Beach times

The beach has been the setting for this summer.  Whether I'm walking along, sitting by or on, or driving by, I've spent a lot of time on the beach and by the ocean.  And since I've spent the summer home and not vacationing, the beaches I've been visiting this summer are the ones I've been going to all my life.

I remember traveling by bus or taxi, or by an auntie's ride, to Revere or Lynn or Salem Willows when I was small.  At the Willows we would vary sitting on the beach and sitting on the grass.

Later, as a teenager, there were bike rides to Devereaux beach with other Salem Library pages, and long, lazy afternoons.

My husband and I would go to the Willows early in our years together.  We'd play skeeball and pacman, have ice creams and chop suey sandwiches, and walk the park.  Later we mainly walked  along Lynn Shore Drive.  And lastly we would go and sit, watching the Boston skyline and Nahant.

What I've noticed especially this summer is how quiet beaches have become.  In the 1960's and 1970's, each blanket would host a transister radio.  As we would walk along looking for a "spot" we'd hear WMEX playing music, or WHDH's Ned Martin and Curt Gowdy giving play by play reports for Red Sox games.

The 1980's and early 1990's featured boomboxes playing loudly, with FM stations ruling the air.  They'd be carried on the shoulders of skate boarders speeding past.  The beach still had a soundtrack, and a boisterous feel.

Then Sony developed the Walkman and Apple the iPod, and pesonal listening devices became the norm.  The beach has gone back to natural sounds; waves break, gulls cry, and children laugh and play.  Everwhere else technology dominates our lives, but not at the beach.  Having a soundtrack is now a personal choice. 

Walking along the beach has become one of my favorite ways to excercise.  I'm hoping for another mild winter so that I can continue to do so.  The beach is a place I go to to find a sense of quiet, of timelessness, and renewal.  If I want music, I put the ear plugs in.  This year, though, I've gone without, and listened to the beach sounds, and felt like they're one of the constants in my life.

Oh, la.la, Paris.

This is a summer of day trips and short getaways.  I've been exploring Essex county with my camera in hand, or have hopped on the train to New York City for a couple of nights.

But last year I was packing for Paris right about this time.  I had seen the Woody Allen movie with Owen Wilson and Gene Kelly's American in Paris, and read The Paris Wife.

Then I got there.  There's a line in Midnight in Paris where the vapid fiancee complains about it raining again.  She was right.  It rains.  And while that misty, moisty mysteriousness adds oh so much atmosphere to a plot line, it wreaked havoc on my wardrobe and mood.  Thank goodness for hotel laundry services. 

I also found that the guide provided by the tour company had rather elastic ideas about distances.  I became suspicious when everything was just half an hour away.  I was encouraged to take Le Metro, but didn't feel comfortable doing so.

A group of us went and the subway was clean, clearly marked and inexpensive.  But I had only one good arm last year, so hanging onto a pole and my belongings was a problem.  That not so minor fact made it walking or taxis for me.

I realize my trip experience was probably colored by having had surgery just three weeks before.  But still, it rained.

I had loved the south of France the year before.  The bright light dazzled the colors, the sun was warm, the small towns were friendly, and it didn't rain.

I've offered the advice that every experience is a learning experience.  And in retrospect, what made all those books and movies interesting were the people in them.  The Paris Wife talked mostly about the cast of characters that made the city interesting in the Twenties.  Owen Wilson's character raved about meeting Hemingway and Fitzgerald. 

Perhaps if my hotel had been in a different area I would have been more charmed.  I loved Isle St. Louis and the Left Bank.  The Place my hotel was located on also had a MacDonald's, KFC and a pizza place.  It could have been Kenmore Square without the jet lag.

I had been warned about traveling in August that it would be crowded, and it was.  And being urban, the people weren't as warm as in the south.  But I have been in other cities, and live in a small one, so those factors shouldn't have been as overwhelming as they were.  I was jet lagged and in minor pain, niether of which are mood enhancers.

So maybe, just maybe, I'll try Paris again another time.   I'll just be more careful of the hotel location and the time of year.  And, of course, try to go when it doesn't rain.

Garden hopes

Each spring the gardener looks through the catalogs, wanders the aisles at garden centers, makes and breaks plans, and purchases what she hopes will be the plants that will make the season.  Brave souls start with seeds. Others, like myself with a container garden, go for the plants, those six packs of annuals that promise color quickly and constantly throughout the summer.

We all know that we are at the mercy of the growers and the weather, and the plant choices we make.  Yes, I have a southern exposure with no shade, but pansies may last longer than spring (no, they never do).  But each year I plant my flowers, my herbs and my one patio tomato, hoping for a bumper crop and no aphids or mites.

My one signature plant I use each year is blue lobelia. The window boxes up in Bar Harbor were full of them back when we visited in 1986, and they made an obviously lasting impression. I can usually plant so that they have some shade and make sure they are well watered so that they last as long as possible.

Gardeners are optimists.  Yes, there will be enough sun, the temperature not too hot or cold, I'll remember to water, and yes, I will have a garden to enjoy.  And those annuals whose flowers keep coming all summer seem to agree with me.  This year's early spring had me starting weeks before Memorial Day, my traditional start date.  I've had to replace those pansies with begonias that love that sunshine.  And also my pinks  that somehow over-wintered and came back this spring finally petered out and needed replacing. 

Heading back to the garden center is no hardship in mid-July.  Plants are now on sale and there's no sign yet of mums.  I have to say I hate mums.  They are the signal for fall and the end of gardening.  I'd rather have the last of my summer flowers than plant mums.

But we're still at the height of the growing season.  I'm still enjoying my flowers, harvesting tomatoes and herbs for cooking, making notes of what has worked and what hasn't.  A seed, a plant, seem to be nature's promise that life renews.  It doesn't always stay the same, but it stays.  I just keep that watering can handy and keep tending my garden.

Travels with my dad

I seemed to have spent my spring retracing the footsteps of my youth.  In early May, I headed west to Amherst for a short stay at the Lord Jeff Inn.  I remember thinking while attending UMass/Amherst that if I ever "made it" that would be something I would do.

Whatever "made it" really means.  There's no point where I could ever have said I'm all set.  What I've discovered since then is that it's all a process.

Above is a picture of the chapel. I probably should have included the library, but it's this square, utilitarian looking structure.  It's supposed to be the tallest in the world, or was when it was built.  But it really has no grace.

Those rides back and forth between Salem and Amherst were the first time my dad and I really bonded.  He was a "man's man," a John Wayne type.  Not much on converstation, and really had no idea what to do with a small, curly headed girl.  He attempted wrestling matches when I was little that just made me cry.  And for most of my childhood, there was an awkward silence between us any time we were alone together.  He was the master of one word answers, which doesn't make for very good conversation.

But once I was a young adult, and we were traveling miles and miles, we started opening up much more.  And it wasn't just the trips to Amherst.  I spent a semester living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for an internship in the city, and I think expanded both of our horizons by doing so.  It was 1975, and wonder of wonder, he had to stop and ask directions.  Once he got them, he had to give the helpful New Yorkers an earful about the Red Sox, and we were on our way.

Years later he was telling stories about the rides we made.  He worked details at Kappy's to help with my college expenses, and transported empty liquor cartons to New York to help me pack up.  He memtioned how he was stopped by a state trooper after going through a toll booth, and showing the empty boxes.  He would always have a grin on his face when he told the story, like he had put something over on the statie.

There was another time when his car wasn't working well, and we used my Uncle Ed's to get me back to Amherst.  Of course Ed came along, and he was probably quieter than my dad was, if possible.  We came up to a big rotary near Palmer, and had to stop abruptly because of four horses galloping through.  Neither man was quiet after that.  Their idea of country was Saugus, where they grew up by the river.  We all felt like we were in Wyoming or someplace.

As the years passed, we learned how to talk with each other.  One gift he gave me was the ability of making small talk about sports.  I'd try to catch the end of a game (any kind!) to be able to compare notes with him.  In turn, that skill became helpful in my work life when I was at city meetings where I would be one of two or three women in a room full of men department heads.

He bonded differently with my brother.  The wrestling matches were fun for them, as was hitting balls out to the Little Leaguers.  They butted heads a lot, but you could see underneath the tie was strong.  (I do have to thank John for teaching me how to throw a football.  Though like algebra, I haven't had much need for the skill.)

It took my growing up for us to know each other as people, not just as father/daughter.  We may not have always agreed, and sometimes didn't like what the other said or did, but we did love each other.  I just hope now I have some of his strength and tenacity, but a heck of a lot more patience. 

Lessons learned

I recently revisited an old stomping ground from my senior year of college.  I spent the fall of 1975 working in and for the city of New York.  My internship was with the NYC Department of Civic Affairs and Public Events.  I learned a lot that semester, not all having to do with my major or my internship.

I joined an organized tour of Greenwich Village the first Friday of this June.  It was not the Village I remembered.  Now you have to be a movie star to afford to live there.  And the bars old beatniks, hippies and yippies frequented are now tourist traps.

But back in 1975, a place called Max's Kansas City catered to both a disco and rock crowd.  Andy Warhol was rumored to be seen there, and Patti Smith performed.

So on weekend nights my housemates and I took the subway from Park Slope into the city, to the Village, to catch glimpses of the famous.  What we found were other students doing the same.  Boys from Pratt looking for glamor laughed at us for not knowing how late the club stayed open.  Three or four am--that wasn't tonight anymore.  That was tomorrow.

Another difference was the drinking age:  18.  Don't anyone be jealous of that fact.  The trade off was the draft and Vietnam.

The most striking people I remember from those evenings was the line up of ladies seated at the bar.  All had sequined cocktail dresses, long hair and nails, and adam's apples.  And none of their dates were free.

So as I said, I learned many lessons that fall.  The most important being that my long held daydream of moving to Manhatten after graduation to work all by myself wasn't going to happen.  There was a recession, after all.  And I think I finally was figuring out all I really hadn't learned yet.  I wasn't ready to leave the nest for that much uncertainty.

Sunday Garden

A Sunday afternoon, with the sun out
And tempertures lift to the 70's with a shout.
A walk through a garden, where greenhouses and grounds lay
Makes for a perfect day and a perfect way
To spend some time.

Spring rains have lent a lushness to all the plants,
While sunlight causes shadows to slant.
Light plays on the greens, the purples, the gold.
Everything here new, nothing old.
Spring is the real start of a new year.

Rainy Start

Such a rainy way to the start of May,

With a drizzly, grizzly gray day.

After weeks of brightness from the sun

We knew such a day had to come

To fatten up the buds.

Trees are green and full of leaves.

Grass is growing and flowers no longer tease

But have burst into full color.

Between warmth, sun and rain duller

Is banished.