Sep
15
Monarch month
Monarch month
September 2010
Sep
12
Last Day on Monhegan – Sally Woolf-Wade
LAST DAY ON MONHEGAN
Columbus Day, 2002
The mist dribbles down, heavy with salt
stirred around by wind from the East
scooped up from spray on White Head, Black,
Burnt Head and Lobster Cove.
Surf explodes skyhigh like geysers
with shuddering, thunderous terror.
A child and her father run down the road
in haste to board the Elizabeth Ann
the girl’s yellow poncho behind her
like butterfly wings catching the wind.
A fog curtain descends between us
and the mainland
the final day of the visitors’ season.
The island heaves a sigh of relief.
Sally Woolf-Wade
.
Sep
09
Monhegan Farewell
Labor Day 2010 has just past. And as often observed, there has been a change in the air as the temperatures have dropped following whatever was of Hurricane Earl. For the Raquel (Ricki) and Peter Boehmer family, a seismic change beyond that of the air has descended upon us. After our marvelous Monhegan years, we no longer have a residence on the Island; we’ve very happily sold our Lobster Cove home to Emily Morse!
I, Raquel, find that I want to post some sort of a goodby and a thank you. And I’m discovering that this is very difficult to frame in words – my feelings are emotional and therefore, invisible and hopelessly ephemeral. But I still want to give a try. After all, I have lived more than half my lifetime on the place that I felt one with – and now find myself constructing new routines, living elsewhere.
For those who don’t know us, we decided to move ashore (Falmouth, ME) for reasons that were based upon family health, seven years ago. ‘Tho the focus of health has shifted to now include more of “us”, we know that we made a proper decision. So, the house that Peter built for us went up for sale, and we have moved off Monhegan. Impossible to have once considered – I had envisioned myself being taken off in a wooden box!
Our children, their spouses and families are well and also chose to live elsewhere. None of us will ever have the memories and effects of island living taken from us. Those seasonal rhythms, persons and experiences that entered into our hearts and minds are there for always. In fact, to a large measure, those influences were the foundry where their/our present characters and strengths were shaped.
Personally, I have had my life deeply enriched by the people we lived with, ran across, or invited to visit and experience Monhegan. And when it came to health issues, there has never been a locale that could so support and encourage one back into better health and with a constructive attitude. Never. I do thank you all as you have been the wings that held me up – all too often, I’m afraid. But you were there. You are not to be forgotten. You were elements that helped shape the islandness that we were privileged to share for those many years. I shout: hooray, thank you and glory.
Asking for a mantle of blessings over each, I add my loving appreciation.
Raquel and family
Sep
09
Just passing through
| Just passing through
For more than three decades I identified with Monhegan Island. Even to the point of claiming “peter at monhegan” as my e-mail address. The fact is that Peter is no longer at Monhegan. We’ve all shed as many identities as our lobsters have shed their shells.
When our family moved onto the Island, I had not fully shed the shell that brought us there. I knew that my current shell was not working for me but did not have the courage to accept the vulnerability shedding required. Shortly after moving on, an Islander told me that he observed the ease with which we moved on, and predicted that if things did not suit us just right, we would move off with the same ease. Well, it took ten years for my inshore shell to shed. It did when I realized that there were things about the Island that did not “suit me just right”, I was damned if we would move off. Well, life on the Island bumped along for the next two and a half decades when we were called off the Island to attend to some family needs. For two years we continued to identify with Monhegan, keeping that shell firmly in place. It’s been an additional two years and that shell is mostly off. Sure there are bits and pieces of it lying about, like buildings on the Island that once I worked on and now are held together by other hands. The New Monhegan Press is in different hands and taken on shell of its own. Or Monhegan Commons, www.monhegan.com that I still update daily or the e-mail address, but with every change of tide those bits of shells get thinner and more fragile. Life on Monhegan was good to me and my family. Of course I like to imagine that we had become part of that Island. But that was a time that is not now, a different tide. All of us passing though Monhegan are affected by that Island and so we affect the Island. Yet both effects are written on the sand at mid tide and are soon lost to the incoming tide. The last time I was on the Island, in “our home”, which is very much the same as it was when we resided there, it was different. The spirit (our spirit) was not there. Oh, it was nice enough, but it was not much more than a summer rental to me. The shedding of Monhegan is a liberating experience for me. Giving it up, is more like giving it back – even though it was never mine to have or give. I rejoice at the next generation’s “take over” of the Island and wish them well. It is good to leave as friends, as leave we must in any case. Peter Boehmer peter at monhegan dot com |
Sep
06
A Walk on Monhegan – George Anthony
A Walk on Monhegan: an Excerpt
The path opens to tote road
leaving wood-dusk with the sweet
odors of fir balsam
and skunk cabbage.
A wood-cock churrs.
The village is washed and fragrant
(fresh home-made bread and butter
in the garden)
The morning-glories and the lady
of the morning glory,
the loping young man
in floppy rubber boots share
no emotion he can share
no thought except themselves except
themselves they share
opening like the open air,
pleasing him by knowing his name.
The brown-haired girl
(as the hair rumples down
sunlight brushes gold)
grows to a daughter as she turns
her head to look,
her smile to answer.
George Anthony
from The Road to Deadman Cove.
Reprinted by permission.
