In a few days, we will be opening the cottage for another season...Random Memory #12 ~ Maine
My neighbor, Betsy, wanders over for a companionable chat and we gaze out over the water. Over time trees have fallen along the bank, boats and docks have come and gone and the light is ever changing with the hour and seasons, but the view remains the same. It is impossible to separate one summer from the next and I think that is part of the attraction of Mere Point...to make time stand still.
We catch up on all the news and drama from the previous winter and, after awhile, our conversation turns to theater, a mutual interest. Laughing, we plan a hypothetical play along the lines of "Same Time Next Year" only ours would take place on Mere Point. It would be so easy to stage with folding chairs on the grass and sound effects of gulls overhead and slamming screen doors. We have a wealth of material between us and we mull over possible scenes portraying the passage of time, our many blessings, joys, heartaches and life's unexpected surprises. The time passes, new shadows appear across the lawn as the light shifts through the trees. Soon a child requires a life jacket, a bar-b-que is lighted, a salad needs to be tossed, or perhaps the phone rings. I really don't remember the interruption, although the distractions are predictable. We go inside our separate cottages, doors slamming as our unrealized lines drift away in the summer evening too elusive to recapture on another afternoon.
Years later our play remains unwritten. We don't know how it ends.
Posts
There is a certain comfort in sameness, in making time stand still, in not knowing how it all ends...
ReplyDeleteBWS ~ Yes, there is...and I think even all those years ago, Betsy and I knew we would never write that play.
ReplyDeleteA college friend and I used to refer to memorable moments as BM: book material, for the book we'd write together. As with you and your friend, it remains in oral limbo. However, when those moments so strange that only could appear in fiction really happens, the BM goes off in my head like a neon light on a dark road.
ReplyDeleteI would like to post your story on my Posterous blog with your permission of course.
ReplyDeletehttp://fromaway.posterous.com
home before dark ~ Your insightful comments are always wonderfully expressed ( you could write books and blogs on the art of comments!).... "neon light on a dark road" really resonates, particularly the flicker and sputter (for me I hasten to add!) when I don't pay attention.
ReplyDeleteKirk Martin ~ Thanks for your visit. Your Posterous blog is a lovely compilation of all things Maine from a number of perspectives...please do include my story.
I sometimes wonder what percentage of my ideas I will eventually get around to writing down... not all, by any means! I love theatre, and it's fun thinking of new ways to stage plays.
ReplyDeleteRachel, you've given a lot of thought to your goals and I know you will succeed and then some!
ReplyDeleteLove your blog, Carol! And we might yet write that play if we only had the time! Meanwhile we go through the play called life and we are the actors.
ReplyDeleteBetsy! Thank you! Can't believe you found me...it's hard to write and shoot straight isn't it!
ReplyDelete