Maine, Briefly

One has to realize that this picture of my daughter was being taken by me, therefore, I, too, had climbed half a mile up. If I had known what kinds of rocks I'd have to scale and scramble over and go down on the seat of my pants, I probably would not have undertaken the hike to the top of Acadia mountain. But we did it. And walked the little ridge to the next mountain where we met a couple perhaps ten years younger than I but each probably 100 pounds heavier. That was humbling even if they had come the easy way. As the woman said, "It was not trivial." I'm saying all this both to brag and to say to younger readers, yes, you can too. Not so long ago a woman with an artificial hip simply couldn't do it. My muscles were and still are stiff but I have no pains. I feel like preaching about using or losing it. I say to all USE IT!

This is the kind of spectacular view one expects along the coast. That's a four masted schooner off Bar Harbor. The coast is just as dramatic and spectacular as I expected. The summer weekend couldn't have been lovelier, including a full moon outside our harbor view motel room's patio that reflected on the water and docked boats. I had borrowed Poetry Speaks from the library so we listened to poets reading their works as we drove and were delighted to find a very elegant garden in Camden a statue of Edna St. Vincent Millay who grew up there. She is a giant beside me but I tried to emulate her with a physical pose. I can't really say with her that "I burn my candle at both ends" but it's given me "a lovely light" and continues to do so.