In a year of Zoom, of visiting colleagues and friends and family mostly via screen, its refreshing to zoom out. Our cover photo, intricate and fractal, reveals Laudholm Beach from a terns eye view. Not the usual perspective on one of Maines best beaches, and fascinating to behold. Oh, to see the world that way—with no need to log in!

…Ah well, enough of that. The pandemics not quite over yet. Time to zoom back in. Its been a year with time for introspection and musing on the small things in life. How our lives, our economies, our governments and societies were turned upside down by a tiny coronavirus, each only 100 billionths of a meter in size. It boggles the mind but perhaps it shouldnt: by now we all know that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide by a mere 70 parts per million is enough to raise global temperatures by a couple degrees Fahrenheit (so far). And millimeters of annual sea rise will ultimately accumulate to a meter or more before the end of this century. Little things, they do add up.

But theyre not all bad. My familys pandemic puppy is another small thing thats turned our lives upside down. Under my home office desk as I write this and alternately licking and biting my barefoot toes, the little guy (Fauci is his name) is a welcome change, a good change, a return to a semblance of normalcy. And, like any new child, hes part of our commitment to the future. May there be more of these good, familiar, small but beneficial changes in the months ahead. 

Wont you ponder and celebrate little things with us this summer at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm? Were starting to enjoy small victories, like staff meetings outside and together again through the magic of masks and vaccines. More volunteers and visitors returning, first a trickle, soon a flood. Come take a look. Youll see all the small but meaningful changes weve been making at Laudholm over the past quiet year: fresh paint here, a new sign there, a bench and tree where none used to be. Even a gallery of photographs depicting the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope, on display in our newly refurbished Coastal Ecology Center exhibit space.

Lets all start preparing for a return to life as we knew it, with some small changes. I hope youre preparing to return to the Wells Reserve too. See you soon.

From Watermark 38(1): Spring 2021