Today, the next to last day, things get fragmented. Tim took Mimi to Yoga and then they bought the 'big fish'--two red snappers. John drove his Land Rover around for an hour or so. Bern made the stuffing for the snappers. I read and read. Sherry's niece and grand-niece came to pick her up and she went to Southport with them for several hours. Tim and Mimi and Sherry got into the roughest surf we've had and Tim helped Sherry avoid drowning. Then we ate the big fish and now everyone but Bern and I am watching Family Guy in the living room while Bern watches the US Open Tennis in our bedroom and I type this.
The problem is this: a week is not enough. When Josh and Mimi were young we'd come to Oak Island for at least three weeks and several times for a month. That's enough time to get into Beach Time and stay on it, lost in linear time, often not knowing what day it is, or what week.
But just a week means by Thursday people are dreading going home--or longing too (like Bern and I longing to get home to our Puli)--so we start to fragment. Just protecting our identity and longing to keep the community together.
Tim and I had a late night conversation about 'belief' vs. 'practice', which I'll write a lot about when I get home and have the time and have my Puli dog with me....
One more day and then the drive home for Sherry, John, Bern and me. Tim and Mimi will fly our of Raleigh to NYC on Saturday. We'll all be home on Sunday, hopefully early enough to get Bela out of the kennel....
See you later.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
being there
It's 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Tim is reading on a chair in the living room. Sherry was on the couch reading until just now when she went to check on the butter beans she grew in New Haven and brought to the beach for us to eat. We won't eat them tonight. John is cooking tonight, something involving ham and beans and yellow grits. Mimi and Bern are down in the Gazebo, reading. I was reading until I took out this laptop John gave me and began writing this blog. John, who read most of the day, is taking a nap. There is ice-tea, gin and tonics and white wine being consumed as people read.
Not much going on. And that is pretty much what is going on in the house with the amusing name 'Andromeda Strand' on East Beach Road on Long Beach on Oak Island. Five of us went into Southport for lunch at the Southport Provision Company which has a boat charter service and 'advise' as well as a restaurant right on the water in open air. Conch fritters, onion rings, tuna sandwiches, crab cake sandwiches, steamed clams, potato salad and cucumber salad were consumed along with John's incongruous hamburger, along with beer. Mimi, Sherry and Bern went to Yoga this morning and John and I went to breakfast--biscuits and sausage gravy and grits for me. Tim slept in.
Other than that, reading and conversation and laughter and irony and humor and a great deal of silence when people are reading, which is almost constantly. I'm on my 4th book in 4 days--The Cuckoo's Calling which J.K. Rowling (think Harry Potter) wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Very good. People occasionally go bob in the surf or look for shells or don't.
Not a lot of 'doing' going on.
The ocean waxes and wanes and purrs. The birds fly up and down and stop to eat. We can see a mile in either direction and right now, in that two miles, there are maybe 30 people to be seen. On the beach, not much going on....At the Andromeda Stand, more 'being' than 'doing'....
"Being" is what makes it 'being there...'
Not much going on. And that is pretty much what is going on in the house with the amusing name 'Andromeda Strand' on East Beach Road on Long Beach on Oak Island. Five of us went into Southport for lunch at the Southport Provision Company which has a boat charter service and 'advise' as well as a restaurant right on the water in open air. Conch fritters, onion rings, tuna sandwiches, crab cake sandwiches, steamed clams, potato salad and cucumber salad were consumed along with John's incongruous hamburger, along with beer. Mimi, Sherry and Bern went to Yoga this morning and John and I went to breakfast--biscuits and sausage gravy and grits for me. Tim slept in.
Other than that, reading and conversation and laughter and irony and humor and a great deal of silence when people are reading, which is almost constantly. I'm on my 4th book in 4 days--The Cuckoo's Calling which J.K. Rowling (think Harry Potter) wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Very good. People occasionally go bob in the surf or look for shells or don't.
Not a lot of 'doing' going on.
The ocean waxes and wanes and purrs. The birds fly up and down and stop to eat. We can see a mile in either direction and right now, in that two miles, there are maybe 30 people to be seen. On the beach, not much going on....At the Andromeda Stand, more 'being' than 'doing'....
"Being" is what makes it 'being there...'
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
There...
We arrived (John, Sherry, Bern and me) on Saturday (after the two days in Travel Hell and John's Land Rover) about 4 pm, Mimi and Tim flew to Raleigh and got here about 5.
Since then (it's Tuesday noon now) it's pretty much what I said it would be: lots of laughter and the gentle teasing of love; lots and lots of good food and great weather; white wine, boutique beer and white wine; all of us sleeping well and reading at least a book a day; and birds, lots and lots of birds.
I watched this morning from the gazebo half-way between the deck and the steps down to beach level while 60 or70 gulls of several types lined up in double file to stare out to sea from the water's edge. They're still there several hours later, patient and hopeful as early Christians facing into the rising sun to see if today is the day the Lord returns. I don't know what they're doing. I may go down to the ocean in a while to see if they fly away and then come back for whatever conference or meeting or workshop they are attending.
Besides several species of gulls, there are grackles, sandpipers, swirling terns, tiny seabirds that feed on the cochinos the waves bring in and run back to dry when the next wave arrives. And pigeons, I don't remember so many pigeons on Oak Island before. They seem to be nesting in the roof of the gazebo. If you're quiet you can hear the young pigeons rustling above your head. (Pigeons, I happen to know, stay in the nest months longer than any other bird--until they're almost grown. Which, by the way, is why you never see baby pigeons....)
In the marshes north of the beach--Long Beach is a south facing beach, so if you're staring out to sea you should imagine the Caribbean rather than Europe--there are the herons and other long-legged, long-necked, graceful birds.
And then there are the pelicans, confederation after confederation of them. Oak Island is a major breeding ground for Brown Pelicans and they soar and dive and fly in breathless formations up and down the beach with what seems to be some Grand Purpose in mind. I love the pelicans, so grave and serious, so acrobatic and adept--their shadows proceeding or following them up the beach in their group flights. (Since it is a south facing beach the sun moves down the beach from east to west, never shining in your face as you look toward the Bahamas.)
Tim, Mimi and Sherry just got back from buying shrimp, fish (and if I correctly identify the other bags from Fruit and Brew) an abundance of alcoholic items.
I best go, since the quiet time always ends when people return from foraging (hunter-gatherers with credit cards are we....)
Since then (it's Tuesday noon now) it's pretty much what I said it would be: lots of laughter and the gentle teasing of love; lots and lots of good food and great weather; white wine, boutique beer and white wine; all of us sleeping well and reading at least a book a day; and birds, lots and lots of birds.
I watched this morning from the gazebo half-way between the deck and the steps down to beach level while 60 or70 gulls of several types lined up in double file to stare out to sea from the water's edge. They're still there several hours later, patient and hopeful as early Christians facing into the rising sun to see if today is the day the Lord returns. I don't know what they're doing. I may go down to the ocean in a while to see if they fly away and then come back for whatever conference or meeting or workshop they are attending.
Besides several species of gulls, there are grackles, sandpipers, swirling terns, tiny seabirds that feed on the cochinos the waves bring in and run back to dry when the next wave arrives. And pigeons, I don't remember so many pigeons on Oak Island before. They seem to be nesting in the roof of the gazebo. If you're quiet you can hear the young pigeons rustling above your head. (Pigeons, I happen to know, stay in the nest months longer than any other bird--until they're almost grown. Which, by the way, is why you never see baby pigeons....)
In the marshes north of the beach--Long Beach is a south facing beach, so if you're staring out to sea you should imagine the Caribbean rather than Europe--there are the herons and other long-legged, long-necked, graceful birds.
And then there are the pelicans, confederation after confederation of them. Oak Island is a major breeding ground for Brown Pelicans and they soar and dive and fly in breathless formations up and down the beach with what seems to be some Grand Purpose in mind. I love the pelicans, so grave and serious, so acrobatic and adept--their shadows proceeding or following them up the beach in their group flights. (Since it is a south facing beach the sun moves down the beach from east to west, never shining in your face as you look toward the Bahamas.)
Tim, Mimi and Sherry just got back from buying shrimp, fish (and if I correctly identify the other bags from Fruit and Brew) an abundance of alcoholic items.
I best go, since the quiet time always ends when people return from foraging (hunter-gatherers with credit cards are we....)
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Almost there...
On the morning after next, Bern and I will drive Bela to the kennel and then go to New Haven where we'll meet John Anderson and Sherry Ellis and start driving toward Oak Island, North Carolina. We take two days down and two days back. On Saturday afternoon, Mimi and Tim will arrive in the car they rented in Raleigh after flying from NYC. Then will come, arguably, my favorite 7 days of the year. With those folks in a beach front house on an island off the coast of Southport, NC. Some of my favorite people in the whole world, together for a whole week, on a beach, with nothing we 'need' to do or 'have' to do. Just being together with salt and sea and sand and pelicans and lots of good food.
I think I've told you Bern and I went to Oak Island for the first time in either 1975 or 76. And we went every year for about 20 years after that until our children rebelled that it was 'too boring'. But we've gone back, thanks to Mimi and Tim, who re-discovered it 5 years ago. Mimi, Tim, John, Bern and I are constant. This is Sherry's third year. We're staying in a house named The Andromeda Strain--for some reason.
It will be wondrous and good. It will be hot during the day--and if the air is 87, the ocean will be 85--the Gulf Stream runs around Oak Island. And it will be cooler at night and the sky will be amazing, even with the ambient light from Southport off to the left. you can see the Milky Way, which you can't see in Cheshire.
And these wondrous people will read and be quiet most of the time, and cook incredible meals and we will drink wine and sleep deeply and wake each morning to be present to 'family', though John and Sherry and Tim aren't really blood.
The only thing missing will be the other 6 people who are my family: Josh and Cathy and the three granddaughters--Emma, Morgan and Tegan--and Jack Ellis, Sherry's husband, who has to work and can't come to Oak Island.
That makes, finally 12 people, exactly the only 12 people Bela, our Puli, loves. But Bela can't come to the beach since he travels badly and barks most of the time he's in a car. For a two day trip both ways, that would get real old, real fast.
But that's where we'll be. I'll try to use someone's laptop to add to Under the Castor Oil Tree if I can. But if I'm not here for 10 days or so, know this, I am with people I love profoundly in a place I've loved for much of my life and we are eating well. And being happy just to be in the same space, whether we talk or not.
Perfect vacation is what I call that....
I think I've told you Bern and I went to Oak Island for the first time in either 1975 or 76. And we went every year for about 20 years after that until our children rebelled that it was 'too boring'. But we've gone back, thanks to Mimi and Tim, who re-discovered it 5 years ago. Mimi, Tim, John, Bern and I are constant. This is Sherry's third year. We're staying in a house named The Andromeda Strain--for some reason.
It will be wondrous and good. It will be hot during the day--and if the air is 87, the ocean will be 85--the Gulf Stream runs around Oak Island. And it will be cooler at night and the sky will be amazing, even with the ambient light from Southport off to the left. you can see the Milky Way, which you can't see in Cheshire.
And these wondrous people will read and be quiet most of the time, and cook incredible meals and we will drink wine and sleep deeply and wake each morning to be present to 'family', though John and Sherry and Tim aren't really blood.
The only thing missing will be the other 6 people who are my family: Josh and Cathy and the three granddaughters--Emma, Morgan and Tegan--and Jack Ellis, Sherry's husband, who has to work and can't come to Oak Island.
That makes, finally 12 people, exactly the only 12 people Bela, our Puli, loves. But Bela can't come to the beach since he travels badly and barks most of the time he's in a car. For a two day trip both ways, that would get real old, real fast.
But that's where we'll be. I'll try to use someone's laptop to add to Under the Castor Oil Tree if I can. But if I'm not here for 10 days or so, know this, I am with people I love profoundly in a place I've loved for much of my life and we are eating well. And being happy just to be in the same space, whether we talk or not.
Perfect vacation is what I call that....
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
I saw you standing alone....
I just went out to look at it--the 'blue moon'. A tad disappointing, not blue at all. But it is a deal of some significance.
A 'blue moon', in case you wondered, is the third full moon during a season. Most seasons (winter, spring, etc.) have only three new moons. Why it is the third of four and not the fourth, I can't tell you. I never said I was an expert in moons.
When it happens in August it has lots of other names--some from Native Americans and some from ancient cultures elsewhere. A blue moon during the harvest is a big time deal apparently.
But the thing is this: it isn't 'blue' at all.
A 'blue moon', in case you wondered, is the third full moon during a season. Most seasons (winter, spring, etc.) have only three new moons. Why it is the third of four and not the fourth, I can't tell you. I never said I was an expert in moons.
When it happens in August it has lots of other names--some from Native Americans and some from ancient cultures elsewhere. A blue moon during the harvest is a big time deal apparently.
But the thing is this: it isn't 'blue' at all.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Dr. Dolittle and me
It just occurred to me today that since I retired I talk to animals more than anyone than Bern--and perhaps even more than I talk to her. We've been married 43 years come September 5th and have know each other since 1964--that's 49 years, so we can communicate without words much of the time.
Someone once asked me--7 or 8 years ago, when I was still Rector of St. John's in Waterbury, 'what I did." And when I thought about it I realized 'what I did' was "walk around and talk a lot".
I talked to dozens, sometimes hundreds of people a day. That was 'what I did'--I talked to parishioners and folks in the soup kitchen and folks there for 12 step groups and folks passing through and folks using the building and folks inside the building and folks on the street. What I DID was walk around and talk a lot.
Since I retired, I don't talk to people that much. I seldom get calls. I call Bea at the Cluster office a couple of times a week, I talk (not enough) to Josh and Mimi, our children, I talk to clerks in the stores and my clergy group on Tuesday morning and to people at church on Sundays. And to Bern.
But mostly I talk to Bela and Luke and Maggie, our dog, cat and parakeet. I talk to them from the time I get up until I go to bed. They are all good listeners, being creatures. And I mostly praise them for being 'good dog' or 'good cat' or 'good bird'. Maggie used to fly away when I talked to her and cling to the far side of her cage. But now I talk to her and even when she's eating, she doesn't fly away. Granted, most of what I say to her has to do with her singing--which she does constantly and sometimes at such a pitch it is painful to human ears--and about the music she listens to on the public radio station from Sacred Heart University that mostly plays classical music and on weekends modern music. The radio in the kitchen is beside Maggie's cage and always on from when Bern or I get up until the last one of us goes to bed. Maggie loves classical music and I must say. since we tuned into WSHU instead of WNPR (though I still listen to that in my car) the music rather than a day full of talk and news, has made us all calmer and more content. I thank Maggie for that.
My monologues with Bela and Luke go on all day. I tell them things about themselves (Good cat, big boy, buddy, best friend) and about what to do (eat your breakfast/lunch, let's go out, go to the 'big bed', go upstairs, find the woman....stuff like that). And often I simply ponder things with them about politics, philosophy and religion.
They're good listeners. It's a joy to talk with them and I do it all day.
I'm about to go ask Bela if he wants to go pee--which he does, I already know--but it seems polite and right to ask him. And when he does I'll tell him what a big boy he is and when we come back in I'll ask him if he'd like a treat (why ask? But I do and give him one) and not much later, since it's 10:40 p.m., I'll suggest we 'go upstairs' to the 'big bed', and we will. Then I'll talk to him a bit more and kiss Bern good-night if she's still awake or just touch her softly if she's already asleep and Bela and I will settle down for a good night's sleep. I'll even tell him 'good night', though it's probably not necessary.
Talking to creatures is much of my life. And I love that....
Someone once asked me--7 or 8 years ago, when I was still Rector of St. John's in Waterbury, 'what I did." And when I thought about it I realized 'what I did' was "walk around and talk a lot".
I talked to dozens, sometimes hundreds of people a day. That was 'what I did'--I talked to parishioners and folks in the soup kitchen and folks there for 12 step groups and folks passing through and folks using the building and folks inside the building and folks on the street. What I DID was walk around and talk a lot.
Since I retired, I don't talk to people that much. I seldom get calls. I call Bea at the Cluster office a couple of times a week, I talk (not enough) to Josh and Mimi, our children, I talk to clerks in the stores and my clergy group on Tuesday morning and to people at church on Sundays. And to Bern.
But mostly I talk to Bela and Luke and Maggie, our dog, cat and parakeet. I talk to them from the time I get up until I go to bed. They are all good listeners, being creatures. And I mostly praise them for being 'good dog' or 'good cat' or 'good bird'. Maggie used to fly away when I talked to her and cling to the far side of her cage. But now I talk to her and even when she's eating, she doesn't fly away. Granted, most of what I say to her has to do with her singing--which she does constantly and sometimes at such a pitch it is painful to human ears--and about the music she listens to on the public radio station from Sacred Heart University that mostly plays classical music and on weekends modern music. The radio in the kitchen is beside Maggie's cage and always on from when Bern or I get up until the last one of us goes to bed. Maggie loves classical music and I must say. since we tuned into WSHU instead of WNPR (though I still listen to that in my car) the music rather than a day full of talk and news, has made us all calmer and more content. I thank Maggie for that.
My monologues with Bela and Luke go on all day. I tell them things about themselves (Good cat, big boy, buddy, best friend) and about what to do (eat your breakfast/lunch, let's go out, go to the 'big bed', go upstairs, find the woman....stuff like that). And often I simply ponder things with them about politics, philosophy and religion.
They're good listeners. It's a joy to talk with them and I do it all day.
I'm about to go ask Bela if he wants to go pee--which he does, I already know--but it seems polite and right to ask him. And when he does I'll tell him what a big boy he is and when we come back in I'll ask him if he'd like a treat (why ask? But I do and give him one) and not much later, since it's 10:40 p.m., I'll suggest we 'go upstairs' to the 'big bed', and we will. Then I'll talk to him a bit more and kiss Bern good-night if she's still awake or just touch her softly if she's already asleep and Bela and I will settle down for a good night's sleep. I'll even tell him 'good night', though it's probably not necessary.
Talking to creatures is much of my life. And I love that....
Dumb phones
I had a dumb phone until Saturday. All you could do on it was receive calls and make them. (Though I did get a text message from time to time which I had no idea how to return....) Then I tripped over my own feet and it fell out of my pocket and broke in two. The keys still worked but the screen was dead.
My phone company is Consumer Cellular--which I found in an AARP ad. I'm not sure if anyone under 50 can have Consumer Cellular. But maybe.
I went on line and discovered that Sears carried Consumer Cellular phones so I wouldn't have to have one shipped to me. Since we're leaving Friday for North Carolina, that's an important thing. On Sunday, after church, I went to Sears in Waterbury's mall. I asked two employees about Consumer Cellular and got blank stares. But the third person told me to go to 'electronics' and I did and there were all these Consumer Cellular phones. Apparently you have to have one of their phones to use their service.
So I bought the cheapest of them all--$39.95--plus $5.25 for a two year plan if I break it...which I do a lot...that would give me a new phone for free.
I got it home and charged it Sunday night--at least 6 hours, the book said. And this morning got it activated and got my phone number transferred to this new phone. The woman, India was her name, did all that by typing on a computer. I asked her if she understood how that happened and she, honestly, admitted she had no idea whatsoever...she just hit the keys and my new phone came to life and now contained my voice message from the old phone and I could use it right away.
Here's the problem: how can a phone that costs only $40 have a camera and internet access? Ridiculous. But apparently my phone does. So I now am obligated to learn how to use those two things which I never wanted, not ever.
I didn't think there was a camera or an internet device that cost only $40. Now I have both and a new not-so-dumb phone. It's not a 'smart phone' by any degree since I can't get 'aps' whatever the hell they are. It's sort of an 'average' phone I guess. But it isn't dumb. Which is what I wanted.
Oh my God, a camera and internet on my phone!!!
I've obviously lived too long....
My phone company is Consumer Cellular--which I found in an AARP ad. I'm not sure if anyone under 50 can have Consumer Cellular. But maybe.
I went on line and discovered that Sears carried Consumer Cellular phones so I wouldn't have to have one shipped to me. Since we're leaving Friday for North Carolina, that's an important thing. On Sunday, after church, I went to Sears in Waterbury's mall. I asked two employees about Consumer Cellular and got blank stares. But the third person told me to go to 'electronics' and I did and there were all these Consumer Cellular phones. Apparently you have to have one of their phones to use their service.
So I bought the cheapest of them all--$39.95--plus $5.25 for a two year plan if I break it...which I do a lot...that would give me a new phone for free.
I got it home and charged it Sunday night--at least 6 hours, the book said. And this morning got it activated and got my phone number transferred to this new phone. The woman, India was her name, did all that by typing on a computer. I asked her if she understood how that happened and she, honestly, admitted she had no idea whatsoever...she just hit the keys and my new phone came to life and now contained my voice message from the old phone and I could use it right away.
Here's the problem: how can a phone that costs only $40 have a camera and internet access? Ridiculous. But apparently my phone does. So I now am obligated to learn how to use those two things which I never wanted, not ever.
I didn't think there was a camera or an internet device that cost only $40. Now I have both and a new not-so-dumb phone. It's not a 'smart phone' by any degree since I can't get 'aps' whatever the hell they are. It's sort of an 'average' phone I guess. But it isn't dumb. Which is what I wanted.
Oh my God, a camera and internet on my phone!!!
I've obviously lived too long....
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