Standing at the bottom of the
circular staircase, there are just 64 steps to the top and a couple of landings in between where you can look out. Sandy Hook and Manhattan lie to the far left, that maze of a new bridge crosses the river down below and leads to the sea, home is somewhere in the estuary to the right. Medieval in its feel, the brownstone building is eight-sided; not a perfect twin to its square southern sister who’s never been open to climb. I remember kissing a red-haired boy with my hands on the top railing during a class trip in the 7th grade. The teacher sent a note home to my dad the next day. It’s all at the bottom landing that I remember this, that cramped space that gives no hint of the view 64 steps up. There’s a restaurant at the bottom of the hill, under the old bridge, where you can eat steamed clams and mussels, tho I never did. I used to take the bus to Sandy Hook, hitchhike on the long road out with a friend to our favorite beach and come home with the sea in my hair. The salt from an afternoon swim still on my skin. The waves against my body, the caress of the sea, the embrace… that stayed with me back at home. I worked in a restaurant on the bay for a while and ate clam broth every night that tasted of the sea. I liked the potatoes but the clams slid down rough. I haven’t yet learned to like the texture of clams. There are 11 steps to go. This could be any place, this circle of stairs, but as soon as I think it, I know it’s not true. Nowhere feels quite like this. It stays with me and rises on the wings of a gray and white gull. It follows the boats through the green-marked channel below. Sea Bright isn’t far… where I would go to watch fishermen and plovers. Stand in the dunes and tall grass at the end of Surf Street. Watch the tide rush and the flow of the moon, let go to the arms of the sea. When I climb back down I’ll run for the sea, eager for its lick on my legs. I’ll wait for dark, maybe, look up from the sand to the moon on my skin, to the beam from this clamshell-shaped lens as it circles the sea and finds me, lost in remembering.
Category Archives: Remembering
Father’s Day
I create my father each time I think of him.
I mix mud with straw, invent a life of woven twigs, plaster it all together with fragments of memory; their edges sharp, the colors vivid.
This night, I assembled him from fractured recollections of years spent in the company of a brotherhood; this ritual that represented so much of what he used to be.
The white apron bordered in blue and the hollow sound of a gavel calling me to my feet, the mere mention of his name in this room bringing surprised tears to my eyes; the imagined pride in his sons on this special night as biting as the dawn on the November day that he died five years ago.
Sometimes I conjure him from thin air and a whiff of cigarette smoke, summon his memory from the sound of hard-soled footsteps on a wooden floor, see him in the glance of other men looking long over their noses and eyeglasses.
This is the gift in his death.
I have to try hard to remember him as he was in those last couple months before he died. Grown old and frail and vulnerable, he weighed nothing, asked for nothing, his face like an owl relief carved in worn rock.
I watch his head drop, his arm slide off the arm of the couch, a book slip from his lap. I wonder at this man who once held me aloft, in sky and sun, to look down on him. I feel sorrow and fear.
He was a changed man by that point. A flimsy quiet shell of himself.
I can not remember a time when he said that he loved me.
There’s an odd comfort in knowing my brother wanted for those words, too.
In my father’s world, the edges of things were hard and straight. His way was to focus on the small things, the details. My way is different; I loved always to explore the sharp edges of his world with the soft fingertips of mine.
My brothers didn’t understand that about me, about us, I don’t think.
I carry this part of him with me: whole parts of myself locked away for safekeeping; an emotional reticence that I like to think hard to see, but which others sometimes catch glimpses of. Stoicism disguised as strength. Nothing but space and sharp light, the sound of footsteps echoing off hard surfaces, endless empty corridors lined with locked doors.
I see him alive in my brothers now, alive in his hopes for them.
This is the gift in his death.
“It is the same for all men. None of us can escape this shadow of the father, even if that shadow fills us with fear, even if it has no name or face. To be worthy of that man, to prove something to that man, to exorcise the memory of that man from every corner of our life – however it affects us, the shadow of that man cannot be denied.” –Kent Nerburn
The pic is of my two brothers… Brian in the funny hat on the left… Kevin on the right… on the occasion of Brian’s installation as Master of Philo Lodge #243… the first time in Philo’s history that a father and his sons all served in that capacity. Congrats Bri!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
If this reads as disjointed… well, I’ve been playing with it for months, since Father’s Day actually, and was finally moved to finish it, almost, by my brother’s post on the 5th anniversary of my dad’s death.
Sailing wisdom
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
-Mark Twain
Pic taken from the ferry to Cumberland Island, somewhere along the intracoastal waterway.
Any sailors among us?
😉
I had just one experience as a child in sailboat that I remember looked something like this. I didn’t fall overboard or get seasick. Considering how scared I was… both major triumphs!
Now… to have that same opportunity today…
(dreaming)
The first sip is the best
I learned to drink tea with my grandmother. I like it now the same way as when I was a kid – mostly milk and plenty sweet. Tea smells especially delicious, I think, if you’re used to drinking coffee.
A cup of tea shared with grandma was a recipe for happiness, as I remember it. All I need now is that first sip to be carried back to her small kitchen; the clink of spoon against saucer recalling my grandpa in the next room, the parlor, listening to a ballgame on the radio.
I don’t think my grandmother and I ever did anything especially memorable together, but I remember drinking tea and feeling very loved. Her memory is a joy and one that usually surfaces as a surprise. A cup of tea is the only way I know to will it.
Clearwater
The Clearwater Festival is an annual event; the state’s largest and oldest environmental music festival. I usually always find an excuse to go, even if it’s just for an hour or so to stroll among the vendors or listen to the music at the circle of song (pictured here).
I first remember going when I was in high school and back then the festival took place at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook, right along the bay. A much nicer setting than where it is now, I think.
Anyway… there’s always an interesting mix of people to make for fun people-watching: hippie-types straight out of the sixties, kids with their faces painted like butterflies or flowers, today I even saw a young couple, multiple tattoos and body-piercings among them, strolling along with a rather large and vocal parrot on the woman’s wrist.
😉
Letter to me
Country music is a guilty pleasure I’ll admit to. The sappier the better.
Throw your rotten tomatoes at me now… get that out of the way, first.
OK… so.
I had this great creative writing teacher in the eighth grade and then again as a junior in high school. Mrs. Cella had us write daily journal entries which she would comment on once a week when she collected our journals for grading.
It occurs to me now that Mrs. Cella would’ve loved blogging and the interaction between writers and their audience.
Most often she wanted us to *free write* about whatever came to mind, in whatever format we chose. Those were painful, difficult entries for me to make, faced with a blank sheet of paper.
Kind of like blogging sometimes.
😉
In her comments in our journals she was a writing coach, but as is often the case when working with adolescents, it gave her the opportunity, I suspected at least, to get into our heads and act as social worker and therapist; an adult we could be honest with in a *safe* non-judgmental arena.
Every so often she’d give us an actual topic for our journal entries and usually I enjoyed those; enjoyed a guide with which to focus my thoughts.
I remember one of the topics she gave us was the opposite of Brad Paisley’s idea with this song of his; rather than writing as an adult to our 17 year-old selves, she had us write a letter to our grown-up selves.
I’d love to be able to put my hands on that old journal of mine. Buried in the closet in my childhood home, one of my brothers probably found it when we sold the place and is holding onto it to embarrass me with someday.
Anyway…
(Ramble, ramble.)
Mrs. Cella often criticized my rambling away from the point at hand.
I like the spirit of this song, for all its hokeyness and thought I’d have a go at a similar letter.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Dear Laura,
For Godsakes stop being so shy!
Stop thinking you’re too skinny!
Go with the curls; one day you’ll laugh that you ever wasted so much time trying to have hair like every other girl.
That guy: dump him. Quick! Don’t wait till just before the Senior Prom. That’ll feel sweet, of course, but…
The quarterback of the football team wants to ask you out… and a couple baseball players too, but instead you’re wasting your time with that jerk.
Those other quiet girls in your classes that you won’t give the time of day to even… take the time to make friends with them! They’ll write the sweetest things about you in your yearbook and you’ll wonder how you never even noticed them.
Dad will not be heartbroken if you drop Calculus. Honest.
Speaking of Dad… give him a break. Enough of your moodiness. Enough of the silent loathing. You’ll regret it sooner than you expect to.
Mrs. Martin… tell her what a great teacher she is. Tell her even though you’re sure she must know. You’ll understand one day how nice those words sound coming from a student.
Smile in your graduation photo… you’ll be looking at that sad face years from now wondering why it looked like the whole darn world was on your shoulders.
Love,
Me
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Add something, if you would, of what you’d include in a letter written now to your teenage-self. Maybe just that one big thing.
😉
I promise not to take points off for rambling, either.
Captured: A moment
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” –Victor Borge Photo by Nina.
It had been six months or so, that first night at Smokey’s, since Susan and I had had a chance to catch up, face to face. There was lots to talk about and some to laugh about, too.
Some, who like to tease, might compare her to another, more easily recognized birder-blogger, but I know better. She and I are like opposite sides of the same coin.
I’ve said that before, I know.
We’d toasted to our gathering, had dinner with old and new friends, and then, like the bad kids in the bunch we aspire to be, slipped outside during the evening’s program to laugh together and goof around without any audience. We did that a lot during our couple days together in W. Va.
Good things and W. Va.
things with feathers, susan and the laugh that breaks free and gets loose, barred owls that talk back, dessert with every meal, curvy busrides, porch swings and the secrets they gently coax out of the dark, breakfast with bats, kathie’s meticulous journaling, mountainsides that leak water and are drenched in wildflowers, the happy sound of laughter late at night, round hay bales and curious cows, a dry set of clothes before dinner, fitting in easily, small brindled dogs, ramps, nina’s quiet smile, the squishy sound of mud underfoot, buttercups in the side yard, the first sweetcorn of the season, ovenbirds that court under a blanket of stars, a bowl of pistachios shared over the day’s photos, ironed-dry jeans, biscuits with everything, cowbell on the fly, people who imitate the drumming of grouse, morrells with scrambled eggs…
Help me to remember more?
Of salt, in gray
Spring days used to always smell like this. Of seaweed-tangled mussels at low tide. Of cat-tail smoke and creosoted piers. Of salt.
And beyond the ticky-tack of the boardwalk, I’d wander the dunes until sunset. Blanket in hand, I’d crawl across the sand to lie in the sun’s last rays where seagulls circled and circled overhead.
Returning to the faces that had worried away the afternoon, I’d offer up the day’s harvest of sea glass, fingers aching with grit and salt, forgiven for not being lost.
But I was lost. Wandering after whatever it was in the cool spring air that made the gulls call to me, joyfully following their shallow tracks in sand and sky. Something… there was so much I wanted then. I didn’t know what, only that when most alone, under the guise of beach walking, silence would tell me what I listened for.
I’m still wandering into spring afternoons after old scents and old sounds; as if one could open the past for me and let me find the girl that wanders there.
Today I thought about salt and how my life could be clean and simple if I reduce it all to salt; how I’ll be able to talk to someone without going from pure joy to silence. And touch someone without going from truth to concealment. Salt is the only thing that lasts here at the shore. It gets into everything, your hair, eyes, clothes.
I like to think of myself turned to salt and all that I love turned to salt. To think of walking down to the beach, stepping on the backs of a million dead clams and how gray can be so beautiful. How if you aren’t careful, you can just walk right into that alluring current and imagine what lies in a horizon you never knew was there, where the gray from the sky and the gray from the sea meet. Looking over the Atlantic at the edge of the continent, you can see all this crashing at your feet in cold rich foam, in salt, in gray.
Reveille
We’ve always done a funny thing in my family at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Some people shoot off fireworks; we go out on the stoop and bang pots!
Anyone else do that?
I wonder if it isn’t a city thing that my parents brought with them when they moved down here to the shore. Growing up, I remember a few other families in the neighborhood that did it, but I’ve not met anyone since that looks for the biggest pot and the klankiest utensil as midnight approaches.
😉
I think if I were to do it in the neighborhood where I live now, there’d be police at my doorstep within minutes. But if I get together with my brothers on New Year’s Eve, there’s sure to be pots.
And Brian playing the trumpet to add to the racket out there on the stoop.
Listening to him tonight, playing first Auld Lang Syne and then Reveille, I felt that sense of melancholy that seems almost inevitable on this night; another year done. Reveille tends to turn that around pretty quick tho.
😉
I wonder Kev… did Dad play his horn on New Year’s Eve too, or am I imagining that memory?
Hope it was a happy and safe night for all.