Showers were promised the entire month of April, but with the exception of a Nor’ Easter that swept through, any chance of rain has blown over until a late spring deluge that didn’t stop for five days. New England weather lives up to its reputation in its stubborn refusal to be definable at all.
Pepper runs right at the waves but stops on a dime, just letting his paws get wet. I love a good rainy day, when the roof sounds like there are ten workers up there pounding nails and you know that when it’s over, the air will smell fresh and clean, but today, I think if I could stand the cold, I would walk right in and disappear like Pepper disappears against the sand. This is the mood I wake up in.
This intemperate climate has me unsettled. I have been pacing the cottage, picking through almonds and sunflower seeds and the two pounds of Cadbury Milk Chocolate Easter Eggs my mother sent me, listening to Fresh Air, which repeats three times daily on the WCAI, the Cape Cod NPR station. I never thought I'd get sick of Terry Gross.
Look at all these links about the goodness of Cadbury mini-eggs!
SIDEBAR:
Look at all these links about the goodness of Cadbury mini-eggs!
Candy is Awesome
Later in the day, I force myself to join my neighbor at the Senior Center's community garden. This will be good for me, I think. I need to get my hands in the dirt. Trisha has offered me seeds and a small space in her plot if I help with the watering and some of the maintenance. I will be here through the end of July, and she thinks peas, lettuces, kale, beans and beets will be good, but I will probably not get one of her watermelons or any eggplant.
Later in the day, I force myself to join my neighbor at the Senior Center's community garden. This will be good for me, I think. I need to get my hands in the dirt. Trisha has offered me seeds and a small space in her plot if I help with the watering and some of the maintenance. I will be here through the end of July, and she thinks peas, lettuces, kale, beans and beets will be good, but I will probably not get one of her watermelons or any eggplant.
The latter I can live without. It is one of the few foods I don’t eat. Along with tunafish salad, large roe that pop open in your mouth, mortadella and for that matter, anything labeled "lunch meat". We brave the chill and pull back the black plastic that has been protecting the soil over the winter months, mixing in mulch, seaweed and fertilizer.
I'm leaving town for some much welcomed work. Pepper will stay at the Ark Animal center next door. Hopeful for a change in the weather, I am having him shaved down, which I will discover is not their forte. When I pick him up three days later, he looks he’s been given a buzz cut courtesy of a five year old.
The threat of rain looms, greeting me on the other side as I emerge from Penn Station with a downpour. There is a bitterness that a chilly late spring rainstorm can send through your bones. (Oy! My kingdom for a bathtub!) This somber mood is fitting for the infamous location we are shooting at, an empty floor at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island. "It's the last place you want to be sent on an insanity plea", a lawyer friend tells me.
Our final day on set, afternoon sunlight bursts through the dirty institutional windows. A few crew members take their bikes out of production trucks and ride home. Back in the city, people have shucked their rain gear in favor of sandals. You would have thought the streets were wet down for a movie shoot. The ice cream cone I get at the Hagen Daaz counter just about melts in my hand. It is steamy inside the station but cold on the train.
I collect Pepper early in the morning and we drive out to Nauset Beach, where the Outermost House once stood. The day is so glorious; I have tears in my eyes. Truly.
Everyone on the beach greets each like old friends. We are all giddy in soaking up the warmth of the sun.
Everyone on the beach greets each like old friends. We are all giddy in soaking up the warmth of the sun.
As soon as we hear the waves, Pepper's ears pop up, alert. A smile breaks out on his face and I let him free. He tears towards the water. This is really the only time I see him smile, when he is by the beach. He can run around for hours. Me, I look for stones. Sometimes a color will strike me and I'll pick those. Today, I choose perfect circles.
When we finish our meet and greet with the other revelers, I spot a park ranger waiting at the top of the stairs. I click Pepper's leash on him as we begin our ascent.
"Are you going to ticket me?" I ask him. He takes a few minutes to consider this question, maybe mulling over if I am being a wise ass or not. I size him up. Young. Probably a rookie. He says,
"It wasn't the leash that I noticed. It was that basket." This little thing that I purchased at the AIM thrift store on Main Street for a quarter is now filled with my bounty of circle rocks. "Really? It's so small" I say. Now he probably is sure I'm giving him a hard time.
"You may not realize this, but you're disturbing the marine life. I'm going to let you pick two, and then you're going to have to toss the rest back." "Really?" I repeat. I start hemming and hawing. It becomes a difficult decision. “I don't like that I have to choose but I guess it isn’t Sophie's Choice, now is it?” I tell him when he begins to look impatient. He doesn’t get the reference, taking my basket and dumping the contents into the rose bushes lining the curb.
"Are you going to ticket me?" I ask him. He takes a few minutes to consider this question, maybe mulling over if I am being a wise ass or not. I size him up. Young. Probably a rookie. He says,
"It wasn't the leash that I noticed. It was that basket." This little thing that I purchased at the AIM thrift store on Main Street for a quarter is now filled with my bounty of circle rocks. "Really? It's so small" I say. Now he probably is sure I'm giving him a hard time.
"You may not realize this, but you're disturbing the marine life. I'm going to let you pick two, and then you're going to have to toss the rest back." "Really?" I repeat. I start hemming and hawing. It becomes a difficult decision. “I don't like that I have to choose but I guess it isn’t Sophie's Choice, now is it?” I tell him when he begins to look impatient. He doesn’t get the reference, taking my basket and dumping the contents into the rose bushes lining the curb.
"What did you do that for? I would have taken them down to the beach. " We both look down at the 60 + steps.
"You may not realize this", he repeats, "but marine life is existent up here as well."
"Are you saying that someday this will be shore line?" sweeping my arm around the parking lot. He doesn't want to discuss global warming with me. "I'm not going to ticket you, but I am going to give you a warning".
"You may not realize this", he repeats, "but marine life is existent up here as well."
"Are you saying that someday this will be shore line?" sweeping my arm around the parking lot. He doesn't want to discuss global warming with me. "I'm not going to ticket you, but I am going to give you a warning".
We walk back to my car so that I can give him my I.D. I'm grateful that he didn't see my New York plates before making his decision. By time he has finished writing a very detailed citation, officially notated with numbered codes, many of the cars have left.
He hands me the original and flips the carbon copy behind the pad. "What about those?" I point out the tell tale blue bags of dog poop people have left in the now vacated parking spots. "Isn't that littering?"
I should just go, but warning in hand, I don’t have anything to lose.
"Well, we haven't put out the garbage cans yet, so people don't have a place to dispose … " and his voice trails off.
"Hmmmm." I nod my head. "Uh huh."
As I get into my car, I look back at him. "Maybe the park service could get on that sooner rather than later, don’t you think?”
A bit of spring fever has gotten into me. No doubt - I am smug and sassy.
A canopy has spread over Route 28 in the days I have been away. Oak trees have burst lime-kelly-clover-green leaves. The scent of lilacs mingles with newly mown grass. Purple bearded iris and pink heather edge wooden fences, off setting the sea washed clapboard houses with shutters painted bright yellow, turquoise, and fuschia. The effect is stunning and I am reminded of e.e. cummings’s beautiful testament to spring:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
Without a little rain… I think… we would have none of this.
6 comments:
I'll still feed you when you're 64, Kat...xxL.
Brash back-talk! I wouldn't have had the guts...
Thank you for your post!
x
Pet off leash???? Disturb marine keg???? This is craziness. Good for you for standing up and being that good sassy Williams woman!
Those pink flowers are drop dead beautiful!
Thank you.
Love, MOM
Crazy east coasters! That would never happen out here ...:)
Lovely writing Kat.
That is my favorite ee cummings poem,
actually I use it as a prayer.
Many hugs,
Mar
I loved the picture of Pepper and I laughed out loud when I read about your interaction with the park ranger. I could hear your voice and see your face as I read it.
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