August, with Regrets

Ok, I've lashed out on FB about my waning tolerance for summer weather. I find myself today, nearly half-way through August, adding qualifiers to my annual seasonal discontent.

Lunchtime, I wandered out to the garden to see what we could eat. While shopping, I wolfed down about six cherry tomatoes. Pick, pop whole in the mouth: explosions of warm, sweet tomato juice in the mouth. Wipe chin.

Though large tomatoes have to be discovered among browning vines and shriveling specimens, I still find a few. They are knobby and likely insect stung - not the ones you'd post on FB - but the juicy red meat inside complements a pimento cheese sandwich just fine.
 
I also find a fragrantly ripe cantaloupe, a golden Asian pear, and the first voluptuous figs, which make their way into a fruit salad.

I'm sitting on the porch savoring the right-off-the vine goodness of my harvest. My hands smell of the basil I picked for tonight's pizza. I nabbed a few banana peppers for that purpose as well. 

I'm thinking I've given summer short shrift. Winter tomatoes, an oxymoron, loom not so far ahead, and I know I will be pouring longingly over seed catalogues.

Ok, late summer, season of fruitfulness, ease me into autumn, and I'll try to be more open minded.

 

The After 6 Secret Beach Society

I live in the land of sun worshipers. Lots of body exposure and deep, ruddy tans are de riguer. I do not care to share so much of my body: parts of it no longer stay in the right places. I've also lost count of the basal cells, the legacy of the days when I bared my midriff and took to my beach towel with baby oil with iodine, Sun-In for my hair and my pink transistor radio. Remember those? I also make no apologies for white legs in July.

I still love going down to the beach, and my husband and I have discovered a jewel of a time to go. When G. gets home from work, or Sunday afternoons, we head there about 6 p.m., as we did yesterday.

The sun has mostly given up by then, except for the exquisite, and changing light that comes at the end of the day. This is especially showy at The Point at Emerald Isle. The Point is the western-most tip of Emerald Isle, where the sound meets the ocean. It is a wide, open, expanse of sand, and it is all-about nature and the sea.

Yesterday, wind clouds raced over the ocean in magnificent swirls, which turned pink and purple with the disappearing sun.

The temperature is perfect, and the breeze cools you and erases the frustration of a hot and humid summer afternoon.

I like the fellow members of the After Six Club (doesn't that sound swanky?) The hot bodies are off showering for night time activities, and the beach is lightly populated. Families bring little kids to dip their toes in the water. Couples of a certain level of maturity walk hand-in-hand, and tweenagers, too young for the night time activities, chase each other for one last, independent frolic.

Last night a family came to fish in the little inlet where we had chosen to swim. The father and daughter worked together, throwing a cast net for bait. They worked at this for quite some time, with so-so results, and yet, they spent that time, working together, deeply involved in their task and conversation.

G. and I dunk our bodies in the warm, shallow water, and paddle around a bit in our slow ways. I feel confident at this depth, because I can stand up when I splash water in my nose. I lie back, totally supported by that salty, sloshy medium, and look at the sky. I have a busy mind. I'm usually always on to the next thing, but floating like this is a short cut to relaxation.

Chili Dog, who has a bit of space to go off leash, plops along at the edge of the water. She is suspicious of any depth that requires swimming.

When I was young, I was a seeker of beach, boys (Beach Boys), and rock and roll. I would have turned up my nose at the After 6 club. I remember once arguing passionately that serenity was basically for losers. I was in the 8th grade and, what, maybe 14 years old? I foresaw big things in my future.

I'm ok with that - trying for big things. I'd still like to make some of those happen, but I'm for quiet times as well. It's nourishing to soak yourself in a salt bath of serenity at the end of the day, and it gives you energy to go after other things when Monday rolls around. 

The After 6 club is not such a secret. It's there for everyone, and I'm thinking that people will find their way to that end of the island in due time. Maybe that's why it's called The Point.

(I realize that my last two posts are essentially about doing nothing. Hmm? Maybe I'm getting too good at it.)

 

Summer Porch

Picture this: A shady, screened porch: overhead fan ticking lazily. Puffs of afternoon breezes to puncture the stillness. Me, on a comfy old futon with big pillows which smell of sunshine and weather. Chili Dog sleeps away, curled against my legs.

I have a book and good intentions, but both worked their way out of reach not long after settling in. A nap - no, make that a Sunday, summer afternoon nap - beckons, but first that moment of drowsy stillness, when all of life's business slips away with my book and good intentions.

A butterfly, floating from a red zinnia to a yellow one, appears on the inside of my eyelids. My still sunny backyard fades to sounds and sensations. It's now that I wish I'd learned from my parents to identify bird songs.  They sing and squawk and cackle and call from the live oak thicket and from my neighbors' feeder. Cantankerous crows caw, caw, caw, and only they sound seriously engaged on this summer afternoon.

I hear the wind, as well as feel it, as it rustles the pines and the spreading bush cherries along the fence. An airplane lazes overhead. I half hear a tinkle from the tiny wind chime attached to the fan chain. "Desultory" comes to mind, or should I bother to search for a better word?  I'd like a sip of my melting ice tea, if it weren't just out of reach.

(At this point I move my legs, and Chili, not wishing to be disturbed, jumps to the floor and flops on her side, stretching her full length on the cool cement.)

I have insomnia, and one of the worst symptoms has been the loss of my ability to take a Sunday afternoon nap. It's somewhat better now, and I revel in the delicious prospect of complete idleness. It's a treat I like to give myself. The world slows a little through the drugged haze of half-sleep and precious cat naps. The "shoulds" take a break for a while.

As Bill Waterson (creator of Calvin and Hobbs) said, "There is never enough time to do all the nothing you want." I read that somewhere. I may think of where in due time, or maybe not.
 

Lunchin' at JR's

Riding down the road through rural eastern North Carolina is riding through farmland. Somewhere between the deep green rows of corn and soybeans, I saw that my inexhaustable tank of gas, was trying to get my attention with the warning light, now flashing "I'm not kidding." Out there somewhere 40 miles from home is no place to run out of gas. When what to my wandering eyes should appear but a country store with gas pumps. I stopped.

The sign on the roof said "JR's," plain and simple and no neon. The pumps out front called up a memory from childhood. Each pump served one customer at a time, and there was no place to put my credit card. I walked into the country store, where a woman sweeping, put down her broom and walked over. "Hey, how're you doing'? Can I help you."

"I guess I need to pay first, that tank out there by the blue car."

"Oh, it doesn't matter, whatever suits you."

I think I must have dreamed this. But I paid, and heeded her advice, "....you know you have to stop it yourself at $25. It doesn't cut off automatically."

I stopped it on the mark, moved my car and wandered on back inside. I had noticed that JR's had a grill, and someone was frying french fries. My stomach, was telling me that it was long past the noon work whistle, and my early morning raisin bran was long gone, and those fries smelled great.

"Are your burgers good," I asked. "Yeah, well we pat them out by hand, I guess so."

"Oh, please, I'll take a cheeseburger, lettuce and tomato, and some of those fries."

I sat down at one of the two booths in the back, located strategically between the bottled drinks and the motor oil. The woman up front returned to her sweeping.

The linoleum floor was old but clean, and while I waited for my burger I wandered through a wealth of old memories. This was the kind of place I had visited a million times when I was a kid. A stopping place for neighbors and people passing on the highway - most greeted by name as they came in. Unlike our convenience stores, this place was no quick in and out. When you see your friends, conversation happens.

Everything inside was comfortably worn. The shelves could have been there since the 50s, and they were snugly packed with anything and everything you might really need. Excluding the two poker machines tucked in the corner, this was the case. A man could pick up a loaf of white bread on the way home from the fields, or a package of diapers and maybe a Goody's, if it was that kind of day.

The burger soon arrived. Perfection. A nicely done hunk of real meat, crisp lettuce and juicy tomato on a soft, white bun. A pile of crisp, golden crinkle fries held up to a glob of Heinz, and for a while nothing existed but the pure enjoyment one gets from a perfect cheeseburger.

But then a farmer eased into the next booth, and, like I said, conversation happened.

I thanked the woman at the counter on my way out. "You were right; that was a good burger."

"Well, we are real glad you stopped by. Come back soon."

Back on the road, happy and well fed, I felt glad to have discovered JR's. This place is what I love about North Carolina. Good people, living well, welcoming to friends and strangers. Dare I say it? The way things used to be.

I'm glad it is still there. I hope to stop again sometime.

Long Day's Journey Into Night

     We have again entered the days of the greedy sun. Already at 6 a.m. he's poking through my bedroom window, disturbing me, and he doesn't let up all the live-long day. Too bright, too intense, I stay in the house all day just to avoid him.
     Sunset? Yes, it's spectacular, but its true nature is RAGE. Rage of an angry sun still not ready to give it up to darkness. Chili Dog and I went walking at 9 p.m. last night, and still the sky was tinged with rose red. In these big skies, he lingers and lingers. With only a little slip of moon to claim the sky for night, I fear we are outmatched.
     He is a domineering sort, and his cult is large.

Urgent

There is an urgency for spring all around me. Tips of every branch and stem swell with buds anxious to burst into bloom. My backyard is dotted with with white blossoms, which couldn't wait and spilled into sunshine on a falsely warm day. I don't know if the others can hold back until this hesitation which takes the air from 70 degrees to 40 degrees makes up its atmospheric mind. Today is yet another gray, chilly day. Cold rain is splattering on the patio. A stiff breeze bobs those buds heavily up and down, and the pines whisper, "Not yet, not yet."

Off the Road

This is not my story. A friend of mine recently had a stroke while driving her car in Polk County, where I used to live. She was on this narrow, twisty, mountain road when suddenly her vision dissolved into swirls of colors and no ability at all to see objects in front of and around her.  Pretty darn scary, huh. This road is not like those here at the beach. There was no question of rolling off onto the shoulder - there it would have meant a steep drop-off. She did the only thing she could. She stopped the car where she was, rolled down the window, and begin to yell for help.

Some time passed. Some people passed her briskly. Some blew their horns at her and passed. Some blew horns; yelled at her; and passed. And one fellow stopped, got out of his car, and started yelling and cussing at her.

Her good Samaritan, as she calls him, was passing in the opposite direction, saw the man yelling at her, turned around and came back. He got her car off the road from the passenger side; called 911; and was there when she passed out and until the ambulance came.

Now is the time when we can all lament the lack of civility in the world and "what are things coming to?" I found myself thinking about what am I coming to?

Since I heard this story, I have been thinking of all the times I have felt irritated, angry, and revengeful towards other people on the road. It pretty much boils down to, "NO ONE has the right to impede my progress, and if they do, they are stupid SOBs who better get out of the way, or else!"

I admit it. I have had those feelings roll over me for offenses that in the whole wide world, really mattered very little.

I'm terrified that I might have been one of the people to blow the horn; snort with indignation; and get the heck around her.

Sometimes, I take a deep breath. Sometimes I think about the person in the other car and what he/she might be going through. Sometimes I am patient. Sometimes I just decide not to be an angry person.

But on that day on that road? I just don't know, but I will be taking this story with me when I go driving from now on.

We are all in it together, yes we are.

Contrary to William Butler Yeats

I think March is the cruelest month. It's a tease; playing with our deepest longing for an end to winter and the coming of warm weather and sunny skies. Today warm sun lights up the white blossoms on the plum and pear trees. I am encouraged - and vulnerable. Tomorrow could be 20 degrees and frost. Who doesn't remember being out of school for three straight Wednesdays due to March snows. How unforgivably wanton with our emotions!

Chili Dog and I walked around our neighborhood this afternoon. Tiny flowers have emerged from the already green weeds along the road. How foolish; how tender; how trusting. March, that old trickster, has not yet shown his hand. I'm keeping my seeds under my hat.

Walking with the Old Ones

I've been reading Wendell Berry, A Place in Time. How I managed to get this far into my life without Wendell Berry is a mystery to me, but I won't be journeying on without him.

Berry is a poet, a novelist, an environmentalist, and a Kentucky farmer - to name a few of his activities and accomplishments. Over time, he has created a fictional place, called Port William, and has written much about the lives and histories of the people who live there. I am looking forward to getting to know them better as I catch up on my reading of Berry.

A Place in Time is a collection of short stories  - not so much the kind of stories we might expect- but more like the family story-telling I grew up with. Family sitting on the porch or eating chicken stew out in the yard and telling familiar stories about the characters and events that have peopled our family history. "Y'all remember when Daddy did so-and-so? What was that fellow's name?" 

Berry's stories are like that. They don't necessarily have a beginning and a climactic end, just an intimate sharing of some day or series of days during which something happened in the lives of the residents of Port William. Many recall childhood and people, now gone, who made a deep impression on their lives.

It's a wistful, late life kind of book. It looks at change; transition; loss and moving on - many times regretting what was left behind and lost.

The writing is exquisite and to be savored. He makes me think longingly of the old ones in my life. The way things used to be, and that the new version is not always for the better.