I’m learning that grieving is its own state of mind; perhaps it’s similar in ways to falling in love. Actually, love is at its heart, isn’t it? It truly consumes you, takes 90 percent of your energy a friend told me today, a woman who lost a child several years ago. Luckily for me (or maybe not) I have a lot of energy. I haven’t spent any days under the covers so far, though one of my sons said he thought that would be all right once in a while. I don’t think so.

Also, luckily, I live in a house that is a model home for DYI; I can look around every single room and see more things that need fixing or painting or rebuilding or cleaning out than I’ll ever be able to do. I started in the kitchen, taking apart the oven door, intending to clean out some granola that had somehow worked its way between the panes of glass. Six hours later it was finally in pieces, all three sheets of glass washed – four if you count the outer cover -- and the metal parts scrubbed clean. YouTube had advised me not to try to do this myself, that it was a job for a “technician”, but I don’t know an oven door technician, so I found a different YouTube guy to walk me through it. Everything went pretty well until the end as I tried to install glass sheet #3 and …  dropped it. A thousand tiny pieces of shattered glass covered the table. Back to the computer and for a mere $50 and some, a new glass was on its way.

So the next day I took apart the old Hoosier cabinet, which I bought from Sharon Pendleton at Grampa Hall’s a long time ago, with its many drawers, cupboards, hinges, knobs, and built-in flour sifter. Its paint job had gotten downright shabby since the summer some 15 years ago when I coerced Wally’s nephew, who was living with us at the time, into painting it, that it would be good therapy for what ailed him.

The Hoosier occupied me for several days, days that started around 6 a.m., Morning Joe playing in the background, filling the too-quiet house with voices. Most people say they’re sick of politics and don’t listen anymore. Not me. It’s my lifeblood these days. Mika and Joe and Mike Barnacle, Willie Guiest and Mark Halperin in the morning, Chris Mathews and Rachel Maddow if I can stay up until 9 at night – they’re my best friends. Ask me anything about Washington these days. I’ll bet I know all about it.

It took a whole half-gallon of Linen White Semi-gloss to cover that Hoosier. I put it all back together, lining all the drawers and cupboards with heavy vinyl tile, the kind that goes on floors. It’s fun to cut, scoring it with a utility knife, then breaking it cleanly into two pieces. Lots of steps to think about, measure, fit, glue, screw all the hardware back on, then put back dozens of little spice jars, dishtowels, baking dishes, the usual stuff that goes in an old cabinet.

The new glass arrived before the week was out, and a mere two hours later I was heaving and hefting the completely assembled oven door, (all that tempered glass: it weighs a ton) trying to get it back on the oven. One more YouTube showed me how to pull the hinges back into position with the help of a sturdy pipe for leverage. I had no sturdy pipe, but found one of the vacuum cleaner attachments worked just fine. In minutes the door was back in place. I whooped and danced around the kitchen, just as if someone was there to see me.

All those hours taking apart complicated things, kept my mind off the absence in my house. The missing presence. The absence of his presence. Or so I thought.

But somehow the mind has its own agenda, and when a spouse disappears overnight, the mind has lots to do.  For the first several weeks after the night he died, as well as the days and weeks that preceded that, had seemed like ancient history. Like it all happened so long ago that I couldn’t even picture him, I couldn’t remember what his voice sounded like.

But just this past week, in the midst of an oven door and a Hoosier cabinet, I started to see him….first he was at the door with a load of wood….next his hands, hands I know so well….then the back of his head on the pillow, the last thing I saw before turning out the light every night of our lives together…

The very physicality of a body well-loved for most of my life, the blemishes, moles, scars. A body once slim – scrawny might be a better word – grown strong, filled out from hard work and regular meals – then, decades passed and I saw it gradually aging, weakening even as the eyes, the blue eyes, grew kinder and more loving. The voice, always a quiet voice, becoming so soft that I almost always had to say, “what? What are you saying?”

It’s nearly six weeks since I last saw him, and then he was beautiful, quiet, cold to touch….this amnesia, forgetting how he looked, must be the denial that comes to the grieving one…. Perhaps my mind is letting him back in, bit by bit, as routine and busyness and time have put up barriers, albeit flimsy ones, between January 29 and today.

Since I began writing about this time in my life, I’ve heard from so many people, some who’ve lived through this, but just as many for whom it’s yet to come. And everyone has stories. I heard about a woman, friend of a friend, who was, in a sense, homeless for the first several months after her husband died. That is, she never came home, but instead spent whole days and nights driving around, going to malls, to the movies, anywhere but home, sleeping in her car.

Grieving, I’ve come to understand, isn’t the same as depression, though I’m sure they can go hand in hand. It’s possible to retain interest in other aspects of life, to laugh, even, for a time, to forget where 90% of your energy is going, to forget what you’ve lost. So I feel my life creeping back in, slowly, but firmly.

Last week the Historical Society board met; now that may sound ho-hum, boring, another meeting, but you don’t know our board. It’s Connie Parker, me and seven guys who love to swap stories about Lincolnville “back in the day”. So, the laughter. Connie and I tend to be their audience. Whatever business we conduct isn’t the point.

Have you noticed that the green historical signs, the small ones marking old schoolhouses and larger ones describing sections of town, are missing? Cecil Dennison has taken them down to refurbish them. We figure they’ve been up nearly 15 years, and of course, time and climate have done their work. A couple are rotted beyond repair, and all need to be sanded, painted and caulked. We’ll then send them out to be lettered. In all these years only one disappeared, the one marking the Youngtown School; Cecil will make new ones as needed.

A few weeks ago Rosey Gerry brought by a box of old papers, which had been found in a house in Camden. Barbara Favvichia and Liz Hand answered my query on the LBB for volunteers to catalogue them, so on the next couple of Saturday mornings we got to work. It was a seemingly random bunch of papers dating from a fragile 1803 deed to several typewritten pages from 1902 reporting on the chemical analysis of Lincolnville’s lime quarries. A few personal letters, a couple of copied-out poems, and a receipt or two were in the mix as well. Liz and Barbara numbered each document, along with a brief overview – date, names that appeared, etc. – and then I scanned it, emailing a third of them to each of us. We’ll transcribe them, and later I’ll enter each into the LHS’ database of documents.

It’s funny what people save; I tossed aside an 1879 newspaper clipping in the pile that at first glance appeared to be a reprint of a William Wordsworth poem; nothing original there. People used to clip poems all the time, and they show up with the family letters and accounts. But then I looked at the reverse and read aloud the report of a skeleton found in an abandoned mine shaft in Ellenville, New York, an intriguing story of a love affair and a stiff hip joint (which led to identification of the body), trouble at a dance, a violent temper, and a guy who became insane and frequently visited the top of the shaft, calling out “There he goes! There he goes” as if someone was falling.

What’s this got to do with Lincolnville’s history? Nothing of course, but it gives me the chance to say, please don’t throw out these collections of clippings, obituaries, old letters, bills, etc. that are often found in drawers and shoeboxes of old houses. Pass them on to the LHS or other historical society. It’s surprising how many times old papers like these give clues that tie together some mystery or other we’re trying to solve. Or just present a juicy story.

It’s Spirit Week at Lincolnville Central School, March 13-17. Organized by eighth graders Rose O’Brien and Phoebe Root, the week celebrates the school and gives everyone a pre-spring boost. Kids in each grade come to school wearing that day’s dress code. Monday is Pajama Day, Tuesday is dress alike with a friend day, Wednesday, dress from your favorite decade, Thursday, School Spirit Day, wear school sports shirts, Friday is Cancer Awareness Day and everyone’s urged to wear something pink. The class with the most participation wins an ice cream party. The week culminates with an act of kindness in support of an LCS family battling cancer. Throughout the week students are asked to bring in spare change to make a donation to the Barrows Family Fight Against Cancer Fundraiser https://www.gofundme.com/the-barrows-fight-against-cancer .

 Thanks to Partners for Enrichment, Middle School students will be traveling to the Challenger Learning Center in Bangor for a simulated space mission “Rendezvous with A Comet” on Wednesday, March 22nd.

Library Presentation

The Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road, will be hosting free cooking classes on two Tuesdays in March, the 21st and 28th, 3-5 p.m. Join this two-session class, part of Pen Bay and Waldo Hospitals’ Cooking for Health series, to learn how to identify sources of added sugar in your diet and learn about options for tasty and healthy alternatives.

The Lincolnville Music Project is an effort to provide an opportunity for people of all ages and talents to join together to make music.  The LMP is directed by the talented Shannon Elliott who arranges the music and conducts both the vocal and instrumental ensembles.  Sponsored by United Christian Church, this community program is open to all. To learn more contact Shannon.

Making Easter Cards

“Making it up March hill” has more meaning to me this year, much more than a quaint Maine saying. Monica Hackett, longtime Beach/Ducktrap resident, passed away a week ago. I last saw Monica and Charlie at the Democratic caucus last spring.

Probably the biggest event in town this past week was the public auction of the Lobster Pound. Perhaps you saw the story about it on the evening news. Looked like quite a crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings, including several familiar faces that showed up on the news. Best wishes to the new owners, Danny and Carla Lafayette. And to Patty and Dick, welcome to retirement – you’ve certainly earned it!

Bluebirds on Youngtown

A pair of bluebirds has been scouting out Bob and Roberta Heald’s birdhouses, looking for the one that suits them. Stay tuned.