Saturday we took a walk at Ledyard Glacial Park. Life has seemed so surreal lately and even the woods seemed too quiet. But soon we heard the voices of youngsters having fun and then appeared a mother walking down the trail with her four children. We moved about 6 feet off the path, to comply with social distancing. The family respectfully continued past us but greeted us with multiple rounds of “hello,” “bye,” and “enjoy your walk!” We responded in kind. So that’s how it is supposed to work and it felt good to know we were on the same page and in the same world as strangers, our neighbors.
Ledyard is among the areas of the United States that was covered by a continental ice sheet during the last Ice Age. Therefore, Ledyard has its share of interesting glacial geology. The glaciers that covered Ledyard carried the many large boulders that litter the town. The town has set aside land designated as a “Glacial Park” which consists of a section of end moraine and outwash deposits (containing kettles). This area encompasses a segment of the “Ledyard Moraine” — a clast-supported boulder deposit that is anomalous in nature. ~ Wikipedia
Please enjoy the photos. I took way too many!
3.21.20 ~ quartz
3.21.20 ~ American wintergreen
3.21.20 ~ We took the left fork and then turned right on the by-pass. Half way up the by-pass we turned around and went back the way we came.
On Sunday we learned of the first case of coronavirus in our town. A 52-year-old woman. So it’s here…
How do you explain to the people around you that what you need now is to just crash and do nothing for a while until your head feels normal again, when you don’t even know what’s wrong with yourself? … I think it’s important to keep in mind that when we define the severity of a person’s Autism, it’s only a measure of outward behavior and doesn’t really reflect how much one is affected by the condition internally. Those of us who appear to have low severity may actually need more than is apparent to the eye. … Sometimes I think of myself as part of a lost generation (or generations), the ones who had to go through life with Asperger’s unknowingly. And I’m hoping that in the future, with better education and understanding, the Aspie youth of the future will have a completely different experience. … It’s a nice feeling — a relief — to finally find an explanation for all the confusion and difficulties in your life, but it would have been even nicer to have known it all along. ~ Michelle Vines (Asperger’s on the Inside)
Yesterday I spent the day reading and then shredding all the journals I wrote when I was in my late 20s and early 30s. (I’m in my early 60s now.) Something I’ve been meaning to do for a few years because there was a lot of very personal stuff in there.
3.18.20 ~ brant at Eastern Point Beach
What was strikingly revealed to me as I read is the painful struggle I was having with autism for years, trying desperately to figure out what was “wrong” with me. The evidence of impaired executive functioning jumped out at me on almost every page, so obvious from what I know now, so baffling back then. I wanted so badly to live like a “normal” (neurotypical) person, to figure out how to get along in this world.
3.18.20 ~ brants at Eastern Point Beach
As I read I kept saying under my breath, “no wonder you were so damn tired all the time.” It’s exhausting trying to make your brain work with a different operating system. I can’t help wondering what my life might have been like had I and my parents and my husband known about autism and if I had had some meaningful support. But it IS a huge relief to have it all make sense now.
“A Late Riser’s Miserable Breakfast” by Carl Larsson
This is one of my favorite Carl Larsson paintings. I think it’s a combination of the appealing colors and the gentle reminder that some days just seem to start off on the wrong foot. For kids and adults!
There are 68 detected cases of COVID-19 in Connecticut now, all of them west of the Connecticut River in the western four counties, bordering New York. So far the eastern four counties, including our New London County, have no detected cases. But our state epidemiologist estimates there are 100 undetected cases for every detected case, so we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg. The suspense is getting to me. How bad will it get?
It was different in the last pandemic. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic entered Connecticut through New London.
In Connecticut, the state’s busy ports, and particularly New London’s Navy base, provided an easy point of entry for the disease. The state’s first recorded case of influenza appeared among Navy personnel in New London on September 11, 1918. By October 25, the State Public Health Service reported 180,000 cases. It appears the outbreak, after originating in New London County, moved to Windham and Tolland Counties and then continued on south and west to New Haven, Hartford, Fairfield, and Litchfield Counties. Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, and Waterbury recorded the most flu fatalities in the state, but smaller towns like Derby and Windham were also hard hit by the disease, with even higher death rates per thousand than in the larger cities. The war ended in November 1918, but the flu epidemic raged on.
By February 1919, the flu had finally subsided, leaving 8,500 dead in Connecticut.
~ Tasha Caswell (Eighty-Five Hundred Souls: the 1918-1919 Flu Epidemic in Connecticut ~ ConnecticutHistory.org)
Reading used to be my favorite occupation but in recent years I haven’t been able to do much of it because it would put me to sleep, even in the daytime. It’s been very puzzling to me why this would be so. But I think I might have finally figured it out. I keep losing my place when I finish one line of text and try to move down to the next. It was exhausting trying to focus and find the next line. Yesterday I tried holding a bookmark under the line I was reading and then moving it down to the next one. It worked! I read a whole chapter with ease! Looks like I can add reading back to my list of self-quarantine activities.
So now I am reading These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson by Martha Ackmann. It’s nice to escape from today’s reality, even if for a few hours at a time.
There are 12 detected cases of COVID-19 in Connecticut now, and no doubt there are plenty more undetected cases. Our self-quarantine continues. A few days ago we drove down to the beach and encountered this solitary gull withstanding the wind. It was good to get some fresh air.
The days are passing slowly, hours filled with jigsaw puzzles, yoga, chores, cooking, watching movies, video-chatting with family. Anxiety comes and goes. Hoping we are doing our share of “flattening the curve.”
Prepare, don’t panic. Difficult to do when one feels there is no available protection against the spreading new coronavirus. But we are obediently following the directions given by authorities. Doing something feels better than doing nothing. Two weeks of food and supplies — check. Now what?
So far there are no detected cases of COVID-19 in Connecticut, although surrounding Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York have some. Apparently there is no evidence of widespread transmission — yet. It’s a creepy feeling, waiting and wondering…
An email came from my insurance company yesterday, outlining preventative measures and assuring me that should I get sick I would be covered — shouldn’t that go without saying? — and that the test would be covered, too.
I am, reasonably, I think, concerned because we seem to be in the population group most at risk for dying of this, over 60 and with underlying health conditions. On the other hand, our grandchildren will likely be fine even if they do come down with it. Uncertainty reigns, as always.
So I wonder this, as life billows smoke inside my head This little game where nothing is sure Why would you play by the rules? Who did? You did. You… ~ Dave Matthews ♫ (Dodo) ♫
Dear March — Come in — How glad I am — I hoped for you before — Put down your Hat — You must have walked — How out of Breath you are — Dear March, how are you, and the Rest — Did you leave Nature well — Oh March, Come right up stairs with me — I have so much to tell — ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1320)
“Getting Ready for Winter” by Šarūnas Burdulis American red squirrel descaling and eating hemlock seeds
I found this picture some time ago on Wikimedia Commons and have been saving it for pairing with a poem or a quote but, so far, nothing has turned up to inspire. However, today is my ten year blogging anniversary and the timing seems right. The picture captures the best of my childhood memories in the woods. I used to pretend those tiny hemlock cones were bushes for the landscaping around the little houses I built in my sandbox…
After about a month of doing well on medication for the radiation proctitis I suffered a setback at the end of January, leaving me frustrated and discouraged and tied to the house again. We’re trying something new and hoping things will improve soon. In the meantime I’ve pushed myself to resume my yoga for seniors, which I hadn’t done since last fall when I got so sick. And much to my surprise, I’ve taken up doing jigsaw puzzles! It seems easier than reading these days. Using a different part of my weary brain, no doubt. Watching the birds at my feeder provides hours of entertainment.
Naturally a lot has changed in ten years since I started blogging! I used to spend more time sharing images, lyrics, poetry, and quotes, and I still love a good pairing of words and pictures now and then. Now, my main joys seem to be nature walks and photography and family history research. I do hope I will be able to get back to them in the near future.
Annie Eliza Baker (1845-1927), center front, and her three children: William Nelson Hamblin (1883-1958), Amanda Eliza Hamblin (1879-1966), and Benjamin Francis Hamblin (1873-1955).
Annie is my 2nd-great-grandmother and her daughter, standing behind her, Amanda, is my great-grandmother, who died when I was 9 years old. I adored my great-grandmother. She was the one adult who seemed to understand my baby doll was “real.” She once admonished me for leaving the baby too close to the edge of the couch where she could easily fall off.
My cousin sent me this picture recently and now I can picture what my great-grandmother looked like as a young woman. Two women in my direct maternal line.
Annie and Amanda both married sea captains. Sadly Annie’s husband died a month and a half before their last child William was born. And their first son died when he was only 11 days old. Annie never remarried.
The biographical sketch I wrote about this family can be found here.
At the Groton Public Library we found the above book in the James Streeter History Room. Unfortunately, the identity of the carver of the unusual gravestones we discovered in the Avery-Morgan Burial Ground is lost to history, but he is referred to as the Norwich Ovoid Carver.
Particularly in the old Norwichtown burying ground, but also in Windham, Groton, Preston, and Coventry, one finds a small number of large rude semicircular stones that are among the earliest carved stones in the area. They are not just the crude initialed carving found in many inland cemeteries. These stones have obviously been shaped and the fronts smoothed. There is no attempt at designs, but the lettering is deeply and boldly cut and has remained legible for over two hundred years, often without appreciable deterioration. The Groton stones are particularly clear, but may well have been recut. There is something appealing in the elemental cleanness and strength of these early stones. They give one the impression of a society determined to remember its founders forever with no nonsense about it. ~ James A. Slater (The Colonial Burying Grounds of Eastern Connecticut & The Men Who Made Them)
Besides the four gravestones in Groton, there are thirteen more found in Norwich, three in Preston, two in Windham and one in Coventry.
