november glow

Okay, okay, enough brooding for now. Let me tell you some of the reasons why I love this time of year.

The sun rides low in the sky, and the light is always soft and golden, even at noon. Everything appears to be lit from within when the sun is out in November in Maine. It's been a lovely month, warmer and drier than usual, so it's easy to appreciate this quality of the sunlight. The leaves have fallen, leaving the trees bare. Granted, this can look a bit dismal against sodden granite skies, but it also means that the red fruits that remain on the trees are in starring roles. Winterberry, apple, mountain ash; the list is long. I love how stark the contrast is, sharp black branches and glowing round fruit.

A frosted apple, which will fall soon and feed the many deer that tramp through our yard. Grudgingly, we allow this. They are so beautiful, those deer. But they sure do make me grumpy come spring when they eat my tulips.

The sugary frost on the berries makes them even prettier. They sparkle and glow.

I've been working on some cards to sell at some of the craft fairs that I will be in this December. I wanted to capture some of the glory of these bursts of color in an otherwise monochromatic landscape. I didn't manage it, but they are kinda nice in their own way. At least I think they are.

I'll be at the Island Arts Association Craft Fair here on MDI on December 4 and 5, at the Atlantic Oceanside here in Bar Harbor. This is a great collection of 50+ artists and crafters from the island communities on and around MDI. On December 6, I'll be at a small show from noon to 5 at the Wine Bar on Wharf Street in Portland, with my friends Michelle Souza and Amy Reisman, among others. The following Sunday, December 13, I'll be at a trunk show at Studio, Jessi Sader's lovely shop in Orono, and the week after that, on Saturday, December 19, I'll be at the Petite Revolution Holiday Shindig at Hogfarms Studio Annex on Main Street in Biddeford. (Coco and Gil Corral of HFSA were recently featured in the new Maine magazine, which I dig). I hope to see you in my travels. I'll post more info about the more distant shows later.

And one last thing. About these new mammogram recommendations. If I had not had my first mammogram at age 40 (and there is no reason that I would have under the new recommendations), the tumors that were present in my breast would not have been detected for months, if not years. My chances of surviving breast cancer would have plummeted. I understand that this is all about numbers and statistics and cost. Individuals get lost in arguments such as these. I'm begging you, don't listen. No one wants to go have a mammogram. It's only slightly more fun than having a tooth pulled. But it could save your life. It almost certainly has mine.

death and taxes

So I signed a will today. Soon after Kristen's cancer took a turn for the worse, back in 2006, she and I went to a lawyer together to write our wills. She went first, the lawyer asking questions, her answering. During my turn, when I answered with her name for more than one of the questions, she looked at me like I was crazy, as if to say "but I'm the one who is going to die." We knew that she would probably "predecease" me, as the lawyers love to say, but as we all know, nothing is certain. And if, by some chance, she were to survive me, I wanted to be sure that she was first in line for the things that I owed her. 

The kind lawyer had Kristen's will done in a jiffy, but mine got buried. He sent it to me to look over shortly before she died, a year later. I tucked it away, unable to deal with it at that moment, and by the time I pulled it out again, it needed to be rewritten. But despite that flash of insight that I had had in his office with her about the uncertainty of life, I once again put it back in the pile, as if to say "I'm not going to die. I don't need this."

I am going to die. Hopefully not right away, hopefully not in surgery or from anything related to cancer at all. But I am going to die, and I don't know when or how. If I care about my children and what happens to them when I die, which I do, very much, then I need to have a will. It has taken getting cancer myself to make me act upon this. 

And what made me sign up for that mammogram, despite feeling almost certain that I would never get breast cancer? I don't know, but right now, I'm urging you women out there who are over 40 and haven't had a mammogram to get one. As a friend said recently, I'm the poster child for Mammograms at 40. And write a will while you're at it. Having a will is a way to show love and respect both for yourself and for those you love. These things aren't fun, and they can be hard to face, but they are important.

I'll try not to twist my ankle as I step back off my soapbox...