My previous blog was full of
excuses of why I hadn’t written lately. I believe it ended with a promise to do
better. About that, it seems I am simply having too much time-consuming fun to
actually document any of it.
I hustled out of Texas at the
end of May with the floodwaters at my back. I made my way to the cooler, drier,
less humid (at the time) North. Now it
is mid-July and I have spent glorious weeks in northern Maine, hiking to
mountain vistas with the family, playing at lakes with the grandchildren,
kayaking out among the masses of arrow arum to catch whirligig beetles with my
grandsons.
By night the fireflies came
out in masses around my daughters house, imitating fairies in such a convincing
way. I haven’t been around them in years
and you just feel your age slip away. In
my mind, I am once again with Skippy jar in hand to make them my own little
night light for awhile before I let them go. What simple but satisfying delights
the outdoor world is replete with! The
glory of God is all around me and I simply can’t be thankful enough that any of
this is happening. Now, where to begin documenting it?
I arrived on the Cape in
June, the month I always said I would choose if I had only one month to live
here. Kids are still in school so the
tourists haven’t come yet, however the horseshoe crabs are arriving by the
hundreds to mate in the shallow salt creeks with the first full moon. And yes, I know, the invasive, so I should hate it, but powerful-enough-to perfume-the-whole-peninsula,
multi-flora rose is blooming EVERYWHERE! In the fields, by the ponds, climbing
the trees as vines, making the woods look like a wedding bower. I could smell the roses the moment I crossed
the canal and it is only in June that that is true.
Everyone talks about the tang
of salt air, and I think they maybe mean the tang of iodine from the seaweed
drying on the high tide wrack. Not every
beach has that but there is an undeniable scent that tells you its summer, your
home and no Yankee Candle has ever captured it completely.
All in all I was on the Cape
seeing different friends, three separate times.
With any luck I might make it back one more time when I finally leave
for home after Iceland. And the flora
and fauna will have altered again. The
marsh grass which takes till mid-June to even think about getting green (you
would be slow to grow too if someone was dousing you with 50 degree water twice
a day!) is now (In July) so green it is almost painful but by August will
already be giving itself over to some subtle autumn hues, gold and rust start
to mix with the green by mid-August. I suppose I should be gone by then!
Well, this ended up being
mostly about the Cape. Let us deal with Maine and my routine there in a
subsequent blog and Rhode Island and Tuck and I getting in a walk along the
marsh each morning from 5:30-6:30.
He and I witness the morning bird commute
and we have seen the osprey’s grow from two little heads barely over the rim of
the nest to practically adult sized but, still begging, birds. Those tales will wait for later. Right now I need to pack for I leave for West
Point tomorrow and Iceland on Saturday! What a gloriously spoiled person I am,
but I am also one overwhelmingly grateful spoiled person! I hope your summer is
laying down some treasured moments to call on later when winter is upon
you. Literally and metaphorically.
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