Home! Home! Finally Home!

Great Crested Flycatcher, Moose River, New York. June 1, 2020.

The only thing tougher than going home right now is leaving home.

Ten minutes earlier heading back into the world of whatever isn't home is, and I don't see this kid and friends. And they don't see me either. 

I hope they're smarter than I and hang a while. I'll be back soon if I can and look forward to possibilities. Almost fifteen years pass between friends like forever. But there we were, some of us. 

And I'm not kidding: ten minutes later and none of this happens.

And it did happen. 

I believe in miracles.

One Central Wonder

This may have nothing at all to do with Moose River, but I suspect it matters.

On June 24, 1984, before my graduation from high school, my dad gave me this watch. It had belonged to his grandfather, and my grandfather, and him, and then me. At the time I received this gift, it was not in working order so far as anyone could discern.

I loved it anyway.

Since then it has been loved, placed somewhere no one could find it for thirty-five years, found in that place (which believe me is all I wanted to know all that time: where was it?).

But last year it showed up. And last year I wound it. And last year it ran. As it did when I took this video of it tonight.

You might think I'd have all kinds of thoughts about this development, but mostly I just have questions. And those questions all go back to one central wonder: what does this watch know about time? I mean, what does it really know?

I wonder because it seems odd that I could wind it and my actions seem to have made it run again after maybe 60 years; I don't know anyone alive who can confirm having seen these hands move until recently. That's puzzling.

I also wonder because it runs fast. I looked online and found the controls to slow it down but no matter what I have done (and these are things I will do no longer) it runs fast. I would imagine not one 1898 pocketwatch in a thousand runs fast, when it spent so many years not running at all.

It leads me to further suspicions:

* Maybe the watch is trying to catch up with now, and purposely increases its speed by almost unnoticeable increments in an attempt to make up for its many years of non-ticking.

* Maybe the watch is taunting me, trying to get me to get someone knowledgeable to "fix" it.

* Maybe the watch doesn't care at all and just does what it chooses as it pleases.

* Maybe the watch is trying to show me and anyone else who notices that time is a man-made construct that really doesn't matter.

All of which is enough to give me a headache (though it hasn't yet) but there's a fifth suspicion I hesitate to mention, though it's where my heart and mind lead me:

* Maybe time was faster in 1898 than it is now.

I'm not sure that would be possible, but I can't say it isn't. It does seem like people had more to do in a hurry back then. And it also seems like those people would have measured their time by their own assumptions about its measurement; if time is truly a man-made construct then they would have to have done so. It doesn't explain why the watch can't be slowed, unless those people didn't foresee a time it would need to be so slowed as to measure now.

***

All I know is a watch made by people long passed is running 120+years after it was assembled.  I don't know how, nor do I know why, and if I never know either answer, I'm totally cool with it. Which is great, because we all know I never will.

Friends for sure. Moose River, New York, October 12, 2019.

Long Ago And Far Away

There is nothing like this lovely mountain air to make one eat and sleep and feel good. Cousin Delia might just as well make a bonfire of all her asthma medicine here. She does not need them. Will tell you all about it when I get home Sat. L&K

Card sent to Miss H. Mary Greene of Bank Street, Batavia, NY, August 10, 1908.

The Only Living Moth In New York

Moose River, New York, November 8, 2018.

Her, Him, Them And All

Her

Him

Them

The Old Iron Bridge and other friends, Moose River, New York, about 1908.

Don't Get Me Wrong (A Fable)

It's the week of the fawns, that time of year when a doe will pause momentarily from her carefree life of card-playing, gossiping, and general patyourselfonthebackitude to have a child or two or (uncommon up here if it's normal anywhere) three.

I'm not sure about the birth of fawns because I've never seen it firsthand and I trust no one's experience except my own in recalling and retelling such events. But from what I can piece together from sources reliable in most other cases involving fascinating things, the doe will take a couple of minutes, have the child or children, clean them up, and move the newly-minted troupe along. A friend of mine once stopped his car in the middle of the road, having happened upon the scene, and waited the requisite three or four minutes until everyone was up and out of harm's way. I don't envy him that moment but it would not break my heart if I were there when a similar one arrived. 

It hasn't happened yet and may never occur, but this did:

On a cold, rainy day a couple Junes ago I was in camp, hanging next to the woodstove and trying to attain some semblance of proper human body temperature and even one dry sock (after all, one's better than none; something about redundancy of use or some guy who had no depth perception yet became king or something like all that anyway). I looked out and saw the scene that caused me to grab the camera and make the shaky, loud, blurry video which follows.

Moral: there's no one way to meet perfection.

-MJ

Something Blurry But Real

Fourteen seconds of bad video of deer hurrying through Moose River, New York, on December 22, 2006.

I found this a few days ago and cherish it, not only for the deer but for the fleeting glimpse at Owen's Pl. (pronounced like it's spelled), the long-gone (burned in early 2008, I think) home of our neighbor Owen. He rebuilt (spent a North Country winter in a camper while doing so) and stayed on another several years. We were neighbors for about 14 years and my sum total of communication was a few dozen waves. Dad talked with him once or twice.

Time goes on. Owen passed a few years ago and his new camp is now someone else's. But his original place is always his, and I'm not knocking people or change when I say I am grateful for that...

...and for the deer. And the woods. And late 2006. It's great to see them all.

-MJ