light

Photo courtesy of my friend Ingeborg Sonnichsen, who is a doula and a photographer. (www.photographybyingeborg.co.za)

bellatrix

I've been chatting to P more often over the past few days. I've said it before; there is So Much Love here. And we're both suffering from empty-bed syndrome... Missing the closeness and warmth and juicy deliciousness that is sharing your life and your personal space with someone you love and trust. But we also know that it doesn't help to keep thinking about what you long for, what you lack; to keep chewing it over until it's a flavourless blob of bubblegum and your stomach is churning for something more substantial. But there's a sweetness about being alone, too, much like cold weather can sometimes envigorate and expand the senses, just as much as it can sometimes deplete the nerves and fold everything in, towards itself. And so goes the rhythm of my days right now; sometimes the folding-inward, sometimes the branching-out. Sometimes the painful curling up and wound-licking, sometimes the slow stretching and unfurling.

In other news, my legs hurt, and my glutes hurt. Sweet Mary and Joseph, I'm freakin' sore. Those among my readers who know what DOMS is will know what I am talking about. If you take a relatively long break between workouts and jump straight into lifting heavy again, you will hurt. Sitting down on a chair will hurt, getting up from a chair will hurt, walking will even hurt. And all I can do is laugh at myself, because I felt like a mighty bellatrix in the gym the other day and now I simply feel like the village idiot.

Easy does it.

Normal Prenatal yesterday was wonderful, and put many of our minds at ease about the intensity of the syllabus. Our teacher, M, just told us to "take a lot of deep breaths" as we tackle all the studying, and that we'd get through it. To give you an idea -- in eight weeks of classes, we're learning how to perform routine physical examinations, including the ongoing assessment of maternal psycho-social and emotional health, and the physical health and well-being of the motherbaby. We're learning how to order, interpret and even perform some diagnostic tests to establish things like haemoglobin, glucose level, urinary protein levels, and the like. We're learning how to measure fundal height; estimate the due date; assess foetal activity and response to stimulation; auscultate foetal heart tones and measure foetal heart rate; assess foetal presentation, position and weight; evaluate signs of developing pathology in the pregnancy (and refer to other care-providers where necessary); and also assess for signs of abuse (and get help for the mother if necessary). By the end, we'll be able to use a foetoscope, lancets, urinalysis strips, a glucometer, and a haemoglobinometer. We'll also have the skills to chart our findings appropriately, and -- the most thrilling part right now, because we're learning this next week -- we'll be able to perform venipuncture and draw blood for tests. Ooh! The dizzying adventure of it all!

And in spite of all this, all the reading, all the studying, all the frenzied acquisition of skills, all the prying into the womb, all the counselling and questioning and prodding of women and babies, birth continues regardless. Right now, in this instant, on the planet, thousands of women have just become pregnant. And their bodies know just what to do to grow those babies in the safety of their wombs without any help from the outside world, thank you very much. And today, 350 000 women will give birth. Most of those women will not be giving birth in a hospital, and yet, in the overwhelming majority of cases, those births will go perfectly fine (whether there is a doctor or a midwife in the room, or not). And that's why midwives love and embrace birth, and trust women's bodies so completely. There is nothing surer to put your trust in than nature.

burn, baby, burn

I'm feelin' good.

I've had two welcome days' rest from class (today and yesterday), during which I cooked some amazing meals, had long chats with friends and introduced them to proper South African music, sorted out my budget (which looks better than I thought, although it is still very much a "student" budget), sent a long-overdue email to my paranoid mother, and borrowed K's car to go for a drive on my own (on the RIGHT side of the road, no less). Also, I got most of my anatomy homework done for Friday, and have studied Blackburn's Maternal, Fetal and Neonatal Physiology forwards and backwards, upside-down and inside-out, for tomorrow's Prenatal class.

Returned from gym this afternoon on a high, having totally kicked my butt in the weights room. I'm nowhere near my personal best for squats or deadlift after a long break from lifting this year, but I'm back in the game. I so badly needed this outlet, and had all but forgotten how good it feels to have to call on all my courage and strength and determination while standing underneath a loaded bar.

I'd been in a funk for the past few days, not really feeling anything -- not sad, not happy, just numb. And I know the best cure when I'm like that is either to exercise (like a crazy person), or find someone I trust to talk to, or both. Right now, I'm all talked out, and I can't feel my quads and glutes any more. It's a delicious feeling.

Moral of the story? Shut up and lift.

strange days

On Saturday, I went to the Common Ground Country Fair in a town called Unity, Maine. The Fair is organised annually by MOFGA (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association), and its intention is to help visitors to make connections with organic farmers in the state of Maine. People can learn about sustainable living; eat amazing, locally-produced organic food; buy Maine crafts and agricultural products; and participate in all kinds of activities (like folk dancing, manure-slinging, jumping off hay bales, horse-riding, and such). Sadly, it transpires that I neither rode a horse nor jumped off a hay bale nor slung any manure around, but I had a mighty fine time nonetheless. I laughed and cavorted with friends, surrounded by stroller-moms in Gap t-shirts and crunchy-granola moms with hipslung babes alike. I ate a moist and spicy hummus and eggplant sandwich, followed by a slice of luxurious-but-tart cranberry cheesecake, both of which were exhorbitantly expensive, organic, made with love, and completely worth it. [And, come to think of it, I have been looking rather thin since I arrived here (due, most likely, to my aforementioned unintentional lacto-ovo vegetarianism, and being sans automobile for a month)... so bring on the cream cheese!]

I spent time at the MOM (Midwives of Maine) tent, hanging out with my sister-students (who were volunteering, handing out leaflets and answering questions about water birth, etc). I also learnt more about the legal status of midwifery in Maine during a talk by a local CPM who is particularly involved in pushing for the legalisation of home-birth midwifery in this state (currently, CPMs are practising alegally, i.e. it's neither legal nor illegal, which is basically worse than being illegal, at least according to some).

On Sunday, I discovered that South Africa's president had tendered his resignation, to the great surprise and alarm of the various internet news sites that I scanned, and I felt rather indifferent, to my own surprise and alarm. The rest of the day was spent foolishly trying to concentrate on my readings for the Informed Choice one-day course today. I instead read parts of Monique and the Mango Rains and thereby reminded myself of the ecstasy of a midwife's work, and indeed why I am here. (Doesn't take much to fuel the fire, really.) I called my Papa in Berlin in the afternoon, and found out that my uncle has indeed sacrificed his hair to chemo, but not his spirit. He is fighting hard, with every spark of life he retains.

Laughing and speaking in unbroken German to my father for an hour rewired and revived my brain sufficiently that I could do my homework last night -- a not-unremarkable feat in these strange times of sporadic numbness and disbelief. At least I can still recognise my own face in the mirror -- that is progress.

P and I have, in curtly pleasant and somewhat heart-wrenching blips, ended our brief mutual silence. After all, where there was (and is) so much shared love, there is also great concern for the other's well-being, which tends to intensify when the two parties no longer communicate. And that doesn't serve either of us well at all.

Turning to the more hum-drum, ordinary matters, I am still without a car, and have finally (yes, finally!) abandoned the occasionally-entertained pipe dream of buying something as ridiculously girlish, dazzlingly cute and yet outlandishly impractical as a VW New Beetle. After much deliberation, and with the dramatic sigh and gnashing of teeth and flailing of limbs that can be expected from a little girl who wanted a new Barbie doll for Christmas and instead got a trashily generic Sandi doll, I have narrowed my search down to Subarus, exclusively.

With a whimper, I now head toward my desk to see if I can manage an evening's Physiology study. If indeed.

frost

So, some housekeeping... what's happened this week?

I got a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful new acoustic guitar today with an enormous bellyful of sound that makes me burst with ecstasy on strumming it.

My muscles-and-bones A&P class was happily interrupted this morning for 3 hours by another birth (our teachers are pretty much all midwives, and yes, they are on call most of the time). Think (late afternoon): diagrams on the overhead projector explaining the Sliding Filament Theory of muscle contraction, interspersed with anecdotes about today's newborn, the precipitous labour, and his mother's platelet count. (The latter had been cause for concern throughout the pregnancy, apparently, but all concern evaporated when mother did not, in fact, haemorrhage after the birth. All is well in the World of Being Born.)

After class, I took a quick car-trip to High View Farm in the neighbouring town of Harrison with K to pick up some more eggs and raw organic milk. We drove home as the sun was throwing off a shock of gold-orange-pink streaks behind the forested hills of North Bridgton. Then, the other K took me to see a free movie (she works at the Magic Lantern) -- the first film I've seen in a cinema in the US. It was a dramatically un-different experience from seeing a film in a cinema in South Africa.

On Tuesday night, I found a seat on a flight to Johannesburg just before Christmas that I can actually afford. I booked it.

The frost has set in this evening, and I have discovered that Maine's early autumn weather is as cold as the Highveld mid-winter back home.

I got an absurd email from my Mom today, full of conspiracy theories and platitudes and prattle. But she has knitted me a beautiful purple scarf and that makes me feel so guilty about constantly judging her.

My Papa is in Berlin and I keep finding myself unable to call him because I'm in class and the time-zones get all conflated and I lose my chance. It frustrates me to be disconnected from him.

...

I am properly single again, cut loose, pained, angry, nostalgic, resignatory, drifting. And now incommunicado (of my own requesting).

I have the first real headache I've ever had in my life. And it hurts like a motherfucker.

I have renewed my belief in the healing power of friendship.


(Who am I again? Anybody care to remind me what my name is?)

undiscoverable guess

(to p)

here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain

and here's to silent certainly mountains;and to
a disappearing poet of always,snow
and to morning;and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and

let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)

here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon

-- e.e. cummings

peculiar

After all that build-up, all that anticipation, all that nail-biting, yesterday's first Normal Prenatal class was cancelled. Our lecturer, a midwife, was at a birth all day. Go figure.

So it's been postponed, and the day-long class will be split between this Friday afternoon and the following one. We all felt like we'd been given a holiday yesterday, and what did we do with it? We worked! We read and studied and made flashcards and buried ourselves in Taber's Medical Dictionary ("Now in Full Colour").

And today, we were done studying (or at least, I was). After lunch, we three girls (K, S, and I) piled into S's car for a road trip to Freeport, singing (loudly) along to Regina Spektor and Joni Mitchell and Ani DiFranco all the way. Freeport is home to the "flagship store" of L.L. Bean, a glove-and-parka mecca for snow-virgins like me (well, not quite a virgin... but let's just say I'm a stranger to that peculiar beast that is the Maine Winter, with its relentless snowstorms and rural backroads glassed-over with black ice).

[Can you tell already that I'm planning to buy a Subaru? Those who love them nod knowingly and declare: "These cars simply EAT ice". And who can blame them for their ardour, when indeed every second car around these parts is a freakin' Subaru?]

So, I got geared up, right down to my silk thermal long undies and "smartwool" socks. Cold times are comin'...

life is for the living

I feel as though the last week's flown by, undocumented. (Well, partially undocumented...)

Last Monday, we had another installment of Anatomy and Physiology (hereinafter referred to as A&P), to discuss organic chemistry, cells and tissues (including all that high-school biology, like mitosis, DNA, phospholipid-membrane permeability, and such), and finally the integumentary system (more affectionately known as skin). It was a long day in class (9am to 4pm), but it was interactive and stimulating nonetheless.

On Thursday, Alice Sammon came to teach us for our final lesson in the History of Midwifery. Alice was part of the original group of apprenticeship-trained midwives in the US in the 1970s, which includes Ina May Gaskin, who came together to establish the Midwives Alliance of North America. These were exciting times for American midwifery and its development as a profession, and of course Alice had all the juicy stories to tell about the dynamics of this group of women, and how MANA achieved what it did. It is nothing short of a revolution, how this kind of organisation could spring up out of the ashes of "granny" midwives in the American South, out of the American Medical Association's political slaughter of midwifery's respectability, and be reborn as a professional body that not only supports and promotes direct-entry midwifery (and home birth by extension), but also accredits midwifery education institutions (including Birthwise) across the country. NARM (North American Registry of Midwives) is an offshoot of MANA, and it is the NARM exam that I will take in 2011 to confirm my competence as a practitioner. Alice and Ina May and the other amazing, dynamic, unstoppable women of that period in midwifery history were highly politicised and determined, and because of that determination, I and my classmates are able to become certified as CPMs, which is not something that could happen here in the US just a decade ago. And there are even more exciting times ahead for us midwives... I'm just glad to be around while it's all swirling around.

On Friday, we had a seminar on Internet research, specifically medical research, and then we trotted off home to begin our reading and preparation for the start of Normal Prenatal (promptly 9am this Monday). Terrifically exciting, even though that excitement is only a partial buffer for the bad news that it will cost me $2500 to fly back to Johannesburg this Christmas to spend three weeks with my friends, and P, and my family. Just no room in the budget for that... so I will indeed have to wait until May (as originally planned) to make my first trip back home. The realisation knocked the wind out of my sails on Friday evening, which was spent cuddling Julian-dog under the duvet while sniffling my way through a half-box of tissues.

On Saturday afternoon, after a morning of attempting (and failing) to concentrate on my textbooks long enough to get some work done, I and some of my sister-students attended a wedding at Narramissic Historic Farm on the outskirts of town. A lovely Birthwise graduate, who is now practising as an independent midwife, married her sweetheart in a pleasantly brief and beautiful ceremony enhanced by Gibran and Rilke and the Sufi poets, not to mention beautiful music (some by the groom himself, who is a singer/songwriter in his spare time) and abundantly joyful human connection. It was glorious, and the party afterward was a wonderful complement to that. A 1770s farmhouse restored to its original condition, haddock with goat's cheese and artichokes, a smiling bearded farmer-friend of the bride who baked great bread for the meal, mesclun greens with maple-dijon vinaigrette, organic wine, pumpkin-spice wedding cake, dancing in the barn under paper lanterns and fairy lights, children playing on a swing, unrestrained laughter, the bride a goddess in a simple ivory sheath and flower-wreath, a warm Fall evening and a sky full of stars... ah, wedding bliss got into my veins and my heart's still circulating that love around my body today.

I'm sending that love out as my Papa steps on a plane tomorrow to be with his ailing brother in Germany.

mahayana

With gratitude to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, I reproduce his words here:

I would like to explain the meaning of compassion, which is often misunderstood. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop a genuine concern for his or her problems. This is genuine compassion.

Usually when we are concerned about a close friend, we call this compassion. This is not compassion; it is attachment. Marriages that last only a short time do so because of a lack of compassion; there is only emotional attachment based on projection and expectation. When the only bond between close friends is attachment, then even a minor issue may cause one's projections to change. As soon as our projections change, the attachment disappears, because that attachment was based solely on projection and expectation.

It is possible to have compassion without attachment, and similarly, to have anger without hatred. Therefore, we need to clarify the distinctions between compassion and attachment, and between anger and hatred. Such clarity is useful in our daily life and in our efforts toward world peace. I consider these to be basic spiritual values for the happiness of all human beings, regardless of whether one is a believer or a nonbeliever.

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

politics of heart

I've been reading Hilary Schlinger's Circle of Midwives, which concerns the history and formation of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), which is the professional organisation that oversees my own education in this country, and through which I will become credentialled as a direct-entry midwife (or, to use MANA's term, as a CPM -- Certified Professional Midwife). Reading the book has reminded me to say 'out loud' on my own blog that, despite appearances, I don't want to be a midwife only because I get to be around cute babies and determined women.

I want to be a midwife because I see the 'personal' as 'political'. Maybe one day I will have the wherewithal to declare myself a radical feminist/anarchist, but that seems too alienating a stance. In other words, I see little prospect in my future for the inflammatory, megaphoned war-waging that some of my foremothers in midwifery have shown in trying to achieve recognition for their profession despite widespread and persistent ignorance of what it is that they do. To me, being a midwife means being an activist in a way that is heart-to-heart, eye-to-eye, sharing my love and energy with mothers, fathers, babies, children, families -- with full conviction that my caring for them is also a political act. To me, there is a direct connection between the structures and politics of the public world and our private sense of ourselves, our intimate experience of being human. And it is in the merging of the two that I can identify myself as a midwife.

the stuff of life

We've had a lot of communal meals here at the Birthwise apartment, so just for fun I thought I'd devote a post to food. I've basically been vegetarian (without necessarily intending to be) since I got here, since the local organic produce is so good, and there's a wonderful whole-foods store nearby with an amazing array of whole grains and organic dairy and exotic legumes to take home. Who needs meat when there's Southwestern black bean soup, or a roast-veg omelette with salsa Jack cheese, or garlic hummus on home-baked wholegrain sourdough, or kale salad with chickpeas and raisins, or tabbouleh on your plate? (And a square of Lindt 70% chocolate afterward...?)

Last week, K made us all an incredible sundried tomato and roasted butternut soup, and some wholegrain cornbread to go with it. It was absolutely incredible -- I mean, I know soup is just soup, but this soup was... indescribable. The recipe came from Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, which is a book I read long ago, have always loved, and am getting 'into' again. It taught me most of what I know about wholegrains, beneficial supplements, sprouts, lacto-fermented foods (like real sauerkraut!), how to prepare veggies, and the importance of good fats, including egg yolks (and I'll reiterate -- we need fat, to be healthy and hormonally balanced and sane!! Down with this tired, unjustified low-fat propaganda already!).

Tonight, I made baba ghanoush (a Middle-Eastern eggplant dip with tahini and cumin) to share, and also ate my first fish since arriving in Bridgton -- a luscious salmon fillet, with a beetroot/mung-sprout/onion/chive/cider-vinegar salad on the side. Mmmm! Strange to think I've not eaten much seafood since arriving in the 'seafood capital' of the US (anybody out there who hasn't heard about Maine lobster?), but then those who know me will know how I take to heart the collapse of global fisheries (as a result of overfishing)... Ecology, politics and appetite are often conflicting interests, I guess.

As you can probably imagine, from my holier-than-thou dietary habits of late, I am feeling pretty good. Then again, I also get to be surrounded by like-minded sister-students and friends all day, I get to swim in the lake, I get to watch the New England fall arriving and colouring the leaves burnt umber, and I get to hear babies being born across the wall from my bedroom, all in anticipation of the day when the hands guiding the emergence of those tiny heads and unfurling plump limbs might be my own.

an education

This past Saturday went by in a haze of driving, overcast skies, rain, disappointments, and epiphanies. K and I drove into the neighbouring state of New Hampshire to take a look at two cars I was really interested in, both of which I'd researched beforehand and weeded out from a crop of other candidates. It was a long drive, longer than we expected, lengthened by our unintentional map-lessness (which led to our getting lost several times) and the first of several disappointments, which required a detour. Namely, one of the two cars had been sold moments before we arrived at the dealership, despite the fact that the salesman knew we were coming a long way from out of state to see it. I called him when we were a few streets away, to make sure we were headed in the right direction towards his dealership in Hampton Falls. He was unapologetic and made as though his hands were tied, saying, "Well, a woman just came in and paid cash an hour ago. That's life, right?" Agonising.

So we headed east, to Manchester, NH, to see another prospective set of wheels. I'll spare you the long story, but I had a pretty illuminating encounter with what had previously only been rumours in my mind about the world of American salesmen. Bureaucratic problems with my 'foreign' driver's licence, refusal to give me a warranty, squabbles about an already agreed-upon sale price, and the complications of buying a car in a different state than the one in which you intend to drive it -- all these were small troubles in the end, utterly and stunningly eclipsed by the aggression, condescension, and acrid machismo of the salesman. He was relentless. In fact, he was so stupefyingly beligerent, he actually achieved the opposite of his intended result -- I didn't buy the car. Even though I liked it.

K and I stood up and walked out of there feeling like we'd been zapped with a Tazer. So -- epiphanies? Don't buy a car out of state. And most importantly, don't buy from a dealer. And apparently, ALL American car-dealers are like this. They're as bad as the telemarketers who've been calling me up since I got a phone in this country (apparently the MasterCard company kindly passed my contact details on to these bottom-feeders). Bloody hell.

across the wall

I'm sitting in my room in the Birth House apartment (see above), separated by a single wall from the impending arrival of a new human being. Earlier this afternoon, I heard the sounds of mother and father arriving, preceded by the arrival of the midwives, and shortly afterward they all came up the stairs and I heard the sounds of the baby's heartbeat, broadcast into the room by the Doptone. The mother was having some prodromal labour, and so the Birth House fell quiet earlier this evening as everyone left to head into town for a meal. They're back now, and I'm hearing splashes as water fills the deep, glistening, porcelain birthing tub in the corner across the wall. It's thrilling, and my neck-hairs are standing on end in anticipation... While I sleep tonight, I will probably be awakened in fits and starts by the tigress-growls of a woman in labour. And I would rather be here, than anywhere else in the world right now.

the calm

Things are pretty peaceful here in Bridgton, after the buzzing activity of the Labour Day weekend, which saw frothing motorboats and jetskis aplenty in the lake, and vacationing families taking their picnic lunches by the shore and strolling up and down the town streets with ice-cream cones in hand. Now, it seems the boats have been towed back into storage, all the children have gone back to school, and the quietened traffic on the roads reflects only the daily commutes of regular Bridgton residents.

Here at the school, however, things are just heating up. Feels like the calm before the storm, really. We've had a gentle start to our academic programme - only one 'official' class so far, last week Friday - but tomorrow things continue in earnest, with another full-day History of Midwifery review, and then the beginnings of our formal exploration into the realms of human anatomy and physiology on Friday. Then, more A&P on Monday (which will doubtless require an entire weekend's firm commitment to reading chapters out of several textbooks and completing my class workbook) -- and all the while, the BIG fish, "Physical Assessment" and "Normal Prenatal", the classes for which we're all biting our nails in terrified/excited anticipation, are peeking out over the horizon. And there are some serious books piling up on my bedroom shelf...

I've got an assignment on American birth pre-1959 due tomorrow, and some course reading to do too, so it'll be a full afternoon's "work" (labour of love?). I just had a brief chat over the phone with P, which lacked intimacy and direction and caused me a few tweaks of anguish after the call ended... Of course, it's all understandable, given that we are both just getting on with things right now, he with his business and re-established de facto 'bachelorhood', and I with my studies and life here. There can be no room for regret when I have already begun to think of myself irrevocably as a student of Birthwise, as a resident of Bridgton, with a US bank account, with (when I finally get one) Maine licence plates on my car, with my belongings definitively unpacked for the next few years.

contradance

Courtesy Turns at the Contra Dance
By Robert Reynolds Hewitt

kum ba yah

On Saturday morning, K (sister-student) and I headed out to the Bridgton Farmer's Market, to procure some stoneground wholewheat sourdough bread, some organic veggies and some incredible coffee beans from a Maine-based micro-roastery. In the evening, we went together to relish in the delights of traditional New England folk dancing (aka "contradance") at the town hall. We stood in rows opposite our partners (who would change throughout the evening), and the leader, or caller, stood at the mic and talked us all through the choreography for each dance before the band struck up its Anglo-Celtic tunes. I haven't had that much fun (or done that much vigorous twirling around at dizzying speeds on a dance floor) for a very, very long time! We laughed with delight the entire evening, and I just fell in love with this wonderful little community of mine.

Yesterday morning, four of us packed some hiking snacks and headed off to Pleasant Mountain, to find the head of a trail called Bald Peak and climb it. It was pretty gruelling (my hips, ankles and calves are creaky with stiffness this morning as I write), because the first part of the ascent was a good half-mile of vertical scrambling up tree-roots and old glacial stones. In parts, the trail flattened out somewhat and the breeze picked up and dried us off, bringing welcome relief. We reached the summit eventually and were over-awed by the view, of old forests and glistening lakes stretching out into New Hampshire. We continued on the trail to another peak, crested with a fire observation tower, and began our descent via a different path, called Ledges Trail. We found wild blueberry bushes and squatted down to forage like hunter-gatherers, picking off tiny, sweet, blue pills of juicy happiness. We spotted an eagle and various tiny snakes, and were overjoyed to be getting lungfuls of fresh mountain air with the bright fragrance of pine resin and spring water. Five hours later, we arrived home and immediately collapsed onto the sofa! What a glorious way to spend a Sunday.

In the evening, K and K (there are two "Ks" living with me in the apartment) and I rose from our afternoon rest to visit four sister-students living in a huge old eggplant-coloured house on Creamery Street. We spent our evening making and eating dinner, talking, giggling, drinking Maine blueberry wine, playing guitar (those of us who could) and singing. Kum Ba Yah indeed.