february 20, 1951

My Uncle Johnnie died in 1946, after seven short years of marriage. My grandmother wrote this letter to her widowed daughter-in-law Grace, five years later. My grandmother was an amazing lady, born in 1886, and had no more than an 8th grade education. It didn't stop her from having a wonderful and loving heart.

JMJ 2/20/1951 10 p.m.

To my dear daughter Grace,

I am going to write this letter to you tonight, and explaining which grave you will be buried in on the day when Our Dear Lord Jesus will call you home to meet your dear husband John Francis X. L. Jr. and he will be waiting for you at the heavenly gates.

The grave is on the right side of Pa and my grave when I die. In the Woodland Cemetery lot Number 111, Newark, NJ.

I will mark it on the Woodland Cemetery Deed.

And dear Grace I surely will tell you, and also before Pa died, we was always so thankful to you for all your kindness and in making our dear son Johnnie so happy in the few years with you in your happy married life together.

Please Grace save this letter, so all will know that you be buried in the same grave of your husband. All of my dear children told me to write this letter to you.

May God have mercy on Pa's and Johnnie's soul.

And God bless and guide you always. Please pray for me.

Your loving mother,

Mary L.

60 years after Johnnie was buried, Aunt Grace joined him. I'm lucky to have some of these old letters.

april 24, 1939

A letter from my Uncle Johnnie to my grandparents, after receiving gifts on the occasion of his wedding to my Aunt Grace.

Dearest Mother and Dad,

To what Grace has already written I want to add that you have my heartfelt and sincere appreciation for what you have done for us.

Your most wonderful check, Mother, and then also the radio were really too generous of you.

I cannot just say thank you because that would be very insufficient.

I am very certain that as you asked in your so wonderful card, that we will think of you often when we listen to our radio and as Grace wrote, we will always remember you in our prayers especially on Saturday morning as we receive Holy Communion and ask God to be always merciful to you and to guide and protect you through life always, so that you will have many happy years left to spend on this earth and then one day, far, far off, I hope, when He calls you, you will receive your reward of eternal peace and happines in Heaven with Him and His Holy Mother and all the angels and saints and your dear departed Mother and Father and all of your loved ones.

I will always think of you Mother, as this kindest, sweetest, tenderest, most devoted and generous mother in the whole world and I feel that I am the most fortunate boy in having had a Mother like you to instill in me the principles of a good honest upright moral life and I also feel that I have only you to thank for all the happiness that has come into my life.

May God bless you, with love and devotion, your son Johnnie

ups and downs

Dunno why, but the ups and downs have been abrupt lately. Brief, for sure, but really abrupt.

And frankly, I'm getting way too tired of it.

That is all.

big bird

It's no surprise to me that osprey are here. But I was surprised to see this one today. From a distance I thought the fishing bird was an eagle, but eagles don't dive head-first into the water, and their wings are held straight. This bird came out of the water, with a large fish held in its talons, and even took a moment while flying to shake water off.

Now I'm going to have to learn a lot about osprey. I'll never get anything done.

Photo by Danny Shaw

it's just a jump to the left

I would like to state for the record that ours is mixed marriage.

I'm a roller and he's a buncher. For the most part, this doesn't interfere in any way with our love and devotion to one another. So far, anyway.

ennui

I can tell you some of the reasons why I've been cranky lately, but let's face it: you're not interested and neither am I.

Yesterday was just about as bad as it gets for me. I had an exhilarating physical therapy session and yes that is a euphemism for unpleasant body sensations, after which I walked the dog.

She's still an itchy mess in spite of the $500 worth of vet bills, allergy shots and antihistamines, the poor thing, so that's one situation that's pissing me off and even leaving awful ideas in my head such as, "I don't think I want to have a dog anymore." What, you say? You love that doggie! And yes. Yes I do. No worries. This is akin to my PMS-think that always startled me into realizing I had PMS. You know, whenever I found myself thinking, for no particular reason (i.e. no argument, no tension, nothing based in reality) "Why did I marry hobbitt? How could I have made such a huge mistake?"

Yeah. Hormones. Go figure. I sure am glad I'm done with that noise. Anyway.

When I returned from the walk I loaded up the garbage and recycling and went to the dump, which isn't such a big deal except I never remember to bring wipes for my hands and I'm never sure what dripped on me. When I came home I could no longer stand the condition of the floors (itchy dogs shed hair) so I vacuumed everywhere and mopped the kitchen floor. The latter is a pointless chore, actually. The floor sounds as though it's covered with sand even when it's freshly mopped, and it's no secret that I hate it, hobbitt hates it, and we look forward to the day when we can rip it the hell up and fling it out the door.

*takes a deep breath, tries to slow down heart rate*

So okay, some home projects are on hold so that hobbitt can have some major, not-covered-by-insurance dental work done, and so that I can continue my relentless and aggressive drive to erase all debt from the books here at the labs. Hey, if I'm not making money, I might as well work towards that amazing day when we can burn the mortgage, right? Anyway, you can see where I'm going here. I'm in hunker-down mode when emotionally and spiritually I need to be in expansive, embracing, trust-the-universe mode.

Just before six, when I could feel the sinking, end-of-another-day-of-no-accomplishments feeling approaching, I packed up the car with my boat gear and went for a paddle. I didn't particularly care if I had to roll myself out of the boat and take a soaking. I just needed to be not here, not on the land, not stuck in whatever stupid cage I've constructed for myself this time.

Not too hard getting into the boat, as I suspected. No worries while paddling either, as the water was calm and the breeze was likely less than 4 mph. It's been a while, for sure. Nothing felt right. The boat kept swinging to one side or another when I'd stop paddling, and even felt just a bit tippy, which is new. Whatever form I may have accomplished last year will have to be learned again, but in any case I got all the way over to Chimacum Creek, frequently stopping to peer into the water to see the fingerlings (which were jumping out of the water all around me) and the sand dollars, to drift, or rest. I would have gone up the creek but there was a small sailboat anchored there, so I kept going.

When I finally turned around, it was just in time to see a couple of eagles right at the water's edge. One adult and one juvenile, I thought. The adult chased the juvenile off something by approaching the baby talons first, and as I very slowly paddled and drifted toward them, the adult finally took off with whatever prize it had wrested away from the other bird. It flew within 15 feet of where I sat, and I could distinguish something quite yellow in its talons, but as it turned the tail feather's blocked my view. The youngster continued to sit on its rock and make some rather plaintive sounds, and then flew up into a tree at the water's edge. I drifted beneath, and made some mental notes about field marks, since I really wasn't sure if it was a baby eagle or not. (It was.) It was a beautiful still moment there, beneath the bluffs, in a little cove. It was peaceful.

On the way back, the breeze began to pick up just as I rounded the point. When I got back to the dock area, there were some people on the beach and a seal in the water. When I first saw it, it was swimming directly towards me, and by the time I got my camera out and powered up, the seal had already submerged. I know from experience that the curious ones will pop up close to and always behind the boat, so I just paddled in circles for a while. That's hard to do with a camera in hand, and because of the way my boat is constructed, and because there was a little bit of water on the deck, I felt it wise to turn the camera off and put it back in my vest pocket each time. So each time the seal surfaced, it posed only long enough for me to get the camera powered back up before it went beneath the surface of the water once again.

Then I looked out into the bay and I could see that winds were beginning to churn up the water, so it was definitely time to come in. Getting out of the boat was difficult, as I had thought. It's much like getting up off the floor, which as you might imagine is not easy with the bum knee. And so I got the seat of my pants soaked, right on cue. Oh well. hobbitt showed up just in time to help me haul the boat back up to the rack, which was a Very Good Thing.

For a while yesterday I was merely doing, and not thinking, stewing, moping, planning, or angsting. I need a whole lot more of that. And soon.

clarification

I would like to offer a little clarification to some of my readers, regarding hobbitt's marriage proposals.

He began proposing to me a week after we started dating. I had been long separated from my mistake spouse, but we hadn't finalized it because there was no immediate need, and it cost me nothing to keep Craige on my health insurance. basically. We didn't want to spend money on a lawyer, because neither of us had any.

That early on, I was pretty certain it was all a rebound relationship with hobbitt, but to be honest, I didn't even care. It was pretty special and I wasn't about to cut it short. And he proposed to me pretty much on a daily basis. I never answered, because - well, because I couldn't. The most I would say was "Yeah, bigamy's in this year." I was pretty certain that I didn't want to try the marriage thing again, and I was very comfortable, eventually, with the idea that I was going to spend the rest of my life with hobbitt anyway.

So it was rather odd that on December 28th 1989, after 10 solid weeks of marriage proposals, and an hour after all the proper papers had been filed, that he didn't think to ask me the question that I could finally answer. And I don't know what I answered when he finally did ask. Not that it mattered. By that time our relationship was pretty much a force of nature.

The first time he asked me - actually, it was more like a command ("Marry me.") - it was on the front porch of the ornate Victorian home where his 3rd floor bachelor digs were. The last time it was in a seldom-used stairwell at ADR in Princeton.

So now tell me: where did you pop - or answer - the question?

today would have been good

We took a walk at spring tide on Saturday and spent a moment paying homage to my kayak. I don't remember the last time it was in the water. January or February, I suppose. In any case, its presence on the rack was of no consequence to the yarrow.

Today would have been a good day to paddle. But I knelt yesterday and today's physical therapy session was painful and the effects are lingering. It would be no use getting out on the water just to strain the knee again. Not that it might stop me later.

Since the skeeters are out in full force (though only for a few more weeks, until the rains stop all summer), walking on the beach trails is a lot like having a terrible palsy. One step; swat, slap, swat; one step; slap, swat, slap. And unless it's ultra-low tide, walking on the beach is very difficult for me, even though it's blessedly mosquito-free.

And if you're wondering where the Deep Woods Off! is, well, I suppose it's in the garage. It's just not my preferred all-day cologne.

Yep. I think I'm going mad.

the obscure

Click on the picture for a larger view.

We woke this morning to a dense fog (low clouds near the Strait of Juan de Fuca, according to Wunderground) and stillness.

Dead low tide occurred about 10:25 a.m., and we headed to the beach just after 11:00. By that time it was clear and sunny up here back from the bluff, at 230 feet above sea level.

Usually there are sweeping vistas of Pete Townsend Bay on the drive down, but today there was nothing. No town. No Indian Island. No naval depot. No water. Nothing.

We walked all the way around to the lagoon inlet, until we spotted the beds of sand dollars. When we turned around the breeze had picked up from the north and the entire beach area was enveloped in the mist. We could see it blowing across the ample beach, as if it were smoke. In fact, the first time I saw the mist like this, I thought it was smoke, and ran outside to see what was on fire.

We saw a giant sea snail at the shoreline past the point, and couldn't figure out how it would ever fit in its shell, or even if it was dead or alive. A solitary otter swam and fished just off shore. It seemed pretty busy. I hadn't noticed before how large otters are.

The waterfront is about 1000 feet from our house as the crow flies. When we got back up here, all was sunny and clear again.

time passes

Sixteen years ago today my entire immediate family, Aunt Grace and a few friends descended upon my sister's 210-year-old farmhouse to witness the successful completion of hobbitt's relentless proposals of marriage. It was the culmination of a wonderful long weekend of kite-flying, cookouts, free-flowing champagne and general revelry in the lovely town of Newburyport, MA.

It was the last time my entire family, including all siblings and spouses, were together. It was the last day I ever smoked cigarettes. It was the last day I was to live on the east coast for a dozen years. It was the last time I had chocolate cheesecake after seafood Newburg, the last time the police had to come to our door to break up a party (also the first!).

It wasn't the last time I ever felt lonesome or sad or scared. The ensuing years were full of much grief, sickness and death all around us. Five members of our wedding party of 13 are gone. hobbitt has lost two younger siblings. Our lives were tugged and torn and pulled and pushed and yet here we are, still believing that nothing bad happens to us and that our happiness is alive and secure.

I don't know how it works, or what we've done to deserve it. That's one of those mysteries I am very comfortable letting remain a mystery. I know you've read this before, but I just can't help myself today.

Someday we shall
again be dust
borne by winds
and seas
forever seeking
crumbs and seeds
of one another
to form some
ancient spark
not of ourselves
but of this gift
from gods
we do not know

How many times
this search, these seeds
thus forming
before, beyond,
the gift accepted
breathed, danced
and spent
though at times
perhaps this spark
did not give
birth to flame
it burns brightly
in us now

What do you say, hobbitt? Shall we re-up? I say double or nothing.

newborn of the sea

We got a call from some neighbors last night that there was an abandoned seal pup on the beach. Newborn. Umbilicus still attached. Folks were walking up to it and touching it.

Okay, that's really wrong, but I can understand, since the damned thing is so unbelievably cute.

There was some wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about what to do, but the proper thing to do is nothing. And disturbing these creatures is against the law. So for the record, I didn't take the following pictures, though I'm happy to use them here. Seal pups are frequently left on the beach while mama hunts, and usually mama comes back at night to feed the baby. After reading all the articles I was able to Google up, I had no reason to think the baby was either abandoned or in distress, but I wanted to see it anyway.

So when we took our evening walk (at about 8:30) with the dog, we first stepped out on the dock and used our field glasses to see if the pup was still there. It was. No matter, since I can't walk on the beach at present anyway, so we just took our usual trail route and stopped occasionally to peer through the field glasses and see what the pup was up to. By the time we'd finished our circuit (around 9:30) it was gone. Completely. No trace. I even walked out on the beach a bit to see if it had hauled itself up to the Nootka roses.

So I gotta believe that either it hauled up or went for a swim with mama, and either way, it wasn't in distress, and all's right with the world.















photos by Danny Shaw

wandering in

I am not dead, lost, mute, or mangled.

I just haven't had have much to say. My recovery from the knee surgery is slowing and I'm getting frustrated by having to cut back on my activity. Standing for any length of time takes its toll, which means loitering at the nurseries has to be minimized. That won't stop me from going to Whitney Gardens tomorrow and bringing home many beautiful rhododendrons, though.

hobbitt and I sat at the beach this evening and watched a group of four river otters lazily feeding in the kelp beds just off the tide line. It took them about 20 minutes to come the quarter mile down the beach to where we were sitting. A fog had rolled into the Admiralty Inlet, and Whidbey Island disappeared. A single very large seal stared at us for a while before vacating the premises to the otters. We were surrounded by mist, with brilliant sunshine occasionally breaking through just over the trees on the bluff.

If that doesn't take the edge off the day, I don't know what could.