Today is opening day for the Red Sox. No, I’m not going. It’s too cold to sit in the stands, and besides the game is at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

     Memories of opening day 1955 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. A friend and I had sent for tickets and taken the train from Connecticut to New York, and then the subway to Brooklyn. We arrived early to see batting practice and all the pregame activities, but when they didn’t open the gates to let us in, we knew that the game was going to be called before it even started.

      Any Dodger memory is worth of telling as far as I am concerned. But the Brooklyn Dodger memory supreme for me happened that day as my friend and I were heading away from Ebbets Field. Standing there in the rain was Jackie Robinson, looking around for someone.

      “Do you think they’ll play tomorrow, Jackie?” I asked.
      “I think so,” replied a rather preoccupied Jackie.
      “Who are you looking for?” bold me continues.
      “I’m waiting for my wife.” And with that he put his signature on the little piece of paper I handed him.

     I wish I still had the autograph, but memories are really better.

     My friend went back to Connecticut. I called my grandmother, Brooklyn Dodger fan supreme, and spent the night with her on Brooklyn Heights. The next day she and I went to the opening day together. That was the beginning of that magical year!

Celebrate Earth Hour TODAY with millions of people around the globe by turning off your lights for one hour, beginning at 8:30pm.  For more information, see  www.earthhour.org/ AND www.worldwildlife.org/focusearthhour.  Thousands of cities and towns in almost every country and territory in the world will participate.  "Earth Hour is the single, largest, symbolic mass participation event in the world.  Born out of a hope that we could mobilize people to take action on climate change."

Yesterday was a bird day for me. On my walk I came upon a dead sparrow in the middle of the road. So peaceful, so asleep forever. I moved it to the brush by the side of the road. I don’t often think about what happens to the thousands of birds that I see in a single day here. All those gulls and merganser probably return to the ocean. But a single little sparrow?

    And what about the six Canada geese that took over the lawn here in front of the cottage yesterday? In the five years that I have been here, this is their first appearance before my eyes. I figure the rough weather disrupted their routine, but why this time? Why not during other storms? Such a mystery. Six geese are manageable, but what will happen to the thousands (no exaggeration) of geese that live by the little man-made pond near the condos close to my daughter? No sea to shining sea to absorb them into nature’s fold!

     Today my bird day continues. As I sit here writing, a little bird has alighted on the porch railing. A sparrow, or perhaps the purple finch that has been enjoying the nearby bushes. Come to think of it, this is the first year that song birds have spent time here. Another mystery.

I blogged about Wilderness Blessings sometime last year when the book first came out. Now I’m posting again because more than ever I am convinced than this book speaks to all people, not just those with a defined faith nor with a loved one with Down syndrome.

Yesterday Jeff Gallagher and I got together at his church office in Kittery Point to catch up and talk about writing. Jeff went to divinity school with me and was a field education student at my church. He is now the father of two boys, Noah a third grader, and Jacob a kindergartener, who has Down syndrome. In 2013 Jeff published Wilderness Blessings: How Down Syndrome Reconstructed Our Life and Faith, a book about his (and his wife Kristin's) early experiences parenting Jacob. It is a book about love, parenting, Down syndrome, medical wonders (specifically at Children's Hospital in Boston), faith and so much more. It is how all these aspects, especially the ‘wilderness’ ones, can become blessings. 

We spent the weekend with our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Great fun hearing Colin as percussionist for the high school musical “Honk”.  Yorkshire pudding and roast beef was outstanding. Emily and I went to the outlets and I bought a couple of outfits for some upcoming events—a memorial service, a wedding reception, and my trip to Florence next month. And of course, I needed some comfortable walking shoes.

    All of this shopping was fun and satisfying; I don’t regret any of my purchases. But now, here I am sitting on the deck at the cottage, wearing the same pants, shirt and sweater that I do every day when I’m here, trying to make sense of my clothes, both new and old. Where is the balance between this simple, solitary life, where I spend more and more of my time, and my social life, which is still a part of who I am? How important are clothes to me?

      When I was teaching I loved buying a new outfit to wear in the classroom—nothing like a kindergarten wardrobe! Then, as a hospice spiritual care counselor I had my appropriate bereavement outfits. Two ends of the spectrum with other outfits for all those in between times! Nowadays I have fewer opportunities to get dressed up at all. Truth be told, if I live to be 101 and never buy another piece of clothing, I’ll probably have enough. But some part of me still wants something new, still wants to dress up. And then there is the flip side, the side that doesn’t want to look like a bag lady, doesn’t want to appear in the same pants, shirt and sweater every day when I go to the supermarket, nor in the same dress at every social event. Shoes are different—they are in the category of comfort—well not entirely.

    That’s what’s running through my mind about it all at the moment, but I am also well aware that there are other issues that I haven’t touched on—natural fabrics… fair trade products… gratitude that I can afford to buy something new…. And then there is that perennial fundamental question: How much is enough? None of this is simple.

Two years ago I started a blog IT’S TIME TO GO; LETTING GO OF STUFF  http://lettingofstuff.blogspot.com/. My husband and I had the intention of getting rid of one thing every day for an entire year. We did quite well, but then our commitment faded and I got tired of blogging about it. The desire is still there; I just wish I had a clone who was interested in doing all the work.

    On my walk the other day I was reminded that I am not alone in  the challenge to let go of stuff. Along the side of the road, waiting for trash removal, was a plastic box, with “Mike, Photo Albums, Keep,” written on its side. Where are the photos? Did Mike toss them? Did his mother toss them? Have they been sorted and distributed? Have they been scanned?

     All these questions indicate just how difficult it is to let go of stuff. When we see treasures piled by the side of the road, we can be pretty sure a complex decision making process landed them there.

What were two deer doing up by the lighthouse yesterday? I was walking along the road when way up ahead there they were, leaping across the road and disappearing between a couple of houses. They must have been panicked because there is no, and I mean no, free land on this spit of land. House after house after house, all jutting as high as possible to compete for a view of the ocean.

     Left to their natural habitat I think of deer as silent types, moving without a sound, making not a sound, always listening for the silence to be broken. On the other hand, deer don’t seem to be solitary as they always move in community; a lone deer is looking for it’s companions. Simplicity? Probably left to their own devices, as nature plans it, a deer’s life is simple.

    I wonder where those two deer are today? Did they make it through the maze of summer cottages, across the big road to the Maine woods? I hope so.

I’m working away on my memoir: writing, deleting, writing, deleting. That’s the way it will go until I settle on the major theme, the coordinating color. Right now I have a clothesline of ideas but so far they don’t make an outfit. As best as I can figure, the book will be about my search for solitude as I live into my seventies, and the effect that Mom had on me during the last two years of her life.

      Writing that helped clarify.

It’s quiet around here, except for the tapping of computer keys. While I type away for my blog, my granddaughter does the same for her  homework. Without a computer, I doubt she could function as a high school freshman. And when I say computer, I mean word processing and the internet. Was it more simple when I was in high school? I would say yes, but maybe just different. No going back.

      Today I wrote a hand-written note to a friend who doesn’t have internet access. What a procedure: writing, sealing the envelope, finding the address and writing it, finding a stamp and licking it, and then out to the mailbox. Not simple but rather special, this personal note.

     With hand-written notes a rarity these days, communication has taken a different turn—different physical ways we go about it, different number of people with whom we’re in contact, different groups of people, different kinds of messages. If nothing else, the sheer ease with which we can let the world know what we’re thinking and doing, makes if feel simple. But we also know that with the simple click of the wrong key, to our horror, we can blurt with no recourse. Here I go.

I came in from shoveling the driveway-- two inches of light snow. Not enough for the plow, too much to muck around in when it melts. That may be my exercise for the day. It’s pretty windy, but a walk is never out of my realm of possibilities. I figure that I’ve walked at least 50 of the 58 days I’ve been here, which rounds out to 60 hours, 200 miles. Alas, my statistics at home are never that high.