27.3.12

INTERMISSION: Random Moments of Beauty

I am at last about to make the Big Announcement.  And after that I even have a few new posts---the sort that keep some of you coming back---lined up in the queue.  But for the moment, I'm finishing an article for New York Social Diary, and organizing the drum roll for the B.A.  So, in the meantime, (or is it meanwhile?), I offer a scenic intermission.

Last week up here was nothing short of astonishing.  Summer weather, in the seventies, in Maine, in March.  It was shirtsleeves and shorts weather, yet there were no leaves on the trees, no boats--save a few lobster boats--in the bays and harbors.  No tourists or summer folk on the street, no lines at the Restaurants, no gallery openings.  Nothing but sublime weather.  But appearances can be deceiving.  On another such fluke day in March some thirty years back,  I was deceived by the weather and swam in the ocean, off a beautiful pebble beach. It was, um, bracing.  I'm older and wiser now. Mostly older.

On Thursday, I chanced to find myself on the tip of Naskeag Point in Brooklin.  It is a small peninsula separating Blue Hill Bay from Eggemoggin Reach, one of the country's finest sailing waters.

The very tip of Naskeag point, a pink gravel beach, looking West, give or take
And from the same spot, looking in the other direction, East to Blue Hill bay
The next day, a little later in the afternoon on remote Petit Manan Point, further Down East, in a more spartan Maine.  This part of New England was once part of New France, and the names bestowed by Champlain, before Jamestown or the Mayflower, survive.
Lobster is the big industry on Petit Manan Point.  Here, lobster traps at the ready on a dock.  Left, to the East, is Bois Bubert Island, over the horizon, Portugal. 


And a little while later on the way home, a detour to Grindstone Neck.  This is the view East from Grindstone
And the view West across Frenchman's Bay, with Mt. Desert Island in the distance
Years ago, Mel Gibson filmed a movie up here---Man Without a Face.  A friend went to see it, and mentioned how extraordinary it was to look at the landscapes we see every day, perhaps even take for granted,  on the big screen, and how world class, they really are.  The distance by car between Naskeag and Petit Manan is only slightly over an hour, yet between those two points, I could have taken photographs of a thousand spots of astonishing beauty---many of scenes far more dramatic and spectacular than these.  And I never take them for granted.

To all those who ask how we survive the winters up here, this is your answer.  But remind me next February.


10 comments:

Scott Waterman said...

It's all too beautiful.

Dovecote Decor said...

Despite the easy winter, we are all coming out of our short-day caves with a renewed joie de vivre. North Carolina is having high-def spring days, and I am playing hookey and skipping class. I am not kidding. It only rains at night. It doesn't get any better. People can whine about the economy, which is not bad for us. It is a stunning year for spring. Southern spring is really the prettiest. Politics and economics be damned, spring trumps all. Whitman said: "Nature's first green is gold." So it is. Maybe it was Emerson. I'm with you.
Best,
Liz

Anonymous said...

"I am at last about to make the Big Announcement."

[don't like the sound of this]

"I even have a few new posts---the sort that keep some of you coming back---lined up in the queue."

[just getting worse now]

"But for the moment I'm..organizing the drum roll for the B.A."

No. You may not disable the blog. Do whatever you need to do, but you may not leave. What do you need, what do you want, name it, we'll rustle it up and provide....go ahead, name it

-Old Faithful

The Ancient said...

Granted, they're all very pretty pictures.

But they're all full of water!

(And we all remember what W.C. Fields said about that.)

Turner Pack Rats said...

oh jeezus - he's moving to new yawk city. i hope not - if you do, i'll shoot you myself. much as i despise the institution, i hope you're getting married (anybody who does should be placed in an institution)

moving right along, you forgot to give them the quote -"if you can't stand the winters, you don't deserve the summers"
and it must be colder down on the coast. three days here in Turner, it made it into the 80's with a high of 88 with not a breeze in sight. it was some hot. i wonder what rick santorums explanation for that was.

with the "new" google, its tuff in the security word defintion business. there's two words and they just aren't as bizarrely (sp?) wordlike anymore. however, i recognized today's immediately from reading your latest post in the Middle East Social Diary - "rinkshi ayala" - the justin bieber of Dubai

columnist said...

The sunset pictures are glorious. I am far away from winters and spring in SE Asia, but I can well imagine the joy of seeing the green shoots of spring.

DM said...

Your lovely posts always sink me into the deepest case of new england homesickness...in the best sort of way!

if only i could see a shingle! if only i could see saltwater! and if only a lobster didn't cost a goddamn 100 euros. my dad's smuggling one into his luggage next week. i'm not joking.

lindaraxa said...

Oh dear, I don't comment often but enjoy your posts tremendously. I don't like the "big announcement" bit at all.

Those pictures are fantastic and the lobster pots...boy do I miss lobster in land locked Georgia!

Janet said...

Will you hurry up and finish that damn NYSD article already? We are dying of suspense. . .

(thinking of you! and loving the photos)

Anonymous said...

Here I go! I have no idea what the previous comments mean at all!

I just wanted to thank the playboy son of the donor of the Episcopal Church in Maine......(I am an Episcopalian) for marrying that crazy and divine Ganna Walska!

I live in Montecito, California......and Lotusland is such a wonderful gift to the world!!


Penelope Bianchi