Two Things

The first thing:  We have had company for the past two days; very old friends from southern California who have lived there all their lives, as we had lived there many years before we came to the northwest.  One of them mentioned to me this morning that in Irvine, where they now live, there is a law that does not permit the use of leaf blowers prior to 8:00 a.m.  And, she said, you scarcely need an alarm clock if you are willing to awaken at 8 a.m., because every gardener at every house in the neighborhood turns his leaf blower on at precisely 8 a.m.  She imagined them all, looking at their watches, finely calibrated to the  precisely accurate time, with their fingers pressed upon the 'on' button.  And then, on the movement of the minute hand, there they go, and there comes the noise.

And I thought about how quiet it is in Point Roberts, even with the trucks and cars and overhead planes and that no moment in my life here is even vaguely like that moment she experiences five times a week (I am assuming they don't garden and blow leaves on the weekend, but that might be wrong).  And I am grateful for the (relative) silence that we have to accompany our journey here.

The second thing: And, speaking of silence, I have concluded that, for me, the noise of the comments has grown too loud, too grating, and thus, I will remove comments from my blog.  There have never been many comments on the blog and that seemed perfectly okay.  I did not begin writing the blog to create a spirited or lively or angry discussion about living in Point Roberts.  Rather, its purpose was to talk about what it felt like, to me, to live in Point Roberts with all its beauty and its oddities.  No one, really, can argue about whether I feel the way I feel. 

Nevertheless, I am grateful for those of you who have written via the comments section on occasion to tell me something I was helped to know, to thank me for some piece of writing, to introduce yourself and ask some question you had about life in Point Roberts.  But I find that what in the blogging world are sometimes called 'flame wars,' though occurring very rarely on this blog, are now too often for me to want to support them by offering the comments section as a venue for some peoples' very angry words.

I have the choice, as the blog owner, to have unmoderated comments (which has been my practice up until today), to have moderated comments (which means that I choose which comments appear and which are rejected), or to have no comments at all.  I don't much like the idea of picking and choosing, and now the first option seems to have worn out its welcome with me.  So, I am left with the third one.  If anyone yet wishes to write to me to express a contrary view, to ask a question, to rave on, my email address is on the front page, right-hand column of the blog, and any reader is welcome to use it to reach me.