This Exists

paying attention to the real world

“Do these dates work for you?” 

Back in January, my in-laws texted their three kids about a family trip to Maine. Edge and I looked at the calendar, and there in the middle of possible dates was July 10. 

“That’s flood season,” Edge said, then added with a half-laugh, “Seems like a good time to leave Vermont!” Despite the deprecating laugh, Edge spent many hours in June adding gravel to and grading our shared road, doing what he could to prepare in case a pummeling storm washed through again.

So here we are, on a lake in Maine with a pair of loons guarding a nest on the island beyond our dock.

Waxing moon in the evening sky

Today the sky is cloudy, but it hasn’t rained.

All week, we’ve kayaked, sailed, swam, and read as the kids ran around: a flock of cousins, their voices rising and falling like birdsong as they dash around the cabins playing hide-and-seek. 

This morning I sat on the dock with my journal, sketching the island with my sister-in-law’s advice in mind: look at the scene you’re drawing 90% of the time, and look at your drawing only 10%. It’s the kind of advice that feels pertinent to all of life. So I paid attention to how the boughs of the white pines reach out and up, how the water appears darker closer to the land, how deciduous trees bend their leaves over the rocks at the edge. 

It wasn’t until I drank my tea, watched the loons, meditated on the dock, made some coffee, talked with my sister-in-law in the quiet morning kitchen, walked back to my cabin with a doughnut, and sat down by the window to write that I saw the group text and a friend asking, “I’m hearing about the rain. How’s it going?”

Then I checked Vermont Public.

July 10, 2023. July 10, 2024. July 10, 2025. Three years in a row, flash flooding hit the state. This time, Central Vermont was safe. Next to the relief of knowing our town roads weren’t washed out for a third year in a row is the grief of knowing this is happening again for others. 

All week I’ve been catching snippets of the news while mostly trying to stay off of social media. I’m not going to get into the news right now, except to say, Oh aching world. What if we paid more attention? Not to the greed, but to the giving. What if we refocused the headlines on all the ways that community is persisting, growing, caring through it all. How the balance could shift if we saw through the lens of care.

This week in Maine has been a respite, and I wish everyone respite.

It has been a practice in allowing myself to rejuvenate, and I wish everyone rejuvenation. It has been a reminder that beauty and peace exists, and I wish everyone beauty and peace. 

We’re heading home soon, and I need to get one more swim in the dark Maine waters before I go. So for now, I’ll leave you with this poem:

This Exists

wash your hair in lake water
dry your face with moonlight

breathe the loon’s call into every cell
let it reverberate through
your entire being:
this wildness exists

let your exhale alight 
like wind over waves, fill the sails
let it reverberate through
the world:
this peace exists

let it reverberate
this wildness
this peace

this exists

Moonlight on a Maine lake