in their easy hours

of course you can also hear them later,

crying out at the sawmill...

Mary Oliver.

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

"The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the endless skies, my love
To the dark and the endless skies" 

Dear Liam...the first time I saw your face was fifteen minutes after you were born.  Do you know that six years has gone by since that precious moment happened.  Do you know that today you are officially a big boy...I know, you think you have been a big boy for a long time, but today it is official.  Nana's know these kinds of things.  In the last year you have done more growing, added more activities to you list of "things I love to do"..and you have made so many wonderful friends..I bet some of them will even be your friend for a life time...It's how it starts, this building of your own life. The letting go of some of the old "time spent" to make way for your new "time spent activities.  You have so many to choose from.

You and I have been best friends for all of these last six years.  We have done so many exciting things together, sometimes just you and I...like our tea time adventures and going in the woods with our camera's, but sometimes we've done lots of things with just you, me and Papa.  Like Peabody Essex Museum, Boston on the Train and going to the Maine house.  Also, these last few years we've let Jaxson come along on our adventures...like when we go on the Duck tours or to the Christmas Village to see Santa.  Sometimes now we have to make a date if we want it to be just you and I because your life has gotten so busy.  I don't mind that, dates are good.  We plan and then we do.  Like when we planned our trip to the Lego Store and our latest plan is to go to the movies after your birthday.  Of course, we have to plan tea at the Tea House for your special birthday day treat.  We haven't been to the tea house in such a long time..

You have taught me so many new things over these many years...how to listen to your beautiful voice when you sing to me while you play your guitar.  How you can now tell bedtime stories really well because you have listened to me telling them to you for such a long time.  You are now teaching me how to color inside the lines in our new Secret Garden adult coloring book.  I love when we do that and you are teaching both Papa and I to play all our favorite games that we haven't played in so many years...like CandyLand, Shoots and Ladders, Go Fish and Crazy 8's.  I don't really think your teaching us the right way though, because somehow you always win.   It's worth the smile and laughter from you to be a loser in these situations...I'm hoping as you grow bigger and bigger you will teach me more things along the way, when you have time...

Do you know that we have been so lucky to have all this time together.  That for six years you have filled a space in my heart that I knew needed filling but I wasn't quite sure how it was going to happen, then there you were, that one night, six years ago in November.  You came and you fit perfectly in the  my empty space in my heart and it's been full of you and your love for all these years. You were born on Friday the 13th. Some say that Friday the 13th is a bad luck day.  I don't believe that's true because that's when you choose to come to us and we have been the luckies Grandparents ever.   I didn't know you knew how to fill empty spaces but you really are the best at it.  I think now though, you are helping Jaxson to take on some of your responsibilities of how to love a Nana and Papa...Your a very good teacher and brother.  

So Liam, this is more of a thank you birthday note rather than a Happy Birthday note.  That will come later when you come over for pizza and presents.  Thank you for the gift of you...for your love and attention.  For the laughter and tears.  More laughter than tears, I must say.  For the warm snuggles and sharing of fuzzies when you come for sleep overs...for Kayak rides and wandering in the woods with our camera's.  For loving the adventures of seeing the world together, you and I...and for never being bored.  For tea times and rocking times.  For story times and game times.  Mostly for the silly times and selfie funny faces that we don't share much because we both look so silly.  For song and dance and horses and dogs.  Thank you for it all.  I think it will be ok. to share a few of our favorite things from the last six years...you know, my peeps have watched you grow and have learned to love you also...so they would kind of expect us to toss a few photo's in on this most special day...I know you won't mind this year but pretty soon you might...so I better do it while I can...so just a few of so many that I have...of me and you.

 I love you, yes I do, my little boy with the eyes of blue...I love you every day when you come to my house and play...the song you and Jaxson most love, that I made up for you and we sing it every single nap day.

My little dress up guy...Nothing more fun than to have a closet full of dress up clothes...why did I always have to be the bad guy though???

Story time with Papa...you loved the light from the den door.  Your corner of your world.

Never mind "where's your coffee...where's your shoes"

Lots of time spent at the library...both here and in Maine.  I'm so happy you love real books...

One of our most favorite times together...tea at the Wenham Tea House.  Always special, always good conversations...I think really, I would have to pick this as my most special times with you...

Our shooting outings...Bradley Palmer State Park is one of our favorites...we have been know to get lost in there for hours...then lunch at the Agawan diner...yum.

Now after school you play soccer, baseball and tag football.  Your best friend, Parker is on a different team than you, but you both have so much fun.

And now we bring Jaxson...you are such a great big brother...

 

And always, good times at the Maine house...always and forever...

So Liam, as you change each year, growing taller and getting bigger and your circle of friends expands beyond me and Papa...know that you are loved to the "moon and back again"..to the "deepest part of the ocean" and the to the "highest star in the sky."..that will never change...because when you were born, so was a Nana and a Papa...and really, Sweet boy...you can never get rid of us...but more importantly, so that you will understand, how did I know that this year, in particular, you are truly a big boy....well this happened:

Yup, that big yellow school bus came...and took you away.  You know, before you were born, Nana was a school bus driver...and it was my job...to stop at all the big boy houses and take those little guys to school.  Once you ride on the big yellow bus you become special again to so many other people...your teachers, your new friends and even the bus driver....enjoy your days Liam...being a big boy is just the best thing...but don't forget every once in awhile to stop over and take Nana to tea...now that, you never have to give up.

Happy Birthday Lil Man...