A Multitude of Miracles

Friday Morning Flight with Beth
Stowe, Vermont

Absolutely flyable weather for six out of six scheduled flights was miracle enough, but the week in Stowe with Maureen held blessings far beyond the sunny skies.

Maureen is the daughter I never had. While technically my cousin, she is the appropriate age to be my daughter, and I have loved her that way since I held her tiny little self a few days after she was born. Mo came to her first Stoweflake Balloon Festival in 2001, and has been my right arm/copilot/girl Friday/executive assistant there ever since. This being my last year as balloonmeister, we left Maine knowing the event would be extra poignant for us.

Real Cousin Maureen

After Maureen and I spent a couple days enjoying mountain trails and the company of good friends, the first batch of pilots arrived Thursday. Friday morning I ended up in a balloon basket with my friend, Beth. Sometimes I forget how much I loved flying all those years. And laughing with Beth.

Last December, one of our long-term pilots lost a sudden and vicious battle with cancer.  Unbeknownst to me, one of his last requests was to be sprinkled from his balloon at a few of his favorite events. So his student, Ben, brought Harry’s balloon, and Saturday morning we held all the others on the ground while they launched in silence and drifted peacefully over Shaw Hill.

As the rest of the aerostats inflated and stood up, a sudden gust of wind started knocking them around the field like weeblewobble toys. All deflated safely, and no one was hurt, but we laughed later that Harry had claimed this flight for himself, allowing only Gary to join him as escort. They landed calmly behind the hill by the way, after a beautiful journey.

Later that day, a local crew member invited Rastro and me to a small, impromptu concert by Tony DeBlois, a blind autistic musical savant who was staying with Barry at his B&B in Stowe. Meeting and hearing Tony was such an unexpected miracle, it still fills me with wonder. You can read Tony’s story on his web site, www.tonydeblois.com but the short version is that he plays 20 or so instruments, with a repertoire of more than 8,000 songs, and learns anything he hears instantly. On my iPhone, I played him a very intricate piano piece by one of my favorite composers, and he not only learned it, but offered several improvisations, which he performed with such joy it made all of us laugh with happiness. Hearing Rastro do the Chinook roo roo and a couple barks of applause as well, Tony instantly transitioned into an impromptu riff on “How Much is that Doggie in the Window.”

Tony hung out with us for the rest of the weekend, for dinner, pilot briefings, concerts on the field, all the usual balloon meet stuff. He whipped the festival band into shape in no time, teaching them songs and variations right on the stage. Sunday morning, we were able to get him aloft for his first balloon flight. (Tony already has a pilot log and time at the controls of an airplane.) To the delight of those who got up early enough for the morning launch, he played the balloon classic, “Up, Up and Away,” on his trumpet as the balloon floated into the calm morning sky.

I don’t have many relatives left on my father’s side of the family, but have kept in touch off and on with Brian, a third cousin twice removed or something like that. Brian’s wife, Charlane, joined us in Stowe this year, as crew for one of our teams. She was referred to as my pseudo-cousin for the weekend, Maureen being the real one of course. Sunday morning, Charlane’s pilot, Tim, invited me to fly and we soared into the sky for a classic Stowe morning -- high altitude steerage to the right toward the valley, low altitude shift to the left down its length, the miracle of perfection. It was a joyous way to close out 20 years of balloonmeistering, and 23 years of participation in my favorite event of all time.

The Perfect Morning Flight
July 10, 2011,  Stowe, Vermont

After a day of unpacking, laundry, kittens, mail, phone calls, and all that other post-vacation stuff, David and I took the dogs down to the beach right before dinner last night. Listening to the waves, picking our way along the rocky shore, watching Rastro and Zucchini play in the surf and snuffle for dead crabs, we discovered a miracle of Maine. Shining brightly in the sun was a rock with a delicate white feather painted on its surface by the sea. 

Sparkling in the sun, its perfection no less wondrous than Tony’s musical genius, it reminded me that miracles happen everywhere, and that the beauty of life fills the universe to bursting. 

Miniature Maine Miracle

Summer Haircuts

Before

I came across an old photograph recently of myself at about age 4, posed in a pretty pink dress, with my long, platinum ringlets framing a face smiling so sweetly no one would ever suspect I was about to break a lamp over my little sister’s head. (kidding, I was too little to pick it up) I remember that long blonde hair, the curls, the ribbons and bows, the barrettes…and I remember painfully the day it all came off.

Mom was ever the practical sort. One summer day, she got tired of my tears as she tore through my hair with a harsh pig-bristle hairbrush, or maybe it was the screams of agony as she yanked it into French braids. (Why do they call them French anyway, when they make your eyes look Asian?) So she got out the hedge clippers, and hacked it all away. Actually, I think she might have even shelled out a dollar or two for the local hairdresser to turn those treasured tresses into the fashion of the day, the dreaded pixie cut.

I’ve never understood the name, or the style. It’s one of the ugliest haircuts known to woman, unless you’re Audrey Hepburn. Boring, hideous, unfeminine, androgynous… every adjective for that particular hair arrangement is everything I am not, nor ever have been, even at age 6! 

The crowning insult was when my adored father came home from work, looked over my head, and asked my mother where I was. He didn’t even recognize me!

This was a week of haircuts around our house. After cutting 2 or 3 inches off my long hair last month, this Friday I had Tera cut off another 2 or 3. It isn’t short by any means, but is much lighter and bouncier and fluffier than it was in May.

More dramatic by far were the haircuts inflicted on Sophie and Dickens yesterday. Our two Norwegian Forest Cats get a bit matted up from time to time. When this happens, they can’t move as freely, and yarked up hairballs increase in frequency and yuk factor by the day. Shearing them like sheep solves all problems, and keeps them cooler for the summer as well. To judge from their disgusted expressions however, I’m sure they like the new look as much as I liked the dreaded pixie cut when I was six. But by November, they will be back to their magnificent fluffiness.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working through the contract process on one of several properties I’m trying to sell. The buyers are, well, difficult, to be kind about it. And in this market, they can get away with it.  It has been a painful and humiliating process, and no one deserves to be treated in this way. I’m that close to calling the whole thing off. But as I noted in an email to my real estate attorney, I’d probably regret that worse than a third margarita.

So on the way up to Bangor to get the cats shorn, what to do next, how to get through the insults, the bullying, the sheer ugliness of the transaction were major topics of conversation.

After a relaxing couple hours at Starbucks waiting for the cats and talking about life and real estate, we headed home feeling relaxed and refreshed. But soon David started a long lament about how undignified the cats looked, and how dreadfully it would hurt their pride to be seen looking like cast off stuffed animals with pumpkin heads. I reminded him of how much he loves to clean up hairball gak, and how much he would miss it. That stopped him cold.

It stopped me, too. For suddenly I realized that, no matter how awful this real estate transaction is, no matter how deeply my self-respect suffers, I will be done with this property. My spirit will grow back, as will my bank account.

The sale is nothing more than a bad summer haircut. 

                

After