MaryAlice Musings and More

  The slogan for 72 is "Be curious, you do not have to be certain!".  Well there are some things that I am sure of, when you open your heart, it might get hurt, but it is so worth it to be open heart-ed.  I am still soaking in all the friendship, appreciation, love that was shared and bestowed upon me on my 72nd Birthday.  It is a reflection of what I receive on many many days...and I sure do feel lots of gratitude, care and awe in who is in my life and how life unfolds each and every day.   In the picture (taken on the patio of Katahdin Brew Works , I am holding a woodcut print created by Diana Furukawa, she has made extra prints, if interested let me know.... how fun to have inspired one more amazing work of art by Diana.  I shared the gift with everyone who was helping to celebrate on one of the most perfect days of the years!  Such a mix of people who not so long ago I did not even know and now they are my neighbors, my good friends, collabora...

It is almost 9 pm on Friday night,  I have had a lovely day. I have not spent much time on any screens and more time on my porch.  Today held blue skies, and some tiny little rain showers on and off, those kinds that it might be raining on one side of the street and not on the other side!    I picked up my mail, I had two birthday card that were square, and had to pay an additional 39 cents for each card and it was worth it for sure.  Who knew that square cards cost additional postage...now you do a first class stamp plus 39 cents!  I picked up my chocolate birthday cakes from Lizzie Yoder, it has been a difficult to not try a piece, they look really really good!  On the way back from Lizzie's I stopped and got some good veggies at the Haymart Stand and then took a long lovely nap.  I love afternoon naps, the sun was shining in and I felt like I was floating on clouds, so good to have space today to float away during the late afternoon. I wen...

Last year at this time, I picked up my friend Jackie at the airport in New Hampshire and headed to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut to see my most favorite professional women's basketball team, the Minnesota Lynx.  The schedule almost always brings Minnesota to play the CT Sun in August and this is the first year (well excluding 2020) that I have not traveled to see the game(s).    This year the regular season ended earlier due to the USA Team playing in International Competition and the playoffs started last night.   For the first time in 12 years the Lynx are not in the playoffs. I did watch the games last night, they were great and it is different to not have "your" team to root for and find yourself just rooting for them all.  Women's basketball is my "feel good escape from the world place"  and last night watching two really competitive games was salve for my too busy self of this week.  I had great fun cheering and sometimes just closing my eyes a...

    It has been over two years since I volunteered for the Monument.  The jobs that I did as a volunteer are now done by seasonal or full time staff and other volunteering jobs have not yet been rolled out.  Every once in awhile there are opportunities and late last week I got an email asking if I could volunteer on Wednesday,  I said "yes" knowing that it might just be a time for me to do a few things on my computer that needed to get done.   To get ready for today I went to the Park office and got a few little updates and a new shirt.  I got a number to call if I needed help.  I left confident and ready to step back into a job that I had done several times a week for a couple of years.  It was so refreshing, easy and predictable showing up mostly in Millinocket but sometimes in Patten, to "staff"  the contact station.  I loved answering questions, asking about what brought people here and what they were hoping to do.  Th...

  I love the vistas that I get to enjoy every day.  Somewhere, and I do think it was in one of the car trips from Minnesota to Maine, I began to be more aware of what happened to me when I came upon an amazing vista.  What I experience when I drove around a curve and world opened up.   As my eyes took in the expansiveness it seemed that my heart opened up as well.  Those opening up, vista moments happened again and again.   My heart experienced great exercises in being big and wide open.   I knew throughout the time that my heart felt closed and needed to be protected that I would not lose that big wide open capacity. I held it with me inside my little home. I live in the town center of Patten,  I do not have an expansive vista from my house.  I have trees and in the winter there is more opening up of the big sky and the horizons beyond.  This "nestling in space" also soothes and comforts my heart.  It is the other of my expand...

Joy and Sense of Belonging It has been a long time, almost 18 months and  people have stopped asking when I would resume my blog.  I had no answer.  My emotions were frayed, my hope was diminishing, I felt unmoored.  There were times when a moment, an interaction, something I saw felt like the kind of story that I would muse about in this blog. I could not find a way to bring that moment back.   Slowly, slowly something has shifted.  The hardness that had been erected (or maybe just took root from an unconscious neglect) around my heart has softened.  The isolation that the pandemic tapped, but was not fully responsible for, has lessened, actually it has just gone away.   Once again, I can hold these musings.  Actually, they have been held.  The stories have been there, waiting.  Patiently waiting for me to pick them up and to share them with you.   This is what I learned and relearned about my musings: They are ...

  One year ago I was trying to sort out what was I going to do.  I had started my trip west and south at the beginning of the month.  Once again I was traveling across the country on a train. Boston to Chicago, Chicago to Winslow.  A couple of days in Chicago were the last time that I saw a play live (Goodman Theater) and the last time I heard live music (Jazz Club near north side).   Myah had just arrived back in Minnesota from Spain, just squeaking through before a total lockdown.   I was not supposed to fly back until Mid May. The conversations that we had with my friends were ones I never had before.  I remember asking out loud if I should just "stick it out here".  Cindy would be moving to her new home and I could help.  Karen and Jen were there and the Desert Oasis was another place where I would be welcomed.   We scoured the internet,  reached out to folks that I worked with in the beginning of the AIDS epidemi...