Message In A Bottle

On Friday, December 17th, 2010 at approximately 7:20pm, a poem I wrote was titled, signed, contact info/blog link given, safely sealed into a bottle - and tossed into the waves off of Plum Island, MA, USA. You can read the poem here. [I intend to create another site with a link here - and that may come soon - but it has proven problematic, and I wanted to get this up as soon as possible(!). Meanwhile, try to read it in the picture I've posted].

Since my apartment has been sold, I have been saying goodbye (or at least - see you later!) to places and people that have become a part of my Boston area home for the last few years. It's funny how places come to mean something sometimes... almost like characters, in their own right, in your story. Boston has been full of some places like that for me. My old neighborhood, Allston/Brighton, has a quirky kind of edgy, creative, culturally diverse grit to it. And now, a garden carved out of gravel that feels like a tough, if also somewhat fragile, friend.

Plum Island, on the North Shore of Massachusetts, has been one of those places for me, and was someplace I felt I wanted to say goodbye to. I have known it best in the winter and very early spring, as a snow-covered, cold-blasted, wind-tossed magical moonscape. It has been synonymous in my mind with one person, the first person with whom I ever visited it. I wanted to honor that connection, and create a ritual that would also be about transforming that into something more...universal. Where does this fit into my blog? Well, it's a poem... and a kind of scattering of art and purpose. And, hopefully, something that will find its way to a connection to someone else's story.

This idea started as a personal goodbye ritual, and then transformed itself into a fun kind of experiment, as well. As often happens to things that spring from inside you, and you turn over to the world and others, to have a life of their own. I look forward to seeing where this bottle has ended up; maybe just down the coast a mile or two - or maybe somewhere far away? Hopefully with a good story, either way. I hope that whoever finds it actually looks up this blog online - and that we hear from them. What fun to be reminded in that way, that as far apart as we might be geographically, the world is still not so small a place, and we are still connected to, and by, the natural world. In all its wind-blown, water-washed and tumbled wonder.

[Author's note: I am going to start filling in the gap between my Costa Rica trip, and the here and now; realizing that I was in danger of losing my momentum altogether, I decided that the best way to proceed would be to begin doing both. A little about reflection, a little living in the now. This last year, it seems to me, has helped me to embrace transition and uncertainty as more of a constant in my life, seeing where life leads me - and also about documenting that experience for others. Somehow that last piece feels like a big part of its meaning... and I can't see where this is going if it's not going at all! So, bear with me readers (whoever you are), and - bring on the nomadic life! I'm feeling as prepared as I'll ever be...and hoping that sharing these stories may prove useful and enjoyable to some of you out there.]