Rediscovering Acadia

Acadia camp site 2018

There was so much sorrow associated with camping in Jim's last two years—yet I wouldn't trade a second. As there was also so much love. Our last camping trip, the one so many of my friends are doing now, the one where you travel across the U.S. as a couple seeing all there is to "see the U. S. of A...." well that one ended up in emergency surgery for Jim. We never made it across country for our intended month long stay with our first granddaughter Satori and her parents.

Instead the camper became the place where family stayed during the pandemic while Jim was dying. It was also the first  thing that I had to confront taking care of as Jim was too weak too. I remember finding a leak in the ceiling. Jim couldn't help me. He couldn't physically make the short walk to the camper. Instead I investigated, asked his advice, repaired it taking photos all the while to share with Jim, he was so proud of me.

Acadia camp site 2023

Here I am on the other side of "until death do us part", of our dreams and hoped for adventures. But I keep saying to myself, I'm not dead yet. For perhaps the first year or so, mind you during the isolation of the pandemic, I rather thought I was—or at least saw death very clearly, my own and everyone else's. It gets to the point where you think, why bother?

I'm not there now. Yes, every day I miss Jim dreadfully. How could I not? The man whose next to last words were to tell me how beautiful I was as I was tending to his dying body and suffering from massive loss of sleep and worry,

I am here.

And what I've been thinking about is how very precious very living moment, every living creature, every instant of this world is and has always been.

With this reframing of my life, ((I'm not dead yet, (yes I have to remind myself of this frequently, must be a thing when one's life partner dies too soon)), I feel that I need to experience it as much as I can in the time that is allotted to me. Live fully, think expansively, learn as much as I can, test my limits, love fully, and give.

Acadia camp site 2023

This summer, once the house and yard were finally set to rest alongside multiple financial hurdles, the camper sat as one of my final figuring outs. The three years of standing had left it in needs of much cleaning and even worse repairs - becoming my "boss fight" on repairing electrical systems, plumping, and mechanicals learned painfully through the house and property debacles. 

I never would have imagined me switching out circuit boards or wiring three years ago but there you go.

It had been purchased for the planned for cross country trip that ended in disaster under the belief that Jim would survive cancer. But three dogs and a camper are much more manageable by two adults than one alone. So this trip was my grand test. Could I?

All fixed (or almost so) and about to hit the road 2023

Only a day in, walking Acadia's gorgeous trails, yes I have. It has been misty the entire time with a light drizzle and now they are predicting a hurricane (is this par for my course?). But here's the thing, I love camping, I love Maine, and this trip has only confirmed it.

Acadia 2023

What is it about Maine that even in a soft drizzle and foggy days I love it? To begin, this is the land that my parents enjoyed their honeymoon and nine months later I was born. What a gift they have given me to start my life here. There is something about the quality of the salt and pine air. How the lichens on the trees seem to vibrate. How life just teams between the sea and the scraggily forests on its edge. 

Camp site 2023, early morning, Charlie keeping his eye on things

Tonight as I write this the campfires are out because it is so drizzly and yet I can hear the call of summer's end crickets and in the day, the gulls beckoning.

Camping memories abound: living in nature, 12,000 steps without trying, memories from Tegan as a child, painting on the coast with friends and family, the work of the great painters...

Tegan as a toddler on a long ago camping trip to the coast.

—Afternote—

After months of preparation, this initial trip only lasted two nights. Amazingly an unpredicted hurricane targeted Acadia. I packed up and left in the rain with no intent of staying in a camper with three dogs on the coast during a hurricane. It was a good thing I did as sure enough, the campground lost power and water, and the few personnel left to care for their homes.

It's November now as I write. The camper is safely packed up and protected waiting for the Spring. Then I'll decide; sell or travel? At this writing, I do want to try again in the Spring and take my paints and the dogs once again. Yet, in life unexpecteds happen and I've learned to make room for those.

Acadia 2023