{"id":2399,"date":"2026-08-12T13:17:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T13:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2399"},"modified":"2026-08-30T13:41:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T13:41:16","slug":"canadian-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2399","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
We are on Campobello Island 
on a Wednesday.
Grandma, Mom, Granddaughter, 
three fiercely independent beings 
who managed a multi-hour car trip 
over the border, 
leaving the Easternmost point 
of the United States 
to trek into the Canadian beyond.
The earth opens and unfurls 
into craggy, rocky shorelines.
Greener pines, i've never seen.
Endless blue skies soar overhead 
with faint puffs of white clouds.

We order three bowls 
of famous Roosevelt fish chowder 
which we lap up 
on the painted white porch of Prince Cafe 
while watching the ferry 
cross a pick-up over to Deer Island.

We are here to see 
the generational Roosevelt Cottage
where one of our most famous presidents grew up, 
raised his own family each summer
and left his hat and cigar and paper. 
The park is our world's only example 
of a co-run by two countries, per our tour guide:
\"in peace and effective partnership.
\"And that's all<\/em> I'll say.\" 

We take an intermission in the parking lot
at 2:50 p.m. Atlantic Time
to peer indirectly at the sky 
using the shadows of shifting leaves on my car bonnet 
to catch glimpses of forty-four percent totality, 
2026's biggest solar eclipse.

We are the only gawkers.
We do not care 
that the handful of visitors 
out on the international park lawn 
take in our little trio as if we are the spectacle, 
and not our moon crossing in front of our sun, 
plunging us into a strange shadow, darker, bluer, 
which to be fair is almost imperceptible 
if not attuned to what to look for.

We peer into the primary bedroom 
where Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
took his final steps at age thirty-nine, 
three and a half years younger than me, 
my kid cheerfully points out.
We learn that the wallpaper 
is a faithful reprint to replace the original,
\"Because generations of smoking...doesn't do wonders to wall print.\"

We gaze out of broad bay windows 
providing clean sight lines to the beach and beyond.
We spy a four-foot-tall parchment megaphone;
the same one Eleanor used to call
the children on the water in for dinner at night.

As I take in the library, the Victrola, 
the pie stand in the kitchen, 
the teddy bear in the nursery, 
it dawns on me, this is the cottage of a happy family.

Unlike the mausoleum chill of the Breakers in Newport,
this Roosevelt red and green shingled cottage
is full of life, decades removed from its last occupants. 

Walking the halls, craning my neck 
into bedrooms and larders and school rooms, 
the home fills me with calm, cheer, peace.

I note with relief that the primary bedroom 
is not substantially bigger 
than the staff quarters, 
on the same floor; same perfect views.

I feel welcomed and embraced by hospitality.
as the breeze flows through 
bringing oxygenated sea air to my lungs, 
I can feel in my veins why Campobello 
was such a magical place for the Roosevelts \u2014
and why it must have been such a tragedy 
for FDR to only return three times after contracting Polio 
(\"from the Boy Scouts,\" our guide surmised) 
due to there being no phone lines to the island 
during his highly plugged-in presidential years.

We begrudgingly exit, 
but before we turn Southbound, 
we make a stop at the most 
jigsaw puzzle-looking lighthouse 
I've ever seen.
It's closed due to the rising tide;
we've just missed our window 
to descend rusty ladders into the depths
to then cross the channel by foot
and scale another orange-brown ladder 
on the other side 
to tour the lighthouse itself.
I am secretly grateful that 
the decision To Cross or Not to Cross 
has been made for me.
My mother, however,
regrets being denied this adventure.

After some candid snaps, 
it's time to climb back into the car, 
trudge South to the border,
show our papers, 
give our stories,
make our way further down down 
down the coast into Yarmouth.


<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cCanadian Eclipse,\u201d a split screen day trip across countries, written Wednesday, August 12, 2026 poem 224 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: “Campobello Sitting Room,”  by Diana Ludwick \u00a9 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[2184,148,2324,2325,513,2331,2334,2333,2335,1838,2327,2326,1782,1950,2330,2328,2329,2332,134],"class_list":["post-2399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-poems","tag-august","tag-books","tag-border-crossing","tag-campabello-island","tag-canada","tag-eleanor","tag-fdr","tag-fish-chowder","tag-franklin-delano-roosevelt","tag-high-summer","tag-nb","tag-new-brunswick","tag-pie","tag-polio","tag-prince-cottage","tag-roosevelt","tag-roosevelt-red","tag-sara","tag-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2399"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2565,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions\/2565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}