Volunteers

Back from a week away, the dog and I took a walk around the neighborhood to see what's new. I noticed right away that the Golden Rain trees are a bit past their bloom and dropping their tiny flowers in bright yellow puddles beneath their boughs. This is another tree that reminds me of my grandmother-- they grew tall and shady in her backyard, and when she died, my aunt pulled a seedling from a crack in the patio and planted it in her own garden. Years later, when they were reviled as "trash trees" by the person I loved, my eyes fell, and I felt my face go stony with disloyalty when I did not speak up to defend them.

One of my neighbors has a sweet little gardenia flowering by her door. I stopped earlier today to smell one of the fragrant blossoms and was sad to see that it was gone when I went by again this afternoon. That's the thing about common landscaping: some people act as if it's theirs alone. Another of our neighbors regularly cuts luxurious bouquets of day lilies from their beds. That doesn't seem right to me.

The strangest thing I noticed today, though, was that scattered all over the complex in odd beds here and there are some huge squash vines. They are flowering but no fruit has set, so it's hard to say exactly what they are. My theory as to how they got here involves free mulch from the county that probably never got hot enough to kill any stray seeds, but I also favor the notion of some kind of modern-day Johnny Squashseed hijacking our well-manicured condo gardens to cultivate some seasonal local produce. Such an act of renegade sowing might provide a nice counterbalance to those who reap without regard for the rest of us.

On the Road (Again)

Saturdays are never a good day to travel, especially if you're trying to use anything close to the I-95 corridor in the mid-Atlantic states, and, if your route involves a tunnel? Forget about it. Last Saturday it took us 5 1/2 hours to make a trip to the beach that used to take a little under 4 when we lived there. Today was even worse.

My brother, who was about a half an hour ahead of us sitting in stop and go traffic, told me that my nearly 17-year-old nephew asked him when we were going to get hover cars. "Haven't they been promising them your whole life?" he asked, and my brother had to admit it was true-- starting with the Jetsons on forward, flying cars have definitely been one of the glaring unkept pledges of those white-coated technocrats with their horn-rimmed glasses who starred in all the science movies we saw in school. Beyond that wild dream though, my brother also observed that this was evidence that the infrastructure we have now can't really support the population who uses it regularly.

Back in our aging station wagon, the threat of overheating encouraged us to try various alternate routes. On those less-traveled roads, my eye landed on the likes of Two Frogs on a Bike Antiques, plenty of Queen Anne's Lace and escaped orange day lilies decorating the side of the road, three or four of those long and low old-fashioned motels whose single doors lead to tidy little cubes of rooms, so organized and space-efficient (how are they still open so far from the interstate?), and a hundred mimosa trees in full bloom-- their flowers always remind me of my grandmother's pink slippers.

By far, our two biggest mistakes today were the times we decided to get back on the interstate in the hopes that it was clearer, and we made those choices because we were so focused on our destination-- home-- but the journey was spoiled, and we didn't get there any quicker.

Seaside 7: Sunset, Sunrise

On the east coast, the sun does not set over the ocean. There are lovely sunrises for those who get up early enough, but for a sunset over water, you have to be on a mighty big lake or bay. Tonight, as the sunset washed the sky behind a bunch of houses and trees to our west a faded pink, we bid the first farewell of our vacation. My mom has a 6 AM flight in the morning, and so she left to stay with some friends who live closer to the airport. After yet another perfect day at the beach, some late afternoon Wii Karaoke, and a great dinner of crab cakes, homemade slaw, and salads (it pays to have high-end leftovers), there were tears-- as there always are when our family parts-- and the gray light of the dusky evening seemed to reinforce the undeniable fact that all that was left of our vacation was the packing up and getting out of the rental place by 10 AM.

A week ago I mourned the passing of another school year, despite the happy prospect of summer vacation, and tonight I'm sorry to see this time with my family end, although I look forward to the pleasures of summer at home. How lucky I am to have so much of value in my life that I can't even choose what I would love best.

Seaside 6: Death Does Not Take a Holiday

I remember the day that Elvis died. Our neighbor, Lisa Marie, who had been named for his daughter, cut through the hedge that separated our yards and appeared at the back door all dressed in black. Even aside from that spectacle, at 15, I was aware enough to get it that something big had happened, but honestly? The guy was my dad's age, and that seemed old enough to die at the time.

Ten years later, when my father did indeed die, here at the beach, after a long illness, 52 years seemed like an awfully short life, and any doubt I may have ever had about that steadily erodes with every passing year that brings me closer to that age.

This week while we've been on vacation, we've received word of the deaths of three celebrities. These days, I'm not a person who pays a lot of attention to celebrity news, but the passing of Ed McMahon and the seriousness of Farrah Fawcett's illness made their way into our meal time conversations. The shock of Michael Jackson's death today at 50 is in another category altogether. The mostly 40-something adults in our group grew up with little Michael and the Jackson Five, Thriller, and moonwalking, and although we weren't really fans, he was an icon of our generation.

In later years, his unhappiness and the strange choices he made seemed to eclipse his accomplishments; in fact, his name was like a universal punchline to my students-- it never failed to elicit a snicker or a giggle-- but I guess it all contributed to the "legend." Even so, I have to wonder if my teenaged nephews will recall his passing at all.

I, on the other hand, would like to revise my own reaction to the death of the King as well as go on the record about the death of his son-in-law, the King of Pop: those guys were way too young to go.

Seaside 5: Daily Devotion

Or... If You Lived Here, You'd be Home

What do you do every single day? My list is not extensive, but it was on my mind as I closed the door to my room in our vacation rental house so that I could write a blog entry. I brush my teeth and shower every day, too, and drink coffee in the morning, but that's about it.

When you're on vacation, it seems natural to think about what your life might be like if you lived in this place instead of just visiting for a week. You walk the beach or sit on the deck enjoying the view and think how wonderful it would be to do this every day. On the flip side, I'm notorious for packing too much whenever I travel, especially if it's a road trip. I just know I can fit all the comforts of home in the back of my station wagon, because you never know, I might need that.

This trip is a little different, because it involves trying to feel at home in a place that actually was my home once. (Minus the ocean view-- when I lived here before, I had to walk two blocks to get to the beach.) After twenty years, the waves and the wind seemed to have scrubbed the town clean for me-- no ghost crabs of the past have scuttled across my path. This week has helped me realize that whether I'm home or on vacation here or somewhere else, it's not the place that makes your life what it is, but rather the other way around.

Seaside 4: Sunscreen Gets in Your Eyes

When we lived down here before, we used to go chicken-neck crabbing all the time. A roll of twine, some stinky chicken, a bucket, and a net would provide an afternoon of entertainment and a good dinner, too. This area has been really built-up in the last twenty years, and even though we're staying way out of town, down the beach and well south of the tourist area, in only 15 minutes you can drive to a brand new Walmart where until recently there was only farm and field. That's where I went today to get the stuff I needed to go crabbing.

The place I live now is too urban for Walmart-- there's no space to build those gigantic stores, so when I walked into the Supercenter today it was like entering a kind of 21st century consumerista village. Tucked into one small corner was a full-sized grocery store; then there was a Subway, a nail salon, a bank, not to mention a huge store with anything else in the world. There was no denying that the gatherer in me was seduced by the bright white availability of so much stuff at such a reasonable price, and gleefully I filled my cart with a bubble wand, three pounds of bacon, and five dollar bath towels, in addition to the items on my list.

As I continued on through the place, though, I started feeling guilty about my feedlot pork and cheap imported goods, and I imagined myself putting everything back and then commandeering the PA system and speaking out against this consuming consumerism, but then I pictured the townsfolk heading over to the garden department and coming after me with pitchforks, and everything really was a good deal, so, shamefaced and silent, I pushed my cart of excess to the car.

And we didn't catch a single crab.

Seaside 3: I Love an Ocean

Today my nephew and I were sitting in the surf. He's almost four and has a healthy respect for the sea; in fact, he's terrified of it, so we were way up at the waterline where the waves could just reach us. I don't usually sit at all at the beach, and I'm not one to sunbathe or nap, either. I like to swim, or beach comb, or play frisbee or catch, or build things in the sand, but sitting still, not so much. Still, there we were, the outgoing tide carving little gullies beneath our heels and butts, and looking around, I noticed that we were surrounded by hundreds of tiny little clams about the size of a baby's fingernail. They were translucent shades of white, orange or blue with the finest of stripes and subtle variations in color. When the water left them temporarily high and dry, they would each extend a teeny, nearly transparent, fleshy foot to flip themselves vertical and then disappear beneath the sand in a blink. Enchanted, I showed my nephew, and we watched them together for a while. I picked a couple up and put them in some sand in his hand, and they buried themselves there. "Isn't that cool?" I asked him.

He nodded. "I love an ocean," he sighed.