A fisherman has died

I must pause in my quest for a quality life and reflect on a life just finished.  My cousin, Steve "Bavis" Paine, is gone. He was so happy-go-lucky, so well liked in the town of Wellfeet.  He went to Nauset High School in the sixties, smoked a lot of cigarettes, surfed a lot, and rode a horse like a cowboy all over Wellfleet before he got his driver's license.  He could whistle to his horse, Joe, a quarter horse, and Joe would trot over, skid to a stop and lower his head to the ground. Steve would put his leg over Joe's neck, and then Joe would lift his head, Steve would slide down and, presto, was sitting right where he wanted to be on Joe's back. He always rode bareback, a saddle was a bother.

I thought this was something that all riders could do, this was a normal way to get on a horse. I have never seen anyone do it since.

Steve became a fisherman. It was a way to get out of small town Wellfleet and wrestle big-time with Mother Nature, because when you are a fisherman on Cape Cod, you go out on the ocean.  My brother went, too, so the two cousins fished together.  Steve and Bud. Steve and Bud. I was upset that I was a female, I was a young mom, I didn't go have adventures like that. The stories were always good when they got back in, BECAUSE they got back in.  A lot of guys didn't.

And so, this went on for quite awhile, and then Steve's younger brother got into fishing, too, and Bud went fishing in Alaska. So, Steve and Dave fished together, two brothers, on a double ender called the Ocean Bird. A very picturesque boat out of Wellfleet. All the tourists would look down on it at the pier, and remark how neat and well painted the boat was.  Take lots of pictures of it as it came in and went out.  Everyone liked Steve. Everyone liked Dave. Dave was quiet.  Steve was the more outgoing of the two, the extrovert.  Very cheerful and kind. I never heard him say anything bad about anyone. Eventually Dave got a "real" job, with benefits, from the munipality of Wellfleet. Steve had an oyster grant. He got into aquaculture and was out on the flats at every low tide, tending his baby oysters.

He had a girlfriend once.  I remember they were such a couple that I think she got my grandmother's silverware when she died, that's how much of a couple they were. But she left him. He was not going to leave Wellfleet, and she was. That was broken heart number one for Steve. And then, twenty years later, another woman who he loved left Wellfleet, she died.  

A few years ago, Steve had a stroke.  It was quite debilitating.  He slowly came back, he could think, he could talk, he could see. He couldn't walk that well, so he had a wheelchair.  His brother Dave would bring him out to the flats in their truck at low tide so Steve could see Dave working their oyster grant.  Steve was still very concerned about how the oysters were doing, how many could be harvested, how did the restaurants like them. But, he was unhappy.  He had been so physical, and now he wasn't.  Dave quit his job to take care of him. They both lived home with their dad. Their mom died ten years ago, right after mine did.

Steve had another serious stroke and/or heart attack the last week of May.  He was brought to the hospital, where he hung on for awhile, but then he just slipped away. Machines kept him going, all the machines... and  everyone prayed. We prayed that things would come out the way he would want them to. And he passed over on Friday, this past Friday, June 4th.

It's been a week now that the first person in my generation has died. He was only a year older than me.  Our two dads, brothers, are 83 and 90. They are still here. I saw my uncle today, and he is conversing sociably with the people who keep dropping in. But Dave is another story. It's going to take Dave a long long time, and I don't think he'll ever get over it. Steve has two sisters, too, and I saw the three siblings together today. There is a definite hole there, Steve was a big happy cheerful part of their family glue.

So we'll have a memorial down at the breakwater beach on June 19.  I will guess that several hundred people will be there. Too many people to fit in a church, because, Steve was popular, like I said. And he felt uneasy going into a church, God is outside anyway, to be found out at sea, to be found under the big blue sky.  We'll all look at pictures of him and swap stories and sprinkle his ashes in the salt water and have a good time in his name, and then we will go home and miss him. It's very hard to say, but, good-bye, Bavis. You've finally gone and left Wellfleet.

If you had one wish

If someone gave you one wish today, what would it be?  For a few years now, my wish has been to walk pain free.  And today, the wish has materialized.  Yesterday I went to Massachusetts General hospital in Boston, and guided by x-ray cameras, the docs injected my ankle with dye, lidocane and cortisone as a diagnostic test.  Today, still numb.  I love it.

It makes me sad that for so long I have not been able to move around easily, from doing laundry to walking across the yard to the car. Today I feel like I've been deposited into a new body. I know the effects of the procedure, which was diagnostic, will wear off. But today, I could dance. Or walk down a trail. Leave my cane behind. Go up and down the stairs as many times as I want. I can abandon the behaviors developed by being in pain. . . including bracing myself for the pain when my feet first hit the floor in the morning. Today, all cringing muscles relaxed as I realized it did not hurt to cross the bedroom floor. I would not need my cane to make it to the bathroom.  I can probably walk into the post office with my old stride.  Let's dance!

We went to Montana last week to get some work done before this round of medical sessions, which will lead to either total ankle fusion or to amputation.  How wonderful to be there, in spite of April snow and wind storms.  How wonderful my husband was with me to load the wood stove and carry things for me. But I didn't go out to the barn once. I could not walk that far. After the winter of pain that I've had, whatever is best according to the docs is where I will go. 

But right now, today, what should I do?  I have my routine. I am doing laundry.  I have a writing class. It is raining. But,  I think that I should go run a marathon or something this day.  A fairytale, epic day has been given to me. What epic thing will I do?  Walk down the beach, probably.  I have not been able to do that for soooo long.  And maybe will not be able to do it again.

PAIN is so invisible, and yet affects people so strongly.  I know it as changed my personality. I am upset that I have lost so many of the things that I once did so happily.  I fell in love with my husband while we were dancing. But I have not danced once this year.  I fight against becoming a martyr, a couch potato, a person who orders my husband around in a cutting voice, ala Ethan Fromm.  I try to have everything that I will need located next to me when I sit down, so I won't have to drag myself across the floor to answer the phone.  My husband suggest that I crawl around the house.  I would if my knees were not so bad.

Today, he is having a normal day. I kept exclaiming to him as he left for work that I CAN WALK and IT DOES NOT HURT. He had to go. He cannot celebrate with me.  I hope it lasts a for a few days.  I really want to be be me again.  So maybe an ankle fusion, maybe the amputation and new prosthesis.  Whatever it takes, I will say as the pain returns. 

Medications? they do not work.  Neurontin, Lyrica, Codeine. . . they take a little edge off, that's all. I've broken through morphine in my dreams. . . nightmares of doberman pinchers chewing on my leg. I feel so badly for the people who endure pain. I understand suicide. I have fought that off. Many times.

And so, I am getting off this computer, standing up, and walking away. I have things to do, places to go, people to see.  I want to go be me. I do thank you Ellen DeGeneres, for cheering me up most mornings, but I won't be watching you today. You rock, though.

April, Cape Cod

I am here awaiting a medical appointment in Boston. Serious stuff. So, I distract myself with the big wide world around me. I am appreciative of the fact that I am temporarily living (aren't we all?) in a house that is just about a mile from where Henry Beston's Outermost House was. In other words, I am just about as far east as you can get on Cape Cod, and look right out there over the Eastham Nauset beach.

I see the weather coming in off the ocean before the rest of Cape Cod gets it. A fog bank just hovered out there on Saturday, threatening to come in and blanket us away from our sunshine. Big puffs of fog broke off every now and then and floated down the cove, temporarily obscuring the small boats that have begun to putter back and forth.

The fog was cold; it reached out and touched skin to make goosebumps. And then the sun would melt it as if it was some bothersome cotton candy, and it was sunburn weather again. Just Mother Nature, being herself. She can deal out the good cards with the bad, and vice versa.

I scared a rabbit who was having her babies out on the lawn under a bush. She took off running, strewing babies behind her across the lawn. I picked them up with a plastic sandwich bag, so my scent wouldn't cause her to reject them even further, and I put them into the nest from where she had run. I wonder if she'll go back and take care of them. Maybe.

It was in just that one second, when I walked past her hiding place, that changed everything. That's how quick it was.

Cape Cod Nor'Easter, Another One

Picture: the calm before the storm. Weather on Cape Cod now: 6 inches of rain in the past 24 hours, 40 mph winds, 40 degrees F.

And so, my lovelies, I've been sent back to Cape Cod, through a myriad of circumstances that could never have been predicted. But if life was predictable, it would not be life. It would be some pre-programed script. I'll take life.

In the meantime, I am living with one foot in Montana and one foot in Massachusetts, and I'll tell you, this is a pretty wide country. You've heard of left brain, right brain. You've heard of rural vs. urban. You've heard of north vs. south. The differences between Montana and Massachusetts (Cape Cod, specifically) are many, but they are not polar opposites. The culture of the two states is just very, very different.

For Example: You will never find the head of an elk mounted in a supermarket on Cape Cod, or the head of anything mounted. You will simply find the slabs of beef perfectly cut and cello-wrapped in the meat case with nary the head of a cow nearby to connect you to the fact that you will soon be eating a creature. The disconnect allows for all kinds of mis-perceptions.

You won't find anyone on my street in Montana who has outside garbage barrels. No, that would attract the bears. Garbage has to be dropped off at the municipal trash bins almost daily, like you drop off the mail. Otherwise, you'll be cited for attracting and feeding the bears, which creates a dangerous animal, which results (usually) in the death of the bear by Wildlife Control.

When walking in the woods on Cape Cod, there is no need to carry a weapon (read gun or bear spray) as defense against mountain lions or bears (but if you've been tuned in, the coyotes are getting pretty brazen). I won't walk down the Cape Cod bike trail without a big stick now. It looks like a walking cane to you, but it feels like a security stick to me.

Reality is the name of the game in Montana. We could do with a good dose of it here on Cape Cod. Recently a woman in Brewster had to beat off a coyote who attacked her leashed 40 pound dog while on a walk. When are the official warnings going to go out to the new mothers of small children that it is dangerous in the back yards this time of year when the coyotes are desperately hungry? No mention. In fact, Peter Trull, the anointed coyote expert on Cape Cod, was recently quoted in the Cape Codder as saying he had never heard of a coyote attacking a dog on a leash. Where's he been? It's been happening. I know of several people whose dogs were taken by coyotes, both on and off leash. One contractor friend of mine had to go out in a marsh and rescue his Labrador retriever. .. it was being stalked by three coyotes one sunny afternoon, and they were going after the back legs. He rescued his dog just in time. He was able to chase away the coyotes.

Cape Cod: It was only a few years ago that a small child on a back yard swing was attacked, and the father had to beat off the coyote with a two by four board. That was a highly publicized incident that was highlighted on television news. But television news comes and then goes. Where is the general public awareness? What public official on Cape Cod will dare to say openly: coyotes are dangerous. Hey, in Montana, everyone knows that even deer are dangerous. Beyond jumping in front of your car or truck on the highway, they will also gore you during mating season, or just because they are being protective of their territory.

A well know rising star folk singer was recently killed in Canada (Nova Scotia) by two hungry coyotes on a heavily frequented National Park walking trail. She was young and healthy. It was a "rare" attack. But, it happens. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/29/canada.singer.killed/index.html

And so, as I sit here in this blow of a Nor'easter that's been shaking the house and drenching the yard, I watch the German shepherd sized coyote trot over the front lawn, sniffing the rabbit trail that leads (yes, it does) to the brier patch in front of the house. I know what it can do. But, do you? Do you keep your toddlers safe? Do you let your cats out? Do you let your dogs out without you? We are not just living with wild animals in our backyards, we are living with predators in our backyards. Predator: must kill to eat. Reality. Attention must be paid.

Turkey Teamwork

Bigfork, Montana- This just in. . .turkeys are actually intelligent. I know we might not want to consider this possibility as we are about to devour millions of them, but for several weeks now I have been watching wild turkeys take turns knocking apples for each other out of the apple tree in my back yard. The hen that flies up to fan her tail and thus knock the fruit down does not eat right away, and she may not eat at all if the horses run down and chase away the turkeys. Two hefty toms have been shot by hunters, but this flock of hens and their yearling chicks is doing quite well without them, sharing and eating, and feeding the deer as well.

Turkeys can fly straight up into the air, which they do every night to roost high in trees to sleep. I only wish I had been able to get better footage of them this day, and I'll keep on trying. But just know that the reasons Ben Franklin tried so hard for the turkey to be the national bird, rather than our eagle, are plenty: Turkeys are gleaners and do not eat meat. They do not have to kill in order to survive. They work together for the good of the flock. And they take care of each other. As you eat turkey for Thanksgiving, as I will, you should know the bird is the perfect symbol of living in harmony without inflicting harm on any other living thing, except maybe bugs.

Spontaneous Peace Painting

This fall I finished a visual "doodle" that started out as black and white, and then I colored it with oils, as happy as a kid with a coloring book. My husband took a look at it and said, "Don't be going religious on me." I said, "Don't worry."

I am, after all, a recovering Catholic, and a recovering Born-again Christian. An intense four year double major of religion and psychology (taken up in my early thirties) revealed the myths, misconceptions, falsehoods and rigidities of the major world religions. I surmised that to blindly accept a religious belief without looking to the origins and history of that belief is to relinquish your life energy without being fully informed. Do I believe in a higher power? Yes. Do I believe that a person must follow a specific creed or religious framework? No. We all have light within us.

To quote French philosopher and priest Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience."

This painting is the result of the artistic doodling of my mind's eye, and even I am surprised: A holy mother with a white streak in her hair, any age, sitting cross-legged. From. .. any continent, any culture, wearing pants. My ten year old granddaughter painted her mouth.

You know, we are all holy, we all have the spirit of life within us; we can use that well or abuse it. We can enlarge it or waste it. We can be inclusive or be judgemental and full of hatred. We can flash our positive energy in a situation, or we can raise havoc. Enough of the havoc. Imagine PEACE breaking out all over the world, all over your country, all over your state, all over your town, all over your home. Let's charge up the light from inside us and let that energy touch the situations and people in our lives. Illumination.

My favorite concept from Teilhard de Chardin (and talk about renewable energy, WE are it!) "Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and for the second time in the history of the world, man(kind) will have discovered fire." Let your self shine. Peace.

No saddle, No bit

I am sooooo proud of Granddaughter Nita, who has sweat her way in full gear through many summer riding lessons in 95 degree heat. She can now sit on a horse so well. Here she is, no bit, no saddle, on the amazing 22-year old reining grand champion, Chita, the new addition to our little horse herd.

There are three stages in asking a horse to do something: Ask, Tell, Command. (Presidents have employed this model, as have mothers and bosses.)

You usually have to Ask once with Chita, but since he's making decisions every minute, sometimes you have to Tell him. Nita and Chita are flowing right along together. It's so good to see!