Every day my morning routine includes reading the news, having breakfast, and taking a walk around my ordinary central Maine neighborhood. Today, as usual, I read the news, had breakfast, and took a walk around my neighborhood, where there is dirty snow and ice everywhere, and clean snow falling from the sky. As often happens when I take my quiet, solitary daily walk, this morning I struggled to manage a combination of tears and panic brought on by the news stories I had read before breakfast, even though they were no more horrifying or sad than the news stories I read yesterday or last week or last year. The fog is--the dementors are--everywhere, making every effort to suck the soul right out of us and leave us in irrevocable despair. Thank you, Sarah, for all the ways your powerful words and images, and your willingness to share them, remind us that we are not alone in this hard struggle to remain fully human and humane, and to have the courage to continue trying. I am grateful.
Thank you! I appreciate you reading. BTW since you live in Maine you may be looking at the same places as Andrew Wyeth, that was the state he painted most. A little synergy there.
Yes indeed! I am inland, and I believe he mostly loved (and painted) our beautiful Maine coast, which is very different from where I live. But I do get to the coast occasionally, and his affection was well-placed!
Alas, I have never (yet) been to St. Louis, but will be in your airport in a couple of weeks on my way to giving a talk in Springfield, IL. I'll be thinking of you and sending good vibes your way during my very brief time in your fine state, which happens to be my grandmother's birthplace (Brookfield). What with your getting engaged at Acadia and my grandmother being born in Brookfield, we are almost sisters!
I have the same kind of rolling nausea from time to time after reading the news. Some days are worse than others and the triggers for my temporary despair are the accumulation of the soul-sucking topics. Underneath the surface they are really about cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
As Sarah said, "The whole story doesn’t always show....But the feeling, the feeling — that’s the one thing you don’t lose, in the fog."
From my deck I can see Southern Island, where Jamie Wyeth has a home. I met Andy Wyeth several times, once as a teenager on Hallowe'en. He came to the door and smiled, and he had greenish glow-in-the-dark teeth! Then a few years back I met him at the Dip Net, a tiny diner nearby, and it was his 90th birthday. I apologized for intruding and he said, no, sit down with us. I have a photo of the party somewhere.
I frequently paint in Maine. Monhegan to Acadia. To me, Wyeth is a great master of using white. It is like a bare bleached-in-cold-sun bone white. Like a seagull skeleton on a barren beach.
Your words always make me feel as sane as is possible in our dire circumstances. As if I can at least feel solid ground under my feet as the fog cocoons me. Thank you.
I never comment on newsletters, but this is an incredibly thoughtful piece of prose that reads like poetry and gives perspective to the world we helped create that we sit by and watch in horror, with our mouths agape like some helpless bystanders. Past generations would be marching in the streets. Thank you.
Wow... I felt/feel this one in my core. I live in the Pacific Northwest and winter is an especially oppressive time. We have a mental condition that was initially diagnosed as a local phenomenon but I’m sure is not unique to us. The past 20+ years have been like Seasonal Affective Disorder all the time. War, illness, strife and death have seemed impossible to fight, much less escape. It’s possible to see through it occasionally, but remains ever present... always ready to smother us with dreary, gray fog. Every time you think it’s lifting it seems to return even thicker than before. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in feeling this way sometimes. Thank you for sharing.
I used to play that on the piano as a kid! I’d play at my grandma’s house and used her old-time sheet music selection lol. Maybe it seeped subconsciously into my brain…
Your description of fog as "...a cloud that had landed on your head..." created an instantaneous flashback for me.
I attended Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, Canada in the late 1980s. The campus is located on a high hill called Burnaby Mountain and, as with the rest of the West Coast, that can create some interesting weather phenomena.
One afternoon in late fall, early winter (I can't remember exactly when) I came out from my last class to find mists swirling around the buildings and trees. Because of its height, it can be hard to tell if you are experiencing fog that has risen all the way up from sea level, or clouds that have descended over the hilltop.
I walked to my car and began my drive home.
As I the road wound down towards the city the cloud became brighter and brighter, almost a golden tone. Suddenly I broke through bottom of the low hanging clouds to find myself facing due west into the setting sun. Above me the lower edge of the clouds were an almost flat ceiling. But what made the moment so memorable was what was below me.
I had broken into a thin layer of clear air. Above were the clouds, but below me, inverse to the clouds, was a flat "floor" of fog. The late afternoon sun, only minutes from setting for the day, was shining like a golden orb directly along this narrow corridor of clear air.
I kicked myself, because this was one of the few days I didn't have a camera with me (LONG before cellphones with cameras). So I simply drove on down into the fog. The light show I had experienced dropping through the clouds played out in reverse this time. And by the time I arrived home fifteen minutes later it was night.
Sarah, I will support you as soon as my financial predicament improves. So grateful for letting me comment non the less. I've not finished reading this one yet, I do it very slowly, a kind of savoring. But I might be, by the time I finish this comment. I think I can detect in your writing which segments were written contiguously and which disjointedly. It's comforting to notice a writer who's conversive with their own writing. Oops, doesn't look like I can go back to reading and return to this comment. I'll close this one with my sense of your recognition of a counterforce latently poised to materialize in opposition to all that you rail and warn against and become active to create what you value. As Auden said, "I'm only a voice", but didn't say merely. We are in truly dismal times, but we're gaining awareness to the extent that we've been deluded. If defining who we are is a life's essential developmental task, these times and your writing, empowering as it is, drives this with cautious elevation.
Every day my morning routine includes reading the news, having breakfast, and taking a walk around my ordinary central Maine neighborhood. Today, as usual, I read the news, had breakfast, and took a walk around my neighborhood, where there is dirty snow and ice everywhere, and clean snow falling from the sky. As often happens when I take my quiet, solitary daily walk, this morning I struggled to manage a combination of tears and panic brought on by the news stories I had read before breakfast, even though they were no more horrifying or sad than the news stories I read yesterday or last week or last year. The fog is--the dementors are--everywhere, making every effort to suck the soul right out of us and leave us in irrevocable despair. Thank you, Sarah, for all the ways your powerful words and images, and your willingness to share them, remind us that we are not alone in this hard struggle to remain fully human and humane, and to have the courage to continue trying. I am grateful.
Thank you! I appreciate you reading. BTW since you live in Maine you may be looking at the same places as Andrew Wyeth, that was the state he painted most. A little synergy there.
Yes indeed! I am inland, and I believe he mostly loved (and painted) our beautiful Maine coast, which is very different from where I live. But I do get to the coast occasionally, and his affection was well-placed!
I've been to the Maine coast only once...but I got engaged there so I think it counts more! (My husband proposed while we were hiking in Acadia.)
Wise man, clearly with excellent taste in both scenery and spouses!
Alas, I have never (yet) been to St. Louis, but will be in your airport in a couple of weeks on my way to giving a talk in Springfield, IL. I'll be thinking of you and sending good vibes your way during my very brief time in your fine state, which happens to be my grandmother's birthplace (Brookfield). What with your getting engaged at Acadia and my grandmother being born in Brookfield, we are almost sisters!
I have the same kind of rolling nausea from time to time after reading the news. Some days are worse than others and the triggers for my temporary despair are the accumulation of the soul-sucking topics. Underneath the surface they are really about cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
As Sarah said, "The whole story doesn’t always show....But the feeling, the feeling — that’s the one thing you don’t lose, in the fog."
I so look forward to your writing. Both the comfort and the pain. It's not only writing, it is art.
Thank you very much!
My pleasure.
From my deck I can see Southern Island, where Jamie Wyeth has a home. I met Andy Wyeth several times, once as a teenager on Hallowe'en. He came to the door and smiled, and he had greenish glow-in-the-dark teeth! Then a few years back I met him at the Dip Net, a tiny diner nearby, and it was his 90th birthday. I apologized for intruding and he said, no, sit down with us. I have a photo of the party somewhere.
Oh wow! That's great
“The feeling, the feeling...” that’s the one thing you always deliver, mixing poetry with prose.❤️
Thanks! There are some days that's all I've got but I'm glad I do
That’s not a small thing. That’s everything.
“ I’ll walk through fog to describe what it hides, even if I’m walking alone.” Me too. And thank you for your realist soul.
I frequently paint in Maine. Monhegan to Acadia. To me, Wyeth is a great master of using white. It is like a bare bleached-in-cold-sun bone white. Like a seagull skeleton on a barren beach.
Too much to handle sometimes.
Yes. I know what you mean
Your words always make me feel as sane as is possible in our dire circumstances. As if I can at least feel solid ground under my feet as the fog cocoons me. Thank you.
Glad it helps!
I never comment on newsletters, but this is an incredibly thoughtful piece of prose that reads like poetry and gives perspective to the world we helped create that we sit by and watch in horror, with our mouths agape like some helpless bystanders. Past generations would be marching in the streets. Thank you.
Thank you very much!
Poetry and politics are strange bedfellows but you somehow make both more accessible. Thanks.
Beautiful writing ! I am so appreciative of your writing and knowledge.
Thank you!
Wow... I felt/feel this one in my core. I live in the Pacific Northwest and winter is an especially oppressive time. We have a mental condition that was initially diagnosed as a local phenomenon but I’m sure is not unique to us. The past 20+ years have been like Seasonal Affective Disorder all the time. War, illness, strife and death have seemed impossible to fight, much less escape. It’s possible to see through it occasionally, but remains ever present... always ready to smother us with dreary, gray fog. Every time you think it’s lifting it seems to return even thicker than before. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in feeling this way sometimes. Thank you for sharing.
I lived 40 years in Seattle. Finally got out and am in Colorado now.
I know that disorder, tho I’m pretty much not a depressive. Always found a way to keep the gloom from overtaking me.
Here, it’s just a walk outside will lift me ... but the fog of fear for the future of us all still walks along beside me.
"The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and g̵o̵l̵d̵ (blue?)
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall"
…
I used to play that on the piano as a kid! I’d play at my grandma’s house and used her old-time sheet music selection lol. Maybe it seeped subconsciously into my brain…
The version by Eva Cassidy does it justice.
The pared down piano solo seems, to me, to be perfect …
Poetry and prose serve equal functions in your writings. I was reminded also of Helga and her world; the bleakness but also the strength.
Thank you again for your perseverance, Sarah.
Amen. Thank you Sarah.
Thanks for reading, Annie!
Wouldn’t miss anything you write! ✍🏻 thank you for sharing!
Your description of fog as "...a cloud that had landed on your head..." created an instantaneous flashback for me.
I attended Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, Canada in the late 1980s. The campus is located on a high hill called Burnaby Mountain and, as with the rest of the West Coast, that can create some interesting weather phenomena.
One afternoon in late fall, early winter (I can't remember exactly when) I came out from my last class to find mists swirling around the buildings and trees. Because of its height, it can be hard to tell if you are experiencing fog that has risen all the way up from sea level, or clouds that have descended over the hilltop.
I walked to my car and began my drive home.
As I the road wound down towards the city the cloud became brighter and brighter, almost a golden tone. Suddenly I broke through bottom of the low hanging clouds to find myself facing due west into the setting sun. Above me the lower edge of the clouds were an almost flat ceiling. But what made the moment so memorable was what was below me.
I had broken into a thin layer of clear air. Above were the clouds, but below me, inverse to the clouds, was a flat "floor" of fog. The late afternoon sun, only minutes from setting for the day, was shining like a golden orb directly along this narrow corridor of clear air.
I kicked myself, because this was one of the few days I didn't have a camera with me (LONG before cellphones with cameras). So I simply drove on down into the fog. The light show I had experienced dropping through the clouds played out in reverse this time. And by the time I arrived home fifteen minutes later it was night.
Sarah, I will support you as soon as my financial predicament improves. So grateful for letting me comment non the less. I've not finished reading this one yet, I do it very slowly, a kind of savoring. But I might be, by the time I finish this comment. I think I can detect in your writing which segments were written contiguously and which disjointedly. It's comforting to notice a writer who's conversive with their own writing. Oops, doesn't look like I can go back to reading and return to this comment. I'll close this one with my sense of your recognition of a counterforce latently poised to materialize in opposition to all that you rail and warn against and become active to create what you value. As Auden said, "I'm only a voice", but didn't say merely. We are in truly dismal times, but we're gaining awareness to the extent that we've been deluded. If defining who we are is a life's essential developmental task, these times and your writing, empowering as it is, drives this with cautious elevation.