Previous month:
July 2008
Next month:
September 2008

The Space Between

P1030600


Sometimes, you have to make a little space for yourself, even in the midst of vacation.

Sometimes, especially in the midst of vacation.

Today was a transition day, as The Princess and The Boyfriend left and we moved from the house to a motel for the last 3 days.

It is cloudy and sprinkling and dudes, I have had The Worst Sinus Headache In the World since Thursday night.

Today, I took matters into my own hands and went to CVS where I dared to purchase REAL Sudafed and had to hand over my license, Mr. Pom's license, our wedding certificate, and The Teen before we could purchase the drug, which apparently, is bought in bulk by mad meth housewives and is the  most pressing drug abuse problem in the country thus necessitating that it be held behind the pharmacy counter and applied for like a gun permit.

But with two of the almost illegal substances and two Aleve, a drug that I am NOT allowed to use since I had gastric bypass surgery, my head has begun to clear and I no longer feel like I have a knife in my forehead and a hundred jalapeno peppers in my stomach.

Imagine, if you will, having your husband delay his vacation by 4 days, go through the stress of his elderly mother have her fractured hip repaired, run an infection, be comatose for 4 days, have her transfer to a rehab cancelled then put back on again, and escape by the skin of his teeth, and then see how much he wants to nurse his sick wife.

Not that I'm complaining.

So we are enjoying the overcast skies, hanging out at the coffeeshop, and surfing the Internet for Labs up for adoption.

Sigh.

Yes, it's true.

Either we get one (and they've already named it) or The Teen is going to lose her mind. And the way I look at it, as a 16 going on 17 year old girl, she could be obsessed about a lot worse things than a dog.

Or, I will have to bribe someone to tell me where all these Cape Labs are coming from. I think there is some mystery breeder who hands them out when you cross the bridge.

So, today we are kicking back, fantasizing about owning our own home here, complete with Labs (one black, one white), a Jeep Wrangler, two surfboards (for the dogs?) and apparently, an independent source of wealth.

Or I could just sell ads on my blog, like Dooce.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

Now I just have to find a way to increase my 250 readers to 250,000.

Spread the word! Tell your friends!

Contribute to the Move the Poms to the Cape button on the sidebar!




Gotcha!



Doing Our Best Kennedy Compound Imitation.

Mr. Pom saw Granny Pom safely into the rehab center, went home and packed his bags,and drove up to the Cape, arriving at midnight.

Lordie, does the man snore when he's exhausted!

Today, we had breakfast together at our new fave coffee shop, walked on the bay, and then got the girls up and out to Nauset Beach, where Mr. Pom partook of fried clams and the infamous onion rings.

Me, I slept on the beach and then we went for a long walk up to where the cars go off-road along the surf.

Dinner followed at the Cape's only barbecue joint. (Mr. Pom has no competition for his pulled pork from this place!)

I leave you with a few shots of Pomegranate fun in the sun and will see you all on a regular basis in a few days!



P1030491

P1030492

P1030490


From Water's Edge

P1030500

The light on the Cape is completely different this visit than it was a month ago. I never tire of coming here because each visit is different from the last

July's visit was truly summery: hot, humid, thunder showers followed by more heat. We were in and out of the water, the pools, and felt the power of the sun even during my early morning solitary treks to the bay.

Late August, the sun is golden and thick and we cast long shadows right after noon. The rose of sharons are heavy with flower but the they wear skirts of fallen petals down around their ankles.  The lilacs are dusty with  mildew and the rosa rugosa proffer a buffet of shimmering persimmons-red hips.

The bittersweet end of summer matches my mood. I am here with the girls and in close contact with Mr. Pom. He calls frequently, sometimes relaxed in the morning as he putters round the house; other times annoyed as he tends bedside not just to his mom but to her roommate, an 89 year old Italian lady who applies all her pretty make up and wears a nice bedjacket, but thinks the telephone is the remote control for the TV.

Granny Pom was to be transferred to the rehab nursing home yesterday and Mr. Pom was figuring on coming up here late today, but after waiting all day for the ambulance transport, it arrived just a second before the attending decided that her blood count was still too low and she had to stay another day.

At that point, her roommate knocked over her pitcher of water and ice. Mr. Pom left soon thereafter to knock over a few bottles of beer. I knocked back a few glasses of wine.

There will be no deep relaxation on this trip!

But we have enjoyed being with our Albany cousins, who are leaving today, along with my aunt and uncle who came to see their grandkids and us.

We see each other rarely, so it is a shock to see pudgy, baby B. as the consummate skim boarder with his shock of blonde hair. His big sister, T, is all wide eyes and shy smile and gives me a dime as my toll as they all pass through my bedroom, which connects the cottage to the addition where they are lodging.

P1030489

W'd like to have them stay the week, but they unexpectedly were able to buy their own summer house, way up on the St. Lawrence and as there is only one handful of summer,  they are driving up there for the weekend.

P1030483

And last, but not least, The Empress had a birthday yesterday - she is 84 years old!  We miss her and wish we could have brought her here, though I suspect that this house is a little too much of a "camp" for her expectations. She had dinner with my other sisters and I spoke to her midday and she was in fine spirits.

Missing Mr. Pom and a little out of sorts this chilly, sunny Wednesday morning.


Miracle Sunday

I am so happy to spread the news that Granny Pom is sitting up in bed, talking with friends,and eating lunch!

The change is indeed miraculous and I thank you all for your prayers!

She is still very weak and frail and the big hurdle of getting her out of bed and on the new hip is still ahead of her.

But I can't tell you how shocked we all are, how the hospital personnel keep coming in to talk with her, and how wonderful it is to see her smile at all of us.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!


P1030315

"Picnics-on-the-beach is the one area of an otherwise discordant marriage where our parents are in harmonious, if tacit, agreement. To be out of the house, out-of-doors, to be sitting on the sand, or on smooth rocks, with the sounds of the sea making unnecessary any attempt at conversation, this has for them, it would seem, a significance of almost religious intensity, notwithstanding the acrimonious preparations always attendant on the these regular family outings. The truth of the matter, is our beach-picnics have a far greater importance for us than simply the eating of meals outside: they are a form of salvation for our mother and father, and so, by association for their children."


The Great Western Beach by Emma Smith


I grin with delight when I read this passage, alone here on the porch, having already partaken of too much caffeine, nerves all jangly.

I am feeling sorry for myself and wishing I was anywhere but here, on my lovely porch, in the stillness of Sunday morning, with the church bells ringing.

My mind is on the girls, knowing that if I were at the Cape, I'd been poking them and nagging them to get up: we're wasting a beach morning!

And then I'd get fed up and take my car to the bay where I would sit and read until they called: where are you/come get us??

Or we'd be at the ocean here in New York, smug that we'd already been there an hour as the stay-abeds march down the boardwalk and look for a place to lay their blankets.

We are rarely ever in bad moods on the beach. The children are old enough that they (rarely) squabble or fight over toys.  We all disappear into our own beach worlds of books and newspapers and Ipods and sleeping and skim boarding. We reconnect verbally when it's time to eat (some things never change despite the location).

The sun warms up our benefice towards each other. Our largesse expands in direct proportion to its rays. We are all better individuals and better family members on the beach. We stand next to each in the surfline. We gather shells and show them to each other. We pass around the sunblock. We move chairs to let us all fit under the umbrella. We carry back cokes and sandwiches from the stand. We help carry belongings so no one of us feels like a pack mule. We share bottles of water. We help protect our spit of sand from encroaching blankets. And we always thank Mr. Pom for getting us back and forth safely once again.

I never thought of it in this way until I read Smith's remembrances of her own childhood beach forays, a continent, an ocean, and three-quarters of a century away.

We really do live our best lives on the water's edge.


Double Vision

P1020401

These are the times when we wish for 20/20 vision into the future so we are assured that our choices are correct. However, we are just fallible human beings, making our way in a murky world muddied by disease, unexpected circumstances, and the vagaries of health care.

Granny Pom is not doing well. She has an undiagnosed infection and her transfer to the rehab center has been indefinitely postponed. She has aged 20 more years in this short week and we feel helpless as our questions go unanswered and her condition deteriorates each day.

Today was supposed to be the first day of our vacation. We have rented a house with my cousins and should be on the beach right now. Mr. Pom and MM had tickets for a couple of Yankee games in Baltimore, their father/son fling before school starts this Monday.

The girls went up to the Cape and I was happy that they would be with my cousins as I know they'll have a good time and feel safe with all of them there. I kicked Mr. Pom and MM in the car and sent them on their way to Baltimore. Whether they stay for both days is an hour to hour decision, but Mr. Pom desperately needs a vacation and hearing his voice after they had eaten a dozen crabs each made me sure I made the right decision.

Right now it is a waiting game. Seems it takes over 24 hours and 5 doctors for anyone to diagnose whether the infiltration in her lungs is a pneumonia and it being the weekend, all the other myriad of tests have not been finished. I feel helpless as I squirt apple juice in her mouth as she is barely able to sip. Rotating doctors think she is an old, senile woman who fell in a nursing home and we keep reiterating to them all that a week ago, she lived alone and spent her evenings playing cards and bingo.

We'll see how she is tonight before I decide what to do. I spent the morning in a fit of energy cutting down and pruning the ugly evergreens and overgrown bushes around the house. It is cool and the light has decidedly turned autumnal while I was otherwise engaged. It is a night for candles and shawls on the porch with the teapot warmed up and a book to read.




Last Saturday, Years Ago

Was it just this Satuday that the girls and I went into the city and had a beautiful lunch in a beautiful restaurant on a beautiful, sunny day?

P1020371

We needed a little mother/daughter bonding and I hadn't been in the city for ages, so off we went, leaving Mr. Pom to rest his back and MM still bringing his stuff back to college.

We are just such suburban chicks. We drive everywhere and think nothing of driving in Manhattan.

Until it takes us twenty minutes to get into Manhattan and another forty minutes to travel 10 cross town blocks when we come to a screeching freaking traffic jam halt for some crazy street festival which featured cheap plastic jewelry, cheap plastic sunglasses, cheap scarves, and corn grilling on the cob (which smelled amazingly like pot and the girls were all like how do you know what pot smells like mom and I'm all like I went to high school and college and they're all like oh yeah sure that's how you know, right).

Anyhoo.

I was We   were so exhausted and uptight about the drive that I needed immediate sustenance and we ate at Blue Water Grill right across the street from Union Square. I could show you a gorgeous photo of the my girls and I but that would have involved asking a stranger to take our photo on the terrace and the girls said they would splatter my newly highlighted roots with ketchup.

They do not share my creed: All for the blog!

And yet, they complain when I feature MM too much....

P1020365
Are they not the most precious thangs??

The one on the right - she's a little loco today. After I returned from 2 hours with Granny POM in the hospital yesterday, I turned right around because The Teen got kicked in the head in the camp pool and they thought she had a concussion.

If only I had my own reality show, they would have shown Mrs. Pom chasing down sweet cousin S who had The Teen in her car, intercepting her at sister #4's house, and then careening through the streets of our city, cutting off buses and almost mowing down pedestrians, as The Teen grabbed her head in pain and said she had no peripheral vision and was nauseated.

If I couldn't find an ER parking space, I was prepared to grab the two ambulance EMT guys who were sitting on the bumper of their rig and get them to do an emergency drilling into her skull to relieve the pressure from her brain that I was sure was swelling up and I'd already seen that blonde chick on Gray's Anatomy do it in an auto accident and but for a drill, we were good.

Anyhoo.

No concussion, just a sort of whiplash injury. Today she is going in for her last day as a counselor. Tips, reader, today it Tip Day. We don't wanna miss that!

P1020370
This photo was taken as I was waiting for my Bloody Mary and if I'd known the week we were going to have, I would have ordered 4.

P1020372
The Teen was distracted at lunch and kept taking photos of across the street. I thought she was shooting cute guys, as I know her sister The Princess would have been.

But no, her focus was on this:

P1020374
Bloody labs! They've taken over the pet kingdom and now I want one, too!


P1020379
This, however, is as close to a pet as we are getting for the foreseeable future.

If only they all tasted so good!


Your Kindness

P1030375

Your messages and prayers did so much to lift our spirits and keep us hopeful. Mrs. Pom-In-Law did not have the hip replacement surgery until Tuesday evening due to various issues, mainly hospitals that can't get themselves together and too many doctors  to stir the pot.

The surgery went very well, but she is extremely frail and weak and has other serious health issues and we are still in the early stages of her recovery.

Mr. Pom is worn to a frazzle - only children have it very hard during these crises - and we are trying to come up with a plan to rescue our vacation next week so he can get some much needed r & r.

Love to you all,

the Poms


Prayer Request

Our quiet Sunday was shattered by the news that Mr. Pom's mom had fallen and fractured her hip. She was on the floor of her apartment from 6:00 Saturday night until someone found her at 9:00 Sunday morning.

She is waiting for surgery right now and we are all praying for a successful outcome and quick rehabilitation.


Stillness of a Sunday Morning

P1030430

Mr. Pom and I decided not to make today a beach day. We both feel the pull of wanting to be home. We are centering, pulling back, and absorbing the coming of the end of summer.

This is our last "normal" summer weekend as we will be away next weekend and then returning the next. MM is off at school, lugging up his clothes, amps, bass, guitar, refrigerator and who knows what else. He will be back today, but I already feel the loss of his presence in the house like an ache.

Despite the fact that we don't have to rise early for the beach, I am up with the birds and out on the porch where it is a chilly 65 degrees. The Canadian geese are flying overhead and their raucous honking is a sign of summer's fleeting moments.  A fat, red cardinal tweets at me from the fence and hops around for my attention. I tell him that the birdbath is full and he can't possibly need any seeds since everything is in full bloom.

P1030419

This is my quiet time to frame the day in my head before anyone else is up. Mr. Pom is sleeping and soon the girls will rise as they are going to the beach together. We will lure them back early with something wonderful that Mr. Pom is going to grill. We don't know what that is yet, but I heard rumblings about fish and I have a turkey I've been wanting to smoke.

I am on the cusp of a new art project, having been greatly inspired by this blog. It has gotten into my head and is keeping me up at night, and you'll find me frantically pulling fabric from my stash at midnight.


1VNP


I am also reading this book and the writing is so  exquisite that I am never going to finish it because after each paragraph, I fling it down and pull out my journal and write pages in response.

As I sit on the porch this morning, my new yellow Indian scarf across my shoulder, and watch the shadows of the leaves  dance across the newly painted yellow clapboard, I have the book on one side of the ottoman and the fabric on the other. In the middle is my oversized inspiration journal, my feet resting on it as if to weigh it down before it floats away.

Do you find yourself in the same woods? Do the projects arise unbidden in front of you, the source sometimes startling clear, other times as obscure as the beach rolled with fog? Are you busy with too many ideas, too many thoughts and sighs and what if's that send your mind racing but paralyze your hands?

Years ago, I would  have bewailed this conflicting yin and yang of projects: should I write or should I sew? Now I recognize it as the very essence of creativity. One seed plants another. And another. And another, until I have a forest in front of me.

The discernment is in flipping the old chestnut on its head:  seeing the trees instead of letting the forest overwhelm me and send me running away.

So I am staying home to sew a little, write a little, proffer canteloupe and proscuitto to Mr. Pom, gather up MM's dirty laundry (maybe a summer's worth), and even do a little office work.


Weather - Or Not

I like to do a little something special on Friday nights - but last night was a little too much excitement after a long, busy week of overtime.

As I prepared to grill some chicken on skewers and portobello mushrooms, my family insisted on dragging me into the living room to see this:

P1030465

Hmm - perhaps it wasn't such a good night to be grilling.....oops - is that lightening bolt in the front yard??


Soon the sound of a machine gun hitting my air conditioner in the dining room filled the room and we all ran outside to see the hail.

P1030453


Several crazy people (Mr. Pom/MM) were on the front porch shrieking in delight at the lightening bolt and calling our attention to a massive area in the sky that showed dark, rotating clouds with lightening. Soon, everyone was humming the music from the Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch is riding her bike.....


The Teen and I scurried to the basement. While there, we had an opportunity to check out the contents of our "emergency provisions", packed away since Katrina. (Note: for new readers: we live outside NYC; but you never know when a levee may break here....) We discovered that our emergency provisions consisted of a box of matches, some candles, expired containers of applesauce, some Kool Aid juice packs, and a few water bottles that the Teen had been raiding over the years. And about 10 cans of beans.   Beans?

After the storm, we opened the porch doors and the aroma of pine resin filled the air. We thought a pine tree by the cemetery had been hit. Then The Princess, who was safely upcounty, texted us that the high school had been hit by lightening. We realized that the smell was smoke and all of us jumped in the car.


Here's what it normally looks like:

IMG_0591

The tower you see on the left is what got hit. The tower peeking out on the far right was hit by lightening over a year ago and still is not fully repaired. The entire high school burned to the ground in 1968 when an arsonist set fire to it. Mr. Pom spent most of his high school years going to classes in trailers in the parking lot and split sessions. The fire last night brought back a lot of memories for him. As for me, I was in...nursery school?? and so don't really recall it.


P1030478_2

P1030472

The fire was put out before it spread to the classrooms, but I'm sure there's quite a mess of water and smoke damage. Some of us are very concerned (read: parents); some of us (read The Teen) are quite excited that school may not open on time in two weeks.

Ha!


List Friday 2 Days Early Because It's My List and I Can Do What I Want: The Summer Bucket List

P1030343

This summer has all been about releasing my inner mermaid.

Mr. Pom and I are diligent in our responsibility to each other to force the other to relax and soak up summer.

I'm tired. Mr. Pom is tired. We're both dealing with some health issues. I spent the day having some tests for a mysterious attack of abdominal pain; he's having an epidural injection for the blasted lumbar pain on Friday.

Here's a sobering fact:

there is one weekend before we go away and then, when we come back, school starts in 4 days.

That means that we hold in our hands just one more precious, unfettered summer weekend.

Here's our bucket list for the rest of this summer:

  • candles lit and dragonfly lights plugged in and sitting on the porch every night until 10:00. 
  • tailgate breakfast at Gilgo Beach complete with propane stove and Mr. Pom's famous omelettes.
  • a family barbecue replete with a multitudinous array of grilled thingies before MM goes back to school.
  • a sister and nieces night on the porch when A. gets back from California.
  • taking The Empress to Wave Hill for Sunday lunch.
  • a few more dockside suppers at Dudley's until it closes for the season.
  • One trip to Playland - I need the smell of salt water, creosote, and cotton candy or it just isn't a summer.
  • a Cape Cod week where no one is sick and no one stresses out bout nothing!
  • going to one stinking outdoor concert! Anywhere! Before Labor Day!
  • managing to get into the city ONCE - who would believe we live 25 minutes away and haven't been there in oh, months??
  • finishing all the books on my night table (big haha to that one)
  • lastly, actually going in the water at the ocean, up to my neck and floating......



I


A Perfect Summer Weekend

I firmly believe that summer weekends should be as unstructured as possible. I think each morning should begin with breakfast al fresco and the rest of the day should only take form on an hour to hour basis, allowing it to meander and finally soar like a kite on a string.

51TgOB8-W0L._SL500_AA240_

The weekend began with my finishing The House At Riverton by Kate Morton. It was a fine example of English country house between-the-wars storytelling. Its strength lay in its cast of characters, a marvelous and witty ensemble of upstairs/downstairs and the voyeurism that was inherent but so astutely ignored by the upper class. The plot was strained and took a very long time to gel with much foreshadowing and flashbacks, but in the end, the twists were tautly twined and held my suspense.  I will be passing it onto The Empress, whom I am sure will enjoy it.

Saturday turned into a beach day, with the usual 6:15 wake up call by Mr. Pom and the long ride out to the beach as the sky turned blue.

P1020984

Sister #5 called Friday night to tell us they were planning to go to the beach too, so we arranged to meet. The Teen had to be cajoled out of bed, but it was such a beautiful day that we stayed from 8 a.m. until 6 at night, and even convinced Mr. Pom and my brother in law to drive into town and pick up pizzas.  The Princess and her friend was at an adjoining beach and  eventually we all caught up  in the late afternoon and shared pizza. When we were ready to go, The Teen kissed me and thanked me for waking her up. That's what I do. I'm The Mom.

After a 10 hours at the beach, we all moved slowly today. Mr. Pom and I managed to go to the diner for eggs and then  zoned out, me with my laptop and he with the Olympics.  I was so bored, I decided to get a pedicure, the second in my life. It's true. I am not a manny/peddy kind of girl. But after all this beach going, the skin, she is not so pretty, so it was very nice and very decadent to be sitting by myself in a nail salon on a Sunday afternoon and getting a leg massage. I could definitely get used to that.

25brid-600


The weekend ended with sister #2 and me going to see Bridehead Revisited, continuing my summer theme of English country houses between-the- wars. I had started watching the 1982 mini-series when I was on retreat on the Cape in April, but when the trip was cut short, I lost my interest and returned them to Netflix. I jumped at the chance to see this adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel and it did not disappoint cinematically. I thought the complexity of being Roman Catholic in England at that time was not fully realized in the film and I think Jeremy Irons played a much more complex Charles. But in all, it was a satisfying, rich movie in a time when my choices were limited to genres such as Step Brothers.

Ss

I needed a break from the aristocracy, so  I picked up Joshilyn Jackson's The Girl Who Stopped Swimming. A very different subject matter than my current preoccupation as it concerns a woman whose daughter's friend drowns in their swimming pool and her ghost wakes her up so she can find the body.  How can you put a book down after an opening like that?

I'm reeling in the kite. We're all spent and there's still work to do (oh that ball in chain of a briefcase and laptop), bills to pay, and laundry to finish.

Or maybe I'll just lie on this couch and read.

Yeah.


List Friday - What Have You Done to Your Hair??:?

For this humid, hot, and bad hair List Friday - tell us what have you done or have had done to your hair over the years:

  • straightened it with over the counter, horribly smelling products.
  • sprayed in Sun In when I was in 9th grade and had green hair until it grew out.
  • got such a bad haircut in college that I looked like I had a mushroom cap on my head. I wore a bandanna to my after school job and got written up.
  • streaked my hair blonde and got a perm. I could no longer fit my hair through doorways. Can you guess the decade? Yes! The 80's.
  • Convinced myself when we lived in humid Memphis that I could wash my hair without blow-drying it (too hot!) and it would just look "curly" and wore it that way for weeks  until my friend asked me if I wanted to borrow a blow dryer as obviously mine was broken...
  • Had a hair dresser tell me that my hair looked "fried".
  • ironed my hair on the ironing board in my mother's basement. But that I could contort my back and arms in that position now, I'd be a yoga yogi.
  • set it on beer cans (actually juice cans, The Empress would never let us have beer cans)  and slept on them - or tried to sleep on them.
  • used Dippity Do and little hair clips to set spit curls next to my ears. ( I was very young; I have no idea whom I was trying to emulate except maybe a great aunt??)
  • wrapped my hair in toilet paper to sleep at night without mussing it.
  • got up out of the chair and walked out of a hairdresser's when he suggested that I layer my hair to about one inch because my hair was "like a Brillo pad".
  • Have had my hair professionally straightened more times than I can count
  • Am resisting getting the new "keratin" treatment that costs 3 times what regular straightening does, but feel myself wavering.....
  • Colored my hair twice in one day because the "chestnut brown" turned "Auntie Gussie" black (see reference to great aunt above).
  • While it wasn't my hair,  tried to put streaks in The Princess's hair and had to make an emergency, very expensive, same day appointment with the first salon I could get on the phone to redo my attempt, which had made her hair look like it white lane markings rolled on it.  
  • Spent thousands of dollars over the years on layered hair cuts, curling irons, round brushes, spray-ins, after shampoo conditioners, gels, mousses, hair spray, shampoos, anti-frizz serums, and leave-in conditioners, only to discover in my 40's that if I just let my hair grow to one length, it is a thousand times more manageable.  Who knew?

Wednesday Evening


P1020627

The Teen, The Princess, and I are sitting on the porch, listening to Mystery Man's radio show.  He and his friends do it every Wednesday night from 8 to 10 p.m. Tonight they are interviewing the young woman who used to be their singer when they had a band. Most of the time, they play music, take requests, do comic bits, and just goof around.

He's been ridiculously busy this summer, what with his camp counselor job and his after-hours painting gigs. He and K finished our porch, living room, dining room, and downstairs and upstairs hallway. He and K then painted sister #2's apartment, and this week they painted The Empress's condo.

Yes, you heard right: MM painted The Empress's condo.

The Empress,  Queen of Order and Perfection and MM,  Prince of Great Energy and Heart Who Thrives in Disorder came together for a painting project.

P1020581  

Her condo has wall to wall carpeting. Pistachio green wall to wall carpeting. Where he is painting. The walls and ceiling. White.

Do you hear me?

But The Empress said they did a wonderful job and she has no complaints (at least to me, thank you Lord).

They also fixed her bathroom window, her kitchen cabinet, and changed out all her door knobs. (They weren't Empress quality.) She made them chicken salad and gave them pizza. 

I can't believe this, but he only has two weeks before school starts. He's home this weekend, brings his stuff up to school the weekend after that, and then ends his vacation by going to Baltimore to see The Yankees for a couple of games with Mr. Pom.

I absolutely refuse to talk about the end of summer, but it is fast approaching for MM and we will MISS HIM so much.

This is his last year. I know it'll be a good one!

Please excuse the random pitch of the font; Typepad is having a nervous breakdown.





The Bare Facts



P1030210


Sunday morning, Mr. Pom has me out of bed by 6:15 and on the beach by 7:45. We would have been there at 7:15, but I was tired and cranky and had a bit of a cold and insisted on waiting to the late hour of 7:00 a.m. for Starbucks to open. I may be an early morning mermaid, but give me caffeine or I may punch you very hard in the arm.

We drove to our usual beach, but decided to go all the way to the end to avoid the crowds. It was just the two of us and we were traveling light since we'd planned to leave by noon to go to my nephew's birthday party. When we got out of the car we noticed for the first time a boardwalk that stretch into the dunes and decided to take the half-mile walk to wherever it led.

The dunes were gloriously quiet; birds were chirping and a brown bunny was hiding in a patch of tall grass. We passed a few other early morning walkers and beach goers, many of whom had wagons and carts filled with all sorts of coolers and what looked like tents. I figured if you are going to walk a half mile across the dunes, you won't be doubling back for concession snacks.

After a 10 minute walk, we arrived at a gravel road, then another stretch of boardwalk. We reached the top of the walk and saw the beach as beautiful as ever in the early morning sunlight.

And then we noticed the sign. It began with "Warning" and I assumed it would caution that there were no lifeguards this far out. There weren't any lifeguards - but that's not what the warning was.

"Warning: This is a clothing optional beach".

Say what?

Oh, I'd heard about this little hidden stretch of sand but I thought it was somewhere else entirely.

Mr. Pom and I looked at each other. Now what? Neither of us were interested in shedding our clothes in public but it was a long walk back. The beach was pretty deserted - how bad could it be? We figured there'd be a couple of sunbathers discretely nude on their blankets and we'd just keep our eyes on the sea.

We climbed down the steps and practically walked right into a very tall,  very naked man and his very petite, saggy wife. Mr. Pom appeared faint so I grabbed him by the elbow and steered him directly to the high tide line and placed our chairs straight ahead at the ocean - only!

The Pomegranates admit to being a little flummoxed. We are not quite as hip and edgy as we purport to be. At least not when a very rotund, naked as a jaybird man is bending over with his rear in our face as he digs a hole for his umbrella.

It was not a pretty sight.

But that turned out to be the most interesting part of the beach - there were few pretty people! There were far fewer firm, pretty bodies on the nude beach than there were down the road at the regular beach. The average age was over 40 and men made up 80% of that. There were some really buff young guys - I assume all gay, but really no great looking chicks. Poor Mr. Pom. At least I had something pleasurable to view.  Bottom line, no pun intended, that there is far less voert sexuality than there is  down the beach where scantily clad, tattoed, and pierced bodies cavort.

The nude beach also had an unexpected Desert Island culture. Those tents I thought everyone had turned out to be  windscreens that were unfurled and pounded into the sand to create little rooms so the bathers could have some privacy. Some groups had several they strung together, along with small tents, hammocks, and elaborately dug bunkers that provided more screening. Tall flags were planted outside each compound and some fellows must be regular attendees as there space were marked with short fencing topped with shells - very Gauguin!

But all attempts at privacy were dangling in the breeze when walking along the shore line or swimming, fanny side up. Everyone was so relaxed and seemed to know each other that we, the only clothed people on the beach, felt completely conspicuous. I hate being overdressed.

P1010734

This is how the Poms like to see people dressed on the beach.

But let's face it, the Pomegranates just aren't ready for men and women strolling the surf naked as jay birds.  Mr. Pom in particular could not relax. He held a magazine in front of him for an hour without turning a page. You're talking about a man who locks the bathroom door when he's home alone. Me? I don't even want to look at myself naked, let alone subject anyone else to it!

We gave up when the beach became more crowded and we were soon sitting towel to towel with other people's bare asses.  It was amusing to observe, compare, mentally measure, and repeatedly ask Mr. Pom: am I fatter than she is? Is she bigger than I am?  Of course, I won't go into whether Mr. Pom was asking similar questions, but let's just say that men are certainly more fixated on the lengths....one will go to dig ditches in the sand.

We bagged it about 10:30 and trekked back to the regular beach where we sat amidst the squealing kids,  making out teenagers, and old, dried up married couples like ourselves, all of whom blessedly had clothes on.

There are just some places that aren't meant to be sunburned.


Slack Water

P1030183



Most mornings on the Cape, I am up and out of the house before anyone awakes. I grab my journal bag and my hat and stop for a cappuccino to go on my way to the water. Depending on the weather and my mood, I head for the ocean or the nearby bay. 

The closest you can come to claiming a beach is to arrive at dawn. The beach stretches out empty in all directions, quiet, foggy, still, with only the gulls and the sound of the surf as company. Some mornings, the ocean beaches are cold and wet and windy and stripped of color. There is no definition between water and sky as both merge into a great, grey cotton boll of moisture.   Other mornings, the beach is soft and gentle, with the sun  a rising ball of crimson that blushes all it touches.  The wind is briny and tastes of oysters and the sand is cold and foreign to my feet. Whether raining or blustery or humid or breezy, it is bracing and bouyant and scoured of all human traces.

Bliss distilled.

I know my sisters didn't completely understand this pull I felt to leave my bed while the curls of fog   are still around the tops of the fir trees. I'm afraid they found my disappearance each morning peculiar and anti-social. But it is what I dream of all year: watching the sky lighten, the breeze whistling past my ears, bringing the sounds of buoys and gulls and blessed, blessed silence. 

Sometimes I don't even get of my car for an hour, just sit wordless as the blurry world emerges and I witness  the sky and water cleave apart to form a perfect bowl of blue and reflecting saucer of ocean green. By then, it is amusing to be startled from my solitude by a fisherman walking out of the seagrass with a striped bass as big as his leg and to be reminded that I am not alone in my taste for the raw beginning of the day.  Eventually, I begin to draw and write and when I am done with my own thoughts, I venture out to walk the surfline or onto the tidal flats.


P1030063

The early morning beach is my House of God. It is His majesty in all it's presence. The Father of Spirit, the Mother of Soul, the  elemental Mystery infused in water and sky. It is the mystical Presence bound up in every spray of salt, of every grain of polished sand, of every glint of light across the water, and each spray of foam into the air.


P1030086



I am a better person when I start the day at the edge of the tide, my feet squelching in the primordial sand, wading through water that holds millions of creatures, that feeds and stews and boils and births and cleanses with the gravitational pull twice a day.


P1030100


Treasure and mystery abound in the wrack line. All that the tide leaves behind is mine for the exploring, but I leave most of it in place for the next creature to discover. Perhaps it will become a home to another creature in need and  remain a piece of the collage of the bay.


P1030089


The older I get, the more I need this solitude and it is such a rare treat that I have  to relish in it at the beginning of a day. I crave it like sweet wine to a drunk. Am I developing those eccentricities we observe in the aging; those subtle tics of personality that ripen into knobby growths as fixed as bunions and arthritic joints? Have I become the woman that wanders the beach at dawn, the woman who prefers that sweet slice of the day over any other part?

It is only in that solitude by the water that I feel I am living my authentic life. It is the only time when I know I am in connection with what I am supposed to be doing. It is when my great thoughts come to me, when the creativity arises unbidden, and when I begin to see my way clear of all the flotsam and jetsam that clogs my brain.

So I become  possessed on vacations to immerse myself in that solitude, to soak up the essence of being still, of observing the water and the way it ripples and to become so familiar with the tides that I can feel in my cells the exact moment when there is no pull  between high and low, the slack water,  the exact moment when the tide stands still twice a day before it turns.

When I can start the day this way, I am a better person for it. I will treat you more kindly, be more patient, loving, and giving. I can take you sightseeing, fix you meals, wash your sandy towels, and sit with you elbow to elbow on the beach dotted with umbrellas, and listen to screaming children,  not be able to smell the ocean for the deep fried onion rings, and still be relaxed and smiling.

I can leave my writing back at the house, put away my sketchbook, and not feel the pull to be elsewhere, to be doing other, to feel as though my life is constantly subverted from its true path. I can be all things to you as long as you give me that part of the day to me.

It is in that moment of slack water that I want to live. It is what I seek all year: that moment when no one needs me, when there is nothing else I should be doing, when I don't have to feel guilty, stressed, harried, or frenzied and then, then, I will write and paint.

 I know how easy it is to go out on the ebb tide and how hard it is to wade back against the current. It is impossible to remain  in balance, poised, and complete. Life is either overfull or draining away. Blessings come in abundance or not at all. The tidal flats fill and empty each day without remorse, without regret to the creatures it strands, frantically scrambling to catch up to the water or burrowing into the sand to await its return.

This is who I am:  the woman seeking slack water.