Summer vacation

Though you can keep pretty late hours here I like morning best.

"Nightlife" is pretty much contained to the restaurant by the water for summer people, the tavern in town for the locals and old salts, the bar at the yacht club or most often a late night boat cruise or discussions into the early morning hours in someone's living room. My first night here we went to an island and had a late night fire on the beach and I don't think I got to bed until after 3 a.m. Compared to others, even after a week here, I am still (disappointingly to my brother in law), an 'early bird.'

In the morning, from my perch on the second floor, you can look over the harbor and get a sense for the day. Earlier in the week, warm, sunny skies and a nice breeze. Yesterday, chilly and rainy and we wore jeans and fleeces and made a fire yesterday afternoon. Last night we had a pink mackerel sky so the morning is still and quiet. The water is like glass, and the sky is cloudy though clear, with the sense of sun behind clouds that will burn off in the afternoon. You can hear birds calling to one another and the occasional noise of a car or people walking on the sidewalk discussing where they might have breakfast in town (one of two places, and at one you can sign for your coffee and meal on your account).

Unlike being in a city, where you can operate under the delusion of 'controling your environment', here you feel very close to weather, and work with it vs. against it.

You realize it is so much bigger than you are.

Once a couple years ago my friend Paul in New York asked me if 'You dress for dinner there', perhaps thinking this place is a bit more like Jobs Lane than the two street, no stoplight village it is.

I remember laughing and shaking my head no, thinking of the first time I came to visit everyone here, several years ago, and the hour ride from the airport with my sister and her father in law. "We don't shower here," was one of the first things he said to me, welcoming committee style, and went on about the well for three houses while I was taking it all in. My sister turned around in the front seat and gave me a look and said, "You can shower," but then Danny added, "But we don't use much water!"

Jason has commented that this is like "adult camp" and in many ways it is. It's also beloved by the generations of kids, cousins and grandparents, many of whom also came here as kids including my brother in law and Stacy.

The other day when my sister and I were watching an evening race she said, "Do you remember telling everyone last night you were a professional photographer?" "Hmm," I mused. "I usually tell people I am a professional smoothie maker" though feel very far away from exotic fruits and antioxidants right now. I admit the setting here is so simple and stunning that perhaps my photos are a result of that and not the photographer...

I did look at a few of the people photos we snapped that evening, and while we had a great night, looking at the photos the morning after, no one exactly looks like they will win a beauty contest. A little greasy, a little rumpled, some hat hair, wearing slightly damp clothes from the ride to the boat house. Definitely a lack of 'hair and makeup.'

Yet, big smiles and clear eyes, on every one.

Northern Exposure

A front came in last night and one of the boats got loose from a mooring. The babysitter saw it and called and the guys ran back to the house on a search and rescue mission.

Some places you travel to you still feel very connected to your life back home. Here, in a small historical seaside village (that I am not allowed to name), connections slip away for a suspended period of time and a loose boat, boating to an island for a lobster bake, an upcoming cocktail party or just enjoying a great book by the fire becomes your new reality. "Playing" and "relaxing" and "enjoying your family and friends" becomes what's most essential.

Of course the trick is to remember, post holiday, that they still should be.

Up North

A friend from San Francisco was in town the other day and we never made it to dinner as he and spent nearly five hours on the roof! Part of the appeal (outside of the harbor breeze when you're undergoing a 90 degree plus heat wave), is the perspective that Manhattan looks quiet and empty and the harbor feels full of life. Tides, river current, boats, barges, ferries, river taxis, helicopters, poetry in motion.

In Michigan, where I grew up, the big city dwellers from Detroit and other cities in Southern Michigan would travel "Up North" to lake cottages on weekends and holidays.

Nova Scotia always feels "Up North" to me, as city life melts away and rocky coastlines, the Northern Atlantic, tales of pirate ships and past battles and adventure, northern trees and an enormous dark sky carpeted with stars shifts your perspective.

Happy Friday everyone.

Yes

On an earlier post I mentioned a story I once heard in "The Compleat Beatles" documentary about how John Lennon first met Yoko Ono. John Lennon is in an art gallery in London and there's a white ladder in the exhibit. He climbs the ladder and looks through a magnifying glass to discover blocked letters under a framed sheet of glass that simply says "Yes." In the documentary, John Lennon mentions how positive and powerful it was to read that word. Yoko Ono is the artist behind the exhibit, and of course the rest is history...

Witnessing a 'yes' is pretty powerful stuff. Last night I saw a friend of mine who had just come from a job interview, and had 'yes' all over her face! She's been at her job for several years, and has been interviewing (and received job offers) for a few months. The most recent one she turned down was, on the surface, an exciting, prestigious and glamorous sounding opportunity. However, she really felt unsettled about it.

It takes courage to say no to something that, to others, seems like the natural next step. And when you're slogging through the tundra of vague 'Just doesn't feel right' and the many in between days of change, you just start to question yourself, and possibly lose faith in big doors really opening. You begin to wonder if listening to your heart is really such a wise thing to do after all as you stare into the abyss.

Amazing how the months of 'no' turns around in an instant when you finally recognize the yes!

Chillaxin'

On Saturday I fly north to Nova Scotia for a week, though I'm sure my family won't want me to write about it. No one wants it to be 'discovered'. It is a very special place.

Last year over 4th of July weekend I was talking to my friend Greta about the urge I kept feeling to relocate to New York. (I was against it). I said, "Maybe I'll postpone the decision until after I go to Chester in August?" Greta replied, "Oh, you're going to spend a week with your family and then decide whether or not you want to move back East to be closer to everyone?"

So last year, vacation was followed by a trip to New York to find an apartment, then relocation in late September. In 'down time', I wasn't reading or talking with friends there or taking a nap, I was online, looking at real estate listings. My shoulders felt very tight from stress for six weeks straight.

This year it is a pleasure not be be moving. My friend Dave often said "What's the highest, best use of your time?" Well sometimes it is taking a pause, a balancing break, to chillax.

Boat to an island for a Sunday picnic. Smell the North Atlantic. Look for sea glass. Put rocky stones on your legs with the sun warming your back.

Liberation

My friend Jennifer emailed a few days ago saying she was "liberated" from her job, as they were cost cutting the most senior level positions...hmm, always a wise move (!). When I talked to her she sounded really good because she received a nice severance through the summer, and she was pretty miserable there. She wanted to leave.

"Liberation" was the term that our friend and former colleague Dave used to say about layoffs, which would always make us laugh, though in a single swoop, shift the focus from lack and regret to freedom and opportunity.

Dave was highly skilled in "less talk, more action" and would frequently get impatient with a lot of chatter and what he called talkie talk and meetings to have meetings. This was a guy who would mandate one word statuses on accounts to really make you think about what the 'status' was, and get to the heart of the matter -- "Muddled." "Tailspin." "Political." "TV." "Beer" (he ran spirits accounts) -- or propose things like having status meetings without chairs.

Though I am not sure I truly appreciated it at the time, he was operating on his own plane, and frequently impatient with idle chat among us mere mortals. "Talking about a revolution" he would say, echoing the Fab Four -- but not squaring their shoulders, raising the bar, grabbing the bull by its horns and ready to leap to the next adventure as adeptly as he always did.

It's been my experience that liberation from anything - job, relationship, home, any type of major change - comes with an ample amount of being slightly freaked out, walking the tight rope of faith and trying not looking down. When I was in the midst of relocating from California, I remember that feeling of just trying to move forward, sometimes one baby step at a time, trying to keep a brave face but completely a wreck on the inside. After a long day of logistics, I had gone out to a wine bar with Christa, a former Sambazon colleague, and she said "Are you so excited to be moving to New York?" and I just looked at her, "excitement" being the last thing I was feeling. She said, "Just walk through the door." And eventually I did.

I sold my car yesterday -- and went from what I thought would feel like liberation and instead felt pretty empty, as I returned home with the CDs that were in my car that I always loved listening to, smelling the ocean breeze while on the Coast highway, and to and from LA on the 405. Several Sambazon CDs, The Fraulein Mix, and the original California mix that Dave sent to me in 2004 with the one word "Welcome." I felt like I was letting go of California all over again.

Christa and I had been out of touch for several months - she's now down in Peru running a yoga practice for 6 months - though she had reached out this week to say hello and I had reminded her of her "Walk through the door" wisdom. She replied yesterday "I think we walk through doors every day."

"We're going to the future, people, are you coming??" Dave would say, clapping his hands impatiently.

One day, I will learn to run through doors.

4th of July

I spent 4^th of July weekend at Stacy and Jason’s beach house, with a handful of the people I love most in the world. Not everyone in the tribe, but enough to make me pause a few times in the weekend and look around and whisper a quiet ‘thank you’.

During the six years I lived in California I thought a lot about this house. Stacy has a collection of framed photo collages downstairs from the many faces of family and friends staying at the house through the years. The many moments frozen by photos, and great memories. Lots of laughter and joy within the walls.

Lots of play.

On Independence Day we saw the most spectacular fireworks display, that was being shot off on a driving range maybe 300 yards from where we sat, exploding in the air right overhead, to Neil Diamond music in the background (sounds funny, I know, but it was great).

Someone commented that it reminded us of the ending scene in “Meet Joe Black” where there is an elaborate fireworks display for Bill Parish, Anthony Hopkins’ character's, 70^th birthday. Bill Parish is a very good man and his birthday was being celebrated by the hundreds of family and friends that loved him. Joe Black, Brad Pitt’s character, is “Death” who comes to earth to spend time with Bill Parish, to try to understand why life was so important that Bill wanted to stay for a few more days.

When it becomes time for Bill Parish to leave with Joe Black, the two of them look at the people, and the fireworks overhead. Joe Black finally begins to understand that the meaning of life isn't what happens to people...it's what happens between people.

"It's hard to let go," Bill Parish says to Joe Black.

"Yes it is Bill," Joe Black replies.

“And that's life," Bill Parish replies. "What can I tell you."

Yesterday afternoon we went for a boat ride, enjoying the last few hours of the weekend. Connor and Carly went for a ride, and later on Stacy and I kayaked from the boat back to the dock.

Nearing the dock, we looked to the side and saw a family of swans taking their cygnets out for a late afternoon cruise as well. I suddenly thought of Sam, the little boy in "Trumpet of the Swan", who first spies the swan family, and realizes what a special moment it is, as its happening.

I had that feeling as well.