Sunday, April 12, 2015

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


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Shameless Crushes...

find life experiences and swallow them whole.
travel.
meet many people.
go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys.
try everything.
exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life.
-lawrence k. fish

Yoga For Peace

read much and often

Cleopatra: A Life
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Never Let Me Go
The Angel's game
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Bel-Ami
Dreaming in French: A Novel
The Post-Birthday World
A Passage to India
The Time Traveler's wife
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Catcher in the Rye
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Kite Runner
Eat, Pray, Love
Slaughterhouse-Five
Les Misérables
The Lovely Bones
1984
Memoirs of a Geisha


read much and often»