The Adirondacks, Halloween, and a Little Boat
Bonjour tout le monde,
On rare occasions there are moments so engaging and full that when I reflect on the experience of them, I can't imagine that whatever it is I'm doing could actually end. Growing up commercial fishing felt like that much of the time. Admittedly, in the case of fishing it was the discomfort that most often created such a feeling. There was one summer in my late teens when the pounds of salmon we caught were so great, and we were fishing so regularly, that we'd gone without enough sleep, with little food, and with radical physical strain for about two weeks. We were verging on total exhaustion and had to keep pulling out fish anyway. On our way to checking the net for salmon, I would ride in the middle of the skiff watching the bow of the boat turn and hop against the horizon as we rode down the river. Feeling the waves gush and slam against the boat's hull below my feet, it felt as though the entirety of my life would be stuck there in that total discomfort. To cope I came up with a mantra I'd repeat to myself over and over again. "Every moment lasts forever and then passes into the next." Looking back it's a strange little device to use for solace--the idea that my discomfort really would be endless in some way, but then disappear again too as a new experience took its place.
Rachel and I spent the last two weekends driving south from Montreal to attend various events in Vermont and New York State. Last weekend we attended two very different concerts, both of musicians whose music I love. On Friday we drove to Burlington, Vermont to see Greg Brown. Then on Saturday we headed to Schnectady, New York to see the final farewell concert of Dame Kiri te Kanawa. There is something about being surrounded by the stereo of live music, with the musicians there in front of you, hearing the music as you see it being made, that can demand your total engagement like one of those moments I described above. Being there for Greg Brown live as he played one of my favorite songs I had that feeling--that the moment was so full, I couldn't believe I would have to leave it eventually. That sense that it would end coupled in me an idea of how joy for what we have is also filled with the sadness of its limit, that it is this limit that allows for our happiness. What is good in our lives is partially good because of how we can't contain it, or hold it back. The loop we made for those two concerts took us around the full breadth of Lake Champlain, and through the Eastern side of the Adirondacks. The land reflected a classic autumn for us, the trees all mixed in green, red, orange and yellow, against the granite of the Adirondacks and the silver blue of the lake. When the wind picked up the leaves would fall.
Two weekends ago Rachel and I attended a 26-year Burlington tradition called "The Haunted Forest." A large group of volunteers get together and take the whole year to plan an hour and a half long walk through the woods of a sugar tree farm. The walk occurs in the dark along a jack-o-lantern lit path with ten different Halloween vignettes being played along the way. Groups of twenty are led along the walk together by a pair of grim reapers carrying lanterns. Rachel was determined she would not be scared by anything the woods might offer us, but at vignette four her attitude changed. Out of the dark our group was, without warning, surrounded by Halloween Electronica music and thirty some dancing figures dressed in black with scream faces and skeleton hands. The abrupt nature of the dancers appearing caused everyone else in our group to collapse in high pitched screaming. I spent the duration of the dance laughing over my surprise that our entire group, consisting mostly of adults, reacted in such a way. When the dancers appeared, quite suddenly, the seven-year old boy of the family in front of us started clawing his way up the right side of his father, while on the left side the mother clawed her way up too. The three of them completely abandoned their two girls, who in front clutched at each other, screaming and falling to the ground. Rachel went from bragging about how she wouldn't be scared, to her legs buckling against me as she shrieked and eventually, at the peak of her terror, yelled "STOP IT! STOP IT!" I found myself laughing harder than I had in years, while also trying to make Rachel stand for herself (I couldn't hold her up), and comfort her all at the same time. Even though the dancing didn't scare me, I can only imagine that the surprise of the figures seeming to appear out of no where, and the feeling of a lack of control it induced is what caused the screaming in the others. Once the dancing ended, and we were led on through the woods again, the group spent the rest of the hour and a half expecting someone to jump out of the woods at us, while Rachel kept mumbling "When will it ever end!" and "I can't go on another step!"
Already in November, my final semester of coursework is almost at an end. Next semester I'll be enrolled in a research course while also working on a central chapter of my dissertation. The chapter will amount to the equivalent of our qualifying exam, which is meant to advance me to candidacy. In other words, assuming the chapter goes well, I'll be told I have permission to write my dissertation. I was telling a friend this morning that there is a strangeness to graduate school that amounts to it feeling like the last two years of my life were quite simply swallowed up by a little hole. It's a surprise to say I'm in my third year already, as though so much time just couldn't have gone by yet. Graduate school is demanding in such a way that I've lost track of how I could live a different sort of life, which is a little frightening, and it's hard to believe it could actually end. The reality of being at this stage in my doctoral work is that I have no clear sense of where life is going to take me next. My funding changes after this year, to what, I don't know. Without coursework I no longer have an obligation to be in Montreal, though there are reasons like proximity to supervisors and auditing courses why it might be wise to stay here. I have an outline for my dissertation project and the timeline I will follow for chapters, so I have a plan for my life at the very abstract level of the work I do. Something about this stage of transition and uncertainty resembles at least one aspect of the eternal moment. Without knowing what is beyond the horizon, it's hard to imagine the limit of this portion of my life, except to know there is one. So I do what I can to face it, which is quite simple really. Riding beside Rachel, I continue to watch the bounce and hush of my life against the waterline, and to pull the salmon as they come.
All my love to all of you!
Please write back, if you can. I'm always glad to talk with friends.
Your friend,
Elaine
On rare occasions there are moments so engaging and full that when I reflect on the experience of them, I can't imagine that whatever it is I'm doing could actually end. Growing up commercial fishing felt like that much of the time. Admittedly, in the case of fishing it was the discomfort that most often created such a feeling. There was one summer in my late teens when the pounds of salmon we caught were so great, and we were fishing so regularly, that we'd gone without enough sleep, with little food, and with radical physical strain for about two weeks. We were verging on total exhaustion and had to keep pulling out fish anyway. On our way to checking the net for salmon, I would ride in the middle of the skiff watching the bow of the boat turn and hop against the horizon as we rode down the river. Feeling the waves gush and slam against the boat's hull below my feet, it felt as though the entirety of my life would be stuck there in that total discomfort. To cope I came up with a mantra I'd repeat to myself over and over again. "Every moment lasts forever and then passes into the next." Looking back it's a strange little device to use for solace--the idea that my discomfort really would be endless in some way, but then disappear again too as a new experience took its place.
Rachel and I spent the last two weekends driving south from Montreal to attend various events in Vermont and New York State. Last weekend we attended two very different concerts, both of musicians whose music I love. On Friday we drove to Burlington, Vermont to see Greg Brown. Then on Saturday we headed to Schnectady, New York to see the final farewell concert of Dame Kiri te Kanawa. There is something about being surrounded by the stereo of live music, with the musicians there in front of you, hearing the music as you see it being made, that can demand your total engagement like one of those moments I described above. Being there for Greg Brown live as he played one of my favorite songs I had that feeling--that the moment was so full, I couldn't believe I would have to leave it eventually. That sense that it would end coupled in me an idea of how joy for what we have is also filled with the sadness of its limit, that it is this limit that allows for our happiness. What is good in our lives is partially good because of how we can't contain it, or hold it back. The loop we made for those two concerts took us around the full breadth of Lake Champlain, and through the Eastern side of the Adirondacks. The land reflected a classic autumn for us, the trees all mixed in green, red, orange and yellow, against the granite of the Adirondacks and the silver blue of the lake. When the wind picked up the leaves would fall.
Two weekends ago Rachel and I attended a 26-year Burlington tradition called "The Haunted Forest." A large group of volunteers get together and take the whole year to plan an hour and a half long walk through the woods of a sugar tree farm. The walk occurs in the dark along a jack-o-lantern lit path with ten different Halloween vignettes being played along the way. Groups of twenty are led along the walk together by a pair of grim reapers carrying lanterns. Rachel was determined she would not be scared by anything the woods might offer us, but at vignette four her attitude changed. Out of the dark our group was, without warning, surrounded by Halloween Electronica music and thirty some dancing figures dressed in black with scream faces and skeleton hands. The abrupt nature of the dancers appearing caused everyone else in our group to collapse in high pitched screaming. I spent the duration of the dance laughing over my surprise that our entire group, consisting mostly of adults, reacted in such a way. When the dancers appeared, quite suddenly, the seven-year old boy of the family in front of us started clawing his way up the right side of his father, while on the left side the mother clawed her way up too. The three of them completely abandoned their two girls, who in front clutched at each other, screaming and falling to the ground. Rachel went from bragging about how she wouldn't be scared, to her legs buckling against me as she shrieked and eventually, at the peak of her terror, yelled "STOP IT! STOP IT!" I found myself laughing harder than I had in years, while also trying to make Rachel stand for herself (I couldn't hold her up), and comfort her all at the same time. Even though the dancing didn't scare me, I can only imagine that the surprise of the figures seeming to appear out of no where, and the feeling of a lack of control it induced is what caused the screaming in the others. Once the dancing ended, and we were led on through the woods again, the group spent the rest of the hour and a half expecting someone to jump out of the woods at us, while Rachel kept mumbling "When will it ever end!" and "I can't go on another step!"
Already in November, my final semester of coursework is almost at an end. Next semester I'll be enrolled in a research course while also working on a central chapter of my dissertation. The chapter will amount to the equivalent of our qualifying exam, which is meant to advance me to candidacy. In other words, assuming the chapter goes well, I'll be told I have permission to write my dissertation. I was telling a friend this morning that there is a strangeness to graduate school that amounts to it feeling like the last two years of my life were quite simply swallowed up by a little hole. It's a surprise to say I'm in my third year already, as though so much time just couldn't have gone by yet. Graduate school is demanding in such a way that I've lost track of how I could live a different sort of life, which is a little frightening, and it's hard to believe it could actually end. The reality of being at this stage in my doctoral work is that I have no clear sense of where life is going to take me next. My funding changes after this year, to what, I don't know. Without coursework I no longer have an obligation to be in Montreal, though there are reasons like proximity to supervisors and auditing courses why it might be wise to stay here. I have an outline for my dissertation project and the timeline I will follow for chapters, so I have a plan for my life at the very abstract level of the work I do. Something about this stage of transition and uncertainty resembles at least one aspect of the eternal moment. Without knowing what is beyond the horizon, it's hard to imagine the limit of this portion of my life, except to know there is one. So I do what I can to face it, which is quite simple really. Riding beside Rachel, I continue to watch the bounce and hush of my life against the waterline, and to pull the salmon as they come.
All my love to all of you!
Please write back, if you can. I'm always glad to talk with friends.
Your friend,
Elaine
posted by hawkbrwn at 8:45 p.m.
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