CRANBERRY LAKE NEWS:

The newts, or efts, are alive and well, enjoying the rain as long as it doesn't pour. A few must have been flushed out of their homes during the last deluge that was about 1 1/2 inches... not too much, except it all came within an hour. But Ahh... what relief in the woods with this hot weather. It's easily 10 degrees cooler, and perhaps 20 degrees compared to the thermometer in the sun of the back deck at home. But walking in the cool woods with its canopy of leaves is like looking at all the great art. The leaves in relief against the blue sky look like the green in a Tiffany lamp. The roots of a maple hug the ground making a sculpture of a giant claw, like a big bird left it leg and all.


When the impossible situations of life as seen and heard on TV and radio come crashing into our lives or living rooms at least, it's good to remember that God is in Heaven and all's right with the world. I realize that Nature-all things living on this great earth-the trees, the grass, the birds and newts... we all have protoplasm in common. It's a lightswitch on the wall of life that was turned on at conception and will grow and win in the end just as sure as the sunset... just as sure as gravity. We are all living if we can now breathe, and the sap or blood flows in our limbs. All the stuff going on in Washington just kind of fades away and the Master-the Artist of all artists-the wonder of all the complex living things-overwhelms my serious worries about D.C. and I leave that up to those we voted into office, and on a wing and a prayer they can work out the details.

Think of that wind that blew down the trees so many years ago... but after we'd moved up here. The bark drops off. I pick it up and put it between the bare toes (roots) of the trees on my path to make it more even for those who trod my paths. Even my paths are transitional. The leaves fall, get trod upon, breakdown, leaving the web of their leaf veins. This makes a slipshod carpet eventually that only gets stronger with the traffic of the path... that is if a deluge doesn't wash it away. Everything is temporary and changing. The only thing constant is change, biodegrading in such interesting ways, bringing new life in fine tuned insects that break down nature's leftovers, having them for supper. But it all works out. The wood ants that were working on the hollowed out tree created a huge pile of what looked like sawdust. How did such a big pile get there? Did each ant take each piece of wood in their jaws (mandibles) and drop it off the end above causing this pyramid of dust?


Weeks later, as I was passing this pile of sawdust, the reverse was happening. The pile of sawdust was getting smaller. Ants were on the sawdust, looking around.... then picking up one piece of sawdust.... then walking to one shallow spot or another dumping it there. One piece of sawdust at a time with all the patience of... well, an ant. The insects have nothing better to do. They don't think, "Oh, this stupid piece of sawdust isn't going to make a difference. It's a small change, and along with everything living, it becomes a part of the whole changing universe.

My path was changed almost every time a tree falls, as was the case this spring. I had to reroute it around the base of the old rotted out maple. And like an ant's path if you could see its line from standing above it, my path as seen from a balloon, may see me as small as an insect, and the changes on my path as natural to my nature as the way the ants biodegrades the woods. In my natural way, I'm both forming a path and part of the biosystem of the woods, just by repairing the trail and walking to and from the Lake.

Take heart all of you who worry too much about federal problems that have grown too big for our understanding. We too are a part of nature. Enjoy all that it has given you, and walk in the woods and just wonder... just wonder.

Sincerely,
Cranberry Jo

Voices, Vibes, and How DO We Hear Them(?):

I became aware of listening to something when coming home from shopping after our Sunday Breakfast. I was listening to NPR, and what "I" heard wasn't what they were talking about. There is a guy who talks about little venues or stories that has a different kind of voice than the norm. I almost want to call the station and tell him to clear his throat, but it's just his way his way of talking. So I concentrated on exactly what voice sound I was hearing. Was it all of his words or just the vowel sounds. It was the vowels, but in his case, the whole word, the whole delivery of his thoughts for the day were like a rapid fire stutter of each word from his voice box. The vowel sounds are the more breathy sounds, so, thinking how our trachea is and especially the larynx is formed, I was thinking that since all voices are vibrations, that the "strings" of his larynx must be loose in the middle, where the more breathy sounds are formed and somehow cause this vocalized sensation.

Now, I am no expert. But I haven't ever heard anything said about actually HOW we form our words in respect to our voice box. Certainly our lips and tongue do most of the conscious work, but how we automatically control-our larynx and trachea makes a real difference. There are voice teachers and elocution lessons that can train people to better use their voice box or larynx. My stepchildren's aunt Jane was losing her voice, which was always raspy, and went to a specialist. She was supposed to talk differently from then on to preserve what little voice she had left, and just couldn't do it after over 60 years of doing it one way... talk about a habit hard to shake. So, I'm thinking about her voice while I'm listening to these people talk, and the person interviewed by this NPR regular moderator also rasped or rattled his A's and U's. Any word with an a pronounced A or U in it would kind of rasp or rattle. It was like if you slowed down their talk without changing the timbre or key, you would have a sound like a kid's riding a bike with cardboard sticking into his spokes to make a sound. If they said "Ahh" it would kind of stutter in the throat (nothing to do with the tongue). It would be like a rapid fire "ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah" ...and I mean really rapid, and probably more ahs than I put down. The problem with slowing down the tape, you also lower the voice, so it would be a difficult thing to have some kind of a computer break down the person's vowel pronunciation without losing the actual timbre of the vibrations.

I got thinking of Chinese Restaurants... more the old style ones than the newer Americanized ones in that all the help used to seem to talk high when talking their native language. Not understanding the language you notice more the key in which the person or group speaks. But the help in those restaurants now, for the most part, when they talk in either English or their native language seem to talk in the same "key" as our Americanized English. Why was it that in the old movies, in the old Chinese neighborhoods... maybe Japanese as well, they would talk in a higher key than the normal American "Key of English." Not being a music major ever, but knowing the song from the Sound of Music, in the United States I think we generally talk in the key of C. The "'Doe'" in "Doe a deer a female deer...."

Then I got thinking about how we hear. I could never unlock the riddle of why some voices bother me to the point where I have to tune them down or off if I hear them on a radio or television set. I don't know why these raspy voices bother me so. And it's not just that, classical music bothers me, as the opera's aria hurts my ears, and violin string music seems to clash with the ringing in my ears. And forget about Hard Rock. And why is it I love the sound of Zamfir's pan flute music. I had a girlfriend who had such a nice low voice I called her my velvet-voiced friend.

Why is it we all LOVE Morgan Freeman's voice. I think low voices that are smooth are not only easy on the ears, but sensually pleasurable... take the bedroom music of the late Barry White.

There also are the voice teachers and elocution lessons that can sometimes actually change someone's voice. The worst voice I ever heard was from a woman who was single at the same time I was single back in the early 80s. She wondered why it was so difficult to attract a man. I couldn't tell her that it was because her voice was a nasal disaster, but it was. Loud without effort, and a nasal twang that twanged me the wrong way. She actually was once married and had a young adult daughter, who was at the time at an Ashram retreat, and I could understand why. If this nasally woman somehow did modulate her voice, I'm sure she would have come across better, but her personality was kind of grating as well. Grating-that's a good adjective for the kind of voice she had. But hers wasn't the voice that is like a cardboard stuck in spokes-grating kind of voice. But it was just as irritating in a different way to me.

Take Sara Palin [better you than me... Just kidding]. Palin had a series on Alaska which I watched with my husband Tom, her number one fan. I actually like that series. I surprised myself more than anyone, as I thought I hated the sound of her voice. Now I realize that when she's speaking, she has to project her voice, and the timbre of her voice seems to change and sound more piercing to my poor eardrums, let alone the interpretation of what she's actually saying, but it could be 'just me.'

We are getting back to ME... what a relief, as it's all about ME, isn't it. Or do you have a problem with the actual sound of some people's voices too? Sometimes the sound of music becomes the sound of mucus. What can you do? If you have subtitles on your TV, you can mute them and read, or on the radio you can just bear with it or turn it down to a whisper. Too bad we can't do that when out in the public.

I just wonder how many people have the same problem listening to irritating voices. I'll betcha (a favorite Palin word) a lot of you do.

Sincerely,
The sound of silence lover [or Morgan Freeman's voice],
Cranberry Jo

PS It's such a hot day today I think I'll again watch The March of the Penguins
and cool off... and enjoy that mellow voice of Morgan Freeman.

PEAKES ISLAND MAINE




Today I'm feeling better about life-both the life I've had and my future.

This morning when walking up to Cranberry Lake with Tom and the dogs, I was going ahead, with Polly trailing behind me obediently on the reel out leash which I feed through the belt to my belly bag so I can have my hands free to use my trekking poles. The bag is where I keep an extra belt for Bear and snacks for the dogs. There is also the constant camera on hand just in case, for snapshots of things besides memories, but some of them too are nice... most of them are just in my mind's eye.

This morning the picture that came into view was in my mind. The wood smoke from a cottage wafted in my direction and I was immediately transported in my own Wrinkle in Time to the back shore of Peakes Island where as a preteen and teen we used to vacation there in the summer. I was suddenly in my minds eye at the edge of the rocky shore where we would have wiener roasts using the fragrant driftwood. I could practically hear the waves splashing over the rocky shore. I could hear Aunt Eleanor's lilting laughter. My mother's sister in law, married to her brother Herman, about 15 years younger than him, Aunt Eleanor was my favorite aunt. She was everything I wanted to be, pretty even in glasses. I almost wanted glasses as a teen just because of Eleanor looking so good in hers. It seemed part of her personality, as they sparkled like her laughter.

Later in life I saw a picture of someone I didn't recognize from a family gathering I hadn't attended, and my brother Pete said, "That's Aunt Eleanor." She had gotten contact lenses. I was disappointed. It's funny how you get used to seeing a beloved person in a certain way and you don't want their looks to change no matter what "they want". Perhaps because of that, the last time I could have seen Eleanor was at my mother's funeral's reception after. I hadn't known she was there, and no one pointed her out, as they just assumed I'd gone over to reminisce. I rue that, as it was the last time I'd have seen her, as she died of breast cancer some years after. That makes me sad, but this morning, going through a time warp and feeling, smelling the smoke of the wood fire, and my mind's view of the past gave me such a sense of peace and pleasure that I only experienced that back shore picnic all over again.

Tom seldom if ever reminisces. Who knows, maybe that was one of his finer points when marrying him, as my family did that to a fault. I don't think I reminisce with others too much, but when I thrill in memory to almost experiencing a wonderful time all over again, it's better than really getting into a good book where you feel like you are there. Memories of the good times are the mountain top experiences in life... meaning the highs. Valleys can be beautiful, but the sad experiences that one compares to valleys aren't. I hope others, when they look back, can see the mountain top experiences of the best times in their lives. It's a mini vacation any of us can take whether on a walk, or lying in bed trying to sleep. What a great place to go when you want some repose and a good place for meditation.
:-)