Need to Know

One of the scenes I remember most from the movie Dances With Wolves was when Dunbar is on his way west and he and his guide stumble across the bones of a pioneer woman with an arrow tangled among them. "Someone at home is saying, 'Now why don't she write?'" the guide laughs irreverently. Of course, later he meets the same fate.

When I was a kid, we would go back to visit my father's home town every year or so. A small hamlet in upstate New York, not many people left there, and he was greeted as a prodigal son every time he returned. I have clear memories of sitting around kitchen tables or in front rooms on sofas that felt too hard and springy from lack of use, drinking soda and listening to a litany of marriages, births, and deaths, as his kin folk and neighbors welcomed him back by catching him up. It seemed like everyone knew everything about everyone else, and that knowledge was essential to their community.

I've spent more time than usual on facebook the last few days, mostly because of the storm-- I had time on my hands and an interest in how my local friends were faring in the snow. In the last few months, I've gotten back in touch with people who only a few years ago were lost to me forever. As over-documented as these fb reunions are, the experience still amazes me.

I wonder, though,  how these reconnections should fit into one's life. Does it lessen their value that in most cases the so glad to hear from you after all these years is about the extent of our contact? One of my long-lost friends posed a question on her wall: "What is the relative attraction of Facebook when compared to Twitter, e-mail, or phone calls?"

And a friend of hers replied: "I consider it my daily newspaper about people I know."

I agree with him. It helps us to maintain the knowledge that is essential to our community and it keeps us from asking, Now why don't she write?

Psychic Sister Network

My sister and I have some sort of connection that doesn't seem lessened by time or distance. Here's a minor example:

When I got up this morning, I read the paper, checked my email, played on the internet, and at one point landed on the NYTimes food section. I'm not a regular reader, but Mark Bittman had a recipe for whole wheat muffins; well, it was more of a technique (watch the video-- it's worth it): a basic method with lots of options, and intrigued, I decided to take advantage of my snow day and throw together a half dozen muffins. A little while later, my sister called from Atlanta to see how we were holding up through the blizzard. I told her about the muffins. "How were they?" she asked. "I printed out that recipe this morning."

Wild Kingdom

Walking the dog this afternoon through still treacherously icy-slushy streets, my attention was drawn up. A huge blue jay was squawking and jumping from limb to limb at the top of a tall tree. I paused to see what the fuss was about, and watched as the jay tried again and again to break into a squirrel's nest up there. No sign of the squirrel, and eventually the bird flew off, cranky and still screeching. Jays are in the corvidae family, related to crows, and the incident reminded me of something that happened a few years ago.

I rose before dawn, as usual, to get ready for school, but stopped by the window at the top of the stairs, my attention drawn by a huge racket on the lawn below. In the gray morning light, a crow and a squirrel were in a stand off, both screaming. The crow's voice was a deep and resonate aaw aaw aaw and the squirrel was a lot more buzzy and nasal, anh anh anh. They circled each other on the ground beneath a tall oak tree, and as I stared, absorbed in the drama, I noticed something dark about the size of a pine cone between them.

When the thing squirmed feebly, the crow leapt forward slashing its beak at it, but the squirrel, too, dashed toward the tiny creature and picked it up by the nape of its neck-- it was her baby, fallen from the knot of dry leaves that was her nest 40 feet above. The crow stretched its wings and flew in fury at the squirrel, but she anticipated, and dodging its talons, raced to the tree trunk.

With what must have been super-species strength, she climbed steadily, but without that customary squirrel speed, carrying her young one. The crow was not to be deprived so easily; it dove again and again at her, still calling loudly, and two other crows flew to see what the ruckus was all about. One landed in the branch that she had to use to enter the nest, but she did not pause. She barreled into the black bird, knocking it back, and darted to safety, leaving the crows circling and shrieking in rage and frustration.

Snow Report

We took a walk around the neighborhood today. There is a lot of snow out there, so much so that plows are not enough: bulldozers and diggers are on the job moving mini-mountains from place to place. That's part of the problem with digging out around here, it's so rare that we get this amount of snow that there's nowhere to put it. A neighbor of ours patiently moved the 4x6x2 foot pile of snow from the front of her car to the back with a dustpan. She turned down offers of help with a cheery, "No thanks! I'm planning on being here for a while."

Blue skies and sunshine made it feel more like Vail or St. Moritz than our home town. We walked about in our parkas and sunglasses on trails of packed powder. Despite the sun, it stayed cold today, so there was very little melting, and the snow is still awfully pretty-- it was doing that glittery, glistening thing, not at all slushy and dirty in any but the most well-traveled of places.

It seems like the major victims of this storm were pine trees. Fast growing, they are a favorite of landscapers to provide a quick screen and some evergreen shade, but their soft wood makes them vulnerable to heavy snow, and we saw many of them bowed and broken.

Such weather only comes our way every 7 years or so, and since school is already canceled for tomorrow and another storm is on the way, I plan to enjoy it while it lasts.

Another Snow Day

The storm yesterday reminded me of another snowstorm a couple of years ago. In January of 2008, I traveled with a friend and colleague to Maine to spend a week observing at Nancie Atwell's school, The Center for Teaching and Learning. We arrived in Edgecomb on Sunday night, just ahead of a major Nor'easter, but we weren't concerned. My friend had had the foresight to rent a four wheel drive vehicle, and plus, this was Maine, we shrugged, surely they knew how to handle whatever snow there would be.

The next morning my cell phone rang. "This is Nancie Atwell," the voice on the line said. "Is this Tracey?" After getting over the initial shock of actually having Nancie Atwell herself call me, I realized that she was telling me that school was canceled that day because of the weather. She arranged to meet us for a couple of hours that morning anyway to go over the rest of the week. I couldn't decide if I was disappointed, relieved, or exultant... the joy of a Snow Day is a powerful thing.

At 10 AM when we left CTL, after having met Nancie and seen her school, the snow was falling fast. Faced with an unexpected free day, we set off in the storm in search of a late breakfast. The roads were terrible, but my friend navigated them admirably, and before too long we found ourselves on a nearly deserted Main Street in Damariscotta. A restaurant called The Breakfast Place seemed just right, and we parked in front and made our way inside. A cheerful group of rather grizzly Mainers was leaving as we came in, and those gentleman gave us a thumbs up as they passed.

Inside, we were the only customers, and the waitress led us to a table in the back that looked out over the water. Lobster boats bobbed on anchor buoys in the snow. I ordered a poached egg and crab cake on a homemade English muffin with coffee. There were Trivial Pursuit cards on the table, and we took turns quizzing each other until our breakfast arrived. The food was good, and our conversation wandered to books; my friend recounted the entire plot of Walk Two Moons right up until the end. There she paused. "Do you want to know what happens?" she asked, and I nodded, completely charmed by the story, by the setting, by the food, and by the company.

Back at our hotel, we spent the rest of our day talking about Atwell and her school and about teaching and teaching writing as the snow piled up and up. I didn't feel trapped at all-- the promise of the week ahead seemed as boundless as the expanse of drifts outside the sliding glass door and as long as the icicles that formed drip by drip on the overhang that sheltered it. And it was a good week, a great week, really, but in the end, my favorite part of it was the snow day.

Lotta Lotta Snow, Man!

Well, as promised, our area got a major winter storm. Unofficially, we have a couple of feet out there, and we've taken full advantage of it so far... we watched a so-bad-it-was-good movie on cable (in the middle of the day!), went snowshoeing through the neighborhood, let the dog play off-leash because there wasn't any traffic anyway, baked cookies (two kinds), had a fire all day long, and started a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. We have not picked up the shovels yet, but there's always tomorrow for that.

Turns Out, It Was the Cable Guy

My internet service has been restored just in time-- a historic snow storm has been predicted to wallop this neck of the woods, a storm that promises to have all of us housebound for quite a while. Here at our place, we have all the provisions we need to be more than comfortable during the snow: books, food, and firewood, but I have to be honest: it would have really sucked not to have the internet. That's the lesson I learned this week.