Tranquil summer. Given that today is my day off, and that from the moment I clocked out at 11:30 last night I clung to a conviction that I would not, no matter what, answer the phone if either manager called desperately for extra help, I woke up in quite the chipper mood.
Sunday mornings in the harbor mean church followed by breakfast at one of the downtown favorites. I skipped church (shorry) but my ever-merciful grandparents came back to get me for my favorite meal after the nine o’clock. We ate at the Ebb Tide, a tiny diner-type with the best damn baked goods you’ll ever eat. One vegetable omelette, one glass of peach juice (PEACH. JUICE.), one grilled blueberry muffin and bottomless coffee later, I lumbered out of the wooden booth and into eighty degrees of Atlantic sunshine.
Turns out there’s no finer way to work off a Sunday breakfast than to spend the hours between 11 and 1 on the porch with the New York Times Sunday edition (paper copy, I love my lyf). Just about every inch of that paper was dedicated to today’s legalization of same sex marriage in the state of New York (yayaya!), but my personal favorite article of the day covered the merits of taxing soda and other junk food. We’re currently shelling out 1.66 billion dollars in healthcare for obesity. Fun fact. I also read about http://www.americanselect.com. Look it up.
[I will mention that, for the summer, “on the porch” indicates that I was enjoying some piece of cushioned, green wicker furniture and looking across the street to the ocean.]
When I had taken in all the knowledge my halcyon summer brain could handle, I grabbed Eiger Dreams and the infamous baja blanket (who, I might add, has now traveled to both coasts with me, a feat that has lent it a sort of anthropomorphic quality that may well merit a name to be given to the dear thing shortly) and strode to the rocks.
Since age 2 (with varying degrees of supervision throughout the years), “to the rocks” has always meant the same thing. It’s about 100 feet from the steps of the porch to tread down the hot asphalt driveway, carefully cross Grandview Ave, and push your body as tenderly as possible in between the giant rose bushes growing on the other side (today I had two thorns lodged in my left heel, but if you’re wearing shoes, you’re a sissy). Anyone who’s been to the rockier side of the Atlantic coast knows that it’s a bit of maneuvering to traverse the boulders, but it’s a game. Like amped up Hot Lava without the playground, add slippery seaweed and barnacles that present a slim, though present, possibility of death.
I got about five minutes into my reading before hearing, “Get off our rock!” Without taking my eyes off the page, I responded, “Hi Casey” to the neighbor girl and her brother, Matthew. I quickly set Krakauer to the side though, because the presence of a 7 and 9 year old is never conducive to summer reading progress.
Thus I spent my afternoon reliving my childhood in a place that daily reeks of nostalgia. Taking advantage of low tide, we meticulously peeled back seaweed to search for mussels, at the same time overturning rocks in hopes that we might be greeted by crabs, not caring that our noses were getting burnt. There’s an animalistic excitement in the hunt, and so much nostalgia of sibling adventures that have taken place on the same rocks and tidepools. I felt just like a nine-year old, except that I was wearing a dress and the real nine-year old Gretchen would have been having none of that.
Once an adequate amount of mussels had been gathered (necessary numbers determined by Matthew), we retreated to the top of the huge granite slab that defines the landscape across from our houses (it bears a significant, though downscaled, resemblance to Pride Rock [not the apartment]). Casey and Matthew had each found what each deemed to be a suitably heavy rock, and one by one made each mussel a sort of oceanside sacrifice. When the tiny shellfish were torn from their shells, they were added to the growing pile of bait in a small, metal, semi-holy minnow trap.
Within the hour, after having been skillfully tossed into the waves by Matthew, the trap had yielded four live fish and one sort-of alive. We were ecstatic, all of us, and danced around the trap like pagans of old. The fish were relocated to a sterile white bucket labeled “Casey’s Treasures” and, after serious deliberation, were named Zipper, Zippette, Zippy, and Mister Zipster (“because we need to have a parent figure in there, you know?”).
Everything about the hours spent on the rocks were definitively, purely Maine, and if you’ve never experienced something like it, then I hope you had the equivalent. This is what Jay and I did every summer for ten years. That and build a giant cross out of driftwood once. And swing beached lobster buoys around in circles for fun.
marginalia 