17 August 2024

Today, 17 August 2024, marks the six-months anniversary of my sister Jane’s passing, and this morning I learned that my beloved friend and former colleague, Roberta White, died this morning in Danville, Kentucky, where “Bobbie” was and remained my mentor and model as an accomplished scholar; skilled and beloved Centre College professor; fair and efficient administrator; and steadfast, Stoic, witty fellow traveler on life’s journey.  My last few days have been dominated by yet one more “final” revision of the book I hope will go to press by month’s end; I learned the sad however expected news of Bobbie’s passing as I was completing those corrections, including the page where I acknowledge Prof. White among the handful of others who supported and encouraged this young professor, tacitly challenging me to live up to the highest standards of teaching and collegiality.

Time is passing.  The lion’s share of my days seem spent in body and house maintenance, though this past week brought some happy surprises:  a wide bore MRI machine that minimized my claustrophobia with a light and slide show as well as a fan blowing cool air on my face, and a visit from “stucco man” Greg Thulander, who was last here in 2009 when he brought his little girl along to watch his repair work.  She’s now a woman with a master’s degree and working for Harvard.  I also met some new folks, like me trying on a variety of future plans, helping each other through the Seacoast Village Project and investigating aging in place with support from the Silverstone “At Home by Hunt” program.

Sunset in these latter post-Perseids New England summer days is coming appreciably earlier, and the male hummingbirds have already left for their winter havens to the south; only the females conduct their air battles as they tussle over the feeder ports just outside my kitchen window.  I keep thinking about the Katsura tree at Carey Cottage in Portsmouth, a gift of the Japanese ambassador to Arthur and Agnes Carey in appreciation of their hospitality during the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth negotiations which concluded the Russo-Japanese War.  How much human history it has seen!  But its century plus witnessing pales beside what I learned about the stumps that appear at low tide in Periwinkle Cove at the south end of Odiorne State Park.  They may look as if they were alive a year or two ago, but they’re closer to 4000 years old.

New Hampshire’s ancient coastline once sank under the weight of glacial ice; when that ice melted across the Northern Hemisphere, sea levels rose and the Atlantic waters crept inland—as far as present-day Durham and Lee so close to where our house now stands.  But relieved of glacial weight, the Earth’s surface rebounded over thousands of years and the land gained elevation:  the coastline retreated all the way out to beyond the Isles of Shoals, currently some 6-7 miles off the Portsmouth coast.  I’ll be on a yoga retreat there come Labor Day weekend.  All this mutability means that for a time, the area where Odiorne Point is now was once a forested coastal wetland.  The stumps seen only at low tide in Periwinkle Cove are remnants of an ancient forest of Pine, Hemlock, and Atlantic White Cedar which grew some 4000 years ago until it was drowned again by encroaching salt water.

But wait, there’s more!  Fossilized mastodon and wooly mammoth bones reveal that these behemoths roamed Durham and the UNH campus 10,000 years ago.  How’s about a wooly mammoth for a mascot?

Although the coastline has always been dynamic, the rate of change is accelerating to the extent that I can observe the changes that have happened over the just 30 years I’ve been here in New Hampshire.  I’ll be thinking of that on the rocky shores of Star Island, and of the Wabanaki who fished there as far back as 6000 years ago, long before the European fishermen and Capt. John Smith, who named the islands in 1614.

I always said of David’s and my trips to our beloved desert Southwest that the geological time so apparent in those eroded red rocks was a comfort, offering a tonic perspective on the relatively miniscule throes of our current season.  But the evidence of time passing is much closer at hand.  A few traitor trees have already begun their transition from summer to fall.  Seasons change, and so do we. 

I miss all those dear departed and remember I’ll fly away, too, when my expiry date is up.  For now I can only be grateful for the time I’ve had with them, and hope to make the most of the days I have left to savor the memories we made together.