Speed up to Stop!

Speed up to stop.

I guess we have to add to the shopping list because we  got an email this morning from our supervisor telling us that the agreement with Keene has not been signed and may not be signed for a while yet.  So, in that case we speed up to stop – run to the grocery store to replenish our food supply so that we have more than a couple of pizza in the freezer – eaten in a hurry while we pack up and leave kind of foodstuffs.

I guess leaving anywhere, especially when it is planned to take place causes one to reconsider the situation in which we find ourselves.  Live every minute – see life here with new eyes daily and store memories.

Living every minute requires definite plans.  Plans that ask questions like – is it necessary to hurry past the flowers.  Could we not take time to examine the buttercups that have sprung up since the last rain?  Ask the question if their seeds were scattered with gay abandon so that they come up in clumps here and spread out there?  Ask about the rhododendrons that seem to have popped up by the trail when in fact they are usually purposefully planted in the garden to give beautiful blooms in season.  Noticing the woodpecker out in the woods close by hammering at the trees to access the beetles  for his breakfast.  It is fledgling season and the robins have begun to teach their young how to forage for themselves;  Doing my best to revel in the unfolding season and ongoing cycles of nature.

At Boothbay Harbor the tide was coming in.  I have seen the tides come and go at Caloundra and timed my fishing by the posted tide times.  On Saturday I watched the tide come in and it seemed that if it was possible, I would be able to hear the exposed  seaweed heave a sigh of relief to see the water return to replenish what moisture they may have lost with the receding tide a few hours ago.  It is interesting to note the difference in seaweeds on the pylons.  Seaweed that can survive out of water for a while grows at low water mark to high water mark.  Different seaweeds live below the low water mark and float back and forth in the tidal flow. 

I tried to store memories.  Memories of the man feeding the sea gull on the wharf at Boothbay Harbor.  A sign at the restaurant said, do not feed the Gulls – they will come and eat your food.  They are, after all, scavengers of the first order.  I store memories of the green trees and lush grass – we do not have that in Arizona; Store memories of the ocean smells and sounds – rotting seaweed and screaming gulls.

The books we are digitizing are also keepers of secrets and the things we find in the pages are amazing.  We find squashed bugs that have been there for who knows how long and how did they get into the books in the first place.  One of them was a honeybee and there have been a couple of spiders as well.  I even found a dressmakers pin in one of the pages.  There are myriad little pieces of paper that have stuff scribbled on them – sort of like a shopping list for court case dates and files.

Amid all of this our landlord called and asked if we would be moving by the last of June because he has someone who wants our apartment on July 1.  Of all the things I thought might happen on our mission, I did not expect to be homeless – our lease runs out on June 30.