The stuff of ordinary days

Homebound, I spend a lot of time thinking about the stuff of ordinary days.

A creature of habit, I am lured to the sea.

Every Saturday morning I shed my work-a-day skin and plunk myself in the sand.

No matter the season, I walk along the seashore in cadence with the waves, which are as familiar as my own heartbeat.

When the cobwebs in my mind have washed away, I head to the town library, where I wander.

Laden with a cloth bag stuffed with books, I leave a half-hour later.

Thus ends my Saturday sojourn, which I had faithfully observed until three weeks ago.

Today I retrace the footsteps in my mind to a few paragraphs I had stumbled upon, in a random book I picked up one Saturday.

Intrigued by the beautiful photographs in a new book "Little Compton -- A Changing Landscape" by the Little Compton Historical Society, I tucked the heavy volume into the bag. Our summer place in Tiverton is but a stone's throw away from this neighboring town.

Turning the pages, I spotted a photograph of Walker's Roadside Stand, a place I have frequented since childhood.

I read: "Coll Walker grew up on a dairy farm in Swansea."

How interesting, I mused. I grew up in Swansea as well.

I read on: "In 1963 when he was ready for college, his parents, Ian Walker, a native of Scotland, and Frances Peckham Walker, decided to buy ten acres of Obbie (Osborn) Sherer's Red Top Farm on West Main Road. It was a way for Frances to move back to her hometown and would help pay for Coll's education. In years' past Obbie ran a roadside vegetable stand on the property that occasionally sold bear meat. The Walkers configured the vacant buildings and opened their own vegetable stand in 1964."

Then my eyes alighted on the sentence: "Ian, a high school principal, grew the  produce ...

Suddenly, I was 12 years old again, sitting in the public middle-school auditorium of Elizabeth Stevens Brown School in Swansea. At the start of our assemblies, Mr. Walker, a short, elderly gentleman who spoke with a Scottish burr, walked to the lectern on the stage, led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then spoke the words that I can still hear in my mind's eye:

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want / He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters ...

After all these years and in an instant, I began to acknowledge the profound effect this man and this prayer, the 23rd Psalm, have had on my life. Mr. Walker planted the seeds that would grow into my vocation, just as surely as he grew the vegetables that graced our table at the summer house.

With tears in my eyes, I read on: "After college and some time in the Peace Corps as an agricultural agent, Coll returned to Little Compton in 1970 when his dad became ill. Ian Walker had always run the farm as a hobby. Coll saw it in a new light. He thought there might be a future in a roadside stand business. Walker's Roadside Stand sits near the site of Little Compton's first English farm built by Benjamin Church in 1675. Coll's son Ian, named after his grandfather, is the newest farmer to work these fields."

Homebound, I spend a lot of time thinking about the stuff of miraculous days.

Tiverton by sea: A photo essay

Every summer I reread "The Country of the Pointed Firs" by Sarah Orne Jewett. The first chapter, "The Return," best explains what it means to return to a much-loved place like our summer home at Fogland. She writes:

"There was something about the coast town ... which made it seem more attractive than other maritime villages ... Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which made it so attaching, and gave such interest to the rocky shore ... and the few houses which seemed to be securely wedged and tree-nailed in among the ledges... These houses made the most of the seaward view ... the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along the shore ... When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair."

A woman reels in a fish as we approach Nanaquaket Bridge.

Navigating the currents near Old Stone Bridge, we follow the boat "Relentless."

The view seaside of the Fogland State Beach ramp.

Passing alongside a moored fishing boat near Nanaquaket.

Chugging past Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, I remember the day I interviewed a former pastor of the congregation. As he stood at the lectern, he began reciting "The Lord's Prayer," and I joined in: "Our Father who art in Heaven hallowed be Thy name... We were two worshippers, a Protestant and a Catholic, praising God with one strong voice.

A striking sailboat with red sails skims the Sakonnet.

After a three-hour tour, we return to the slip at Standish Boatyard.

Different strokes for different folks

 

There is a new species inhabiting our bay. They float and paddle like a duck, and sometimes they dip underwater.

The paddleboarders are here.

Driving down Fogland Road and onto the boat ramp, I expect to see some fishermen in powerboats trawling nearby; but on this windless, clear and bright sunny day, I spot a bevy of boarders standing up and paddle surfing in the Sakonnet.

Traditional paddleboarding is a surface water sport in which participants are propelled by a swimming motion using their arms while lying or kneeling on a paddleboard or surfboard in the ocean.

A spinoff of this sport is standup paddle surfing, which is usually performed in the open ocean with the participant paddling and surfing unbroken swells to cross between islands or journey from one coastal area to another.

Surfing the net, I find that standup paddleboarders can stroke for hours, and a twenty-mile race is only a warm-up for a well-trained waterman.

I had always associated paddleboarding with the South Pacific, but I conduct a quick search on Google and find a long list of businesses catering to this sport in our local waters.

In fact, I discover that Paddle Board Rhode Island is the 2013 Editors’ Choice winner in Yankee Magazine’s Travel Guide to New England, which is awarded by Yankee’s editors and contributors, who name select restaurants, lodgings and attractions in New England to the exclusive list.
 
“While it may be hard to create a business, the true challenge is in making it work, being good enough that it endures and brings people back. Those are the qualities we look for and reward when we say ‘Best of New England,’” wrote Yankee's editor Mel Allen.

Recognized as the “Best Way to See the Bay,” Paddle Boarding Rhode Island offers paddleboard tours, lessons, fitness classes and parties, including full moon paddles, dog standup paddleboarding tours, sunrise fitness sessions and paddling through downtown Providence.

According to their website, they describe standup paddling as a very different, healthy, spiritual and refreshing way to connect with the ocean and nature, and they paddle anywhere.​

“We have paddled as far and wide as Hawaii and Costa Rica, California, New Hampshire, Cape Cod and Florida. But this is the Ocean State. Experience Rhode Island's coast as you've never experienced it before.”

Rose-colored beach days

The beach roses are in bloom.

Today is the kind of day you dream about on long, sunless winter days.

Awaking to bright sunshine, I stare out the window at a world that sparkles clean and fresh after yesterday’s rains.

I remember my husband gently brushing his lips across my forehead before he headed out early this morning to go fishing with our son and his friend.

Hours later, I lay in bed and smile.

Sunny weekends at the summer house in mid-August – it doesn’t get any better than this!

For my birthday my best friend gave me a blue glass token imprinted with the words: “If you’re lucky enough to be at the beach, you’re lucky enough.”

Life is better at the beach, where a magical world enfolds.

Under intense blue skies, I walk along the tiny streets to the beach, passing our neighbors’ colorful cottage gardens.

Down at the rocky shore, I admire the Creator’s handiwork. The Sakonnet sparkles like diamonds reflecting the heavens.

Bringing bright splashes of color to this sandy oasis, the beach roses are in bloom and their heady scent carries on the wind.

The beach rose, which is also known by its Latin name rosa rugosa, is a flowering plant that thrives in seaside thickets, dunes and salt marshes along the Rhode Island coastline. Tolerant of spray, they bloom from June through October.

The dark green bushes or hedges, ranging from three-to-six feet tall, produce white, pink and red flowers, as well as orange-red fruit called rose hips. Their brown bark is densely covered with straight, sharp thorns.

They are also home to a menagerie of animals, including many birds that nest within its dense foliage. The fruit, which resembles small crab apples, provides sustenance to all sorts of creatures.

Although rose hips tend to be bitter and contain an abundance of seeds, they can be eaten raw, preserved in jellies or brewed for tea.

Beach roses are so common and such a familiar part of our landscape, yet they are not native to New England. The species was brought to the United States from eastern Asia in the mid-1800s.

Surrounded by hedges of fuchsia beach roses, I sit by the water’s edge, watching sailboats glide past.

Nineteenth-century New England poet Celia Thaxter said it best:

“The jeweled seas and the deeps of air, / All heaven and earth are good and fair, / Ferns at my feet and the mullein’s spike, / And the soaring gull I love alike; / With the schooner’s grace as she leans to the tide / The soul within me is satisfied.”

 

                                                                          

 

 

 

 

 

Don't go in the water

This week’s hot, hazy and humid weather, hovering in the mid-90s, drew beachgoers to Fogland State Beach in Tiverton, R.I., where stiff sea breezes and cooler ocean temperatures provided relief.

These tropical conditions also attracted some unwanted guests to the waters near our summer home.

“God created the great sea monsters,” says the Scripture verse in Genesis; and they invade New England every summer.

On the Fourth of July, a dozen swimmers were stung by Portuguese man-of-wars at nearby Horseneck Beach in Westport, Mass. One of the victims was hospitalized after being stung in the arm, and the others were treated on the beach by lifeguards.

A gelatinous creature, but not a true jellyfish, the Portuguese man-of-war is a fearsome animal that is actually a colony of individuals, including feeding and reproducing organisms.

Its bell is a gas-filled float up to 12-inches in length.

Dangling from the feeding organisms are tentacles that can extend 65 feet into the water, providing a sizeable sting area. Unlike jellyfish, they can deliver a toxic, painful sting, which can be life threatening to humans and deadly to prey.

Every summer in these parts, there are sightings of great white sharks lured by the seal population off Chatham, Mass. Last summer a great white shark bit a swimmer in Truro, and a kayaker was chased by a shark in Orleans.

A 13-foot great white shark also washed ashore in Westport.

Four shark species – the tiger, bull, oceanic whitetip and great white – are most responsible for fatal attacks on humans.

Last year in United States waters, there was one reported fatal shark attack, taking the life of a surfer in California.

The last fatal shark attack in New England waters occurred in 1936, when a 16-year-old swimmer was killed by a great white shark at Hollywood Beach in Buzzards Bay, Mass.

Carnivores at the top of the marine food chain, sharks exhibit great maneuverability in the depths but are different from other fish, since they have no swim bladder and cannot regulate their buoyancy.

Consequently, they have to constantly swim or sink to the bottom. In fact, it is rare to find a shark’s skeleton, since its soft cartilaginous flesh is readily consumed by fish that feed on the ocean floor.

Leaving the summer house, I walk down to the seashore, lured by extreme heat and curiosity. My eyes scan the water line seeking the gelatinous mass of a floating man-of-war or the telltale sign of a great white, the shark’s dorsal fin.

The coast is clear, but despite the heat, I stay out of the water.

Let it snow

Frozen in time, Nanaquaket is covered with snow and ice.

Forced out of a warm bed this morning, I dressed quickly and drove to my dental appointment.

Sitting in the dentist's chair, I had plenty of time to think about what I wanted to do next.

Consequently, I bolted and headed to Black Goose Café in Tiverton.

Looking out the window, I watched the wind caress the water and urge it beneath the ice that stretched across Nanaquaket Pond, while the rocks along the shore held onto the ice floes with tight fists.

Overhead the leaden skies portend imminent precipitation. Most likely, rain will spill forth because temperatures hover in the upper 30s; but eventually it will change into heavy, saturated snow.

For the third weekend in a row, we are awaiting the arrival of a snowstorm.

Nibbling on a wheat wrap and sipping tea, I think about how hardy we New Englanders are, accepting Nature’s vagaries with quiet resignation.

A couple of weeks ago, most of us were without electricity for days. What’s another few inches or more when we have already shoveled a few feet?

It’s better and more pleasant to adapt to our surroundings.

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating,” wrote Victorian writer John Ruskin. “There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”

This kind of good weather sends New Englanders in droves to the supermarket for milk, bread and batteries.

My husband sighs as he looks at our depleted wood pile, and he wonders whether this late in the season we should invest in another cord. Once again, he fills the portable gas tank for the generator. The Dodge Ram with its heavy-duty plow is on standby.

Yet, spring is less than a month away.

“After Valentine’s Day we can really feel that winter is on the downgrade,” wrote New England writer Gladys Taber, who chronicled her days from her seventeenth-century Connecticut farmhouse. “A few more blizzards, perhaps, but definitely March will arrive. There will be a certain day when the air comes in over the hills with a different feeling. It’s an intangible thing, known only to folks who have had hard winters, and it is exciting and wonderful. One morning you poke your nose out, and you know all of a sudden that there will be another spring. You smell it in the air; and no matter how deep the snow is, you think nothing of it.”

 

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy

Five days after Hurricane Sandy, we drive to the Tiverton summer house. The sky is robin’s-egg blue, and it as warm as a day in June.

Incredibly, the blue hydrangeas on the side of the house are blooming again, and the purple morning glories creep up the porch as if they haven’t a clue it’s November.

Outside of twigs scattered throughout the yard, the property is just as we left it last Saturday: the aluminum boat overturned and belted to its trailer, the redwood picnic table upside down, our powerboat hugging the back of the house where it is anchored.

Last Tuesday, the day after the storm, my husband was here; and the salt marsh had transformed into a river that crested 20 feet from our neighbor’s back door. But today, it lies dormant, taking a rest from its exertion this past week.

Reflecting the sky and mirroring the sun, the Sakonnet sparkles like blue diamonds and barely ripples in the light wind. Yet, here along the beach Sandy left its tracks.

All along the waterfront are huge rocks, carried on the high surf and deposited in the road and on our neighbors’ front lawns. It looks more like the terrain on the moon than a sandy beach.

A picnic table situated on the flat curve of horseshoe-shaped Fogland State Beach looks like it has been set down in the middle of a desert, surrounded by hills of sand.

Yet, despite these signs and the lack of electric power for days, the swipe Sandy made on our coastline left no scars; and we thank God for the close escape.

Before the hurricane, the Weather Channel was background noise in our house; and after the onslaught, CNN took its place.

Images of Sandy’s wrath on Staten Island and all the other seaside towns in New York and New Jersey flash across the screen. The vision brings tears to my eyes, as the death toll of over a hundred continues to rise.

Most of the stories tell of the bravery of countless souls: the N.Y. firemen fighting a conflagration in hurricane winds, neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping anyone in need.

Yet there are also those of people behaving badly: homeowners who are afraid to leave their battered houses because thieves wait in the wings ready to loot, or The Bad Samaritan, who refused to open his door to a women begging for refuge for her two little boys, who ultimately drowned in the storm.

Today in Tiverton we pick up tree limbs and armloads of rocks. We move on unscathed but aware that if the trajectory of the storm had veered a little to the right …

 

  

The calm before the storm

Those who live by the sea have the deepest respect for their fickle neighbor. They cherish the calm demeanor and tranquility of their fair weather friend, but they also know when it is agitated, slamming surf and kicking up sand, it is time to get to higher ground.

Many years ago, I met an elderly gentleman, an officer in the Coast Guard Auxiliary who assisted the Coast Guard on weekend patrols on Mount Hope Bay and the Sakonnet River.

In the 1930s, his family converted a small fisherman’s shack near Sakonnet Point in Little Compton into a summer cottage.

Coming of age there, he often sailed around the lighthouse or paddled his canoe up and down the coast, edging his way around the many boats in the fishing fleet.

He worked at the Fo’c’s’le, a popular seaside tourist spot, opening quahogs, shelling lobsters and peeling potatoes.

Then the 1938 Hurricane struck without warning.

“We lost the house, and I almost lost my father,” he told me. “He was washed out to sea from Sakonnet Point all the way down to Taylor’s Lane. He watched five people drown, and he couldn’t save them. He had cracked ribs and was bruised all over, but he came out alive.”

Fifty homes in his Sakonnet Point neighborhood were destroyed.

When my parents bought land near Fogland Beach in Tiverton in the winter of 1969, they learned that their neighbor’s cottage had been beachfront property. Fifteen years earlier, Hurricane Carol had dragged it to its current site, three streets from the water’s edge.

In 1991, Hurricane Bob made landfall over Newport. When the water receded, one of the rental cottages along our beach had been torn from its foundation and set down in the middle of the salt marsh.

Last year, on the day before the arrival of Hurricane Irene, we secured the summer house and boat the best we could and flipped the picnic table. Some of our neighbors had boarded up their windows, and most of the residents had already evacuated. When we drove away, we understood the very real possibility that upon our return, everything might be gone: the summer house destroyed and our yard underwater.

Here we go again.

This morning under sunny skies, with no wind and unseasonable warmth just a few days before November, my husband and I repeated the drill.  

An unprecedented fluke of nature, Hurricane Sandy, a Category 1 hurricane embedded in a nor’easter, is barreling up the coastline.

God help us.  

Rainy day lament

It’s the beginning of the end.

Despite the drizzle, my husband and I climb into our Dodge Ram and make the 45-minute drive to the summer house.

We order a hearty breakfast at Four Corners Grille, and looking outside the windows brimming with boxes of fuchsia flowers, I notice the town coming to life. Farmers set up tents at the Saturday market, proprietors of the tiny shops prepare for the start of weekend business, and soon the flag will appear outside the Tiverton Union Public Library, the perfect place to while away a rainy afternoon.

We watch a horse grazing in the pasture on Neck Road. The grass is still green, but the leaves are already beginning to change.

Descending into a tangible veil of mist on Fogland Road, we take the bumpy dirt path to the beach, slowly navigating a huge hole filled with rainwater.

We park on the deserted beach. The Sakonnet is gray reflecting cloudy skies, and light winds cause ripples instead of waves.

It is high tide, but there are no boats at the ramp on this late September day. In the distance there are two pleasure boats anchored to their moorings.

We drive up High Hill Road and weave up and down the tiny streets of our neighborhood. There are quite a few cottages for sale, but it is natural at the seaside to have turnover.

Renters come and renters go, and homes change hands especially at season’s end. Just like the changeable sea, the population is in flux. But next spring, God willing, we can count on a mix of new and familiar faces, folks who will enjoy their brief sojourn here as much as we do.

The summer house looks forlorn on this dreary day. The maple has lost half its foliage, and brown crinkled leaves carpet the front yard.

I button my raincoat, slip the hood on and sink into the spongy lawn. Checking the kitchen garden behind the shed, I find three green tomatoes still clinging to the leafless plants, which I will leave for another day. But I snap off a small green pepper and slip it into my pocket.

Reluctantly, we leave the summer house, passing through a wet world glistening in the haze.

October beckons.

On this misty fall morning, the season’s end is in sight.

Let's talk turkey

Well, it’s official. Today is the first day of autumn.

Looking out the window of my Massachusetts home, I spot a bevy of wild turkeys under the clothesline in my neighbor’s yard. I run for the camera, quietly lift the screen and shoot, just before they scamper out of view.

A common sight in my neck of the woods, wild turkeys forage in our yards and in the nearby pine, maple and oak woods. They sometimes even visit the bird feeder. At night, they roost in our trees.

The four-foot male is dark brown, but the feathers look an iridescent coppery green at close range. His flight feathers are black with a band of white. His bare head is red and sometimes blue, while a black “beard” hangs from his chest. His legs are red.

Similar to the male, the female is about three-feet tall with a smaller head.

Wild turkeys once were abundant in these parts, but they were wiped out as forests were cleared. With the return of forests, they were reintroduced successfully.

Around here, we brake for turkeys. Why did the turkey cross the street? Because he’s back.

While I write this, I glance out the window and catch some turkeys pecking near another neighbor’s woodpile.

It is wonderful to have a window into their world, but at the same time I know it is hunting season; and Thanksgiving is just two months away. I always breathe a sigh of relief when they round up the little ones and return into the deep woods. The naked eye cannot follow their progress for long. Nature has equipped them with a coat of many colors that blends into their surroundings.

I spot another kind of forager at Seapowet, upriver from our summer house near Fogland Beach. Two women fill a plastic bag with their pickings, which look like periwinkles. Some men in waders are in the water digging for quahogs.

Interestingly, the beach is one place where we revert to our inner animal. We look for food, head down, scanning our habitat. We leave with pails of foodstuffs, pockets bulging, hands full.

Back at Fogland, I sit on the beach next to some seagulls. We have a bird’s-eye view of the gently soughing Sakonnet. We’re looking for the splash of smaller prey fleeing bluefish.

Birds of a feather flock together.

Me and the Mormons

Lifting the front of her brown peasant-style skirt, Gaye began filling it with stones, rounded by rolling to and fro in the constant ebb and flow of tides. Wedged between brown, gray and white stones, bits of sea glass sparkled in the sun.

As I watched her collect her treasures, my mind flew back to the first time we met a decade ago.

I was the new religion editor at the newspaper, and I received a call from Mormon missionaries requesting an interview. In college I had learned all about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “The Book of Mormon” and the Prophet Joseph Smith, but I had never spoken to a Mormon face to face.

When I was a little girl, I had a brief encounter with Mormon missionaries. I remember my mother’s anguish as she told me and my brother that there were two men in suits knocking on the doors of our neighbors’ homes. She told us that if we were very quiet, they would go away. The men came to the door, then turned around and left before even ringing the bell; and my mother was astounded. She later noticed the sign in the window I had written in large, childish scrawl that said: “WE ARE NOT HOME.”

Needless to say, it was with some trepidation that I anticipated the interview. I asked a minister about Mormonism, and she told me that it was a cult. I had grown up watching Donnie and Marie Osmond and they seemed so nice, I responded.

A few minutes into the interview, I threw out every misconception I held about Mormons. Senior missionaries Max and Gaye would become the dearest of friends.

Eighteen months later, I met with them for what I thought would be the last time. There were tears in our eyes as we hugged goodbye. They were returning to Utah, but we vowed to stay in touch.

In 2006, I went to the Religion Newswriters Association Conference in Salt Lake City, and I spent four days with Max and Gaye. I visited Temple Square with them, and they accompanied me to the nearby cathedral.

Two years ago, they informed me that they were going on a second mission. While they longed to return to the Boston area, their placement was uncertain.

In the spring of 2011, they were reassigned here. In my professional capacity, I continued to write their faith stories; but on Christmas and Easter, they sat around our table.

Last weekend I invited Max and Gaye for our annual Labor Day bash at the Tiverton summer house, and Fogland was at its best. Sunshine streamed through the clouds bathing the seashore in an ethereal light.

Many years ago Gaye send me a prayer card that read: “As a lighthouse sends its sure, steady beam to guide the ships at sea, the Lord gives His light to guide you … There is no fog too dense, no mariner too lost to feel His love and light. He loves you.”

For my landlocked Utah friends, the beach was a whole new world. They were enthralled by its beauty.

“I am a pioneer,” Gaye said laughing, as she placed shells and stones in her uplifted skirt.

Her ancestors crossed this country in covered wagons, while mine sailed the seas.

We couldn’t be more different and more alike.

Gaye and Max

 

The calm after the storm

Rising at the crack of dawn, my husband kisses me goodbye before heading out the door to go fishing. I awake hours later with sunshine streaming through the windows.

It is the last weekend at the summer house before the unofficial end of summer, and it is blissful.

I have a long list of things to do: walk the beach slowly, look for sea glass, sit on a boulder, draw in the sand, watch the tidal flush in the estuary, read under the maple tree, stop and smell the flowers …

What a difference a year makes.

This morning Tropical Storm Isaac swept across Haiti and a hurricane warning is in effect for the west coast of Florida.

We know what they are going through.

A year ago on the day before the arrival of Hurricane Irene, my husband and I drove to Rhode Island with heavy hearts. We anchored our boat to the summer house, flipped the picnic table, and secured all my parents’ belongings. My mother left the place in tears.

Some of our neighbors had boarded up their windows, and most of the residents had evacuated.

When we drove away, we understood the very real possibility that upon our return everything might be gone: the beach house destroyed and our yard underwater.

Back at our Massachusetts’ home in the deep woods, we had other worries. Our house sits across from a pond and is surrounded by 100-foot pine trees.

My husband and I went to church on that Sunday morning while the wind whistled and the rain splattered the stained-glass windows.

Hurricane Irene was barreling up our coastline. God help us.

Back at home, we heard the sounds of the wind ripping through the woods, felling limbs and tossing them everywhere.

It wasn’t long before we learned that a tree had fallen on our next-door neighbor’s home shattering their skylight. A short way up the street, a massive tree had toppled taking with it all the power, cable and telephone lines.

I called my parents. The apple tree that had graced their front yard ever since they bought the property in 1947 had just split in half.

As soon as the tropical storm passed, my son drove to Tiverton. Unbelievably, the summer house had survived intact.

A year later, Irene’s fury is a distant memory. The Sakonnet River lightly taps the shore while gentle winds blow.

I look at my list – so much to do, so little time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musings on sweet August

It is the best of times – it is the worst of times.

August is at its glorious apex, but we are in the waning days of summer.

Every year at this time, I drag my feet in Fogland sand, trying to hold onto summer before it slips away.

Nineteenth-century New England Poet Celia Thaxter described the season best: “The jeweled sea and the deeps of the air, / All heaven and earth are good and fair, / Ferns at my feet and the mullein’s spike, / And the soaring gull I love alike; / With the schooner’s grace as she leans to the tide, / The soul within me is satisfied.”

I buy blueberries on Pond Bridge Road and bake up a batch of muffins studded with blue orbs, nurtured in Fogland soil and ripened in salty air.

My husband cannot fish enough. When he is not at work, he is pushing his boat off the trailer into the Sakonnet, cranking the engine and puttering over to the sweet spot. He anchors, baits the hook and is happy, whether the fish are biting or not.

Last week he caught a large flounder, a rare catch in these waters. Flounder were as plentiful as scup when I was a little girl.

I remember the day Grandfather took us, his five grandchildren, to the coastline near Railroad Bridge where we had a fishing contest, the girls against the boys. There were two buckets, and Grandfather could hardly keep up – taking fish off the line and baiting hooks. In no time, the pails were filled with flounder.

I cannot remember the winners, but I guess we all were. My mother fileted them, her favorite fish, and we feasted on them.

Walking toward the salt marsh, I marvel at the reddish-orange rose hips, the fruit clinging to the beach rose plants. They are especially beautiful this year, the color reminiscent of a Fogland sunset.

Rose hips begin to form in spring but ripen now in late summer. Resembling a small crab apple, they provide sustenance to all sorts of creatures.

I grab a handful of sand and let it slowly trickle through my fingers.

I wonder how these grains can support the bushes that produce luscious hot pink flowers and an abundance of edible fruit.

The wind picks up and the Fogland Marsh Preserve mimics the sea, a rolling wave of green with red dots.

I walk away reluctantly, as each footfall sinks in the sand.

Child's play

John Anthony, 6, walks along the shore. (Photo by John D'Arpino)

I opened the email with the subject line "Fun at Fogland," and there were photographs of two beautiful children playing at the beach.

“You know how grandparents are … my 2 youngest,” wrote John D'Arpino, a Tiverton resident and follower of this blog.

Consequently, the pictures triggered memories of me and my little brother. As children, we lived here in our own little world by the sea.

These days it is difficult to recapture the utter joy and timelessness of childhood and eradicate the noise and obligations of the adult world. But I try.

Yet, sometimes when I invite someone to visit our summer house for the first time, I am able to see the world again through child’s eyes.

This week I spent a day at the beach with Beth, a dear friend and colleague.

Even after all these years, I am still drawn to the simple beauty of this town, the white country church, the winding stone walls, the first glimpse of the sparkling Sakonnet surrounded by farmland as you make the hairpin turn on Fogland Road.

So I understood perfectly when Beth got lost, passing by Four Corners Grille where we were to meet for lunch, because she was captivated by the scenery.

Isabella, 8 (John D'Arpino)

Arriving at the beach house, we parked on the front lawn and slowly ambled along the little streets. We sat on the bench overlooking the Sakonnet, offering a panoramic view of the seacoast of four towns, Tiverton, Little Compton, Middletown and Newport.

Then we walked the seashore, and I took her back in time to my childhood days of endless sunny summer hours – swimming and jumping the waves, netting crabs in the salt marsh, climbing in the boat at the crack of dawn, fishing for flounder, digging for clams in muddy waters at low tide, reading under a shady tree and sometimes doing nothing at all.

In the company of seagulls and sandpipers, we sat on a boulder, where we seemed sadly out of place.

The world we inhabit together is not at all like this; it is noisy and hyperactive.

In the Newsroom, we are bombarded with the sounds of scanners, TVs, striking keyboards, ringing phones and a barrage of voices conducting interviews.

Moreover, there are the deadlines to contend with, which motivate us to work faster and faster.

We sit near each other and rarely have time to talk.

But here at the seashore, we lose track of time as we converse; and there are pleasant spaces of silence, where we are content to just listen to the crash and fall of the waves.

“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older,” wrote British playwright Tom Stoppard.  

Perhaps one of the special gifts the sea offers is this freedom to be our younger selves, free of entanglements and open to possibilities like a child at play.

A day at the beach is a slice of heaven

Arriving at our Rhode Island beach house with anticipation, I settle in as the day enfolds.

Today the light sea breeze is fragrant and the sun delightfully warm and toasty.

Listening, I hear the surf in the distance rhythmically rocking back and forth, bidding me to come closer.

I walk up and down the tiny streets, a path I could navigate with my eyes closed. Since childhood my sneakered feet have skipped along these roads lured by the sea.

But the journey is almost as wonderful as getting there.

Our neighbors’ well-kept cottages with garden beds bursting with blue-hued hydrangeas, orange day lilies, white daisies, red roses and violet morning glories are the stuff of a Monet painting brought to life with the added benefit of scent.

As I near the beach, the air cools. A gust rips the straw hat off my head, and my long hair breaks free, dancing in the wind.

Leaving the little community behind, I amble down toward the salt marsh, where pink beach roses and sea grasses create another picturesque landscape, swaying and rippling in the breeze.

I climb over large stones and thousands of shells more than a foot deep that mark the high tide water line, and I sink into the soft sand.

Gingerly, I head to the water’s edge, kick off my shoes and feel the shock of the cold water caressing my skin as the swash and backwash slide by.

Then I walk tracing the contours of the shoreline, which awakens the primeval urge that immerses me in seawater as comfortably as sets me on dry land.

I approach the line of boulders strategically placed as a natural seawall to prevent beach erosion. But they also offer the perfect spot to sit a spell.

Scanning the horizon, I watch a catamaran fly by, as airborne as it is seaborne, skimming the Sakonnet. But here there is only the motion of a few seagulls that walk by me without a passing glance.

Perched on a rock, I am a sea creature whose second nature is to nest or rest here.

Framed by this rugged, rocky New England coastline, I am a sentient being, warmed by sun and cooled by spray, while the wind plays with my hair.

Riding this glorious wave, I am unaware of the passing of time.

But then a gull dives in the surf in search of sustenance, which breaks my reverie. I have fed my soul. It is time for lunch.

'Bee' careful out there

A beach house evokes an idyllic setting where families relax and play under blue skies beside undulating seas for endless hours.

Our summer house at Fogland Beach offers this and more, but other times the place can be downright dangerous.

Last week we gathered at the summer place to celebrate my nephews’ birthdays.

After catching up, we prepared lunch. Firing up the grill, my brother barbecued sirloin tips, onions, peppers and zucchini, as well as stir-fried shrimp in a wok.

For the next hour, we sat at the round table and feasted on a meal that will never taste this good in winter. There is something about the salty air here that seasons the food to perfection.

We sang “Happy Birthday” and handed out the presents but decided to wait before having cake and ice cream.

That’s when my mother suggested we take care of an odd job that had been deferred for a long time. An old antenna still clung to the roof, secured by one rusty bolt from the siding.

My brother climbed a small ladder and tried to unscrew the bolt with a ratchet, but it would not budge. There was also a safety issue: A good yank might take out the antenna, as well as all of us.

Consequently, we borrowed our neighbor’s full-size ladder, and my brother leaned it against the house and climbed.

Scaling the roof, he held onto the antenna and tried to wrench it free from above, while my nephew mounted the other ladder and attempted to remove the bolt from below.

Suddenly a cloud of bees, disturbed by my brother’s trek across the roof, attacked him.

“Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive,” wrote Sue Monk Kidd. “Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about.”

The woman knew what she was talking about.

There are 400 native bee species in New England, and they live close to us, in the ground and under rocks or in woody materials.

Apparently, these bees preferred a penthouse apartment.

The first impulse when bitten multiple times by angry bees is to back away. In this case, the move would have been tragic.

Instead, my brother became Spiderman. After being injected with bee (rather than spider) venom, he moved at superhero speed across the roof, as if held up by webbing, with the bees in hot pursuit. Then he flew down the shaky ladder.

In true Yankee form, the first words out of my brother’s mouth were an apology to my mother for failing to remove the antenna.

But she was already running in the house for first-aid supplies. There were red, puffy welts all over his legs, and his arms were scratched and bleeding.

Thank God, that was the extent of his injuries, which he shook off as nothing.

If there is a lesson to all this, it is to “bee” on guard when you’re roof climbing and that it is better to have your cake and eat it too.