I'm Still Here

I haven't written one word. The summer burst forth with such joy. I traveled, I worked all over the states - (thank you to all of you who continue to call me!) on some great sets. The full moon of September sucked all of the people out of Wellfleet. Overnight, the decrease in human energy was palpable. 
I wanted to. Write about these things, that is. I started a million times in my head, anxious to get in touch and hear from you as well.  

The truth is, I'm unhappy. I've been unhappy since I took a job I didn't like for the money. And it was the same job I didn't like LAST year and promised myself I'd never do again. So I have a double whammy against my heart and soul. "Doing something JUST for the money is never the right decision" my friend Debbie told. She's the same one who, at 15, gave me the wise advice that I didn't heed two months ago "If in doubt, the answer is 'no'". 

I don't like to write about when I'm unhappy. I seem to get a lot of flack for it. People want to hear when you're UP, but that isn't sustainable. And being out here in watery territories with monster full moons can be destablizing for sure. 

Then, this afternoon, on the eve of end October's full moon, exiting the yoga studio, my phone pinged and I received this heartbreakingly lovely poem from my friend David, whom I connected with by voice after too long... he on the Amtrak, me in my car.
 
Chopped salad and chocolate cake
is what I love and long from you, what I remember. Not all, a lot, just a taste

Placed on the train: rich bag lady in front tired of shopping. Cute boy behind on his tablet- college football

I smell the half-caf.

the only answer to the gallons of java we could consume while freeing our egos, our self crazy images, fending off the fat and oh so thin over a chocolate cake so rich we split it….sort of.

Wondering where we could find the perfect chopped salad and why was life so hard. Color palettes and theory chatting about the future, a past, a dream, necessary re-reminding and what the fuck happened to the theatre????

We connect on failing phones updating as quickly as the train hurls through space against yellows and reds of the lost-for-green leaves. We, headed for our own loss of color, laugh at our brilliance no longer noticed

The call is done with promises of more frequent ones.

Maybe.

It's ok if not, we know.
The woman in front sleeps on her bags wrinkling new clothes. The college kid is headed to a funeral, he says loudly before whispering of his straight love of musicals.

And we head on thru space and in spite of time. Clicking in step as trees pretend to die for a moment and I am left wondering if there is chocolate in the cafe and if chopped salads have, in our absence, been perfected.*

*(love you Lebarron!)

I pulled over. The tears stream down my face. I get it finally. What this horrible non-stop feeling resembling a stone against my heart is.  I miss my tribe. I am overcome with emptiness from not seeing your faces, stopping by, having dinner parties, meeting for coffee, laughing, double features at the movies, shows, activism, game night, birthdays  holidays, everyday. I miss my tribe.
 

The S Word

Last week, everyone I knew was afraid to say the word, even though it was a propitious “First Day of S…” falling on the equinox and all. We skirted around saying “spr…” and “s..” and “s..w”.

As Easter arrived, I had to admit that I was still a bit skeptical. You see, the last chunks of s... have almost, but not quite, melted into the aqua filter.  The gargantuan four-foot pile surrounding the A Frame and lining Old Wharf Road is no more.

On Head of Meadow beach in Truro, the Frances, a 3-masted barque wrecked in 1872, made an appearance during the low tides this winter.

Ice floes that washed in for weeks on the shores of Corn Hill and Duck Harbor beaches have disappeared.

April is about the sounds - cars pulling back into driveways empty since Thanksgiving weekend, rakes and saws; the general business of a seasonal place getting ready to open.

As if lying in wait, gangs of wild turkeys burst out on Route 6, causing a slow down in early morning traffic simultaneous to return of robin red breasts, chickadees, woodpeckers heard throughout the morning and into the twilight hours. Crocuses are cautiously making an appearance.  

Officially, the weekend before spring break is when everything really starts. At Mac's shack by the old pier, newly hired employees are out sanding and re-staining the outdoor furniture. Restaurants along route six have also shown signs of return.  Owners or day workers are our scrubbing the windows, re-grading the driveways and getting fresh clam and oyster shells spread in the parking lots. 

The color of the ocean is an inexplicable blue, so different from the turmoil of bottle green pummeling the shore and leaving behind bits of debris, buoys ripped loose from lobster traps, old bottles of gatorade, driftwood and piles of rocks.

March came in like a lion, and out like a lion this year; the lamb having been sacrificed for another late season snowfall. Now that the s.. is out, somehow, the longest winter in history doesn't feel like it was that bad, but more like an adventure rewarded with plenty of snow days.

But March was a difficult month for me. It was heavy and dark and l-o-n-g, then surprising me with daylight savings time before I was ready for it. At long last, light began streaming in my windows, but only as I was settling in for the night. It left me discombobulated.

I had a birthday too. Getting older is not easy. So easy to type, right?  I know it's a fact of life, and I have a choice to do it gracefully, (and yes, I am entertaining some facial updates), but I feel completely unprepared for the changes that are beginning to set in. I didn't think I'd be so exhausted, emotional and worried about the broken hip I didn’t get when I slipped on the ice in my driveway. 

Just last month, my brother told me I should write a book about being positive, and changing one’s life, and all I could think about was how I couldn’t remember anything. Most days, I feel like I’m on that spinning ride that keeps going faster and faster, the concentric forces preventing me from getting off. Maybe it’s just the promise of spring that Jobim sings about in the Waters of March; the rush of life, of being so close to nature out here in Wellfleet that the slightest alteration has an affect on my being...from the change in late afternoon light to the collective joy in my Saturday morning yoga class when we share news about hearing the peepers the previous evening or the sighting of athe flock of Bohemian Waxwings in South Truro.

A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road     

It's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone

 
It's a sliver of glass, it is life, it's the sun

It is night, it is death, it's a trap, it's a gun

The oak when it blooms, a fox in the brush

The knot in the wood, the song of a thrush

The will of the wind, a cliff, a fall

A scratch, a lump, it is nothing at all

It's the wind blowing free, it's the end of the slope

It's a beam, it's a void, it's a hunch, it's a hope

And the river bank talks of the waters of March

It's the end of the strain, it's the joy in your heart

The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone

The beat of the road, a slingshot's stone

A fish, a flash, a silvery glow

A fight, a bet, the range of a bow

The bed of the well, the end of the line

The dismay in the face, it's a loss, it's a find

A spear, a spike, a point, a nail

A drip, a drop, the end of the tale

A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light

The sound of a shot in the dead of the night

A mile, a must, a thrust, a bump,

It's a girl, it's a rhyme, it's a cold, it's the mumps

The plan of the house, the body in bed

And the car that got stuck, it's the mud, it's the mud

A float, a drift, a flight, a wing

A hawk, a quail, the promise of spring

And the river bank talks of the waters of March

It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart

A snake, a stick, it is John, it is Joe

It's a thorn on your hand and a cut in your toe

A point, a grain, a bee, a bite

A blink, a buzzard, a sudden stroke of night

A pass in the mountains, a horse and a mule

In the distance the shelves rode three shadows of blue

And the river bank talks of the waters of March

It's the promise of life in your heart, in your heart

A stick, a stone, the end of the road

The rest of a stump, a lonesome road

A sliver of glass, a life, the sun

A knife, a death, the end of the run

And the river bank talks of the waters of March

It's the end of all strain, it's the joy in your heart

Songwriter

ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM

Letter from the North (east) Country

It snowed again last night. Another inch. I murmur a quiet prayer of gratitude that it isn't the four inches predicted. Last Sunday, I was supposed to fly out of here for the "winter break", but before I could leave for the airport in an attempt to outrace the weather, Delta called, texted and emailed with an alert that all flights were cancelled. An hour later, the snow started falling. By four o'clock, the sky was that ominous gunmetal grey, the flakes thick and large. I looked in my hall closet/pantry. Having planned to be away this week, I had an overage of Girl Scout cookies and pasta, but not much else. I headed to the Stop & Shop in Provincetown. The store was relatively subdued, men mostly milling around the meat and frozen pizza sections. I wheeled my carriage absently, my brain having gone numb when the snow began its triple day descent.  I loaded up like it was the end of the world.

  It’s the sale prices they hook you on, provided you have the tiny store key fob. Annie’s Soup in the organic aisle, normally an outrageous $6.99, was marked “2 for $6”. I mulled over the different kinds and added ten to my cart.  My favorite Peet’s Coffee, Major Dickenson’s Blend, typically $9.99 a bag was $5.99. Six bags should tide me over. Talenti Gelato $4.99 was now (2 for $5). I picked out four.  Aloutte spreadable cheese $3.75 (2 for $5), perfect with my (2 for $4) boxes of Triscuits. When the sales clerk looked up from her scanner/register, she read the tape, unimpressed, "You saved $35". But I was impressed. I felt like I had clipped coupons without the effort, just a swipe of a little plastic key fob. I wheeled the cart out into the snow and put my bags into the back of the car.

When I got home, evidence of shock and gluttony spilled in front of me (6 oranges, 6 bananas, 6 grapefruit, 14 Chobani yogurts, 8 boxes of Yogi tea, 2 bottles of carrot juice, 2 jars of Newman’s Own marinara sauce). I had fallen victim to the storm surge mentality. You could be trapped inside the house. The power might go out. You need to fill the tub up, turn the heat on high, brew coffee the night before, get out the candles, bring the shovel inside the house to dig yourself out. All of which I did. I even remembered a beautiful red thermos someone had given me as a housewarming present when I moved to Oak Grove Drive, and found it in a box of kitchen goods still in storage in the basement. 8 hours later - the coffee was still hot.

I spent the next day in bed with a plain donut and hot coffee reading back editions of the New Yorker and watching Annie Hall on Netflix, reveling in the East Side Highway and the Madison Avenue of the last 70s. Trash blowing, long, dented cars parallel parked and fat yellow taxis. People smoking everywhere. Watching Woody Allen and Tony Roberts walk down the street on what looks like an amazing spring day is too much. I finally pulled on my snowsuit, and tumble outside, over the three feet of snowdrift that has blown against the sliding glass door and shovel off the deck, stairs and top of the driveway. At some point, Jerre, the former K-9 chief of police (“Bloodhounds" he tells me) will plow the roadway I share with Joy, a sweet 80 something who yells into the phone, or in less extreme weather, from the back door "Kathleen!" "Kathleen!"

About mid week, someone texts that Massachusetts has gotten the most snow, well.... ever. That Winter Storm June or Marcie or Norman, whatever letter we're on, has surpassed the Blizzard of 1978.  That was my storm. I was 11 years old. I had a paper route with The Boston Globe. I was very skeptical about leaving the house.  We couldn't even see out the windows, the snow was as high as the roofline, but somehow, my father opened the garage door, shoveled the drive and like magic, the Boston Globe van arrived and threw out my subscription. "You have to deliver the paper. People are counting on you." I didn't want to go, but my father and mother began chanting the post carrier's creed, and reluctantly, I pulled the plastic bread bags over my socks and long underwear. My father acted as a human plow to clear snow on the paths to front doors. Most people were surprised to see us, and we were invited in for a lot of cocoa. Neighbors traversed Pratt’s Mill Road on snowshoes and cross-country skis. Somehow, my dad and I delivered all of the papers that day. It’s true; I always think of that storm when there is an extreme weather alert. How deep the drifts were, how we didn't have school, power or hot water for a week. We loaded up on blankets, played board games, went to bed in the darkness excepting the frosty air curling out from our breath beneath the covers. We had a wood stove, so we must have had some sort of hot food, but oddly, given my recent plunder of Stop & Shop; I don’t remember eating at all, just playing outside and that first day of delivering the paper. That summer, bumper stickers pasted to cars proclaimed, "I survived the Blizzard of '78!" The Globe gave their carriers t-shirts that pronounced the same. I wore mine like a badge of honor.

After Jerre plows out the roadway a second time this week, I begin to run out of oil. It takes Cape Oil four days to make it to Wellfleet; everyone is in need of fuel. Jerre comes back and sands and salts for the truck, but it cannot make it up the drive. Thankfully Mr. Peabody, my other elderly neighbor, is kind enough to allow the oil truck to back into his flat driveway so that the driver can throw the hose over the fence. I have to hand it to him; he is determined. While the tank is being filled, Mr. Peabody extolls the benefits of his pellet stove, and motions to a hundred bags stored on his porch. To return to my house, I stomp through three feet of snow in my backyard.  I turn the heat up, empty the cold water out of the tub and fill it with a hot bubble bath.

For the Wednesday evening commute, NPR aired a segment aptly titled The Winter of Our Discontent about coping. The guest psychologist first tells the host that people need to remember that weather is something they can’t control, and then coaches listeners on how to frame the storm as a way to be resilient and measure other obstacles against it instead of “encoding” it as something negative.  I wonder what my new students are doing. Most of them are from tropical climates and I imagine they are dreaming of home and humidity and sun siestas as I am dreaming of the 101 Northbound freeway and the spring day when Annie and Alvie meet. Maybe remembering this storm as a marker from which they rebounded will be the same for them as the ‘78 blizzard was for me, not to mention a great story to tell their families and friends back home.

On Thursday, I spend the last two hours of the day out on the roof gingerly chipping away at ice with a plastic shovel. It’s pretty sobering. I tried singing instead of swearing to temper my attitude, confident that my cavalier stomping about might result in sliding off. There was that time early in the autumn when I jauntily threw a piece of wood over the side and ended up breaking a window. I also didn’t want to color Joy and Mr. Peabody’s opinion of me, although it is winter and sounds carry. Chances are they already know I have a potty mouth. I stick close to the windows and try to slide the ice off the side from a distance. The only song I can conjure up is Hide Your Love Away, which I mumble along as I stomp, and scrape, stomp and scrape. It's been snowing, raining, freezing, snowing, raining freezing since January ...

After Jerre comes back a third time, I hand him a check and say “This winter. Wow.” He continues to shovel a mixture of sand and salt out of the back of his truck. “Yeah, but we won’t have another one like this for at least ten years”. After the doom and gloom of certain climate change (brought to me by the BBC) coupled with the relentlessness of the elements including freezing temperatures, gale force winds and meaningless advice on how to cope with it (“You can’t change it!”), that was the best news I heard all week.  I could wait another ten years.  After ten minutes of pulling and unlacing and disrobing, I heat up a box of soup in a sauce pan and listen to Annie Lennox’s new album, Nostalgia. The first track, Memphis in June ambles out followed by Georgia, both resonating like a dream of sunshine and hot lazy days and the months ahead.