October 7: Ducktrap Harbor

One of my favorite local spots is a small town park at the tip of Howe Point, which ends at the mouth of the Ducktrap River in Lincolnville. When I was a kid, I'd come with my family to this cobble beach to pick mussels, look for crabs under the rocks, and swim in the deep waters of the river channel, jumping in and letting the tide pull me into the ocean. This was also a high school hangout, where we congregated on weekend nights, shivering as we stood around in the dark sipping cans of Bud. And it's still a place I like to come with a beach chair and a book on a free summer morning. Or this time of year, to enjoy the quiet and my memories while observing migrating waterfowl.

This morning I had the place all to myself: high tide, sun dazzling the beach, harbor dotted with ducks. I counted 54 red-breasted mergansers scattered on the harbor, as well as two green-winged teals very close to shore on the river side of the point. The green speculum on the teals' wings flashed a brilliant emerald in the morning light. A ring-billed gull squealed from the shore, as a young double-crested cormorant repeatedly dove in the river channel, bringing up small fish. A crow flew into the tree over my head, silent; two more flew low over the stones further up the beach, looking for something, anything.

View to the harbor, with Islesboro a dark line on the horizon

Sun-dazzled harbor--
ten minutes here watching ducks
sets the whole day's tone.

October 6: First Frost

When I went out to my car for an early morning meeting, running late as usual, I was delayed even further by the unexpected task of having to scrape frost off my car windows. The lush, mown lawns in my neighborhood bore a pale sheen of frost, and the morning air felt frigid to my thin skin. Thankfully, I'd brought my geranium in the night before. Friends are scrambling to harvest one last round of vegetables, as another freeze is due tonight. And still the leaves remain on the trees, green, barely touched by color. They must know something we don't. I'm ready to haul out my Uggs and call it winter, but then I hear rumors that this weekend it's supposed to get back up into the 70s. Ah, the joys of living in Maine amid its vagaries of weather.

Before sunrise, frost--
but not yet on the pumpkin
freshly picked, uncarved.

October 5: Leaf

A moment of beauty amid the mundane: I've just parked my car in downtown Camden, and I'm scooting around to the passenger side door so I can get out my registration and insurance card to register my car at the town office across the street. As I open the door, I notice a single, perfect, bright yellow leaf on the sidewalk,  a composite of five leaflets on one twig. The parent tree, an ash, immediately recognizable by its straight, grooved trunk, shades the village green. It's probably been there for a century or so. The leaf I find is the only yellow one visible, the only one fallen--the rest of the foliage in sight is still green and on the boughs. So I pick up the leaf offering and stash it on the front seat. Later, when I'm done with my errands and back in the car, the sight of it makes me smile.

Why this leaf fallen
when the park is still so green?
Hint of things to come...

In light of this moment and then the news tonight of the death of Steve Jobs, 56, founder of Apple, I got to thinking about mortality. A dear friend unexpectedly passed away a couple of weeks ago (he was barely older than Steve Jobs), and this quotation attributed to Steve Jobs that was going around Facebook tonight spoke to me like that single ash leaf:
‎"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose." - Steve Jobs in 2005 after being diagnosed with cancer

October 4: First Tree

There's a maple tree outside my office window that's always the first to turn in fall. Today it caught my eye, the reddening leaves glistening in the rain. It's the only tree in sight that's changed color to that extent, and the vivid red is so flamboyant that it's as if the tree is showing off. Maybe that's why it's always first, because it wants to be sure to be noticed before all the other trees join suit.

Even one red tree
turns the whole forest to fall.
Who can look away?

October 3: Texture

When I left work this evening the blue sky above the rim of trees was ribbed with clouds. I was reminded of fashion magazines touting texture for fall styles: tweeds, bulky knit sweaters, wide wale corduroy, suede, and faux fur. Here we've got poufy clouds contrasting with the thin rippling lines of those ribs. The sky trying on its fall fashions, with just a flash of blue. No reds, oranges, or yellows yet.

When I left the gym later this evening, most of the sky had cleared, but Mount Battie wore a cap of thick mist.

Sky's a ribbed sweater
and mountain wears a cloud cap--
visual comfort.

October 2: Return

After nearly two weeks away on an island I'm back home, slowly acclimatizing to "regular life" again. The dreary rain suits my mood.

I sleep in late, rise
to the sound of rain, not waves,
my head full of mist.

October 1: Trap Day

The lobstering season on Monhegan Island, where I've been hanging out for nearly two weeks, begins October 1. Monhegan lobster fishermen, of which there are nine boat captains (including two women), traditionally fish through the winter in hopes of getting a better price for their lobsters. (It also leaves their summers free to pursue other fish or other jobs.) So Saturday morning the boats all started out from the harbor laden with traps, undaunted by a pre-dawn thunderstorm and thick mist. Even from my inn I could hear the cheering from the wharf as the boats chugged out into the fog to set their 300 traps in precise locations on the ocean's floor.

It's hard to watch them go and not try to imagine what that must be like in January, hauling traps out of 45-degree water with freezing spray blowing across your bow. It's a life of hard work but a certain freedom--the ocean is your office. Or, at least the bit of ocean that surrounds the island in which the Monhegan lobster fishermen have exclusive fishing rights.

The wharf on Trap Day

Leaving the island on Trap Day is a bit daunting, as the "ferry" boats pull up to the same wharf as the fishing boats. A fishing boat can only hold so many traps at a time, so the remaining traps sit on the wharf until the boat returns to re-load. So boats are re-loading most of the morning, with the ferry having to grab a few minutes between them to get passengers and luggage on board. Passengers are funneled on board through walls of traps, while the wharf and harbor bustle around them--the true way of island life revived for another season.

Everyone chips in:

drag a trap, play some music.

This is island life.