Friday, February 25, 2011

getting away

After all the snow we had in East Boothbay, perfect for X-C skiing and snowshoeing even on West Harbor Lake, - it was time for me to "get away." So I've come back to California, to my part of California anyway, for a month. I get to rent a place from friends in Carmel, a cozy cottage with a gas fireplace for when it rains, which it is doing right now. It is even supposed to snow here tonight. Oh, well. It won't last long, and it does turn the hills electric green. In Vermont, we called this kind of snow, "Poor Man's Manure."
The news from East Boothbay, though, is not so good. A good friend and neighbor has inoperable cancer, and will be returning home from Boston before I get back. She was hoping to read the lessons on Easter Sunday this year. I hope she makes it.
"Getting away" is what we do in Maine in winter. Some go south as "snowbirds;" I like to go West although we have no name for this yet. Even those who stay, and they are a rugged and tough bunch who make a good deal of fun of us who get away, get away to friends' and neighbors' houses more in the winter than in the summer. There is work to be done in the summer, less in winter, and people see more of each other in January than in June.
I do not mean to run away from all my new friends by "getting away," I am instead running back to my old friends, just for a month, to an old life which was fulfilling and happy, too. I work at Point Lobos State Park, doing history walks, and paint with great old friends and artists. I go to an annual scholarship auction at Cal State Monterey Bay. I visit and walk along the beaches here.
It reminds me of old times, happy times, and gives me a larger perspective on my new home in Maine. Hopefully when I get back, the snow will be gone and the forsythia will start blooming. Although I am not counting on it. I was counting on no snow in Carmel and here it is.