Made a dooryard call at a neighbor’s yesterday, and naturally, conversation turned to “this situation we’re in.” Doesn’t it always these days?

“We were sitting on the back deck last night,” he said, “looking out over the garden and I thought ‘how can I be so lucky, to be here in this place and have this wonderful woman going through life with me?’” Of course, at that, his wife turned around to see whom he was talking about, and we all chuckled.

It’s the stock comment I hear often – I make it myself. What better place to be sheltering than Maine in May? After the rain and gloom and cold gave way to sunny, warm days, that is.

You hear it from all sorts of people, but I suspect the ones who are most content with the situation are the secure – financially and emotionally secure. If there’s still a paycheck coming in, if the house holds more than one person, if the household is loving and not abusive, that kind of secure.

I’d add “if the house holds children.” Mine does, a bonus to the impulsive decision I made three years ago to turn this one into a multi-generational household. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, having three boisterous school-age kids underfoot, but it works for me. Another addendum: as Grandma I’m not responsible for them in the way their parents are.

The other bonus I never could have anticipated is the pleasure in finding a companion who lives barely a mile away, someone finding himself in the same empty boat you’re left in when a spouse dies. Somehow, nearly three years ago, we two climbed into the boat together, or maybe, more accurately, started rowing our own boats side by side. He lives in his house, me in mine. But we consider ourselves in the same household, if that makes any sense. It does to us.

I wake up every day to an empty calendar – no meetings, no appointments, no track meets or ball games, no deadlines. Most days I don’t even know what day it is.

People are cooking up a storm if you believe Facebook. Yeast has become as rare a commodity as toilet paper. Think about that. The seed racks are empty as people who’ve never planted a thing are putting in gardens, buying up the seed potatoes, thinking about getting chickens.

The coming of spring has never been more meaningful than this one, as each week brings another kind of re-opening. We don our masks and venture into stores for the first time since March, we get take-out from our favorite restaurants, and try new ones.

Where only a few weeks ago we avoided one another, as if our neighbor or our good friend, our egg customers, or the mailman could carry the dreaded virus into our self-contained little world, now we smile broadly – trying to convey that smile with our eyes only – and say “hi, how are you doing?”

We’re figuring out ways to get together. Our Monday night knitting group zoomed for a few weeks: set out the crackers and cheese, pour yourself a glass of wine, and turn on the computer. Oh, and don’t forget the knitting. Since the weather turned we’ve been meeting for lunch in the garden or on someone’s porch. Somebody brings the soup, someone the dessert – we skip the wine as it seems unseemly at that early hour – and eat and knit and talk.

United Christian Church has been zooming since the beginning, some thirty of us, some by phone, but most by video. Zoom actually got all wobbly last week as the site apparently couldn’t handle the worldwide demand; Tracee and I gave up and went out to garden when we couldn’t connect that day. Then yesterday when we joined, I was close to tears as one by one the faces of my church family appeared. We wave to one another on the screen, a poor substitute for the hugs we usually share, but still.... If you’d like to join contact Pastor Elizabeth Barnum.

Bayshore Baptist Church is livestreaming their services on Facebook as well as in person at the church. See the sidebar for times.

Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) meetings, which have been held at the Community Building and UCC Parish Hall four times a week for several years, are now meeting at the Norton Pond/Breezemere Park Bandstand. They’ve cut down to twice a week for now, Tuesdays and Fridays at noon.

We’re learning how to live with a highly contagious virus in our midst. Wearing a mask isn’t that onerous. I’ve even got a box of disposable gloves in my truck and wear them, one on each hand even, to pick up the trash at the Beach.

Yet I struggle with my own complacency. So do my housemates.

Watching George Floyd die under the knee of a white policeman in Minneapolis felt like 9/11 all over again. That the-world-will-never-be-the-same-again feeling. Of course it wasn’t the first white-on-black outrage, but maybe, just maybe, could it be the last?

I, an old white woman living in a practically pure white region of one of the whitest states in the union, will most assuredly not die under the knee of a policeman. Nor will my sons. Their father never had to have the “talk” with them, the talk about how to behave if the police ever stopped them.

But this old white mother tears up watching the countless black mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers mourning the loss of their son or daughter, at the hands of someone who hates their race. Hates them or just discounts them.

Does my grief at their grief do any good? What else can I do?

Somehow, from early childhood I’ve known something was wrong. The woman who cleaned our house traveled two hours in every kind of weather by bus and subway and elevated train from her Southside Chicago neighborhood to our pure white suburb. I called her Kathryn. Not “Mrs. Jones”, though I was taught to address all other adults as Mr. or Mrs. When I asked my mother why I called this grown woman by her first name, she had no good answer that I can remember.

My grandparents, lifelong residents of Roseland on Chicago’s Southside, left my mother their apartment when they died, making a huge problem for my parents. The neighborhood was rapidly changing from white to black. They couldn’t find a buyer for it.

Years and years later I read about the Great Migration and realized what had happened to Roseland, and began to understand all the veiled discussions in my childhood about that apartment.

Still later, reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming I wondered what my parents would have thought. Though they never used hateful words, the message I got, loud and clear, was “these people aren’t like us.” That little girl grew up walking the very streets my mother walked as a child, the streets I walked as a toddler, holding my grandfather’s hand. Indeed, what would they have thought?

Yet the best I’ve been able to do, a white woman who’s lived her entire adult life in the whitest state, is read and listen and watch. I’ve learned about white privilege. One of our earliest arguments, Wally and I, back when we were getting to know each other, centered on white privilege, though I wouldn’t learn the term until years later.

“You don’t know what it was like growing up poor in Augusta,” he’d tell me. Poor and illegitimate, as well.

“But you’re white,” I’d say. “you already have a jump on a man with black skin, poor or not. Legitimate or not.”

I might have added “and you’re male to boot,” but that would have been taking the argument in another, fraught direction.

I’ve only been able to watch snippets of the protests-turned-plunder that have broken out all around our country this past week-end. Our poor country. Generations of anger, pent-up energy, and some few who’d like to bring the whole thing down, along with an appalling absence of leadership, feels apocalyptic.

Meanwhile, the lilacs are out at my kitchen door, the tomatoes and corn and peas are in, the garden is mostly planted. Twenty-five baby chicks, hens to be, are peeping and pooping under the warmth of a 100-watt incandescent bulb.

Is this the reset so many have wished for? Will the people prevail over the interests that keep us on a merry-go-round of more of the same? How is it that this wealthy, wealthy country has hungry children, homeless people, families always on the verge of economic catastrophe?

Protesting, weeping, reading, discussing. The only real agency for change we’ve got is our vote, our vote and the values we teach the next generation.

­­­­­­­Town Office

Dave Kinney writes:

“The front counter of the Town Office will be open to the public for all services from 8:30 a.m.– 5 p.m. (M-Th) closing at 4:30 p.m. on Fridays for in-person service. Online services will continue to be available. Please enter through the front door. You must be in line by 4:30 PM in order to be assisted.

“As only two customers will be allowed in the building at any time, we expect that lines at the Town Office may continue throughout the month of June. We ask that you please be patient with staff as they assist other residents. Please keep in mind that you may be asked to line up outside of the building in order to keep a six-foot distance from the person in front of you.”

Committee meetings continue on Zoom. For details go the the town website .

School

The end of the school year, and of remote learning this past three months, means many missed events for students, especially in the eighth grade. Yearbook signing, graduation, field day all have to be held remotely. Sadly, the end of year class trip to Quebec has been cancelled. Students discussed, did surveys and finally decided that each one should be reimbursed for their share of the fund raising.

Remote learning officially ends Friday with a drive by parade at the school. Teachers and staff will be standing outside so parents and students can drive by and wave from their cars.

Library

From Librarian Sheila Polson:

“Good news: we plan to begin offering curbside service at the Lincolnville Community Library the first week of June!

Our top priority will be to provide books and other materials while protecting everyone’s health and safety. Here is how it will work:

• Beginning Monday, June 1, anyone with a Lincolnville Community Library card may request up to six items. Cards are free for all Lincolnville residents.
• To choose items: search the online library catalog. If asked for the library name, use “Lincolnville” (no password required). You may also go to the library website and click on “Books and Resources” and then the catalog. Or tell us what you enjoy—for example, historical fiction, mysteries, biographies—and we’ll be happy to offer suggestions.
• To order, email or call 706-3896 (local number) and leave a message. Please provide a phone number with all orders so we can call with any questions. 
• Pickup will be by appointment on Wednesdays from 3 to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. Items will be on a table on the outside library porch.
• Library staff will wear gloves and face masks while handling materials.  
• We ask that all patrons picking up items wear face masks and remain at least six feet apart from anyone else in the area.
• Books and other materials may be returned in the drop box on the library porch and will be quarantined before being reshelved.

­­­­­­­­