The dumpster dive, the tuna salad, the story...

(originally published 02/02/09)

A retelling of a tale... about a Big Fish.

Big Fish hooked!

The lunch room was empty, he had forgotten to bring along a companion to his tuna salad sandwich- a reading companion. And the remnants from the lunch crowd earlier produced no magazines, or even a snippet of the sports page. So he took to digging in the trash...for reading material. He was desperate, bored- tuna salad made too blandly could only be savored by reading material- taking one's mind off not enough mustard and too much mayo. His dumpster dive produced a Sunday edition of the Bangor Daily News- and even it was only a segment- the sappy kind that women read or sissy boys get all emotional over. An AP article caught his eye because of the gardening byline- he loved to garden. The tuna salad experience was looking up. He read and ate...finished up his lunch and threw the BDN back into the bin. And worked his way through till the end of his day- punched the time clock and headed home. That's it. End of story?! 

Man goes to work, has tuna salad for lunch, reads sissy segment in paper only because there was nothing else more he-man like to entertain him, tosses paper into garbage and finishes out his day.

Except- something he had read in that article tugged at him as he pulled into his driveway, some 20 odd miles away from his work place. Something weird, mysterious- so alluring, he turned his Toyota around and drove back, willingly- to the place of hard work for some 30 plus years- parked his truck, nodded to the guard (who probably thought it was pretty odd to see the man back at work after only clocking out some 40 minutes ago...) made a beeline (well, maybe not a beeline- more like a pilgrimage...OK, this part I'm trying to make sound more interesting) for the lunch room. To go dumpster diving again. Only- this time, there was no tuna salad, no need for passing the time with a good read...this time- the need was- truly, he didn't know. He only knew that something made him silly enough to waste time and a gallon of gas. So- for the second time that day, the man dug through the trash- this time more excited, more deliberate, more...nuts.

The dumpster dive, the tuna salad, the story... for whatever reasons, these strange combinations drove the man right out of his mind...and into his heart. He picked up a pen and paper and wrote to the subject of the story on gardening...just to say hello. Just to say I'm thinking about you, just to say-

"I've never done anything like this, I hope you don't think I'm odd- I just felt compelled to write to you and tell you I think you're a beautiful person. I just wanted to get in touch, hoped it would mean something to you, to let you know you should keep doing what you're doing..."

That's what Big Fish do...out of the ordinary, extraordinarily kind, wondrous things. They send an envelope to the Community Center in the local nearest little town, with a note explaining-" Please put this lady's address on this envelope if you would, and forward it to her. I'm from Maine and just needed to get this message to her. Thanks."

As of September 2007, this Mainiac and I have been pen pals. He didn't even own a computer or cell phone- he preferred going to the ocean, gardening , walking in the woods, listening to the radio. The Radio!!! I have since transformed him just a little bit- now there's a CD player, a computer (he hates it), and he did own a cell phone for a little while, but chucked it somewhere, probably into the deep Atlantic off some rocky shore.

He flew out here last March...and the rest, as they say- is history. He now commutes infrequently, meeting folks from all over the globe in his travels. He doesn't know a stranger, gives his seat up in busy airports to little old ladies and women with children. Tips his hat, and says stuff like-"Hey Bud!" and "Wat an Aushol!" and "Deah-could I have a drink of watah?" On his first ever trip here, he was a bit nervous- so the guy next to him, naturally charmed I'm sure- gave him a red key pass. (Apparently, there are secret little wonderful club rooms in certain airports where, with one of these keys- you get treated like Mick Jagger.) And now the guy(from Seattle) visits Maine to see the Big Fish and they've formed a friendship. Every time my BF flies, he meets, or better word- connects to other folks through his friendly, Maine-bear hug-like charm.

(So many times I get- "Why'd you come to Maine?!!  How did you meet The Big Fish?"...well, this story is how and partially why.

 And, our story continues...I am now a Mrs. Big Fish as of 12/21/12 and could never have conceived of this particular happiness.  We grow together.)

Made To Shine

In the heavens among clouds, stars are being born,

Nearby in a neighboring land, children are being lost. 

Deep in the darkest corners of space, suns become bound together.

And in sad cities, childhood itself becomes lost.

 by Yosl Kurland from Prayer For Bosnia copyright 1995

They were arguing, the two young men blocking my path to the escalators.  It was not apparent at first, that they were even friends.

"Excuse me...."

"OH, sorry lady, sorry..."

They immediately moved aside as I began my upward climb with a very heavy green case, a half empty water bottle fixing to fall out of a way too cumbersome bag filled with camera, books and a lighter than I started with, wallet.   The escalator rose with me, the young men and several other nondescript travelers.  It was late.  I should have gotten into the Boston station from Chicago by 9:30 PM, instead- eleven.  Great.  I missed my connection and no more buses or trains would be leaving out towards Portland Maine until the early AM.  This is where the young men and their argument came into play.  They had a ticket they needed to sell, as Portland was not where they intended to go together.  One guy was heading in the opposite direction of his buddy and due to circumstances- they decided it best for the broken hearted one- not to be left alone.  

The ticket seller would not adjust the ticket, refund the money or listen whatsoever to the two young men.  I had nothing more to go on, so I opted not to buy their ticket- matter of fact, it was time I estimated- to just sit and gather my self and the information at hand before I decided to buy any ticket anywhere.

The broken hearted guy was tearful.  But he was very tough so it was exceptionally hard on him to cry or not cry- no emotional in bursts or outbursts no sirree- be tough.  Be a man.  Learn from your friend that you just met at the station- "Your sister won't be here to collect you, man....  I don't know how to tell you this...I'm so sorry.  Your baby died."

That was the argument early on, in front of the escalators, remember?  The heart breaker was giving a message that the heart broken could not, would not bear.   Apparently he had just come out of rehab after several months.  Seems he had a choice back then- jail or get your self dried up.  He chose the latter, but before he left- he hugged his new infant son, made promises to him that his own father never kept in all of his life and went away to get better.   He came home to Boston.  To a new life.  To a cold new beginning.  

I learned that his mother was homeless, raised him mainly homeless, she was a heroine addict or whatever she could get and yet, he loved her and respected her.  

She had no choice.  The father early on made a waste out of her and the son just hung on as the Dad eventually took his own life after inflicting much pain and homelessness on his little follower family.

Yeah...this is a sad story.  Trouble is, it's true.  The heart broken guy, only 17.  The heart breaker friend, a bit older and loyal as anyone I suppose, the heart broken guy had ever known.  

"I don't care about the ticket, you need to go back to Portland."

"No man...I'm not leaving you now.  My sister said she'll come tomorrow to help us.  I'm staying..."

"Why?  What's the point?  I don't want to live.  Why would I want to live now?  I'd jump in that harbor but it's so fucking cold, and I've been cold all my fucking life and I just don't want to end cold..."  And he sobbed then.  He broke.  And I was there.  And all I could do was not break too.

"I'm so sorry, take my hand..."

"What the fuck lady, get away from me...leave me alone, God dammit!"

"Please, accept my hand, I don't know what to do for you...hold it.  Take it, tell me..."

His friend intervened and that is how we sat with him, in between us- just like that.

So- that's the story of how I spent the last night of my journey home.  In a Boston bus station.  Holding a young guys hand.  For several hours.  That's all I could do and it was all the warmth I guess, he could take.  But he let me.  His friend sat on the other side of him, in silence- sometimes he'd look at me and I'd look at him and we knew between the two of us was heaven and hell battling it out in a young- too too young soul.

Did I mention this heart broken guy was beautiful as I had ever seen?  Raw, yes.  Broken, oh my God...  Capable of moving past the instant sorrow on top of the life ladened with it?  I tell you, I just don't know.  I may never know. He held my hand and I held his and that's just about all any of us can do I suppose, in a bus station, in Boston where the marble floors are made to shine but people, homeless, hopeless people- shine just as much with a whole lot less care and attention.

I should have given that young man my number.  I should have said- "Call me, let me know how your life is going...I want to know."

But instead, I left him with this-

"I don't know what to say, I'm sorry.  You don't deserve it.  Listen to your friend, he cares for you.  Don't be alone..."

"What should I do?  What do I do, tell me...."

"The next right thing,"  I said, " And then the next right thing after that."

As vague as that statement was, I could not say to him in all honesty- I don't know.  He may have been hopeless for much and most and maybe all of his life...but, I am not.  And someone I remembered, once said that to me...it didn't seem at the time a loving thing to hear, or even navigational for that matter- but in times of great despair, the truth is all that one can hear- even in simple terms as "the next right thing."  Basic instinct tells us, for survival sake- what the next right thing is that keeps us alive and moving out of harm's way.  That young man was not open to any blatant fairy tale or triumphant message from me or anyone- but he did hear that low down honest one.  He did. 

The next right thing then for me, was to write this story and tell his side.  So maybe, just maybe some day- someone might read it and remember that being indifferent, blind to suffering while we rail against traffic lights and Charlie Sheen's behavior- is not the next right thing.  It's not even close.

  From where I sit, under my stable roof and blue sky above with a fire burning not eight feet away warming me almost too much to the point of being uncomfortable...well, I truly don't know what that is, uncomfortable.  I know hope and beauty and see no reason beyond this moment to ever cry about anything, but instead be oh so grateful that I did not end up in that middle seat.

His name is Steven- he could use our prayers.

Thank you.  Take care-

*I met  Yosl/Joe Kurland on the train from Boston to Chicago...he sang for me in the great shiny hall of Union Station and taught me a bit of Yiddish and stories that perhaps made me more open to that young man in the Boston station.

He reminded me of a saying I had come upon years back-

“It is not your obligation to complete the work [of perfecting the world], but neither are you free to desist [from doing all you can do]…”.

Yosl Kurland

we already are

"It is what it is"

I have been keeping a running journal, farm news, poetry and pictorial life essay going for three years.  There were times I'd just as soon every one would quit looking at me, through me or even to me and then there were times when I found through the keyboard- a clarity that I would have never stopped to reflect upon had I not tapped it out.
Two hundred and seventy four times I have come on here and laid bare a story.  Does it matter to the universe that I do this, write a blog?
  Yes, in a way I think it does.  There have been times when my heart went out to you, when it reached out in order that someone might say- "there there now..."  When it beat excitedly with news about leaves or sprouts, sunrises- moons, mice and men, children and dogs...   Sometimes my heart was breaking, could you hear that too?  True calling is nothing but a toll, a ringing...it has made a difference to me in that as I was changing, growing- hell, going to seed!  I chimed in...that's all.  This blog is the clear sound of my own music, the thing I was made to play.  I'm a little off key at times, a little flat, sometimes shrill- still it is my song you are hearing, the chord I was meant to strike as only I could.
See...I think that we all have a note to play, a chord that can be struck or strummed by no one else but us.  When we become that instrument, it is only then that we can truly sense the true rhythm of this world, of each other, of every thing.
But what do I know really?  I'm just a hayseed, and truly- I'm quite happy simply being a part of it all.  I'm glad I have my place here, though I would definitely share it if someone had the need to join the chorus...when you get right down to it, we all do have that need.   To be a part of it.   Thing is- we already are.  But we all too often silence our own joy, our own belonging when we silence our stories, our songs, our parts...

Just my two cents, thanks for listening.

Take care-


(Two hundred and seventy four dollars will be distributed to my son, his father and a local charity in honor of the anniversary of True Calling.)

in a pickle

Wanda Wood's Secret Elixir

Good morning, it is August already...but for this Illinois girl in Maine- it feels as though it is September... and September is the finest month ever made.
My garden is plum full of beautiful and wonderful and nourishing things...let me take you on a bit of a pictorial journey with me through a bounty day, and what to do, what to do- with it.

One should get a basket, preferably a homemade, recycled or dump picking treasure.  Place it in between the rows, get a feel for what should be included in it's innards.  Hmmmm....the beans are surely do for some dill and new potatoes but I can't pick too many of them just yet, Calais Farmer's Market Food Club members come first in the harvest there.

Then on to the heirlooms, the Italian Romanos or maybe perhaps the lovely Ruby Red Chard, alas- there are lovers out there of the single most reddest leafed vitamin K packed vegetable, no- I won't pick too much this day as there is one lady in line who is quite fond of all that I can grow for her.  With joy, I do.  Maybe I'll just pick a few leaves, for the vibrant colored veins running through it, to dress up some old drab Fordhook Giant type chard, although in it's crinkly, wrinkly way- it shares it's own fortifying beauty.

Oh the cukes...slicers and canners and European long, elegant eaters to boot.  Why yes, I believe it may be the pickers day for cucumbers.  The coolness of them, the shyness too...cucumbers are such bashful veggies in single digits, but let them spread out their vines and their community becomes a chorus of pickles ready for the canner! And it seems the good time has come finally for the dill, the loveliest of herbs to my eyes- to get what's coming to it- big fat pickles adorned with the crowns of mammoth dill heads.

From my far off land of veggie ville, I heard a tinkling...again, and again- what could it be?!  A bee buzzed, Etta was barking at a snake and I came back to reality- the phone was ringing.

"Hello!?"

"Terry, this is Foster- your blueberries are ready."               

"Oh my..."
"You said you'd take two boxes...are you ready for them?"

Blueberries, thought I, new berries to me.  I have never had the honor of dealing with fresh blue orbs of pure Maine...so of course I went to pick them up.  And it was only then, after using a wading pool to sort and wash and pick them all (approx. 40 lbs after all was said and done), that I realized that for three, no...make that four days, on the best of measures- I would not sleep.
I found myself in a pickle.
When it rains it pours, and cucumbers and berries don't mix usually- but for the next several days...well, they just better learn to get along.  I commenced to some serious canning people...two hands, four vegetables, one fruit and farmer's market to boot- I had better just get the old canner out and get to it.

And one must also prep well in advance with the utmost respect for sanitation and stuck caps on the bottom of the seriously hot pot that you cannot pry off, even with the best of hovering preservation angels around...no one can get the cap off the bottom, well- never in good time enough.
(Although canning frustrates me at times, I do not cuss...it is a sacred endeavor and I simply love doing it...labors of love must be handled kindly).  With somewhat neutrally gentle words such as:
"Are you freaking kidding me- shewah!"
"I-I-I-I-eeeeeeee......" that is me howling after waiting over thirty minutes for the jam to jell as it splattered on my, um....bosom.  It hurt like a fruitcake bomb.  (For lack of cussing...)

My highlight of the day, as it is always a highlight when I make

  Wanda Woods top secret cross your heart, stick a needle in your eye, holy-holy zucchini relish recipe. 

 The picture well above is her hand writing, I treasure this recipe as I used to grow, only for Wanda- soft yellow crookneck early summer squash (which truly aren't zukes) and help her can them.  For many years, she shared the relish with me...but never the recipe.  One year, she had to humble herself- which incidentally, she did with more grace and faith than anyone I have ever known or met since- and asked me to help her little independent soul, because she feared she no longer could get the rings on tight enough for proper sanitary canning.  I actually didn't receive the recipe until after she passed...and even then, I had to be a sleuth- first class mind you...and buy her cookbooks from her estate auction.  And inside, in her own hand- were these immortal and everlasting words-

"Real good & good keeper when opened...."

(in her little swirly way she initialed it-W.W)

So, in honor of the redeeming words of Wanda Wood, my blue eyed, blue souled neighbor- I vow to stay open.
(Even to future mass quantities of blackberries and sweet corn, which will probably happen in unison right about the time I should be saying, "AHHHHHHHHH....")


Take care-


(And as a PS~Grandma Hope's Stuffed Mango Peppers were also created, but that goes with me to my deathbed....if you're a Champaign quality kind of person, you might get some as the dearest gift I can give....)

a tale of two soaps

You know, if you think about it...love isn’t really a noun- it’s a verb, an action- and when it takes flight, completely free of any human control, it becomes of itself.  Now I can’t write it like it’s supposed to be said…I get all squirmy.  I guess the point I’m trying to make here- when one expects material diamonds that’s what one may get.  But when one ceases to expect, instead- surrendering, throwing one’s hands up into the air, saying “I just don’t know how this is all suppose to play out,  I give up!”  Somehow, somewhere- it is heard as a prayer, a sincere giving in,  the walls come tumbling down…and all the unexpected diamonds in the rough begin to shine.

Now the trick to keep love flowing and flying is to leave it alone.  To quit poking holes in it with too many questions…very hard for this here over thinker.  What if I don’t expect anniversaries, longevity, even flowers come Sunday- can I live with that?  I don’t know...verb that it is, love keeps me on my toes.

  I chased love across a parking lot the other night, as it became angry- and followed it to bed where it mellowed.  It became talking and laughing and finally- sleeping.  The morning found it curiously seeking a remedy, but none was needed as it became forgiving, simply by letting go and laughing.   Love becomes action if one allows it, I think.  When one tries to commandeer love- like putting a dam up and trying to contain all of it’s goodness in a pool, something of it ceases to flow- stagnating it. 

I started this whole post out completely different from what you’re reading here.  Matter of fact- I wrote the whole column last week, after stepping into the shower and becoming profoundly affected by- two bars of soap.  Isn’t that silly?  I even took a picture as soon as I slipped out of there- those two soaps with significantly different ingredients spoke to me of my relationship with the Big Fish.  And I truly cannot explain what it meant to me to see them there- side by side.

  I only know that I feel something unimagined and for lack of better words- not perfect, but it’s right.  And it flows, on and on, in and out…I don’t know what to make of it, I don’t even know what else to say here…ain’t love grand?  Ain’t it a pain? And soapy and soggy and all too wonderful much of the time, and slow like molasses when I wish it would keep up.  And quiet- like snow sometimes and all in a rage like a thunderstorm too.  Sometimes it’s pale- like an eggshell though sometimes it’s as vivid and bright as a twelve year old’s memory of a candy red new bicycle.  It’s cumulative of all the goodness I’ve ever known- this love does that, bringing back those snippets in heaps. 

With all that felt and said in only the way of a true romantic or an unhinged mind…may everyone who reads this find that simple something in their shower or in that dish they're washing, or in that lumpy, crumpled-up bed that needs made…because love made those messes, not to be tolerated or even obligated by ceremonial oaths- I think that’s just how love lives and beckons us to be- aware of it’s sublimities.  

Enough from me…what do you think? 

Is love something we make up as we go along? 

Is it a verb or a noun? 

Is it something you hold onto or is it best let go…should there be expectations?

(Take care-)

the usual doe

Good morning...I have been too busy with all this moving stuff and getting the house ready to sell. The handyman pushed up his schedule and is painting and such earlier than anticipated so I have been moving furniture and removing things from the wall, cleaning corners that haven't seen a broom in awhile. Oh! Miss Etta is always under foot, she got her little noggin shut in a closet door last night. Her hurt feelings were the worst injury she incurred, although she loves the new spots- she christens each one with a puddle. Fun, fun, fun.

I am not deer hunting this year, not time enough to get ready, I haven't shot my gun all year. My Dad has a beautiful piece of property in Pike County, more big deer than you can shake a stick at. He lives and loves it there. My brother and his family will go, my Uncle Bob too. Good Ol' Grandma, at such and such an age- still manages to be a part of it all. She has seen more carnage than all of us, has heard more dramatic deer tales than an early morning diner on opening day, and has lived this long to still just chuckle and say, "maybe next year." She always managed a "good for you", no matter how small the harvested deer was.

So, it is with a memory's tale that I write today. I have deer hunted since I was a teen. My brother's too. Dad was an operating engineer, winter's weren't hard, just a bit tough when it came to money for buying winter rations. We always had wild game in the freezer, and I had learned as a young girl- how to cook it. We all learned to hunt early on, and even before that- we tagged along, always included- sometimes sitting by silently while Dad took aim. One big man and six little hands would help to drag the deer up and over and through deep ravines to get it home. Carharts and blaze orange was our fashion statement. When I was sixteen or seventeen, I got to feeling too much like a girl and began to take only photos from my tree stand. But then, after my children were born- I began to hear the call of the wild and an empty freezer again, and so I went back to hunting. It was always hard, yes I often teared up when I killed a deer. To this day, I say a "thank you", in an Indian sort of way, for the blessing of the harvest. There is nothing like knowing that the food on the table was harvested honestly, reverently and gratefully.

Once I filled my limit within twenty minutes after sunrise on opening day. A Buck in rut came crashing through some underbrush hot on the heels of a beautiful doe who was having no part of his Buck-love pursuit, he was crazy for her though and made no cautious attempt at hiding it. Twelve points and full of lust, I dropped him and shortly there after, her too. I sat in my stand another twenty minutes or so to make sure that I had cleanly killed them both, leaving them alone for a time to settle down and pass on silently. I found him right where my shell found him, fifty yards up a hill and on the edge of a ravine. I tagged him and marveled at his beauty and size. I remember following the trees and land line that I had followed previously with my eyes from my tree top stand, and found the doe peacefully lying in a Golden Rod bed not forty yards from where the buck laid down. I leaned over to tag her hind leg, no problem- on went the tag. Then I followed up her body, while hovering over her like a wrestler getting ready to make my next move, when...she jumped up and off she ran! I stood there incredulous, all I remember thinking is "how do I explain this to Dad?!" I sat down and waited for her to lay down and die, listening for thrashing and then silence. I never heard it from my listening post. I knew better than to run after her, even close to death a deer will run and run and run some more, and just when you think that every drop of breath left holding on in them had been utilized- they'll surprise you with their survival skills and go on running.

I did not know how I would explain this one back at camp, I had done everything by the book, left her to lay for a good long time, applied the legal notice to the leg where the tag should be adhered and she never even made a whisper.

I remember Dad looking at me like I was mad, and he was even madder because I had not suffered enough, the Deer Hunt. No one fills their limit on opening day, you must sit and wait and freeze and love every minute of it. That's the rule. I explained to Dad that the buck was bigger than I had shot the previous year (rule number 2) and the doe would not leave the vicinity and she was also a bigger than the usual doe. He thought I was lying when I said that I had in fact tagged her, stroked her- made my thanksgiving for her while straddling her still body.

Long story shortened. We found her, following a tiny pin hole blood trail about 150 yards from where she had first begun her last sprint. She was peaceful, she was mine- the tag on the hind leg saying so. It's a good story, a true story...but I imagine they'll tell it this weekend and laugh. They always do. "Imagine if someone would have found that doe miles away, with another hunter's tag!" Dad always questioned my nationality after that escapade, perhaps wondering if they received the wrong baby at the hospital after all.

Happy hunting, take care-

tell your story

Well, here's the deal...I have been keeping something under my hat because, well because I didn't want to think about this too much, didn't want to make myself crazy about the details and what to say and how to dress and be oh so very vulnerable in front of a room of strangers.

Due to an article last year in a big terrific paper, I was asked to speak at a college in Chicago...to tell my story. I received very little instruction, just "tell your story." Hmmmmm...now there's a dilemma, so much to tell, so much history so much beauty, so much sadness. How does one get up in front of a crowd and speak in such a way that snoring does not occur? That the speaker herself does not break down when remembering what brought her to farming, made her decide that life is worth living, is abundant, is ever evolving, changing and one must learn to flow with it. I've gone on TED and watched the speakers, so passionate, so at ease with their material and their audience. I've researched: How to give a lecture...the one telling I liked best was present it like a menu- Appetizers, soups and salads, the main entree, and finally- the desert. Problem is, my menu is realllllly thick- I've got to pare this thing down, by 8:30 a.m no less- not because I've waited until the last moment, but because I hope to teach something today, make a point. I've always had in the back of my mind, like the Coca-Cola song- "I'd like to teach the world to grieve, in perfect harmony...." Boy oh boy, it should be interesting...hopefully to the audience. And I'm taking someone whom I trust to give hand signals, like you're chattering on, and you sound crazy, and hey you're putting them to sleep, and a simple thumbs up when I've said and done the right thing. Well, I'm sure under prepared for this thing, I don't know how to do this properly, so like everything else in my life- I'm just gonna wing it. Let you know if I fly or flop later...take care-