Late Afternoon at Ocean Park, Maine

We were reading our Kindles at the beach when an autumn breeze came up. So I fetched additional layers of clothing up at the cottage and returned with a bag of almonds and a root beer. Our friend Holly, a quilter and a Mainer undaunted by cold water, rode waves and swam for a good 20 minutes without a wetsuit. Claire dug in the sand furiously. “For what?” I wondered. I called Bayley’s Lobster Pound in Pine Point on my iPhone to order three one-and-a-half-pounders and cole slaw, ready for pickup just before they close at 6 p.m.

In 19 days we will fly to Johannesburg via London for a stay in South Africa and Botswana. It will be early summer there. Pretty amazing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

One of the great pieces in the current New Yorker is about the composer John Cage, who confounded audiences with four minutes of silence and other acts of random attention. My life is like that. It’s a crazed mosaic of random attention punctuated by plans and attempts to get organized. Meanwhile, the trees race by with hints of fall color, and Leonard Cohen sings, “There is a crack in everything, it’s how the light gets in.” Boston is coming sooner than I’d prefer.

I noticed at Podcamp Boston 5 last weekend how many presentations and conversations had to do with fending off the addictive allure of online life. I learned about nine steps to get more done with less work and the Pomodoro technique of focusing on one single task — imagine that! — by setting a timer for 25 minutes. It’s a great topic for authors, because the demand for hope is bottomless. But pity the poor guy, like Stever Robbins, who takes on the challenge and spends two years trying to focus on the work of writing a book. He confessed that he broke every one of his nine steps as he wrote them down in a way that might inspire and motivate the rest of us.

It’s possible that if I got more sleep I would be less susceptible to distraction. So I signed up for a $199 sleep-monitoring gizmo at MyZeo.com, whose social marketing guy I visited with at lunch during Podcamp.

It’s a gray, soft day. Most of the trees are still green, so the early reds and yellows stand out in the crowd. The train has stopped in the middle of the woods, because of a problem with the signal system. I see rain drops on a leaf, and a bug. Now we’re moving again, slowly, past brick mills, three-story tenements, and graffiti sprayed on the back of an abandoned semi. This is Lawrence, Massachusetts, and I’m not getting off yet.

For my amends, I’ll now turn the iPad over to Mother Nature:

I am not content, kid. I don’t care how many followers you have on Twitter. I am not interested in your comfort, your mood, your worries, or your plans. Nor should you be. It’s all weather, my wordy little friend. It comes and goes, and soon you are 60. What a relief, eh? All that huffing and puffing about your life – for what? Look outside in the morning and decide what to wear – sunscreen? galoshes? – or stay indoors and wait. I remember you in the next cottage the summer you turned 4. Sunny little kid who put on your shades before peddling off on your new trike, like you were Elvis starring in “Viva Ocean Park.” Cute kid, surrounded by love and opportunity. This was the Fifties, some of my best work, including several terrific hurricanes, which they finally started naming the year you were born. Today I’ve got ordinary rain pelting your windows, and there’s no kindling for the fireplace. The old Volvo is making a weird clanging noise underneath. Why are you smiling? You still love your little life, don’t you? Of course you do. That’s all I ask. And be careful what you blog about…

Roger that.

I believe in biking. I rode hard each morning this week, usually at 5:30 in the morning, when the streets and roads were mainly clear of vehicles, except for the street cleaner in Old Orchard. I found the East Coast Greenway, which follows an abandoned railroad track through the woods and across a marsh. Sweat is good. Riding the waves with just my body is good. Having the cottage full of young teens is good. Having a lull before the next wave of family arrives is good.

Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540)

I’m reading Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel, a tasty, layered tale set in the reign of Henry VIII. The protagonist is a real person, Thomas Cromwell, portrayed as a sly survivor who is maybe wise, too. I’m reading the novel on several e-readers, to compare them, but I returned the Kindle version because for some reason it didn’t have a table of contents. The nook so far beats the Kobo, because the latter is slow to load the book and has no way to look up words or search. Same with the Sony Reader Pocket Edition, which comes in last, because the screen is too small. You get about the same number of words at a time as on an iPhone book app, but you can’t really put the Sony Reader in your pocket unless you’re Captain Kangaroo. After a couple of gee-whiz days of marveling at the gorgeous e Ink Pearl screen of the new Kindle DX Graphite, I’m not using it much, because it’s too big for my taste. I’ll probably return it within the 30 days that Amazon amazingly provides for free evaluation of the Kindle, and they even pay for shipping it back, no questions asked. I want to see the high-contrast Pearl screen on a new Kindle six-inch, which I bet will be out before I turn 60, on August 30.

The dog is dozing, and the wife is still reading. Is there anything I’ve neglected to tell you about this moment? No doubt, but this will have to do for now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Aboard the Henry Longfellow in the Charles River Basin, Boston

I have decided to take a five-month break from politics.

To some extent, I have Steve Jobs to thank for this decision.  Apple’s handing down of its new tablet on Wednesday has turned the eBook space white hot.  The iPad will have a new iBooks app, a direct attack on the Kindle’s dominance of eBooks.  I’m not saying the Future of Reading is more important than the future of civil political discourse in America, but for the next six months I’m going to focus on the former and let the latter lurch along without me. My weekly Kindle Chronicles podcast just passed the 2,000 mark in Feedburner subscribers, and my new companion podcast, The Reading Edge, offers a great way for me to further explore the eBook Revolution. This is shaping up to be a truly amazing year for anyone as passionate about literature and technology as I am.

Apple's new iPad

I don’t have a precise definition of political sobriety, but I have taken actual steps to reduce my intake of political news and commentary.  I turned off my Google Reader feed and created a brand-new one that, so far, contains nothing but eBook blogs and news. No more Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish or Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook, no more deep political reads in The New Yorker or political podcasts. (One reason I am including these links is that I may need them to find my way back to political immersion on the Fourth of July.)

There is no way to avoid political news completely.  I have resolved to continue watching the President’s weekly address, and to finish Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, an experiment in reading a nook and remaining open to a cultural phenomenon that is as opaque to me as professional sports.  I have a hunch that an open mind is my only hope for an old age that works.  It’s the daily drip of savvy, deconstructive political reporting and toxic partisan bickering from which I take this sabbatical.

On Independence Day we will be in Maine again.  I hope I will return to the fray refreshed by being away for a while, and that The Kindle Chronicles and The Reading Edge will benefit from 153 days of renewed attention and work.

Tropical Storm Danny made himself known in the middle of the night, with wind moaning through the cottage windows and needles of rain tapping the glass.  We woke up to foamy chaos at high tide.  Our bedroom here has a window seat looking out at the next cottage and the ocean. It’s a perfect spot for coffee and a Kindle, as captured in the above photo, taken by my wife.

If you’ve got headphones, you’ll be able to hear the sounds of the storm in this AudioBoo post from my iPhone:

I love how this storm puts a punctuation mark at the end of our month in Ocean Park.  Most of August has been sunny and clear.  Each morning the beach has sprouted a colorful band of umbrellas, chairs, and windbreaks.   Not today.  The view out the front windows right now shows no sign of humanity–only waves breaking into whiteness from a field of gray extending to the vague horizon, where fog and sea play tricks with sight.  Just yesterday when I walked to the Old Orchard Beach pier at low tide, the sea flapped little wavelets like a big lake.  And now look at it.

I’m always surprised by how our annual month-long stay at Ocean Park settles and reboots me.  Sleeping, waking, working, and resting this close to the sea exerts a subtle pull on my mind and soul.  There is an arc of change that takes a month to fulfill.  For me, Ocean Park also represents a much longer rhythm of time, extending back generations to my father’s mother’s father, a lawyer from Lewiston who bought the place next door for his wife.  I will turn 59 tomorrow.  It’s easy to feel the years here, because I’ve been all the ages that I see scampering or strolling along this beach.  I hope one day to join the very old ones still making their way to the sand, strolling hand and hand, their white hair mussed by the wind.

The passage of time is what has struck me most about the saturation TV coverage of Senator Ted Kennedy’s life and death.  He was the only brother who lived long enough to comb gray hair.  David Gergen last night said Teddy knew his limitations and worked hard to overcome them in a long tale of redemption.  I find it painful to watch Ted in his callow, irresponsible years, struggling to meet expectations of a family and a world that must have seemed simply impossible.  The oft-replayed 1979 interview with Roger Mudd did much to doom Kennedy’s presidential bid even before it was announced.  The reason, in large part, was that it took four long seconds for Ted to find any words at all to answer Mudd’s simple question, “Why do you want to be President?”   Even when he found the words, they formed no more than a jumble of unconvincing platitudes.  It’s not difficult for me to imagine the memories of horror and loss involving his two brothers that might have flashed across his mind during those four long seconds, leading to a feeble, “Well, I….”

But in the fullness of time, Kennedy found his voice and his mission as a U.S. Senator now credited with having had more impact on history than either of his two famous brothers. Along the way, he filled in for Jack and Bobby as head of the family.  I was touched last night by Caroline’s story of how Uncle Ted took all the kids on history trips, to teach them about the country and spend time together.

When I was younger, maybe the age when Teddy stumbled in the CBS interview, I couldn’t always give convincing answers to myself or anyone else about what I wanted, or why.  As I prepare on a stormy morning to step into my sixties, I want more than anything to continue settling into my life’s responsibilities fully and naturally.

Last night Ted’s college classmate, John Culver, told a long, poignant, hilarious story about being dragooned into service aboard Kennedy’s sailboat for a regatta off Nantucket. Having grown up in Iowa with zero experience with boats, Culver expressed concern, especially because of forecasts of storm warnings.  Ted’s refrain to every protest was, “There’s nothing to it!”  Those words strike me as good guidance in this business of settling into the full potential of one’s life. You look around at what needs to be done each day, and you do it.  Years pass. There’s nothing to it.

The day before yesterday, when Hurricane Bill’s first big waves arrived here at Ocean Park, Maine, I decided to go down to the beach for some bodysurfing.

It was early Sunday morning, well before the Old Orchard Beach Fire Department would close the ocean that afternoon.  It was low tide.  I could feel a strong undertow tugging on my legs as I walked out to wait for a good ride.  The sea was wild with power.  I’ve been riding the waves at Ocean Park for decades, and I thought I knew what I was doing.

I had a couple of fantastic rides, catching curling tumblers at just the right moment.  My wife and her sister watched me from the low tide flat, watchful and worried.  I gave them two thumbs up after jumping up from the shallow water at the end of a long zoom in the foam.  I was feeling an extra dose of the boyish exuberance I always feel when riding the waves.  At low tide, the waves usually break close enough to the shore that you’re always on your feet, able to touch the sand and make a good leap into the wave as it reaches you. But Bill’s waves were cresting further out.

After ducking my head into one wave that crested too soon, I put my feet down to the sand. With sudden panic, I realized I could not touch bottom. I was in over my head.  I knew immediately that the undertow was pulling me away from shore.

I am a strong swimmer, so I began the Australian crawl toward the shore and set my feet down after a few strokes.  Nothing.  More strokes. Still nothing.  I bobbed briefly in the water and knew I was in a very bad situation.  I waved my hand at Darlene and Deb and yelled a single cry of “Help!”  Since I doubted they could hear me, my shout was more of a prayer than anything else. She and her sister waved back.

I knew the prescribed response to getting caught in a rip current is to swim with the current and angle toward the shore, but everything in me said, “Screw that.” I lit out again toward the beach, swimming as hard as I could.  What I am describing here took probably a total of three minutes.  Finally, one toe of one foot felt the sand.  I swam some more and was able to put both feet on the bottom and walk in to the beach. I told Darlene and Deb what had happened, and we all walked back to the cottage without saying much.

That night, lying in bed at the cottage as Hurricane Bill headed off toward Nova Scotia, the sound of the waves did not delight me the way it always had before.  The crashing and thumping were ominous, and I had difficulty getting to sleep. I got up and closed the windows.

I am profoundly grateful to have survived my bone-headed adventure. My heightened level of respect for the sea will protect me and anyone who will listen to me (I’m thinking of you, my soon-to-be-bodysurfing grandson) for the rest of my life.  As of today, my plan is to limit my surfing to anemic waves that I can catch in water that’s about knee-deep.

Today the waves are friendly again–safe for boys and men to ride. I promise to be very careful with my life, and I hope you will be, too.

Note: If you click on the photo of the boy, you’ll come to a video which I shot with my iPhone at Sunday high tide, just after the beach had been closed to swimming.