Church of the Jetty - 2015

When we drove home from a family party in the middle of a thunderstorm Saturday night, it didn’t occur to me that Sunday would be a “Church of the Jetty” day, but it should have. Lightning flickered purple over the highway, thunder bashed overhead, and window-wipers flogging back and forth struggled to keep up.  But when I woke at 6:30 in the morning, it was clear as the blue sky outside my window that the storm had cleaned things out.  An hour later, after brewing coffee, we stopped for bagels and headed to the harbor.  As we tiptoed by, the same way it happens each time we do this, the summer church service taking place on the porch of the new sailing club began.  Down at the docks I sang along with the first hymn.   

  

I wish I knew the words to tell you how open and bright a clear a summer morning can be on the low-tide harbor.  Everything is white and vivid and sweeping, almost as if the world has grown larger.  As if the light has moved inside you.  We anchored on the flats and pulled up the boat.  Egrets and seagulls picked through the mud as my husband scrubbed off the slime that accumulates on the sides of the dinghy.  Toward the east, the water sparkled.  The sun glinted off a tilted panel out on Minot’s light.  Rowing crews parted the sea, leaving a V’s in their wake and a couple slogged through the low water, dragging their boat behind.  One lone fisherman took a last sideways cast, before pulling up anchor and trundling away.

In the end, we didn’t walk the jetty.  We stood below it, circling, flipping over shells bleached white by the sun, watching the gulls and the terns, listening to the gurgle as the tide rolled in over the sand.  But through it all, the jetty was there, hulking behind us, an altar of sorts, blessing our morning while standing guard over a perfect view.

I'm going to be off blogger until after Labor Day.  Wishing you all a glorious end to summer.

Church of the Jetty, 2014

Sunday I woke early to a rising sun, turned to my husband and proposed a morning trip in the dinghy out to the harbor jetty.  “Church first,” he said, so I settled in for a few more minutes. When I opened my eyes again, the sky in the west hung low and white, the kind of ceiling that tells you there could be fog over the water.  We scrambled up anyway and drove to church, were I sat through the sermon with my fingers crossed.  It seemed frivolous to pray about the weather, so I simply hoped, grinning once we exited the building to find the sun had powered through.  As is our tradition, we procured the requisite bagels and coffee, and, arriving at the harbor to a freshening breeze, convinced ourselves there would be time for our  trip before the weather changed.  My husband navigated while I balanced two cups of coffee, so facing the stern, I observed full-bodied cumulonimbus clouds mounted on top of each other in the northwest sky.  From the southwest, a blanket of heather-gray inched forward, blocking what was left of the sun.  Between, a thin strip of blue seemed to negotiate.

In spite of the threat, we anchored the boat and step-hopped to the tip of the jetty, where we took a seat,  unwrapped our bagels from their butcher paper packages, and commenced our breakfast.  In front of us, eight white sails ran before the wind in an attempt to beat the weather for an early Sunday race.  Before long we heard the bleat of an air horn and far in the distance toy sails scurried across the mouth of the harbor.  Campers from the barrier beach behind us chatted as they paddled around the jetty back to shore, their overloaded canoes leaning with sleeping bags and folded tents.  A lone lobster boat chuffed through the water on its way to pull traps, a life-jacketed kayaker bobbing on his wake.  Seabirds, ever present background music, carked and screed, peeped and called in concert with  the clanking of halyards from nearby sailboats.  

Often on these trips, after we swig the dregs of our coffee, we walk on the mud flats or hike on the beach, but this time, as we crumpled up our bagel wrappers, goose bumps forecast what was to come. So, we picked our way back over the granite boulders to our little boat, knowing this day would not be for gardening, blueberry picking or sailing, and sure enough before we'd tied up the boat, raindrops spattered our glasses. 

It didn’t matter though. 

Our visit to the harbor was long enough to give thanks for the day, the summer, the sound of the sea, and the sky.