We got to Maine this year, accompanied by our furniture, clothing, and far too many large, plastic containers stuffed with everything from Christmas decorations to a single can of Campbell’s Cream of Potato soup (and, no, I am not kidding).

Anyway, when we got here we had this idea that we would have six weeks of crazy leading up to a certain wedding, and then we would party through the wedding weekend, and then we would quite suddenly have absolutely nothing to do but to enjoy a fabulous midcoast Maine summer.

Well.

Ba.

Ha.

Ha.

To us!

We did indeed have a crazy six weeks leading up to the wedding – an event that was so astounding in so many ways, so special and meaningful, that I have written very little about it. It is still marinating (and I am still ponderin’ it, and savoring it, but swear I will share sometime soon). After that tents came down and people, literally, flew away.

And then some flew back.

What the…

And then they flew away again.

And then Granny decided to get ‘a condition’ (oh, at eighty-five, the nerve!) and then that condition got fixed (though it did require a hospital stay).

And then there were two weeks of crazy because we were behind on somethings or others.

And then Granny’s condition decided it wasn’t quite done (again, the nerve!).

And then it got fixed again.

But that’s never ‘the end’ because, as with so many conditions and health happenings with people we love, we spend time on them.

And, if you are me, you spend hours and days and nights talking with experts and researching medical terms and conditions and possible underlying conditions and pretty much anything and everything else you might need to both converse with, and understand, the docs who enter our lives in times of ‘conditions’.

I will say that, as always, humor has played a big role in sanity-preservation these past few weeks.

Like, when I threatened to write all about her on the blog because Granny wouldn’t do something that the doctor told her to do.

What?

Why yes, I am in the habit of threatening octogenarians regularly (see nearly every single post I ever wrote about the Old Yankee Man).

Anyway, Granny – from her hospital bed – said, “Be my guest. I’m an open book!”

And I just stared at her.

Then I reminded her that she has never been an open book. Then I told her that she was clearly delusional now, which must be part of her condition.

We both started laughing really hard, and then she had a coughing fit.

And then the nurse came in.

And then we had to be quiet.

Okay.

Quiet-er.

But things seem to be going well, and the good news is that very scary things have been ruled out. So we are in the process of determining next steps and, once again – as it does so often in this life – my ability to live with uncertainty is getting a workout.

Which is hard, because that particular ability has always despised forced exercise.

And, as is tradition in my times of haywired-ness, a sense of calm becomes elusive (but oh so necessary).

Luckily, before insanity sets in, my soul tends to take over and sits my brain down – usually with some sort of show n’ tell-type presentation.

Happens every dang time.

So.

Yesterday JoHn was heading out to the barn for something or other and came back in, asking if I’d looked outside.

I had not.

He said there were a whole bunch of Geese roaming around on our lawn, and over by the water.

And I remembered that, when I came up here to check on things at the end of May – pre-move – that I went over to the wedding site and noticed that a whole big gaggle of geese had been hanging out there.

They’d left a lot of… er… evidence.

And, though I hadn’t seen them in previous years, a neighbor said that they seemed to come each spring for a week or so, and then they moved on.

Which I thought was good because I didn’t think Mac would want to have her gown dragging through the evidence when it was time for the wedding come July.

So yesterday I thought that, because Canada Geese are creatures of habit (Wikipedia), it would make sense that they might also stop here on their way south… kind of the way we used to treat the rest stop in Bunnykemp (which is really Kennebunk but a young Gabe once called it Bunnykemp by mistake and it stuck).

I found myself sitting quietly, watching and listening to these incredible creatures as they waddled about making soft noises that fell somewhere between honks and sheep bleats, and tore up and gobbled my carefully tended grass without a single ‘please’ or ‘thank you’.

I read somewhere that Canada Geese were once in decline due to habitat destruction and overhunting, but their numbers have rebounded substantially. It occurred to me, sitting with them, that their ability to adapt to new homes, and to accept new and different experiences along the way has meant everything to them… as it so often does to us.

So, I thought, have at it Geese.

Muck up the grass and poop on the rocks.

When you come and then go each year, I’ll think of it as the aftermath of an avian Woodstock (great concert, hell of a clean up).

Somehow, within in all that acknowledgement, I could feel something inside myself begin to quiet.

This year, for the first time, fall is tapping me on the shoulder in a different way.

Usually easing in on subtle changes in color and temperature, right now it’s showing up in a barely discernible shift of sea breezes, and with sounds of flapping wings and silly honks at my front yard Gas n’ Gulp.

Pretty cool.

My brain had slowed enough to allow the delights of a present moment to envelope me… and sink in.

And with that, my soul took a bow.

Thanks for readin’.

You can comment below, or join fellow ponderers on just ponderin’s Facebook page whenever you want!

 

 

 

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