Lea Wait's Blog, page 121

Architectural Inspirations

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. I’ve written before about using my family’s houses and a few of my friends’ homes, and even some public buildings in various towns I’ve lived in as the inspiration for buildings in my novels. It’s always helpful to have a specific floorplan in mind when moving characters around. Architecture has often made a deep impression on me, but it hasn’t always been because I lived in or visited a particular building in real life. Photographs have also had a lasting influence. Sometimes I was even lucky enough to be able to follow up and experience the place in person.

The summer between ninth and tenth grades, I went to a church-sponsored summer camp at Minden, a mansion the Presbyterian Church owned on Long Island. I’m pretty sure I picked it based on a photo of the house and “attractively landscaped twelve-acre plot.” The girls’ dorm was on the second floor of the main house. The boys were in the carriage house. There were extensive lawns and flower gardens. The idea, of course, was that we’d spend time contemplating uplifting and/or religious topics. I’m pretty sure I spent most of my time thinking about this really cute boy I met there. I doubt he knew I existed, since the boys were outnumbered by the girls by about four to one. That “camp” was my first experience with being away from home and/or family for more than one night, my first experience with living in a dorm, and my first experience with what it would be like to live on a rich person’s estate. Years later, Minden became the model for the rich guy’s house in The Mystery of the Missing Bagpipes, one of the children’s books I reissued in 2020.

Despite the insistence of our high school guidance counselor that I should consider Albany State my best option for higher education, I applied to Bates College in Maine because I liked the picture of the Gothic chapel in the college catalog. I not only ended up attending and graduating from Bates, I met my husband there and we were married in that chapel two weeks after we graduated. In an alternate reality, I might have gone to William and Mary—different architecture, but still appealing—but I only made it as far as their wait list.

Jumping ahead, it was a photograph of Warkworth Castle in Northumberland that inspired my short story, “The Reiving of Bonville Keep,” one of my earliest attempts at short fiction in an historical setting. The story was published in Murder Most Medieval in 2000. The following year, I had the opportunity to visit Warkworth in person and it didn’t disappoint.

The first time I visited England was between my junior and senior year in college. I didn’t have the opportunity to return until I’d already written the first seven books in my Face Down series. Once again, I relied on photographs and printed floorplans and—thank you National Geographic and similar resources—cutaway recreations of the interiors of sixteenth-century houses and castles, This one is from The Times London History Atlas.

I’d love to be able to visit or revisit every place I use in a book. That isn’t always possible, but there was one time when I managed on-site research for a novel I was actually writing at the time. That was Lethal Legend, published in 2008 and set on a fictional island in Penobscot Bay in 1888. My husband and I made reservations at the Dark Harbor House on Islesboro, built just a bit later than that, and set off on a weekend adventure. I was looking forward to getting the “feel” of staying in a mansion (okay, another mansion) and this trip turned out better than I could have hoped. Sadly for the owners but serendipitous for me, the mansion-turned-hotel was up for sale and on the second night of our stay, we were the only guests. We had free rein to wander through the rooms, soaking up the late-nineteenth-century ambiance. Yes, I could have written that book from photographs alone, but it was great fun to peek into all the hidden corners and even poke our heads out onto the widow’s walk. Architectural inspiration indeed!

interior of Dark Harbor House

What are the places that have stuck in your memory? Have you ever made up stories about them or, if you’re a writer, used them in a book?

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-three books traditionally published and has self published several children’s books. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary “Deadly Edits” series (A Fatal Fiction) as Kaitlyn. As Kathy, her most recent book is a standalone historical mystery, The Finder of Lost Things. She maintains websites at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com. A third, at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women, is the gateway to over 2300 mini-biographies of sixteenth-century Englishwomen.

Weekend Update: January 2-3, 2021

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Kate Flora (Tuesday), Vaughn Hardacker (Thursday) and Brenda Buchanan (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

 

 

 

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Our Maine Winter

Today, we’re sharing some photos of our Maine winter. Hope you will join us and share some of your own.

Sandra Neily: adding Moosehead Lake freeze up, cove at dawn, and well, the dog says it all.

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Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: The view from the ski slope at Saddleback Mountain.

Kate Flora: Tree at DiMillo’s where we always have our family holiday lunch. Until this years. Lights at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden’s Gardens Aglow.

Maureen Milliken: Even though it gets so dark, so early, I love the light this time of year. The Pownalborough Courthouse, in Dresden, and the Belgrade Lakes gazebo were both shot the same time of day in early December — around 3:30 right as the sun was going down.

And, at the bottom, the western Mountains of Franklin County as seen from the Center Hill Entrance to Mount Blue State Park, in Weld, a nice bright noontime shot.

John Clark enjoying the abundance of birds right outside our sliding glass door-cardinals, titmice, grosbeaks, jays, sparrows, chickadees, mourning doves, nuthatches, wrens and a few courageous gray squirrels entertain us daily.

Waiting for more food

 

 

This was full an hour ago

 

Feeder gets filled daily.

Maggie Robinson: I have been nowhere to see the wonders of nature. Usually, I can’t even see the wonder of my own backyard at this time of year without slipping on ice or stumbling through snow. But we seem to be in November mode at the moment. All the rain has washed away the snow and I can go out and holler to the dog to come in from the three grim brown levels of our garden without falling down. Can’t wait for spring to come!

Terraced garden







Frozen pond

 

Any Other Year…

Darcy Scott again, thinking about how if this were any other year I’d be knee-deep in extensive New Years Eve food prep right about now—cooking up a storm in frenzied anticipation of hosting family and friends. But this time around our table is by necessity limited to my husband and myself, with culinary gift bags/pans/parcels already having been squired here and there and dropped on doorsteps. A wave through the window in lieu of hugs and kisses. Sigh. So to cheer myself and possibly some of you, I’m devoting today’s post to a few favorite recipes (complete with their pertinent stories) gathered during our years of boating in various locales.

Grand Beach, Roque Island

This first one is almost too easy, if a bit freaky: our initial 24-hour sailing trip up the Maine coast from Kittery to the Roque Island Archipelago—Roque being a remote and pristine anchorage a stone’s throw from the Canadian border. We arrived on our wedding anniversary, bottle of bubbly chilling in the fridge; and the tide being perfect for harvesting mussels, I deployed the dinghy to the shallow shoreline opposite Grand Beach, dropped a small anchor and got to it. 

To be honest, something felt wrong from the get-go—a premonition I should have heeded but didn’t—and one that only grew stronger when, returning to the boat, I plopped myself in the stern to clean my catch. Still, I pressed on, finishing my chore and taking the steps to the cockpit full bore with nary a thought for the metal bar that blocked my way at face level. The result? Two black eyes and a very swollen, very tender nose—not to mention that in all the excitement, I dropped my precious catch overboard, pan and all. 

Back below deck, I did what I should’ve done before first heading out considering the many stories I’d heard over the years about the pain of paralytic shell food poisoning. Sure enough, when I checked the latest red tide alerts for the area, Roque was dead center in that summer’s largest outbreak. Lesson learned!

Anniversary Celebration, Roque Island

How We Do Mussels Like many of you, we prepare fresh mussels simply: steaming the small, freshly picked beauties that rest maybe a foot beneath the water at low tide with chopped garlic and a splash of white wine, occasionally augmenting the finished dish with some diced tomatoes and leftover bacon (is there ever such a thing?).

About fifteen years back, my husband and I sailed to Bermuda with another couple—a five day jaunt from southern Maine to St. Georges Harbor during which we were accompanied by pods of dolphins beneath the stars on the first two nights, and struck by lightning in the middle of the Gulf Stream on the third. I was alone on watch at the time, and in the subsequent chaos paid little attention to my own racing heart.

It wasn’t until the next morning when I pulled my iPod from the pocket of my rain gear that I noticed the dark bolt streaking its face and realized that I, too, had been indirectly struck, a small inconvenience compared to the loss of much of our navigation instruments and lighting—something that made our middle of the night approach to the island a real nail biter. The next day we celebrated our safe arrival with fish chowder at the White Horse Pub, winkling the recipe from a few friendly staff who took pity on us after hearing our tale.

Bermuda Fish Chowder (WhiteHorse Pub recipe)

3 lbs. fish bones—snapper or grouper work best

1 gallon water

One whole onion

2 celery stalks

4 parsley stalks

¼ c. finely chopped onion

1 clove garlic, minced

3 med. tomatoes, rough chopped

2 oz. bacon, rough sliced

2 oz. butter

2 oz. flour

½ tsp. fresh thyme, chopped

1 tsp. curry

¼ c. Worcestershire sauce

4 oz. tomato puree

1 bay leaf

1 green pepper, diced

S & P to taste

Sherry or Black Seal rum

1.Wash fish bones thoroughly and set in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add celery and parsley stalks, whole onion and water.

2. Bring to a boil and skim foam. Let simmer five minutes.

3. Transfer stock into a clean pan; discard bones. 

4. Melt butter in a heavy pan and sauté bacon, garlic, the chopped onion, curry, chopped celery, and thyme for five minutes. Add chopped tomato, puree, flour, Worcestershire sauce, diced pepper, bay leaf, and fish stock. Bring to a boil and simmer 30 minutes.

5. Correct seasoning with S & P, and serve doused with Black Seal Rum or a dollop of sherry.

Many years of narrowboating in Wales have yielded some fabulous recipes of the British variety—the pubs along both the Llangollen and Montgomery canals offering everything from outstanding curries to the ubiquitous fish and chips and all manner of hand pies. (For more on our canaling experiences, check out my May 25, 2000 post, “Narrowboating in the UK”.) But Sticky Toffee Pudding (a very moist, dense cake smothered in a rich caramel sauce and whipped cream) was our absolute favorite—specifically this recipe offered up by the friendly crew at The Dusty Miller Pub in Wrenbury after we’d spent a long, drizzly day walking the towpaths. It feeds a crowd and has become a favorite Holiday-worthy dessert no matter where we are!

Sticky Toffee Pudding

1 lb. dates, chopped in food processor

2 cups hot water

2 tsp. baking soda

5 oz. unsalted butter

1 lb. sugar

5 large eggs

1 lb. all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

pinch salt

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Sauce:

1 lb. dark brown sugar

1 lb. butter

1tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup heavy cream

Fresh whipped cream for serving

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 9 X 13 pan. Shake out excess.

Combine dates and hot water in saucepan; bring to boil. Remove from heat and add baking soda. Set aside to cool.

Cream butter and sugar together on high speed for three minutes. Add eggs one at a time until fully mixed. 

Add vanilla, flour, baking powder and salt. Once incorporated, add dates and their liquid.

Pour batter into greased pan and bake until a skewer comes out clean (30 – 45 minutes).

For the sauce, combine the first three ingredients over low heat until well blended and the brown sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and whisk in the heavy cream. Serve topped with whipped cream.

Darcy Scott (Winner, 2019 National Indie Excellence Award; Best Mystery, 2013 Indie Book Awards; Silver Award, 2013 Readers Favorite Book Awards; Bronze Prize, 2013 IPPY Awards) is a live-aboard sailor and experienced ocean cruiser with more than 20,000 blue water miles under her belt. For all her wandering, her summer home and favorite cruising grounds remain along the coast of Maine—the history and rugged beauty of its sparsely populated out-islands serving as inspiration for much of her fiction, including her popular Maine-based Island Mystery Series. Her debut novel, Hunter Huntress, was published in Britain in 2010.

Plotter to Pantser to Driving Through the Dark

If the pandemic and quarantining have done anything for me, it’s forced me into some long-term organization I might not have gotten to otherwise. In the first month of lockdown, I organized my book by major topic categories, then alphabetically by author. The next day, I got stuck into some boxes of old papers and journal that hadn’t seen the light of day since the beginning of the century. I was hoping to be able to throw some things out. At a certain point, you have to start thinking about deaccessioning, rather than accumulating.

Included in the box were some long forgotten planning documents from my first published crime novel, Solo Act, reproduced below.

I was shocked to see in these, and fourteen more pages like them, that I’d spent a considerable amount of time laying out character, motivation, scene movement, action, questions and answers, and so on. At that point, apparently, I’d been what we politely refer to as a plotter.

I suppose, as a floundering newbie, I was trying to find some way to control the process of writing a novel, something I knew nothing about at the time. I am afraid to take these pages back and compare them against the published book, though, since even a quick look tells me many of the ideas never made it. The voluminous background work of 2000 and 2001 did not do much for the novel that came out in 2015.

Here’s what the plan for Elder 6, tentatively titled Mickey’s Monkey, looks like from a notebook this summer. 

I’d like to think the attitude I’ve developed toward plotting—I started calling myself a pantser with the third book in the series, came from the great skill I’d developed in working out the stories in my head in advance, knowing where those half-dozen structural members would connect to make a book. But, in fact, I realized that I’d gone beyond flying by the seat of my pants to a much slower and more deliberate way of working, albeit one that doesn’t require much advance thinking.

The original idea comes from E. L. Doctorow: “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

And it is the perfect description of how my working style has evolved. Every morning now, when I sit down with my Pilot G2 and white pad, I only know where I’ve been. A few words from the day before get the story rolling again and once more, I’m driving down a pitch-black road, enticing alleys on either side, only aware of what I can see coming in the next sentence or two.

My journey from plotter to pantser to driver through the night is, for me, a belief in confidence. Those old notebook pages from 2001 are an expression of how little confidence I had in what I was doing. They represent a desparate attempt to control what I had to learn I had only minimal control over. The page from this year’s journal shows me, not that I know where the story is going, but that I have the confidence there is a story there and that I’ll arrive at its destination eventually.

It feels odd sometimes that I find more confidence in less groundwork, but if a writer knows anything, it’s that his, her, or their means of working is as unique as a sunset and hard-learned as humility. I would never prescribe for another writer. The only thing any of us can be certain of is that there is no certainty at all.

Central Maine says ‘Take this, pandemic, we’re lighting things up’

You don’t have to be a big city to have big city lights, and a few Kennebec River towns made that clear this holiday season, telling the pandemic it can go to hell because it’s not going to spoil the good feeling.

Even though it gets dark early and the weather’s no good, I still like driving around to see what’s going on. It’s a big part of being a Maine writer — I want to stay in touch with those little things that make Maine so special.

One thing I’ve always liked are municipal holiday lights displays and how they vary.

Here are some snaps I took a couple days before Christmas in my area.

My town, Belgrade Lakes, believes just one tree isn’t enough. So, we have the original town tree, the big one in the back. We also have a new starter tree — the one with blue lights — presumably for when the town tree, which is decades and decades old, retires. And, since our Village Green was recently refurbished into a park with a gazebo, we also have the gazebo tree. Kind of a “we three trees” thing going on.

In Augusta, my hometown and just south of my adopted town, it’s lights lights and more lights. The federal building downtown (I refuse to call it the Olde Post Office, which apparently is now its official name), gets lit up and, across the street in Market Square, the city tree and a variety of lit decorations compete. But wait, there’s more! Both of the city’s crazy traffic rotaries also are lit up, as if they aren’t distracting enough. I like this view of Memorial Circle with the State House keeping an eye over it.

Right down the river (and State Street) from Augusta, is Hallowell, which has a classic message for those driving on Water Street.

And south of Hallowell, Gardiner has lit up two downtown pocket parks — both on sites where buildings once burned down — with some nice extravagent displays.

There’ll be plenty of time for me to share stuff about writing next month and throughout 2021. But for now, just enjoy the lights, relax and fill up that egg nog mug.

Happy holidays and here’s to a great 2021!

Weekend Update: December 26-27, 2020

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Maureen Milliken (Monday), Dick Cass (Tuesday), and Darcy Scott (Wednesday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Kate Flora shares a mini writing lecture recorded as part of a Sisters in Crime series. You can find it here:

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Deja Noel

It’s been twenty years, but we still shy away from talking about the last Christmas Eve of the 20th Century. Who could blame us. Ya think rational folks would believe three aging guys from a small town in rural Maine about anything? That’s only part of why we keep our traps shut.

It was about as miserable a December night as anyone in Reedville had seen in ages. Gusting winds, snow falling at better than two inches per hour and lots of folks jiggy as all get out over the possibility that most of the technology was going belly-up on New Year’s Day. Still, some of us fools had jobs that required us to be out in this mess, looking after those even more foolish than we were. It was me, Kyle Bradbury and Stan Hillman poking along Route 27, slowing every so often for a temporary whiteout, or an indication at the side of the road suggesting an unfortunate soul was in the ditch.

Stan was running in front of us in his ugly but serviceable tow truck, orange lights fighting a losing battle with the snow. Kyle, while off duty from his job as a volunteer firefighter and EMT, had nothing better to do. It was hang with us or stare at the walls and get drunk while feeling sorry for himself. Nasty divorces will do that to a fellow. I should know, I’ve been through two. I was out in this mess because our sheriff’s department had been blindsided by a budget cut and we were down three officers. I had an informal agreement with the sheriff which was probably illegal ten ways to Sunday. I’d work overtime and only claim the hours if it was necessary for an arrest, or something similar, then take a day off during fishing or hunting season as comp time. Out here in the sticks, you did what was necessary and being out in this mess, even though I wasn’t scheduled, was what was necessary and like I said, it beat the hell out of staring at the wall.

We were on our way up to Partling Pond to check on a report of a car off the road. It had been like that ever since sunset, not that we’d noticed it going down. The blizzard, predicted to arrive after midnight had jumped the gun, leaving zero visibility from three o’clock on. Even if we wanted to get anywhere in a hurry, the conditions were so bad, neither vehicle’s defrosters could fight off a line of frost creeping up the windshield, so I was hugging Stan’s bumper at all of fifteen miles an hour.

I started to relax as the wind slowed when Stan braked so hard his rear wheels threatened to lose traction. He damn near took out my windshield when the heavy steel hook he used to winch wrecks onto the bed of his truck swung free. I came to a stop and looked at my buddy. Kyle’s face almost as white as the drifts by the edge of the road.

“What the hell is he doing? He nearly killed us,” I growled. “Can you see anything in front of him?”

It took a moment for Kyle to pull himself together. He released his seatbelt, grabbed my high powered flashlight and got out. I watched him start around the tow truck and come to an abrupt stop, his mouth hanging open at whatever he was looking at.

I put the cruiser in park, grabbed my gloves and got out to see what was going on. By the time I got around the tow truck, he and Stan were in front of it looking at the impossible. A girl who didn’t look more than sixteen, stark naked and very pregnant, was looking back at us with what I could only describe as an angelic expression on her face. I could swear the frigid wind and snow wasn’t bothering her one bit.

Kyle was the first to act, turning and running back to the cruiser, returning a moment later with the space blanket stashed in my trunk for just such an emergency. He wrapped the girl before picking her up and returning to the cruiser where he deposited her on the back seat.

“What in hell do we do now?” Stan looked at me while shaking his head in disbelief.

“I’ll have Kyle sit in back with her unless that freaks her out. We still need to check on whoever is supposed to be stuck in the ditch. Then we get her to the hospital in Farmington.”

Stan nodded and got back in his truck while I went to my cruiser, telling Kyle to babysit the girl. Given that she’d been naked in a blizzard while being accosted by three strange guys, the girl seemed awfully calm, taking in her surroundings with a tiny smile.

It took close to half an hour to locate the stranded vehicle and almost as long to free it so the shaken, but uninjured couple could get on their way. The mystery girl watched as Kyle and I worked with Stan to hook the car and ease it back onto the nearly impossible to see pavement.

After turning around, something else made extremely challenging because of the weather, we started toward the hospital thirty miles down the road. I didn’t realize how much tension the storm, coupled with our mystery passenger had created in me until city lights on the horizon brightened the stormy sky. I tried to flex my hands and winced as fingers on both hands cramped.

“Russ,” Kyle said, “I think we’re about to deliver a baby. Her water broke and when it did, she grabbed my hand like her fingers were a snapping turtle. I don’t think we have time to reach the hospital.” Kyle’s voice was even, but I could tell he wasn’t as calm as he sounded. It had been that kind of night.

I flashed the cruiser’s blue lights to give Stan a heads up that something was happening before making sure it was okay to swing out and pass him. The closest place to do what we needed to do safely was the scenic turnout half a mile ahead. I kept the lights flashing as I slowed and turned into the empty parking lot. If we parked by the thick row of hemlocks, we’d have some protection from the wind. Given the storm, I chose not to call for backup or an ambulance. Both were probably needed elsewhere tonight.

This wouldn’t be a first for either Kyle or me, but as far as I knew, Stan had never been involved in a delivery, so I had him angle the truck to give us more protection from the wind and told him to stay put.

Given her presumed age, I expected we might be in for a long labor and hastened to reassure her that we both were professionals and had helped women give birth under similar circumstances. It was at that moment when I realized she hadn’t said a word since we found her, something that struck me as extremely odd once I realized it. “Do you understand me? Are you feeling any pain?”

She remained mute, but nodded at my first question and shook my head at the second. I could work with nonverbal, particularly since it looked like I might have no choice.

Her labor lasted just over half an hour and she remained mute the entire time, occasionally wincing or grimacing while giving our hands a thorough workout when her contractions were particularly strong.

When the little girl arrived, her healthy lungs more than made up for the mother’s silence. We cleaned her up and gave her to her mom who started feeding her immediately. Then something happened that left Kyle and I as mute as she had been. A voice started speaking in our head, one that was the most beautiful I’d ever heard and I could swear there was equally beautiful music in the background. Afterward, Kyle verified what I heard as did Stan even though he never left the cab of his truck.

“Two thousand years ago, we first tested your capability for love and compassion. While you were found wanting, there was sufficient evidence that your race was worthy of an extension. Tonight we returned for a follow-up evaluation. While we will not leave our daughter as we did our son, you have once again demonstrated promise as a people who can be loving and compassionate. We leave you in peace.”

What followed reminded all of us of the movie Close Encounters of the
Third Kind, with a big splash of ET. The new mom and her child began to glow, then shimmered before breaking into millions of sparkling bits that rose right through the cruiser’s roof.

I have no idea how long we sat in shock before Stan started banging on the window. After he got it together enough to get in the front passenger’s seat, we looked at each other not daring to speak first.

I shook like I’d been doused with ice water and looked at the seat where the baby had been born. It was completely clean and I could see no evidence that a baby had been born in my cruiser.

There was no reason to head for the hospital now, so I told Stan to follow me back to my place. Kyle remained in a daze the rest of the way. I was grateful I needed to focus on the blowing snow because my mind was refusing to accept what had happened.

We got drunk that night and never really talked about what we experienced. After all, who would believe us, But none of us have ever thought about Christmas the way we used to before that night.

Solstice and sauna

            Today is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, the astronomical beginning of winter when the length of day roughly equals the length of night.  Since the summer solstice in June, daylight has gradually shortened; beginning today, it will gradually increase until next June when day and night will be equal.  Even though this is the shortest day of the year, sun worshippers actually welcome it because each day from now till the summer solstice daylight will increase.  My neighbor, a sufferer of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), celebrates today because for the next six months things will be going his way.  Since I’m one of about 5% of the population who suffers the opposite—reverse seasonal affective disorder (RSAD)—I take  pleasure in today’s darkness but now face the prospect of lengthening daylight that by April (for me the cruelest month) will send my emotions downward and make me a grumpy companion.  Family and friends who are cheering on newly sprouting gardens in the spring have learned to stay clear of me and my brooding as daylight lengthens. 

            But in today’s darkness I’m a happy camper because I’m a winter person, a lover of snow and all the pleasures it makes possible:  skiing, hiking, and especially snowshoeing.  Ten years ago a new winter pleasure entered my life:  sauna. 

Our sauna

            My wife and I had the wonderful opportunity to teach at the Helsinki School of Economics, one year at its campus in Mikkeli, a small town in Finland’s lake district, and another at its main campus in Helsinki.  In both places we had a sauna in our apartment, and we fell in love with the sauna tradition.  We taught in the morning, spent the afternoon swimming, walking, or biking, and then headed into our sauna for a long and relaxing time that soothed the mental rigors of teaching and the physical ones of exercise.  Sauna was followed by a cool shower rather than the dip in a lake that true Finns take. 

            When we added a porch to our house in Maine a few years after our adventures in Finland we seized the chance to install a sauna at the end of the porch, and it became a critical part of our winter routine.  After an afternoon of snowshoeing we start the electric unit (traditionalists prefer a wood-fired one, but that takes too long, and both our Finnish saunas were electric), strip off our clothes, and enter the warm and steamy space for a relaxing 40 minutes or so. Steam is important.  As a going-away present our students in Finland had presented us with an authentic sauna dipper, and we use it liberally to create the steamy environment that is critical to a successful sauna experience.

The water bucket and the dipper given to us by Finnish students

            I’m so besotted with sauna that in Breaking Ground, the second of my Julie Williamson mysteries, I set a crucial scene in a sauna.  It was a new experience for Julie and included a typical Finnish tradition that we don’t observe in our practice:  sausages and shots of aquavik, a strong spirit best taken in small measures. The scene provides an important detail that helps her unravel the mystery.  I won’t reveal more here but of course encourage readers to find out.     

            If you haven’t had a real sauna, I’m not going to try to describe its effects except to say that the feeling you get from a sauna followed by a cool shower is both physically and mentally soothing.  Body and mind converge.  I was interested to read a long story in a recent New York Times about the tremendous growth in sales of home saunas because of the pandemic.  The story cited various studies that sauna use improves the body’s immune response, lowers blood pressure, and generally promotes better health.  Except for high rates of alcoholism related to the long nights of winter, Finns are on the whole healthier than Americans, though I suspect some of that is due to their outdoor exercise—to say nothing of their free health care system.  In the event, I don’t need statistics about blood pressure to make me a devoted sauna user.  I simply know it’s good for me.

            The one question friends always ask about our sauna experience is whether you have to do it in the nude.  The answer is a resounding Yes.  I can’t imagine wearing anything in sauna.  We tried bathing suits once when friends wanted to join us.  But that just didn’t feel right, and we’re too American to think of sitting naked with friends, a silly attitude that Finns aren’t burdened by.

            So as we arrive today at the shortest day of the year, my wife and I look hopefully to forecasts that may finally bring real snow to our home in the mountains and make possible long snowshoe treks that will culminate in a sauna.  But even though we’re currently limited to road walks, we consider them adequate to justify turning on the electric heater, filling the bucket with water to which we’ve added a measure of birch tincture, shedding our clothes, and entering the other world of the sauna.  If you haven’t, give sauna a try.  Whether you like or hate winter, sauna may convince you that winter has its rewards.  Happy solstice!               

Weekend Update: December 19-20, 2020

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by William Andrews (Monday) and Charlene D’Avanzo (Tuesday), with a possible Christmas extra later in the week.

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Kate Flora: Here is the link to this year’s Christmas story. A bit darker than the previous two, as suits the times. But hopeful. Enjoy!

Reform School: A Christmas Story

As promised, here are the winners of our “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest.

First prize winner: Vicki Berger Erwin for this, which she describes thusly:

John was truly sorry he had let his anger grow out of control. He’d never meant to kill her. He wanted a special place to lay her to rest as well as a place she’d not be found. He wasn’t sorry enough to want to be caught. She’d enjoyed Evergreen Cemetery, the history, the scenery, and especially the three ponds at the rear. That was the place. He slung the dead weight of her over his shoulder and waded into the water, headed for the island. The foliage would provide perfect cover. He was halfway across before he met the first snapping turtle. The next morning the groundskeeper found two bodies floating in the water. Once again those darn kids had stolen the warning signs and left him with bodies to bury in the island. If he could find space. He hauled out his boat and went to work.

(My grandkids told me there were snapping turtles in the pond. I wonder if it isn’t an urban myth to keep them out of the pond!)

Evergreen Cemetery, Portland

Second prize winner, Karin Rector, for this:

If you’re going to have some work done on the place anyway, why not seize the moment?

And a tie for third place, because of such different takes on hiding a body in the woods: Peg Becksvoort, who writes:

Wrapped in gray cloth to look like a rock. Here is a lovely spot along the Durham Rd in New Gloucester, Maine. Located between my house and my neighbor’s. Wrapped in gray, receiving a gentle covering of autumn leaves, nestled into the old snow fence. If not the entire body, just a few parts…

And Daisy (no last name given. Is that mysterious or what?) for this, described thusly:

Among the demon tree roots on the Red Ribbon Trail, Monhegan Maine.

Because the judges loved it, we also have an honorable mention:

Bruce Harris, for this, because we all know Valentine’s Day can be difficult for people:

Under this Valentine’s Day display at the Nubble Lighthouse in York.

Winners: We hope you see this, and will send along your snailmail address so prizes can be sent.

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora