Alexandersmap

    Tag: New England

    • Freeze and Thaw

      In the dark time of the year.
      Between melting and freezing
      The soul’s sap quivers.
      – T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

      There are more famous lines from this poem, but this is the time of sap buckets and lines run between maple trees in New England, so forgive me for straying from the popular. For these are the days of freezing and thawing – a confused mix of awakening and nature turning a cold shoulder on us. A reminder that warmer days are coming but we aren’t there just yet.

      And so it is with the vaccine and a pandemic that hasn’t quite finished its business with us, despite casual disregard and letting up of guards. We aren’t quite there, but surely we’re closer. So persevere; for we’ll get through the darkness, together in our isolation.

      Eliot wrote Little Gidding during the darkest days of the Blitz, set it aside in dissatisfaction and returned to it again to publish it during slightly brighter days in 1942. Who would ever think of 1942 as brighter days? Someone who lived through the Blitz of 1940-41 I suppose.

      So who are we to complain about a turn to colder days just as the sun began to warm us once again? Who are we to complain about wearing a mask for just a bit longer? Are we that precious and self-absorbed? Focus on the brighter days ahead, but stay the course in the meantime.

      As the snow and ice retreats for another season, the mud rises to meet our favorite footwear in a cold, gooey grip. The warmest days bring swirls of bugs celebrating their brief dance with life. And we, the comfortable masses, find reasons to complain about the mud and bugs and even the miraculously fast release of vaccines to the world that just seem a bit too slow. For all the joy of thaw, we seem to prefer the angst of freeze.

      Spring is upon us, despite it all. The sap flows with each freeze and thaw, and drips slowly into buckets. Drop by drop, the buckets fill. It’s the only way, really. You can’t very well cut the tree in half to pour out the sap. Not if you hope to have another season anyway. No, progress is slow that way. And offers lessons in patience and perseverance. Of going with the flow and staying the course.

    • Charming Gardeners

      “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust

      Spring in New England is a tricky thing. We pivot from beautiful warm days to snow squalls and bitter wind, often within a few minutes of each other. But the days grow longer and we quietly grow more confident about putting the lawn furniture back out and maybe planting some seeds in starter soil. Basil, cilantro and parsley are each growing in sunny windowsills as I write this, and I’m considering getting the dahlia bulbs going soon. Such is the mind of a gardener.

      Proust writes of a different kind of gardener, of course, but they’re generally one and the same. The people who light us up in social interaction are quiet observers of humanity, readers of eyes and solicitors of smiles. In this particular time when social interaction has been elusive, we haven’t had as much interaction like this, and we’ve never needed it more.

      Spring brings hope to the gardener, and vaccines bring hope for time with those people who make us happy. I’m as ready for a gathering of celebration with friends and family as I am for the smell of fresh cut grass and tomato vines. Confident hugs and hand squeezes and shoulder leans are just around the corner.

      Imagine the days ahead, as a gardener imagines them – life blossoming anew, hope in the air, warm sun on our backs. Breathe in the fresh warm air, turn towards friends old and new, and smile. They could use it – and so could you.

    • Autumn Leaves

      It always happens this way. The leaves start to turn, and suddenly accelerate into a burst of color. Meanwhile, you’re busy with life, knowing the wave is washing over you but not getting out there enough to see it. The rains come, often with wind gusts, and it ends before you really noticed.

      The alternative is to notice. To walk away from the computer screen and see the foliage, feel the crisp air, smell the freshly fallen leaves mingle with the harvest. To experience the world on more than just the weekends. It seems to me a better way, noticing, and we ought to do more of it.

      Still, I have this stack of responsibilities that keep me at bay. Three big projects due for work, and home projects to finish, and other such to-do commitments. Those seem like compelling reasons to skip a walk amongst the trees today, don’t they? No?

      We remain reckless with our time, we humans, and it flies by regardless of our attention to the urgency of the matter. The autumn leaves come and go whether you linger amongst them or not. But the journey is more pleasant when you linger awhile.

      The image that stays with me most after a weekend in Acadia is not the rocky shore or the stunning sunrise on Cadillac or the lighthouse, but a single brilliant red tree along the Carriage Road. I imagine that the leaves have fallen off that tree in the stormy few days since I was there, but in my mind they remain, fluttering like Cardinals at a social event. And there’s the fleeting magic of fall foliage. The Autumn leaves are here today, gone tomorrow. Go have a look then.

    • The Joyful Pursuit of Fish and Chips

      How did I get on this track? Surely I’d have been better off looking for the best kale salad? But I’m in search of the best fried food. I know where it started. I blame Halifax. I’ve had exceptional fish & chips, and I keep chasing it in restaurants around the northern Atlantic Ocean trying to find the best in an evasive, sometimes frustrating mission.

      The very best I’ve ever had was a lunch special at The Five Fishermen Restaurant in Halifax. It was super fresh with a crisp, light batter and chips seasoned just right, all presented beautifully on a modest plating. It was an epiphany, and I haven’t had a better one yet in Canada, New England, New York, London or Scotland. Are there equal or better fish & chips in those places? Probably, but I haven’t found it yet.

      Now to be fair, The Five Fisherman is a fine dining experience with a menu to be savored, and I was the right audience for that dish. Pubs and most restaurants that serve fish & chips aren’t focused on the delivery of a world class dish, they’re simply feeding the masses. So I don’t bash the places that don’t do it well, I just don’t mention them at all. I’ve had truly awful fish and chips only once, in the shadow of the London Eye, at a tourist trap. Soggy, greasy and full of bones. I had one bit and threw away the rest. Shameful waste of food, and a fish that died in vain. I had no business ordering anything in that place so the fault lies squarely with me.

      But as you might expect, that was the exception in London. The city has some excellent fish & chips places in every corner. Pub food bliss with large servings of fish overflowing the dish, mounted on a healthy pile of chips (“next to” is the preferred serving, thank you). The only thing stopping me from ordering it everywhere was a natural desire to eat a bit of everything, but I give a respectful nod to the UK for the consistently great fish & chips. Shame my last experience having it there before leaving was that tourist trap place. Circumstances being what they were it was what it was…

      As I’ve hinted, the best fish & chips offers fresh, flaky white fish (Cod, please) in a light, crispy batter, served with a reasonable pile of crisp fried potatoes sliced just right. A side of fresh coleslaw is welcome. Tartar sauce, lemon and ketchup should be strictly optional, not required to get through your meal. When I see a piece of fish presented with a slice of lemon already sitting on the fish I think “not fresh fish”, and when the fish is thrown on top of the chips I think, “soggy chips”. Yes, it’s a basic, working-class dish, but presentation still matters.

      I’ve written close to 500 words on the modest topic of fish & chips. Candidly, I could go on much longer on the topic. Ultimately, my search continues for a better fish & chips dish. Like any experience, once you’ve had something truly exceptional most things afterwards won’t measure up. But there’s joy in the pursuit.

    • Chickadees in the Snow

      “All substance is soon absorbed into nature, all that animates it soon restored to the logos, all trace of them both soon covered over by time.” – Marcus Aurelius

      I was helping Bodhi down the stairs last night and noticed a set of chickadee tracks in the snow.  I thought to myself that they would make a great picture for the right photographer (I’m a pale alternative).  Bodhi proceeded to step into the snowy tracks, forever changing the image.  And yet there were still a couple of other tracks in the snow that I opted to leave well enough alone.

      This morning the tracks were still there.  Not a complete surprise since the temperatures remained below freezing and there was no snow overnight.  But there will be tonight and these tracks will disappear in time; a memory for me and anyone else who happens to see them before they’re forever lost.  So I took a picture to capture the moment.  I’ve done my best to capture as many moments as I can with photography.  I recognize that sometimes you have to live the moment instead of constantly having the phone out, and I’ve tried to keep the phone in my pocket most of the time.  Perhaps InstaGram has suffered for the omission, but I don’t believe the 20-30 people who look at my pictures felt the lapse.

      There is only today after all.  We’re told to make the most of it and generally I live that way.  Capturing a moment in time with a photograph is a blessing for only the last eight generations or so.  We all see time flies by too quickly.  Footprints or castles in the sand are typical analogies to this rapid passage of time and our fragile place in it.  But I think I prefer the chickadee footprints in the snow as my analogy.  Chickadees are fragile creatures, and yet they find ways to deal with the harsh New England winters.  Chickadees are social creatures, as much for survival as anything else.  Humans share similar survival instincts, and the same fragility.  Time marches on.  Best to focus on the day at hand.

    • Old Growth Pine

      New England is covered in forest today, but it’s a different forest than the one that greeted the first settlers to the region.  Back then old growth trees dominated the landscape.  And the tallest of these trees were the white pines.

      White pines were tall and straight and thus highly attractive for ship masts.  Surveyors went through the forests of New England and marked the best of these trees with an arrow slash to designate that the tree was the property of the king.

      The high demand for masts for the British Navy depleted the old growth pine forests of New England by the 1770’s, right about when the colonists were beginning to rebel against the Intolerable Acts that would permanently separate the American Colonies from Great Britain.  This didn’t mean a reprieve for the white pines, as the shipbuilding market shifted focus from the British Navy to merchants ships.

      The forests have grown back, but it would be fascinating to time machine back to 1500 AD to see what New England looked like then.  If you get deep into the woods on a quiet morning, you can hear the wind blow through the white pine needles.  It’s not hard to imagine the call of the sea from this sound.

    • Bucket Lists and Daily Life

      Bucket Lists and Daily Life

      We’re in the mad dash now.  Kids in college, new job ramping up, house showing need for repairs, retirement saving, mileage on the cars, Bodhi needing more meds, appliances acting up, stuff accumulating, stuff we seemingly need, stuff we definitely don’t need, should we stay or should we go now?  Time ticking along.  Here we are: This American life as we’ve built it.  Domestic bliss.

      Is that a spaghetti squash on the counter?  The kids are adults now.  I’m not sure I am yet, but they’re eating new foods, trying new things, opening their eyes to the world.  Sometimes they like what they see, a lot of times they don’t.  The world is a complicated nest of too much information, fake news versus real information, everybody trying to get more clicks or views or subscribers.  The drive for influence and income – power and money – drive behavior in the media and in social media.

      I was asked why I don’t get my blog out there for more people to see.  Why nobody knows about it.  Honestly I write it for myself and invite others to see what they want to see.  At some point when there’s critical mass in content maybe I’ll shift it to an e-book.  For now it’s enough to stay in the habit of writing and contributing to something daily (or when I can).  I believe that the people screaming the most for attention have the least to say.  I’d prefer to say something, even if the volume isn’t in line with the world we live in at the moment.

      So….   this post is all over the map but that’s where I want to be myself.  Keep the home and the garden and the job in some form or another but get out and see the world.  Sometimes the world is a flight to Europe or a hike on the AT or sailing from here to there.  Sometimes the world is a walk down the street to visit an old graveyard I’ve driven past for 20 years.   That’s my bucket list now.  Just get out and experience as much as possible in the time I have.  Maybe ease off on the booze and red meat and sugar a bit during the journey.  Eat more leafy greens or dark purple berries.  There’s plenty of advice online should I need guidance.

      Bodhi is clicking his way over here now.  He’s ready to go outside.  He sniffs and snorts and groans and shakes his head.  Time for me to get outside!  Time to go!  What are you waiting for?!  Don’t just sit there!  Let’s go!!  Now, please!  Now!  I know how you feel Bodhi, I know how you feel.

    • On Coffee

      This morning I’m sipping a Starbucks Italian Roast coffee.  I could have chosen Peets or something else.  I’ve grown lazy in my coffee habit.  I have coffee beans and could have ground them using my hand grinder, poured them into a French press and savored the rich results.  Brewing coffee is a ritual.  Some days I’m into ritual.  Today I’m into having a cup of coffee in my hand in under a minute.

      Coffee probably came to New England sometime in the early 17th century, but New Englanders were tea drinkers like their cousins in the mother country.  Coffee didn’t really take off here until after the Boston Tea Party, when coffee became an anti-establishment beverage of choice.  Boston still wasn’t known as a coffee mecca though.  Coffee was something you sucked down to give you a boost or warm you up on a cold day.  And the choices were the same as in most of America – Folgers, Maxwell House, etc.

      Now anyone from Boston better mention Dunkin Donuts when talking about coffee.  Some of my earliest childhood memories were sitting at a Dunkin Donuts counter eating an Old Fashioned Donut.  Coffee memories with Dunkin started much later.  Back before the McDonalds lawsuit, I remember the coffee was scalding hot and you had to wait it out for a bit before you could safely drink it.  Being of questionable intelligence, I always tried to start drinking my coffee a bit sooner than I should have.  Since that lawsuit coffee seems to have throttled back on the temperatures.  Probably for the best but it does take some of the adventure out of the morning.  We all must be protected from ourselves.

      Like many people after college I started paying more attention to the stuff I ate and drank.  Beer was the first thing to get upgraded.  Coffee followed shortly after.  I know it’s sacrilege in New England, but to me Dunkin Donuts is like that K-Cup coffee.  It does the job, but it’s not something I’ll savor.  But savoring coffee wasn’t a thing around New England for the first half of my life.  It became a thing in the 90’s.

      Around Boston, Coffee Connection was our first exposure to a truly rich coffee experience.  It was a place you stopped in when you went to Harvard Square.  Then they started growing and you could find it elsewhere.  Coffee Connection peaked in the mid-90’s and then was acquired by Starbucks.

      Starbucks changed the way we looked at coffee.  It changed the way I looked at coffee.  The first time I had it was on a ferry between Seattle and the San Juan Islands.  I was in line to buy a coffee and when I got up to the front they had two kinds; “coffee” and “Starbucks”.  I remember asking “What’s Starbucks?”  The answer, “It’s like coffee but stronger.” still makes me smile.  Starbucks coffee is not just stronger coffee.  It’s more robust, more flavorful, richer coffee.

      Starbucks jump-started their presence in Boston when they acquired Coffee Connection.  And started a religious war in the process.  Starbucks vs. Dunks.  West vs. East.  Lakers vs. Celtics.  Flashy and expensive vs. working class.  Dunkin Donuts has seized on this in their ads, and customers followed suit.

      I’m an unapologetically diehard Starbucks fan.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll buy DD when I need to, and I love Peets and some of the local coffee houses that serve rich dark roast coffees.  Coffee, like beer, is something to savor.  And the growth of microbreweries coincided with the growth of the coffee industry.  But it’s not for everyone.  Just as InBev owns 45% of the American beer market, and MillerCoors owns the next 26%, Folgers and Maxwell House own the majority of market share in coffee.  Sometimes taste matters, sometimes people only care about the net result.

    • Alexander’s Map

      Alexander’s Map

      A new year, and a new pursuit; this blog.  So why the name?

      Alexander’s Map is a rare map published in 1624 to encourage colonization of the lands granted to William Alexander.  The map gives an early, if inaccurate, glimpse at this region that I’m so fascinated with.  Alexander’s Map stretches from present-day Massachusetts to Newfoundland to the northeast and Quebec (“New France”) to the north.  
      My blog will cover observations from living in this region, and will also include observations from as far west as Buffalo and as far south as New Jersey.  This is where I spend much of my time, and with so much history, food, sports and geological and cultural diversity to explore it will be fun to explore this in writing.  I hope you’ll enjoy the journey with me.