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It is a picture post Monday...while I try to find words for IWSG Wednesday.  I'm still trying to work out the settings on the new camera...but you'll get the gist.  Every once in a while, an unexpected day arrives along with an unplanned opportunity, one during which, I inhale and say, "I am SO blessed.  This was one.  A trip to the Cape.  I packed a bag and hopped into the car less than thirty minutes after the invitation was issued. No agenda.  Just the camera, and going with the flow.

Seals and seagulls waiting for the fishermen to arrive. 

An Osprey.  Also known as a fish eagle, sea hawk, river hawk, or fish hawk.  My first.

Kite surfing on Cape Cod Bay.  I've heard of it, but never seen it.

Kite surfing at Monomoy National Wildlife Preserve.  Believe it or not...the picture doesn't do it justice.

And then there's the picture I didn't get.  On our way home, rounding a curve on the entrance to the highway.  A full moon rising orange in front of us, and a firework chrysanthemum, exploding blue and purple beside it.  Oh, my!  In my last post, I wrote about life being in the details. 

That was another one.

Post Called on Account of...Sunset?

I cannot tell a lie.  A draft of what was to be today's post is saved on the laptop, and gosh, I almost finished it.  Honest.  But here's the thing.  Hurrican Earl is threatening; we may or may not be in for a bad blow by the end of this week and sunsets preceding a storm are often spectacular.  So rather than writing, it seemed prudent to grab the camera and drive one town over to the bay where there are clear west views.  When a thundering pack of Harley riders stopped beside us and took out their camera phones, we figured we'd made the right decision. 

It didn't hurt that there was ice cream involved too. 

Storm Story

A little over a year ago, we discovered Fort Revere, (if you are interested, read more here) located a twenty-five-minute, view-from-every-angle drive from our house that we have made several times since. Most recently, we took family visitors out there Sunday, anticipating their gasps over the 360 degree images of Boston Harbor and Hingham Bay.

About twenty minutes into the ride, all six of us inhaled as we turned a corner and faced a defined grey-green cloud that cut the sky in half and foretold an ugly thunder storm. It appeared as if a pelting rain would arrive at the Fort the same time we did.

Sure enough, as we climbed out of the car, the wind bent the high grass down and throttled us, tugging at our clothes and flattening our hair. As the temperatures plummeted to goose-bump inducing levels, the adults looked at each other with “we are in for it" glances and the teenagers ran back to the car. Then we watched, as the cloud cut across the harbor obscuring the view of the sail boats racing to beat the storm, merged with a bank of thunderheads across the horizon, and disappeared.

Not a single drop of rain reached us, but oh, what a photo op.

Reflecting on Things

 

The Road Almost Taken

The sign read: “Private Property. Gate closes at 5:00 p.m.” so we of course, walked through, past the new-shingled Victorian situated above the sea, down the rutted road that lifts and descends between the churning ocean and the windswept marsh. A friend who grew up here once told me that she remembers walking the entire length as a child, to the bluff that I have only seen from the water, where a sprawling cape sits at the top of an expansive lawn--and to the Adam’s Estate, connected to decedents of John Quincy--a monstrous and weathered colonial stacked with first and second-floor front porches.

The road leading to The Glades is checkered like a game board with squared-off summer cottages built on barren lots, but inside the first gate, trees hold arthritic arms out from their sides and salt-stunted bushes droop over the crumbling asphalt. It’s a place you would expect to encounter deer and hawks--perhaps seals sunning on the rocks rising up from the shore. We walked through an open spit of land, the sea foaming on one side, a river of eel grass pouring toward the harbor on the other, until we reached a second, wrought iron gate: "Stop. No Trespassing."

One side of the entrance was open, but in spite of the smile and wave the woman exiting in a blue Mercedes offered us, we hadn’t the nerve. On the way back, I took this shot. A picture taken illegally somehow says it best.


 

The Week In Review

No words of my wisdom gained--a peaceful picture instead.



Webb Memorial State Park

Living Memories

Here in the Boston area, white hair often complements a ruby face, and I’m here to tell you that while we of Irish heritage regularly bloom pinker with age, contrary to popular belief, the veined networks across our cheeks and nose aren’t always derived from drink. Many of us (including me) color up as a result of a skin condition called Rosacia that runs prevalent in those of Celtic decent.

Now that I’ve offered up that disclaimer though, the adage, “He wears the map of Ireland on his face” held true for my father. Those who knew him remember that he did, in fact, speak highly of a good glass of scotch--but that aside, both he and my mom had grey hair as long as I can remember and, for whatever reason, Dad’s face--complete with a fleshy scar over one eye stemming from a car accident when he was two--colored to a lovely shade of rose during his thirties and remained that way for life. In his last few years, his white hair receded enough that he combed it straight back, which changed his look entirely and this last piece is what I want to write about.

My Dad grew up summering in the town next door to where I live now; an area known as The Irish Riviera. His boyhood friends, Galvins and Leahys and Gahans and Cahills, in many cases married each others' friends and cousins, provided jobs for each others' children, and stayed in touch long after their heads all faded to white. My siblings and I identified the friends that came from this boyhood era in North Scituate, because the kids he swam with at Minot Beach or danced with at the Cliff Hotel had their own nickname for him. While his business acquaintances called my dad Tom and his friends referred to him as “Tuck;” these childhood buddies labeled him “Tuckie.”

One weekend several years back my dad visited from his home fifty miles away, and when we climbed into the car after church on Sunday Dad caught sight of one of these old summer cronies. Rolling down the window, he leaned far out and waving his arms yelled “Jack, Jack!!!” across a busy interception. Not knowing Jack, I looked at my father with a furrowed brow until he explained the boyhood connection. That day when Jack didn’t hear him and drove off; my father’s disappointment took on flesh and physicality in our car on the way home.

After that, I saw Jack from a distance at church regularly and though I never mentioned it, he always reminded me of my father. Not only did I picture that Sunday when my dad practically fell out of the car hollering at him, but because Jack is about the same height, with a portly build comparable to my Dad's; he wears similar wire-rimmed glasses, and shuffles slightly the same way when he walks. Most importantly, Jack inherited the Irish pink complexion too, as well as receding white hair that he combs straight back.

My Dad died on a Thanksgiving and the following Sunday my husband, daughter and I attended church. In the way that life works, for the first and only time, Jack and his wife sat next to us, and once I realized it I shifted my weight and crossed and uncrossed my legs. The obituary wasn’t out yet and I wondered how, once the service ended, I could possibly introduce myself to them and share the news without crying. I was spared that when Jack, a doctor, was summoned to the back of church to assist with a medical problem. Days later, as I stood reading a eulogy at my Dad’s funeral, I took a calming breath when I saw Jack and his wife sitting at the back. Not long after, on yet another Sunday in church, then 10-year-old Meghann leaned over and whispered to me. “See that man up there?” pointing to Jack. “He looks like Papa.”

To this day, when I see Jack sitting many seats in front of us at church on Sundays I quietly categorize his similarities to my Dad. Finally, this year upon encountering him outside of my favorite coffee shop, I introduced myself. When he learned my maiden name, Jack grinned, put his hand on my arm and began to tell me stories about my father. I left that conversation smiling softly, as I did when I bumped into him at the same coffee shop this week.

This time our words were brief, but when we finished he said, “Thank you for saying hello.” Feeling infinitesimally closer to my dad, I backed up my car, thinking: “Thank you for being there.”

When we lose someone, we reach for customary objects and pictures to bring us closer to those we love. In my case, it’s the continuity I seek--a familiar face who knew Dad long before me—someone who recalls a skinny, long-legged boy called Tuckie when he had fresh scars on his forehead and wavy brown hair that he parted on the side.

North River Reconnaissance

Ah, where to begin? With the doe and two fawns at the bottom of the rolling lawn of the yellow antique colonial, nibbling brush by the side of the river, who looked up at the sound of our motor and then trotted behind a mushrooming maple? Or maybe I should write about the freckled girl and two skinny boys, squealing as they ran through the green marsh grass over our heads before catapulting into the brown water below? How about the orange vested construction worker who stopped his drilling at the Union Street Bridge and saluted us as we drifted under him yesterday?

Then there were the two boys, one swimming far below the North River Bridge, the other high overhead, straddling the outside railing beside Route 3A, listening for the sound of his buddy’s voice above the whizzing traffic yelling, “Matt! All clear!” so he could fold his arms around his chest, bullet down the long reach then kick up sputtering in the current below. Maybe I should mention the three irons signs, planted in the woods at sharp cuts in the river that describe a long departed shipbuilding past? Or how, winding our way under the highway ourselves toward the sea, we arrived at “The Spit” where the river meets the ocean at an expanse of hard white sand exposed during low tide only; hosting a single hand-count of human occupants on a summer Tuesday afternoon.

Right. That’s it. That’s the topic.

Churning teal water undercutting a hard-packed beach sculpted in ripples, shaped by the tide’s retreat. A high-pressure blue sky dotted with lazy clouds shadowing distant hummocks of grass covered dunes. To the east, gulls pecking at the edge of the breaking sea then running on fast tiptoes as the waves roll to shore.

Anchoring the dory, we spread a beach towel out on the crusted sand, unpacked peanut butter sandwiches and lemonade and sat legs extended, while the sea terns peeped and dove overhead, water smacked the broadside of the bobbing dory; the heat of the sun stung our burning skin and a motorboat on the other side of a bend in the river droned long before we could see it.

If this is vacation, I’m all for it.

Clean Sweep

Yesterday I was uneasy with the concept of vacation. Today the real glamour of time-off together revealed itself as, drum roll here, we shampooed rugs. Well, let’s say we planned on shampooing rugs before partaking in a vacation activity, but were out of carpet cleaner until my husband drove to every hardware store on the South Shore trying to find some. No fool, having beaten said rugs with a broom, vacuumed and then swept their leavings from the floor underneath; I took advantage of this respite by running to the computer to start a blog post. OK, you say, eyes rolling; she’s reached the dregs as far as blog topics go. But stick with me here because this has bigger connotations than floor coverings.

My husband and I will be married 25 years in September. If you count our dating life, we have already been together as a couple longer then we were single. Next year, at 26 years, we’ll tie the game. When we try to quantify all that time together, the details blur and in some ways, it seems like we have always been a unit. Most of the time we are together in things, but sometimes crabbiness or disagreement or impatience naturally sets in. One thing I know about Tim and me though, is that we always do well together on projects, even the forgettable ones.

In the course of 25 years, we have stripped, prepped, painted and or wallpapered--hmmm, let me count--yikes, 18 rooms in two houses. (We are on round two in our current abode.) On top of that, we planted gardens and trees at our old home and no kidding, we’ve transformed our current yard from a briar filled, weed covered, poison ivy infested plot that we inherited, to a casual, county ledge garden. Not including our daughter who is our greatest triumph but a topic unto herself, all around us we see the proof of what we’ve accomplished together. In all, I recall only one moment when we had to walk away from each other, and that was as a result of a nasty merging piece of wall paper, above a door, around a bulkhead on a non-straight wall after an entire day of hanging about twenty years ago. Even that finally got pasted.

As Tim patiently backed out of the driveway on his mission this morning, it occurred to me that sometime, you are so busy living the details; it’s hard to remember the big picture. Perhaps on a given day, that darn toothpaste tube that’s squished the wrong way drives you over the edge. When it does, it’s a good idea to step back from the sink, look at the paint on the bathroom walls and remember what you have pulled off together.

And since no good deed goes unrewarded, after we finished the carpets, here’s where we ate lunch.


"The Spit," North River, Scituate, MA

Something to Aspire to

Every once in a while, a flurry of activity occurs related to my future aspirations and suddenly it is midday and, eek! I haven’t given Middle Passages a thought. It was in my mind early this morning when, rather than sitting down at the computer, I skedaddled out the door so I could walk before—here’s something novel—the rain arrived, but my thought was less about words and more along the lines of a picture that I’ve been trying to take for most of the summer, but that I haven’t timed quite right.

On one of my routes, I walk down a sloping causeway that cuts between marshes on either side. To the east, the bogs flow toward Little Harbor and just beyond that, inching above the horizon; you can see a thumbnail of Sandy Beach and a blue line of sea. Off the road, in a broadening tidal pond, a single rowboat floats unattended. Tied to a mooring away from any house or any other vessel, this simple white ketch drifts alone in a pool surrounded by waving fingers of green sea grass. It is a picture of tranquility and I keep hoping that I will come upon it when the water is still; during a slack tide when the light reflects soft and golden. On more than one occasion, a few minutes prior to sunset, I’ve driven the mile or so to the spot, to see if I got it right. I’ve taken pictures too, but never the one that I see in my mind, where the water is mirror clear, the sun is low and the boat floats on top of its own image in the water. Today, as happens so often, the tide had receded, the boat was resting on the mud bottom, and the camera stayed in my pocket.

The promised rain arrived before I finished the walk, so I returned home to a networking phone call with a woman who is copywriter, and caught myself explaining to her about Middle Passages, and how it has been my “job” for the past five months. She asked me if I wrote on it “say, once a week” and I answered, “No, I post five days a week with a summary on Saturday, and take Sunday off. It’s my obligation to myself, and even when I can’t complete it, I try to at least download a picture to demonstrate my commitment to post.” I wasn’t planning on that statement, but out it came, and as it did, I thought of the little boat, and how once again I’d been skunked this morning.

After the phone call, I completed an online application for a part time communications position (to supplement freelance) and I'm ashamed to say how long that took me. It occurred to me that Middle Passages might get short changed today and gee, I wish I got that picture. But then I thought, perhaps not. What a lovely exercise, to try to describe something so beautiful to me. So that’s what you got. As a bonus, I’m including one of the photos I’ve taken, although keep in mind, it is nothing compared to what I hope for.

If I ever get what I want, I promise I’ll share.

The Week in Review

Things to note:

Last week I said: “Rain won’t stop you if you don’t let it.” This week my motto was: “If I wanted to live in Seattle, I’d move there.”

New England residents possess innate genes that require us to complain about the weather. But when I found out that our teenage visitors from last week teased that we live in Forks, WA (Twilight fans will get that one), it put the weather further into perspective.

If you think yourself witty while composing catchy names for a DBA (doing business as) rest assured, there are thousands of clever people who got there before you. And they are already in business.

Not much improves upon waking up to sunshine for the first time in two weeks--well, except for sipping fresh brewed coffee while you look out the window.

Fireworks inspire even when you watch them from a big-box parking lot at the side of a busy state highway.

Doing so though, makes you pine for previous years, sitting at a salt marsh in “World’s End” located on the tip of a peninsula and watching them explode over the harbor.

Reminder for next year: leave earlier.

Happy Fourth, everyone.