Working Waterfront

How can I keep from singing?

A while ago, I joked to someone online that my pandemic memoir would be titled The Year Without Singing. Although nobody has asked me to write a pandemic memoir (yet!), it occurred to me in the moment that the directives prohibiting singing, or restricting it to 16 feet apart, outdoors,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Cows and contentment

Every morning on my way to work I get a little serotonin boost about a half mile from my house. There, in a long, narrow field edged with woods, moseys a small herd of Red Devon cows. One gentle, thick-necked bull, three horned steers, and one pregnant cow named Frieda… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A different kind of book in gestation

In 2014 I had a baby, and in 2019 I wrote a song about it. It’s called “Tear Me in Two,” referring not just to the physical act of childbirth, but of the feeling I had as a new parent of this second person, an extension of myself and also… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A good deed was the best medicine

It’s no secret that these are trying times. It’s a metaphorical rough ferry ride, with the news cycle and pandemic sending us up into an optimistic high, only to bring us crashing down into yet another trough. In a recent column, I wrote about the small gesture of leaving patches… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Challenges with a purpose is island life

A newcomer to the island, upon hearing about some of the inconveniences and stressors of island life, asked me, in all seriousness, “So why do you stay?” There are times when I ask myself the same question. Like on a dark, rolling December ferry ride, shivering in my car (because… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Don’t mow the milkweed

Not too far from my house, on one of my usual walking routes, is a huge field. A house sits on the field far back from the road, so that any signs of habitation are invisible to passersby, but the field covers an immense swath of South Shore Road. It… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The richness of found fruit

When I was young, I had the privilege of growing up on 13 acres of secondary-growth forest in central Maine, between Farmington and Augusta. Our land had a stream and frog pond, a field full of wild strawberries, a thicket of blackberries, an apple tree whose fruit was always harder… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The tenuousness of wild places

I'm writing this month's column poolside, a very unusual place for me to be. After not leaving the state for 18 months, Bill, Penrose, and I masked up, braved a transcontinental plane ride, and landed in San Diego in late June. After a few days of Mexican food, record shopping,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Rituals with fire and water

So I turned 40. This was inevitable, and quite predictable—having been born in 1981, I would certainly turn 40 in 2021. But it’s still strange to say: I am now a 40-year-old woman. I remember when turning 40 was an occasion for doom and gloom. My father’s surprise 40th birthday… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The weight of Memorial Day settles on island

How interesting that Memorial Day should occur in spring. North Haven observes the day with a somber procession through the village, from the American Legion Hall to the ferry ramp. Community veterans, some in and some out of uniform, oversee the presentation of cedar-and-poppy wreaths in memory of North Haven’s… SEE MORE