A Memorial Day

On my way to swim this morning, later than usual because of the pool’s holiday hours, the first drops fell on this Memorial Day, and have fallen pretty much since.  I’m watching it as I write, and noting that the soft, soaking rain may not quite get everywhere.  Now that the trees have ripened with leaves, even a hard rain doesn’t reach under some plots, including the far slope (my gardening nemesis) where I’ve newly transplanted some variegated vinca I found sprouting in a back corner of my lot that I rarely bother with.  You can imagine how contrary it felt to be out in my raincoat watering the newcomers while it rained.

The birds, sans rain gear, are busy, darting from tree to tree, nesting and feeding.  Last night, I saw the first fireflies, so both the weekend and nature are in sync for once.

Rain or not, we’re looking forward to this evening’s neighborhood picnic at Cathy and Steve’s.  My shrimp salad is in the frig, as is the iced tea I promised.  C and S are as ready as you can be in such weather…a tarp hung across the back deck and stations for drinks and food (there are a lot of really good cooks among us) set safely in their great room, through the screen door. The thing about their open houses is that details matter...the lighting adjusted, the garden clipped and spruced, the weather considered...even the color of the forks in a particular holder.

Since Christmas, tiny lights have been strung across the ceiling, and at five o’clock exactly will reflect on the windows as if they’ve simply crawled outside and draped themselves across the yard, too.  The neighborhood children will have to make do with muddy clothes; they won’t want to stay in when there are climbing forts, slide and zip line to entertain them...Steve's idea of the perfect back yard for the young.  I doubt that any of the neighbors will think the rain a deterrent.  Cathy and Steve know how to do a party.

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Memorial weekend means summer has arrived, so I’m making lists for what's become our annual June trip to the shore, gathering things for a few weeks there.  ETD is still 10 days away, but at least three times a day, my uncle will ask, So we’ll be leaving soon for the shore?  Partly because he’s a closer by nature (events once spoken need to happen now), and partly because the shore is the one place he still has left of his life with my aunt, he’s anxious to be on our way.  Just before lunch today, in fact, he asked, as if to confirm a certainty, whether we’d leave this evening.  I reminded him of tonight’s picnic, but instead of being puzzled, he simply nodded, accepting the overlay his memory routinely performs these days.  We are going to walk across the street for the picnic, but in his mind we might as well be on our way to the shore.  Memorial Day, indeed.

I can’t blame him; I’m looking forward to it, too.  As usual, the whole time we’re in residence, people will be dropping in to visit or stay.  It’s the way the house has always been.  The thing about the shore is:  you arrive, and everyone else piles in, by invitation or spontaneity.  Let’s take a ride down to Lavallette, someone says, and soon they are at the door, often with a box of our favorite pastries or a basket of corn or tomatoes.  It’s one of the pleasures of settling in to that place of gathering, no one on a schedule, everyone there for the pleasure of it and the chance to relax together.  

The other pleasures?  You’ve heard them before, and not only from me:  the sound of the ocean at night, and the sun rising up into the window in the morning.  An early (or late) walk along the boardwalk or sand, the ease of everything one needs pretty much in walking distance...and needs there are few.  The voices of people passing on their way to the beach, of children shouting, of the lifeguards' whistles.  A house where the sameness of life over the last 70 years, whatever other change generations (or hurricanes) bring, is a deep breath.  It’s what my mother used to call Easy in, Easy out.  It's no different than others' pleasures at a beach home, a mountain home, a lakeside or desert retreat.  But this one is ours.  

People are kind to wish us good weather, but, frankly, it hardly matters.  I’m taking a pile of things to read (there’s always the library a few blocks down), some needlework, and my paints, this year for me and for Alexander.  And my raincoat.  You can walk in the rain there.  Take the kids to the 5 & 10 for a new game or puzzle.  Go for ice cream.  Play ten games of ace-picks-all or gin rummy.

Or sit at the window and imagine the churn of the waves speaking poems to you.

If this sounds a bit too ideal to be true, you’re right to cast some salt on it…the truth is, it’s mostly like that in reality, given an entanglement or two, but since we haven’t actually arrived there yet, my anticipation of the truth of summer is doing the talking. You know how that goes...or if you don't, perhaps you'd like to meet us there and find out for yourself.