This column is dedicated to all the philosophers who live in Harpswell and “ponder the profound” with a sea gull’s eye.
Not too long ago, a rare bird visited Maine and caused a lot of excitement. The bird, a Steller’s sea eagle, is typically found in Asia and must have been using up its travel points to see other parts of the world, which included a stopover in Georgetown. Birders drove from far and wide, even as far as New Jersey, to see Steller.
Not to change the subject, but I admire how humans have developed hobbies as a way to pass time. When I search for the word “hobby” in the dictionary, I learn that its etymology derives from the word “hobbyhorse,” another name for a toy rocking horse. Like a hobbyhorse, a hobby is an activity that doesn’t go anywhere. I do not think the birders who drove up the New Jersey Turnpike to get to Georgetown would agree with that description.
Not to change the subject, but I have been around sea gulls, not eagles, all my life. My earliest memory comes from visiting my grandparents on Bailey Island. A gull we called Sam stopped by every day and spent his afternoon on their porch. Later I learned Sam was a glaucous gull. He was white and gray, wanted to eat whatever you were eating, and uttered a cackle that expressed mirth and despair at the same time.
There’s an empty box next to “glaucous gull” on my life bird list because I met Sam and Sam was a complex bird. Sam could sit on a porch railing and stare at the ocean for hours. Maybe he was pondering existence and its meaning. Whatever he was thinking, Sam’s grim, gray-white eyes took in everything and everyone — and any potato chips I might have left on my plate. I’m not ready to check off Sam and move on to the great black-backed gull. So I think I’ll just stay here, in this memory aisle of my own making, and remember that stellar gull.
Not to change the subject, but I am reminded of a philosophical identity problem that has always stumped me. Imagine you own a wooden rowboat and the boat’s name is Guppy. During routine maintenance, you replace a rotten board. Now, here is where the fun begins. When you replace that board, do you also change the name of the boat? Instead of owning Guppy 1, do you now own Guppy 2? If not, then start changing out all the boards and tell me at which replaced board you change the name of the boat to Guppy 2.
Not to change the subject, but I don’t think I can mark you off my own life list because every day you become a new you. You think of new ideas, make new memories, and have new experiences. If I were to check you off, I’d just be checking off an older version of you, not the new version that woke up this morning. Or would I?
Why don’t you come over for lunch and we’ll eat on my porch and talk about the permanence and impermanence of identity, birdwatching, and when Guppy 1 becomes Guppy 2. I’ll invite the ghost of Sam to join the conversation so he can eat up any crumbs of wisdom and potato chips that remain.
Gregory Greenleaf lives in Harpswell and teaches high school English. He ascribes, prescribes and subscribes to many old-fashioned ideas, but especially Charles Dickens’ observation that “There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
