Greenhouse gases, but one of corporate America’s apparently lasting legacy to our children’s children, are what Senator George Mitchell called “the man who came to dinner”: they’ll stay and stay. The Senate majority leader from Maine wrote in his book World on Fire that CO2 emissions may stay up there for centuries. They are being released far faster than the atmosphere can remove them. Were we to keep emitting them at current levels they will intensify up there, indefinitely.
In trying to stay his course into the wind, Allen’s arm and grip are tiring. He takes his hands from the yoke and jokes about flying with the rudder pedals. Might find some clean air a bit higher . . . We’ll try 4500 ft. We are crossing the Penobscot, passing the paper mill with its smokestack below.
Fumble in my purse for a motion sickness tablet. Have forgotten to bring something to wash it down. The tiny white pill breaks between my teeth. Clouds pass quickly, flowing eastward on the wind like scum upon a river. We drone westward through the flow, pushing through currents. The wind pushes back, hard, requiring yet more fuel. Whump. Bang! The tablet, disintegrating in my mouth, bites back with a bitter taste as its protective coating melts away and begins burning the tip of my tongue. An acrid chemical burning. Bang!
I’m trying to take notes, hoping for occupation to settle my unhappy mind. Below I see some small circular bog overtaking a wooded area. Dead trees have fallen there like pickup sticks on a carpet of green. Who can pick up a stick without disturbing the others? Can any of the children who play with these toys? My mouth is on fire. My inner cheeks and gums burn. The tip of my tongue turns numb.
Clouds roll over us, one by one. Updrafts below lift and jolt us as we pass under them. Allen ascends to 5500 ft., then 5800 ft.. Man-made things below shrink to insignificance. And I can heed them no more. The immanent dirty elements are all. Cloud, wind and gravity’s threat have consorted to pound the pomposity, along with its imagined securities, from my puny soul.
(With good luck, it says, you’ll never have severe turbulence.) Enfeebled, I look above toward the blue.
There’s the pallid moon ahead! waning before midday. It is reclining, belly-up, and sickly pale. I take off the headphones so Allen won’t hear me murmuring psalms. It’s so noisy I can feel the words vibrating in my larynx but the sound of them never reaches my ears. Now I am letting-go the controls (as advised), hoping the craft of my own being will right itself. Bang! Bang! Bang! A thousand fears crowd into my mind. I thrust them back with inaudible recitation. Below me the Maine Corridor, our humble extension of the great Northeast Corridor (commercial, industrial, political) is spread out beneath the dingy air. (I will fear no evil. . . .)
Allen looks over at me, concerned. He asks if I want him to land below at Augusta. It’s a sacrificial offering. He would have to leave me and fly on to Oxford then drive maybe 60 miles through the hills to pick me up in the car. Mutely, I shake my head.
Having passed the Kennebec, we begin descending over Androscoggin and then Oxford counties. The toy villages, so peaceful, serene enlarge. One in particular catches my eye, Hebron, with its Academy—recognizable by the graceful lawn surrounded in stately brown buildings, the neat small edifices of learning—now on vacation. We round the green mound, Little Singepole Mountain, which rises above it, comforting rock. Beside it hunkers Streakéd Mountain.
I spy the automotive raceway—a landmark—beside which the runway spreads. The airport runway that never looked so blessed. Never have I so longed for landing. Give me to drink of its nausea and despair. Increase the sickness and sinking of this jolting descent. Fill my mind with all its attendant and frantic fears. Let me drink to the last drop these necessary dregs . . . for when it is drunk we will be down.
Oh, the welcome expanding tarmac, the veering and hopping of our quaking craft.
Ah Allen, Allen, we’ve landed! We are down from the turbulent sky!
I tried to negotiate the aisles at the Oxford Hills grocery store but kept veering slightly right; pushing the cart. Disoriented.
“I feel like I’m crabbing into the wind,” I said to Allen beside me.
“It’s how I held the yoke all the way back.” He rubbed his shoulder. “I must’ve pulled a tendon or something, trying to keep it on course.”
It was that northeast flowing river of wind, that struggle with wind-shear, gusts and convection. He flew a heading of 330° in order to maintain a course of 270°, because the wind kept forcing us off course.
“That flight tested all my skills—control, communication, navigation. The wind clipped so much off our speed I thought we were flying backward.”
When we stepped from the store into the parking lot, I looked up, seeing soft cumulus overhead, interstitial with the calm blue sky. Those clouds adrift there, so peaceful, serene. Now that we are no longer among them.
Life in the Highlands, Where Pipers Call
The Piper stands playing beneath a tree by an entrance to the grounds. He plays a Gaelic air, leaving no doubt that we have arrived at the place and time: Highland Games downeast by the sea, presented by St. Andrew Society of Maine. The Society’s purpose, to preserve and promote Scottish heritage, has brought folk from dozens of clans in New England and Nova Scotia to participate in the pipe and dance competitions.
Allen and I have no Scots ancestry that we are aware of (although some of my forebears were Celtic); nevertheless we’re interested enough in this culture to come and experience the Maine Highland Games. I’m hungry for an authentic taste of scones, famous Scottish quick bread.
We walk down toward the lawn where a Border Collie demonstration is in progress. A haunting skirl of bagpipes floats to us on the breeze. The song will inform our awareness—now quiet and distant, now strong and near—throughout the day of these competitions. We join spectators ringing the fence where a small black dog with white markings chases shorthaired sheep. In the midst stands a tiny slat pen where the shepherdess stands, long bright ribbon from her hand tethering a gate of this pen. Shrilling, her small silver whistle pipes out a song of degrees—signals for the dog. The Border Collie runs this way and that as the shepherdess peeps and shrills, funneling sheep in the manner commanded by these high-pitched sounds.
The Collie drives them close against the fence under our noses. Furious breathing of these small cloven-hoofed woolly creatures fans our knees in passing. Now the song (with its various peeping) sounds again, the dog comes round driving them off the fence.
The Collie’s ears are pricked; its long-haired coat sleek and glossy-looking as though brushed with care, but its stance reveals sentience, and intent of the rangiest predator. Agile, it scurries with head low and poised, alert to the whistle or words of the shepherdess who often commands the dog to “lie down!” At this command the dog drops to its belly, crouched, ready to scramble at the next signal. Then, tearing the ground, it comes round and we feel the predatory power as its nails grip the turf. The dog pivots. Its breath is quick, excited. It spins away, cutting out two sheep, herding them into the slat pen. At once the handler closes the gate and loops the pink tether over its posts.
This green stifling lawn beneath shore pines is a far cry from the rugged and rolling distances of the Scottish Highlands where such sheep roam. There the dogs are signaled over vast distances, handily moving the wool-bearers while a shepherd stands his or her ground. In this heat today I sense the discomfort of these beautiful sheep in the hurly of being so gathered, so harassed.
“Why do sheep run from the dog?” Someone has asked from the sidelines. Answer: It is a primordial response from an age when predators roamed the hills in packs. The quick would run the sheep silly then head them back toward slower pack members. There jaws would powerfully tear them to shreds, sustenance for hungry wolves. Sheep are still highly sensitive to the born predator who, through breeding and training, has become their guard and now serves for their good. Through the healthy instinct of fear.
Wandering away we follow the path past a competition ground. Here