photograph by Matthew Mychack

photograph by Leila Murphy

painting and text by Jessica Ives

Sometimes brushstrokes must be as quick and direct as shots on goal in the chilling afternoon light. Next goal ties.

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Every Tuesday morning The Maine and jessicaleeives.com will post a new 207 Painting for sale. For a limited time these small works, each 4 x 4 inches on cradled birchwood panel, will be available for the special price of $207! Click on the image above to access the painting’s sale. New 207 Paintings will post each Tuesday around 5:30am EST and will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis directly through the artist’s website (no longer through a third-party auction platform — yeah for developments in soloprenuerism!). Should a painting not sell by midnight on the Saturday following its original posting, its price will increase to the standard $300 and be available through the store at jessicaleeives.com.

Tuesday 207 Paintings are exclusive to The Maine. They depict the land, the light and the people that make this state a state of wonder. Jessica is editor of The Maine and writes occasionally as The Outsider.

photographs and text by Jonathan Ives

Every winter The Carpenter’s Boat Shop sets up a hockey rink on a small pond in New Harbor. Built with 2x6s screwed into a 2×4 base, the height of the rink is just enough to keep the puck in and the snow out. Still, it’s a lot of work trying to maintain an outdoor rink all winter. At the end of every snowstorm we put on our skates and shovel the ice with the same care and precision we use to build boats.

At the start of each game, everyone throws their sticks in the middle of the rink to be divided randomly so it’s never awkward choosing teams and the teams are always different. The rules are simple: no lifting the puck, no hurting, no name calling, and every game always ends with a tie. We don’t play to win and we always try to encourage passing more then scoring.

Last week we were shoveling the rink and a man yelled to us from his pickup truck. “I’ve got a snowblower back at the house. If one of you guys wants to come back and help load it up, you can use it.” I volunteered, hopped into the truck, and off we went down towards the lighthouse. As we drove the man told me how he used to play ice hockey on that pond for years, before his knees gave out, and I could see his eyes smile as he relived the memories. We got the snowblower into the bed and made it back to find my two friends leaning on their shovels, only a quarter of the rink cleared. The snowblower made short work of the eight inches we got the night before. I thanked the man for his generosity. He smiled before he drove off and said, “You gotta save that energy for the important things.”

After work, even when it’s getting dark, we grab the LED light-up puck and head down to skate before suppertime. Reg Reilly’s house overlooks the pond and has two big flood lights he turns on with the first slap of the puck against the boards. He loves hockey just as much as we do, and even at 85, he’ll still come down to play a game or two. One Saturday afternoon he, his son, grandson, and great grandson joined us on the ice. What an incredible experience it was to skate with four generations, all of us enjoying a game as timeless as the love and happiness it creates.

poem by Dave Morrison, included in his new collection of poems,
 Shake Hands With Your Heart, coming out this week

Every time it felt like too
much, every time her thoughts
shouted over each other,

every time the gears of her
mind or the grasping of her
heart made her feel weary

and bruised she would say
I need to learn how to feel
differently, I need to not
 
think the way I do, she’d think
that the only relief would come
from making some change to
herself.

I say, shake hands with your
heart, play nice with your
mind, form a truce, accept

them as the idiosyncratic
true old friends that they
are.  Sometimes the drafty

old house lets in the most
light and air, not everything
needs to be fixed.  The heart

that hurts so often gives off
a righteous light, the mind
that manufactures such worry

also offers up knowing and
discovery and humor and
vision.

Shake hands with your heart;
accept, adapt, appreciate.

She might say I’ve been
trying my whole life.

I would say I know.
Well done.

Join the Downtown Poetry Party at the Camden Opera House this Friday, January 30th at 7pm. It will be an evening of poetry, performance, and party to celebrate the release of Dave’s 10th collection of poetry!

photographs by Shannon Thompson

window display by Jo Ellen Designs

an excerpt from Maine Lingo: Boiled Owls, Billdads, & Wazzats by John Gould

DOORYARD VISIT: Or dooryard call. Although still used with automobiles, this meant a buggy visit when the occupants didn’t descend to come into the house. It was a neighborly call, in passing.