Mirrors and Transparencies
Something jars me from my deep sleep, and I'm pissed.
The slow buzzing circles my head and I think, "Not again!" It's been that kind of night, this parade of hopeful bloodsuckers. I reach over to turn the light switch, put on my glasses, and scan the airspace around me. I pay attention, I wait, then there it is, drone-ish, scanning.
"Be bold," I whisper, "Come and land on my arm."
It zig zags around and lowers itself onto my skin. I wait. It starts its preparation, starts the insertion, and .....SLAP! One more down. I scan the air again....anyone else?
I pull up the last scene of my interrupted dream left to fend for itself in dreamland: I had pulled over to the side of the road since nighttime dark had thickened. I couldn't see in front of me anymore, my headlights weren't working well. I was back in my old 1960 VW bus that I drove in the mid 1980's into the early 1990's. I got out of the vehicle and walked around to the front to look at the lights. One was completely out (the driver's side) and the other glowed so dimly, I could barely make out the light at all.
Okay, Jung, let's bat it around.
I'm not currently equipped to see through this darkness.
There isn't enough light at the moment to cut the darkness and see where I'm going.
I need to acquire what is needed to illuminate the darkness.
I don't have a clear vision of where I am trying to go.
I have a clear vision but not enough light.
Jump in any time now, Carl. Give me your two cents from the grave.
Container Break-ups
I am here in Waldo visiting dear friend B., an explorer of astrology amidst other interests. He looks at my natal chart stored in his laptop.
"It's Pluto moving through Capricorn in the third house. Pluto breaks down "containers", including "I am"-ness, "he tells me. "Should be another 6-8 years before it moves on into another house."
Is this the darkness needing some light? — my "container" no longer illuminated in the old ways that used to work?
I know that any interpretation is channeled through the interpreter's filters. It is the same with Tarot, for instance. But I love chewing on interpretations, whether Jung is involved or not. I love picking up the proverbial spare flashlight in the glove compartment and continuing on my way, spotting the light on encircled segments of the path.
Pluto is already part way through the house, which means it's been breaking open my containers for years already. "I am" has already been shifting, different parts of me have already had a bit of brightening.
On the way up to the Gaspe, S. and I had stopped in the White Mountains of New Hampshire so I could drop off my English Horn to my repair person to tune up and put out there for sale through consignment. What does this mean? It means I spent the winter playing through sheet music that I will never play again, recycling some overly worn paper, and piling up other pieces in good shape to give away or sell. "I am an oboist," I have said since 1972.
Now I have other journeys to play out. "I'm still a musician," I remind myself. I think about my keyboard stored in my woodshop back home. My set of recorders. My Native American flute nestled in its suede, fringed bag, feathers hanging off the braided strap. I think about the new blue plastic ukulele I bought impulsively from the music store in North Conway owned by my oboe repairman. Something new to learn while on the road. I leave the "oboe/English horn" specifics and embody the "general". I've always played many instruments. For now, I'll return to that "Beginner's Mind" advocated by Buddhists.
Having grown tired of being seen in limited ways by what I do for work, I crave, once again, to respond to that line of questioning with "I am a traveler" rather than "musician", "cabinetmaker", "teacher".
Shards
"Communication," B. had continued. "How you communicate, yes, but also how you take in what is communicated to you by others. This is also a container that is breaking apart."
I shine the flashlight onto the idea of communication shards, like the Tarot card of the Tower exploding into pieces, ready to get rebuilt into a new and better form. Writing? Listening? Watching? Talking? Processing?
Like with the mosquito parade, I have to keep shining the light over a specific space and watch. Pay attention. Be patient. Let things land where they need to for their own survival. Choose what can suck out my blood, and what I won't let suck. SLAP! And acquire the necessary lightbulbs.
I turn out the light and return to the cloud-covering-moon darkness hovering over sleep.
I drive Downeast on Coastal Route 1 leaving Belfast and heading towards Mount Desert Island where I will meet up with friend Z. On purpose, this is a road, and area, I have chosen not to visit for a number of years. Heart memories are bittersweet.
Roads slice away from Route 1 to the right, cutting peninsulas in length, arrows aiming for coastal tips. Fishing villages, ferries to Isle Au Haut, blueberry farms. Salty air, seagull screeches, snow squalls. Flirtations, frustrations, final fragments of dignity. These crusty memories hug the coastal rock like barnacles refusing to unclench. I keep driving, name out loud the exact heart scars associated with a string of Maine men, with the hope that, by naming, the scars will be picked clean.
Decades later, additional Acadian memories got encased with sticky residue, and as I drive, I unstick myself from them by the forgiveness of my initial mistakes. It always has been "hope" that has draped itself over reality. I name the precise moments of self-deception, that turning of the cheek as was said, the forgetting to hold tight to my integrity. In the name of "love", I am not alone in walking away from truth as understood at the crossroads of decision. I finally round the bend into Ellsworth.
Like those old anatomy transparencies of muscle systems and blood veins over skeleton bones, I hope to unfold a different plastic sheet over the history of my time here. I find a parking lot allowing me to enter the Carriage Road system, pull my bicycle out of the back of my truck and load up my daypack with snacks and water. Without having much thigh power for pedaling, I'll start my build up on these gravel paths, and surely walk up some of the hills.
John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s development of the island's carriage roads created 57 miles of roads, 17 granite bridges and two gate houses, all built with local granite. No motorized vehicles allowed. The bridges host construction dates from the 1920's and 30's. I can imagine horse drawn carriages trotting through the Island's wooded terrain, Victorian strollers out for an evening walk, or perhaps a picnic around a pond.
With muscles tightened around pedal repetitions, I arrive at the Jordan Pond House, now restaurant, and popular (read overcrowded) destination for National Park visitors. I head down to the water's edge to view the hills skirting the circumference of the pond, and pass by a rock-balanced woman with sketch pad and pencils drawing the "Bubbles", two hills flanking the backside of Jordan Pond.
According to an online website about Mount Desert Island: "
"The 1844 visit of New York painter Thomas Cole marked the start of Mount Desert Island’s influx of summer vacationers. Cole founded the Hudson River School, a famous movement of landscape and seascape painters influenced by romantic primitivism."
Romantic Primitivism. I flash back to Isle Au Haut, a pebbly beach filled with lobster buoy sculptures — an eerie honoring of crustacean graveyard—and a question placed delicately in front of G.
"Did you realize that I write Haiku?" I asked him. He took out his sketch pad to start a drawing. "No," he replied and kept drawing. This is my version of "romantic primitivism". I let the new relationship go on for months more. What was I thinking?
Rustication
The RV's have circled themselves like the pioneers they are. Safety in numbers. Mini-village. Some folks sit in lawn chairs. Others walk around. I bet 24 hour Walmarts regret their policy of not being able to kick out those parked in their lots overnight. Loophole. I'm parked over to the side near the grass edge and away from the RV battlement. Curtains to shield me from the overhead lot lights, and earplugs from the cars driving in and out make it possible for me to sleep through the night in the back of my truck.
Awake early, I drive into the Park with hopes of actually getting a parking space at the Bubbles trails lot. And I do, as the evening coastal fog spits a few drops of moisture before starting it's slow burn-off. Like a huge bag of dice, ancient glacial plate shifts had tossed boulders down hillsides for some gambled payoff. Here they pile upon themselves, treeless, and ideal for a trail up the peak contours.
Boulder-bound "rusticators" from Boston and New York ( or.... perhaps hikers...also known as "rockers") had started arriving soon after steamer service was established in 1853. I try to imagine the women, corseted, dragging their heavy dress hems uphill over boulders. I look down at my hiking shorts, sleeveless top and hiking boots. Humid today, I stop to roll up a bandana and wrap it around my sweaty forehead, then stuff my long hair up behind it, exposing my neck in favor of any sea breeze coming my way. How did they do it in that garb?
"By 1879 Bar Harbor had 30 hotels. Rich summer visitors wanted more than just rooms in hotels. They wanted their own cottages. And these cottages were not rustic bungalows. They were 60-room mansions with clipped lawns and formal gardens, estates reflecting their owners' wealth and rank. Soon the shoreline and hillsides were filled with estates belonging to bankers, industrialists, and railroad men. The Boston Symphony was playing regularly by the Bar Harbor Club pool, and traveling theater companies were visiting the village. Bar Harbor had its own horse track and a golf course where, in 1910, President William Howard Taft would play. The little village had become the social capitol of the United States," the online history continued. Driving up Route 3 to the northern end of Mount Desert Island in order to leave the Island by way of the Trenton Bridge, I have to navigate through downtown Bar Harbor, hundreds of people wandering the streets, restaurant decks and courtyards brimming, ice cream stand lines snaking down nearby sidewalks. I'm tempted to count the hotels and motels and inns I pass while inching along in traffic. More than 30 now, I'd bet. |
They started with a tiny piece in Seal Harbor and a hilltop overlooking Jordan Pond. Soon they held the top of Cadillac Mountain, and in 1916 they offered the federal government more than 6,000 acres. Rockefeller himself ultimately gave about 15,000 acres.
The government first made it a National Monument. In 1919 it became Lafayette National Park, the first east of the Mississippi. Then in 1929 it was renamed Acadia National Park and now protects almost half of Mount Desert Island. "
Psychosis
I walk the path out to Great Head to watch the sea throw foamy blasts of saltwater at the granite rocks. Fog has settled against the shore making visibility low. Also dinner time, it is my hope that everyone else has descended upon Bar Harbor to up the ante of long lines. I have the cliff walk to myself and place another transparency over the memories. Not using all possible bells and whistles on my point and shoot camera, I stumble upon the one for "mirrors", and dive into the metaphor. I point and click.
I am openly admitting to non-psychotic thinking......but I do wonder if my choice of sea-blot photos offer a different diagnosis. With each wave rolling back out to sea, I send off yet another annoying memory, and with each roll crashing in, I lay down another sheet of plastic. Sea-blots.
"The inkblot test (also called the "Rorschach" test) is a method of psychological evaluation. Psychologists use this test in an attempt to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients. This test is often employed in diagnosing underlying thought disorders and differentiating psychotic from non-psychotic thinking in cases where the patient is reluctant to openly admit to psychotic thinking. "
Camera mirror setting slide show:
Transparency over History
I visit with Z, meet her sweetie A..and landlord hosts D..and J. Over dinner, pizza and salad shaded from the setting Maine sun, D., J., and I find out we share a history of having lived in Harvard, Massachusetts. Z..and I later wonder how often we cross paths with others who share some history of place, or common people. Only by opening conversations can we expose these degrees of separation. Z..recounts a brief chat on a subway that exposed a small street in rural Iowa. Both Z..and the woman had connections with that small street. I look at everyone now and wonder what has been shared between us.