Still
Time
Unless you got caught and eaten, it's been a good summer if
you're a trout, though it probably hasn't been the season
most of us would have hoped for. The rains have kept visitors
down, there's been lots of grass to mow, retail business has
been off a bit, and apart from the weather, sometimes it's
hard to see why things are as they are. When that happens,
going somewhere's a decent idea.
Leaving the Catskills even for change of scenery does make
some of us cranky, though it can pay off in new perspectives,
or at least in understanding what it means that everything
comes at a price. The license plates in Maine say Vacationland,
and there's no way to miss that the state's economic engine
is one big pipeline of cars up an interstate highway. The
historic route, the costal route, has been so long choked
with traffic it's all but lost its sense of place, even as
it passes through some of the county's oldest and most beautifully
sited towns. At 10 mph with a Burger King every 15 minutes,
it's kind of like any place in America, except for the lobster
graphics on a good share of the business signage, part of
a transformation of what's regionally unique into a signature
caricature of itself, like the pilgrimage shopping town of
Freeport. Half-looking for a pair of steel toed or Kevlar-lined
boots in a place where LL Bean, Patagonia, and The North Face
all share a parking complex, I finally get the answer I should
have guessed: "Oh sure, I know what you mean. Yeah, you'd
have to go to Sears for that."
Okay no problem, there's one back in Kingston or better yet,
there's Kenco. Perhaps it's the perception of ruggedness that
sells better than the reality, as if protected from drizzle
in a sexy $200 rain shell, we might also be magically protected
from puncture or chainsaw accident, or maybe if the future
heads south, fundamentalist Islam or John Ashcroft's read
of the Constitution, whichever's scarier. Thankfully
though, we live in a part of the world with a pretty low threshold
for B.S. And that's a reflection both of the sanity
and the soundness of our native cultural values, and the critical
thinking of those who've located here by choice. Each stream
has enriched the other, and our Catskills civilization in
the 21st century is amongst the sanest in the world. That's
why of course we have the kind of lively dialogue we tend
to, especially when it comes to navigating the future.
Halfway up the Maine coast, a few miles upstream from where
a formidable river melds with the sea, a pack of harbor seals,
fifty or sixty on an offshore spit of rock, flop and snort
and grunt, bellies to the sky and stuffed with herring. I
watch this from a place, an old family farm, where back in
the sixties neurobiologist Dr.John Lilly wrote Man and Dolphin
one summer, still the seminal work in the field of interspecies
communication. Funded by a lifetime National Science Foundation
grant, Lilly was immortalized as the William Hurt character
in Altered States, the guy who discovered that dolphins talk,
invented the isolation tank, and whose life helped prove that
understanding comes through taking risks, that risk is personal,
and that anything really worth learning is worth the risk
it entails. It's all part of the history of science now, and
if our species' story is about the evolution of consciousness,
credit belongs where it's due. Lilly died a few years ago,
and I haven't a clue as to what the seals in his family's
ancestral cove are talking about. But you can tell from their
tone of voice that they're serious, though whether about herring
or mating or the occasional lobster boat that comes through
beats the heck of out me. By the way, closer to home,
we ask anyone who speaks bear to contact us, as we think,
after this summer, they've got some explaining to do for themselves.
People come to Maine, they put up with the traffic, because
once you escape that, it is a magical place; different
from, but also just like home. The magic of our mountains
is far easier for far more people to get to than Maine's magic
is, and if unspoiled is the draw, we win hands-down.
Whether in the Catskills we're willing to pay the kind of
price they have here for their visitor business, well, it's
an open question still. Most Maine locals have been priced
out of the nice housing market for years, and whether personal
income keeps pace with the cost of services or the changes
in the quality of life, well that's open to interpretation
too. Just like home, the answers probably aren't simple ones.
But the questions are worth asking and the comparisons worth
noting.
There's a couple weeks left to summer and our view is it ain't
over till it's over so let's make it count. Get out there
in the creek and find some dinner, or just get your butt wet.
If there's people you've been meaning to invite over for a
barbeque, just call Œem. Haven't managed to schedule
that playdate, that hike you promised yourself, a night out
under the stars? C'mon, it is summer. It's not going to stay
this nice out forever. Is it?
