Switched At Birth

L'Habitation Leclerc - a memory

I began to write this morning at the best possible time, that moment of exquisite balance when nightbirds are still singing outside the window, and a mist of gray-green light has begun to rise from the ground. The house is quiet save for it's own organic sounds; the hums, tones, and sighs of a comfortable lifestyle support system calibrated for its occupants. Refrigerator, central heater, and here, in my study, an old clock. Incense sticks in a far corner waft subtle hints of sandalwood, vanilla, and memories of Le Salon Noir.

Haiti is on the frontal lobes of world consciousness for the moment. Everyone knows why, of course. Bloggers may be more plugged into international zeitgeists than most, but everyone is disturbed by the images and moved by the tragedy, possibly even to the point of making a contribution to relief efforts.  Some have an expertise that will help and they join with others, get on a plane and go. They go. Others, such as my sister, Florice and her husband, Charlie, have many Haitian friends in their Arizona neighborhood. They pray with, cry with, mourn with, their friends.

The disaster kicked open a rusted file cabinet in a musty old hallway of my unsorted memory coils. The year was somewhere between 1974 and 76. My first husband and I went to St. Croix, Virgin Islands for about five days. He was on an assignment to write a grant for some entity, which I have forgotten if I ever knew, to apply for funds for an alcoholism rehabilitation program in Christiansted.  From there, we went to Port au Prince, Haiti to spend three days at a small resort, L'Habitation Leclerc. He had seen a tiny display ad for this exotic place in a magazine, and the heart of this staid evangelical-boarding-school-raised boy quickened. L'Habitation Leclerc originally belonged to General Emmanuel Leclerc and his wife, Pauline neé Bonaparte - - Napolean's wild child sister.

In the late 1940s, dancer, anthropologist, and author, Katherine Dunham, bought the property.  She leased most of it to Olivier Coquelin in 1974. Coquelin is often mentioned for bringing discoteque to New York. He hired architect Albert Mangonés to design a 24-villa luxury hotel around the residence. It was a hot spot for awhile, drawing rock stars, jet setters,  and fashion magazine shoots.

My husband and I were just young folks, working for the State of Florida, neither booted nor horsed; most unlikely guests at this posh venue.

The thing that sticks in my mind most vividly, still, is the taxi drive from the airport to the secluded hotel. Crowds of people lined the streets. Some seemed to be living there, with small bundles and baskets on their heads or by their sides.  They all seemed to be offering mangoes for sale. I'm sure that my 58 year old eye traversing that path during the same time period would have seen and retained much more than an image of everyone in the street trying to sell mangoes, but that is the only  image burned into the retinas of the mid-twenties me from the airport-to-hotel ride.

The three days at the hotel were surreal. Uniformed guards with Uzi submachine guns stood atop the stone wall encircling L'Habitation Leclerc. Guests swam in a sparkling swimming pool. It had a fantastical swim-up bar draped by a waterfall curtain. It was a world of manufactured perfection. Beautiful people, like Paige and Dusty, reclined on chaise lounges while white-coated servants delivered lobster and avocado salads in pineapples, and rum drinks in fresh-cut coconuts.

Mornings brought breakfasts of perfectly ripe tropical fruit and croissants, and a lilting-voiced question: "Banana daiquiri, madame?"

Evenings were spent in the dim-lit dining room/bar, Le Salon Noir. We savored rich French meals with a Caribbean accent, and lingered over espresso and cognac, doors open to the sensuous warm night air. There, in the flicker of tall, white candles, embraced by butter-soft black leather furniture, it was easy to forget that any other world existed beyond that walled compound.

The hotel has been gone for a long time, now. Coquelin went on to create an even weirder resort compound in which his pet baby leopards roamed freely. I am not sorry to say I was never there.

Baby leopards grow into full grown predators. Tectonic plates shift, and it all slip-slides away.

 

 

Old Pics Cal/Ore '85

I am dwelling in the Hall of Unfinished Projects, dragging yellow legal pads, old half-finished Wakimbo notebooks, steno pads and dark-ages photos I want to scan from pillar to post, dribbling chocolate thought crumbs all along the way.

Why did I go upstairs? Why did I come back down? Is there a reason I am sitting on the floor looking at all those old Garden and Gun magazines? One thing I do know. My wash-softened electric blue sweat pants sure are comfortable. (Maybe because the cinch string fell out and now they rest lightly hanging by an agnostic prayer just over my high, wide hip bones. ) And the old flannel shirt I rediscover every time we have the inevitable few days of cold weather in January feels like chamois against my skin.

Oh, yes. I went upstairs to look for the photos from our 1985 soiree along the coasts of California, the one we took a year after eloping to Alabama, when we could squeeze a generous 21 days away from work for a honeymoon.

We fell in love with Monterrey Bay, California and Gold Beach, Oregon. I burned the soles of my feet on the hot, dark beach sand, and ate oatmeal at The Inn at Otter Crest from a bowl made by a local potter. Strangely, I still remember the artist's name. It was Jacob D'Acurso. Thinking of that long ago breakfast, I smell cinnamon.

  This harbor scene looks like a Impressionist water color to me. It reeks with mystery and romance. All those little boats. Endless reflections.

  Do you suppose this California "designer squirrel" has stored up enough nuts for the winter? We spotted him on the rocks on the 17-mile drive alongside Monterrey Bay.

  "You talkin' to me?"

  Speechless. For once.

 

 

 
 

 

Revisiting Sequoia

I worshiped at the cathedral of giant trees twice: once in 1985 and again in 1994. When I unearthed these old, pre-digital photos and scanned them onto my hard drive, Buck and I looked at them together,where they were raised up from 3 x 5 and 4 x 6 inch dimensions to the larger, more emotional, computer screen. We reminisced about our time in Sequoia National Park, got out the atlas and the magnifying glass, and started planning one last visit. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe Walt Disney had something to do with my feeling that I am never alone in the woods. . .

Lemon Meringue Clouds

Meringue. I am flying in a Boeing 767 American Airlines plane, flight number 52 from Chicago to Glasgow, looking out the window while most of my fellow passengers are sleeping off a viewing of Shrek 2 and City Slickers.

The clouds above the sunrise look like meringue. They make me think of lemon meringue pie. Soft golden curlicues. The last time I baked a homemade pie was twenty one years ago.

I cook when I’m happy, which is most of the time, broiling, sauteing, baking, assembling the fresh good stuff.

Sometimes when I have a temporary dose of melancholia, the lengthy peeling and chopping process necessary for making a bodacious big pot of vegetable soup or chili is cathartic, especially when a few tears spill out in the onion chopping.

The evidence suggests I only bake pies when I’m angry. There’s a story in that, but the person who lit that fire in me is still around on the fringes and my anger refreshes itself even after twenty one years when I think about that night. Nope. Like fine smoked chipotle peppers, this one needs a few more years of aging to leave the heat but tame the flame.

We made it to Scotland this afternoon, dined on scrambled eggs and toast,  bathed in a huge ancient claw-footed tub, and are about to crash out.

Don't worry. Maggie will be fine during the hurricane. She has the equivalent of a samurai named Pauline guarding her life and limb in Pensacola, whatever Ivan may attempt. Still, my happiness here would be complete with that fine chocolate head on my knee in front of this coal fire.

Note: This restored lost post was written on September 14, 2004, as Buck and I were flying to Scotland. Hurricane Ivan suddenly strengthened, made a surprise turn, and hit Pensacola two days later while we were on the Isle of Arran.

Road Trip Journal

"Road Trip Journal is an online magazine featuring Road Warriors and the small communities they love. We want to help these Road Warriors to stay on the road as they re-discover small town America and help small town America get re-discovered. "   (Excerpt from Road Trip Journal's mission statement.)

 

 Buck and I have been thinking about taking a little road trip from Pensacola to Vicksburg and Natchez, Mississippi and maybe New Orleans., too. When I began to research the route, links to Road Trip Journal popped up. My first thought was, "What a great idea!"

Then, I noticed a solicitation from the publisher to bloggers who write about their own road trips. I submitted a post called "Backroads and Blue Highways" about a short road trip Buck and took in Alabama last April. RTJ accepted it, and it's on their site today.  Check it out here and then get busy and send them some of your own road trip stories!

p.s. They even pay a little gas money to keep blogging road trippers on the road.

Home Early

It's been a pilgrimage, of sorts. I have pictures and a story to tell.

Lots to catch up on.

Tomorrow.

Test Pattern

Buck, Maggie & I are out collecting lots of words and pictures. Due to technical difficulties, however, when they will appear in this space is uncertain!

Mountain elves are working on a solution. . .but not so hard it gets in the way of living.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

 

Back soon.

Sunday Morning Musings

The adolescent-looking doe and her spotted baby fawn stood at the edge of the gravel road to the house just at dusk yesterday.  They watched as I opened the gate, drove in, then got out to close the gate behind me.  By the time I reached for my camera across the seat, they had melted into the woods.

Lovely sight. It's that time of year here, when  fawns are dropping, huge banana spiders hang in their substantial webs across the fireline roads, and amethyst asters mix with spiky goldenrod and the startlingly purple American Beauty Berries (French mulberries).

We have only been home since Tuesday night and will be gone again Wednesday morning. We'll be near Jasper, Georgia in a house atop Sanderlin Mountain for a few nights, and then continue to Waynesville, North Carolina to visit with our old friends in Rice Cove (the Beaverdam Community in Canton), hike the Smoky Mountains and osmose some of that high mountain inspiration.

I awoke this morning to the news that Bernard, Maine, where Buck and I were hiking exactly one week ago, is under a tropical storm watch (of all things).  Hurricane Kyle is expected to move into the Gulf of Maine today. 

In case you have the good fortune to visit the Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island in Maine, there is a book I highly recommend:

It was written by Tom St. Germain and published by Parkman Publications in Bar Harbor, Maine.

It's the best hiking guide I have used. We have handwritten notes in it going back to 1993.

Just as we were leaving the rental house in Bernard on Bass Harbor, one of the owners, Tom, arrived with two of his pups. Tom is originally from California, but has been in Maine long enough to be considered a local. He is a retired high school teacher, a kayaker, surfer, distance hiker and a writer.

His love for the Maine woods and waters shines through his words and gestures. He and his wife, Leslie, have a great place here, even without the fabulous view.

 

   

Well, we've washed our hiking shorts, tshirts and socks, and are ready to hit the road again on Wednesday!  Words and pictures to follow. . . .hope you all have a great week, too.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

I awoke this morning at five, lying on my back in bed, hands clasped tightly under my chin like some anxious child in prayer.

I heard Buck's breathing; a gentle percussive sound on inhalation; the hint of tender endearments in each exhalation.

My hands relaxed.

For half an hour, I listened, remembered the night's rich tapestry of dreams, and then awoke fully with the fresh cold water of an epiphany. Feet on the floor, I slipped from the room, smiling.

Life Is Like. . . A Path In The Woods

 

Great Long Pond on Mount Desert Island in Maine is a water source for the local community. On one side is Beech Mountain. We climbed to the old fire tower there on Saturday, then returned on Sunday to hike two miles of shoreline on (what you see as) the left side and then turned upward and inland toward Bernard Mountain and Little Notch.

Buck and I are packing for the trip home tomorrow, so there's only time for a few photos and word snips from Sunday's hike. It was something else.

It's called the Western Mountains hike. It begins at the Long Pond pumphouse and continues for two miles of the most spectacular shoreside scenery one could imagine. Buck observed that one reason this part of the trail is so dangerous is because the sheer gorgeousness of the lake draws the eye to it and away from the sharp rocks at ground level ready to trip you up.

We stopped for lunch at a huge outcropping of granite hanging over Long Pond.  Later, when the trail turned sharply upward toward the notch between Mansell Mountain and Bernard Mountain, the trail deteriorated dramatically. When we weren't balancing on rocks and avoiding the black muck in the path, (which looked like it would be a running stream during wet season), we were duck-walking over a complex latticework of heavy tree roots.

  This is the path.

 And this is the path. 

 And so is this.

The sharp, clean aroma of spruce was exhilarating.

Evidence of storms was clear in some places, where large falling trees took smaller ones with them, coming to rest in a pile of wood, foliage and cascading boulders.

Each difficult portion of the trail was followed by a smooth, chartreuse pathway of moss, ferns and comic red toadstools.

  And then, suddenly around the next bend there would be a wicked witch's idea of fun, as though the trees had been hurled into the air and slammed back down again all helter-skelter like a giant's package of all-brown pick-up sticks.

This is life, I thought. Again and again, this is life. Get ready. Stay ready. Buckle up and hunker down. Don't be deluded.

With each new footfall safely placed, I thought: Yes. There is satisfaction and pleasure in the solving of this small problem. Maybe we will make it home for supper, after all.