Brunswick, Maine

We lived in Brunswick for four months this summer and were delighted with the little college town. Such a contrasting culture to the Portland Streets and the Island of Saint Simons off the coast of Brunswick, Georgia. But this blog is about Brunswick, Maine. What is it about this place?

• Proximity to the coast. So many delightful trips in the red truck with the dogs around the inlets and mud flats of Harpswell and Bailey/Orr's Islands. Good roads. Sharp turns. Incredible scenery. The memories are pumped up by my fondness for both my father's truck and for one of my dogs who we have since lost. 
• Ocean Kayaking (though I prefer fresh water, rough weather kayaking most... Bob Muller's camp was the best. Snow Pond is next...)
• Neighborhood... eclectic, honest, heartfelt, interesting people. 
• Being needed... or useful... or "adding value" to family, to old friends, to new friends.
• Walking the cemetery and the street at night with Sampson.  We really enjoy it. He impresses me. He's 15 and not at the top of his game. He's deaf. He has seizures. He's stiff and an old dog. But he marks every post, every plant, every bush where he smells another scent. An exercise in patience for me, but what else does he have. Even without balls, he is still in the game. Instinct? Courage?  Yeah, probably both... but impressive.
• Weather; being so close to the coast, there were some pretty good blows. One brought the big Silver Maple out by the road down on the front yard. Miraculous placement. Minimal damage.. a broken windshield.
• Sounds: the church bells at the college, the train whistle at 6:45, wind in the "tees" .
• Walking Bowdoin Common. Watching the young people laying in the grass, playing frisbee, the dogs running free, visiting the chapel, attending a musical at the theather.
• Visiting Joshua Chamberlain's home, his statue and his grave. An extraordinary man.
• The Farmer's Market in the park. Fresh, local produce.
• The local restaurants; Vietnamese pho, Italian pasta, Wild Oats for veggie burritos.
• The local theater, the smell of mildew, the overstuffed couches.
• Richie and Tess. Eleanor and Bill. Jamie and Bobby... well, maybe not Bobby and his 3:00 am noisy returns from the bars.
• The awesome, expansive kitchen with plenty of counter and cabinet space, the dishwasher, the food processor. 
• Days at Stover Cove at the tip of the Harpswell Peninsula with K&E and R&K. A great little beach.
• Weekends with everyone there, playing hearts and cribbage, eating vegan... ;-)

Many thanks, Rita, for renting us your home. Although we try to never do anything twice, who knows? We may try to come back next year. 

Grand Mal

Grand can mean many things. The dictionary suggests definitions of wonderful or very good, lofty, sublime or lavish. A grand mal seizure is none of these. It is devastating, debilitating, heartbreaking. It steals a person's dignity, his memory, his peace of mind and leaves him embarrassed, ashamed and vulnerable.

Three days ago I attempted to contact my friend Mark (not his real name). I first met him as a student when I was teaching high school in the 70's. He was a bright, promising student and he went on to study accounting and business management. Our paths crossed through the years. We congratulated each other in the good times and consoled each other in the bad times.

In the late 90's Mark was attacked in the Old Port on Portland's waterfront with a crow bar while withdrawing money from an ATM. The resulting brain injury disabled him and left him prone to seizures. He struggled valiantly to obtain proper medical treatment and medication to control his disorder. A lesser man would have not survived. And we were hopeful that the seizures had been minimized. He still experienced "petite mal" seizures, but he dealt with these infrequent occurrences quietly and stoically.

I tried unsuccessfully to contact him several times on Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon he answered his phone. I knew immediately that something was wrong. When he let me into his one room public assistance building his face was swollen and he dragged his right leg. His eyes were dark and fearful and he clenched his right side. He was unshowered, unshaven.

"What happened, Mark," I asked as we entered his room. There was a pool of dried blood on the floor.

"I don't know. I can't remember. I must have seized. I don't know when. What day is this?" he mumbled.

"It's Thursday, January 8th", I answered.

In the course of the next two hours he asked me "what day is this?" a dozen times.

I stayed for a couple hours and promised to come back later. At 6:00PM the phone rang. He sobbed as he asked "Glen, what town am I in?" I jumped in the truck and headed over the bridge.

Mark's confusion continued to escalate. I spoke with his sister on the phone and we agreed that we needed to get him to the hospital. I drove him to the Maine Med Emergency Room and stayed with him as they processed and evaluated him, until his sister arrived at 10:30.

He called me today. They had released him from the hospital at midnight and he was back in his room. He sounded scared and confused. When I entered his room he pointed out the pool of blood on the floor. He had no recollection that I had been there the previous day or that I had taken him to the hospital. We talked for several hours and it was painfully clear how hard he was working to put the pieces of the puzzle that was his scattered brain back together.  He irrationally tortured himself with guilt.

I tried to help him remember our shared good times. But he kept asking about my son Eric who had died 15 years ago and of his brother who had died of brain cancer in April. When I explained to him that his brother had died, he looked at me in abject horror and I realized that he was processing all the horrible events of his life again for the first time. He was terrified for what he might be forced to remember next. He was awakening to the nightmare that was his life.

Life is not fair. We expect it to be. We demand that it be. But it is not. It is Life. It calls upon us to survive... until we cannot.

Grand? I think not.