ESPrit de Corps

My journey includes three tide pools, a sneak naked swim at Forty Steps Beach, a long gaze at Egg rock and finally several hours in the hidden upstairs stacks of the town library. I’m in the private exhilaration that comes with successfully sneaking past the librarian, hiding myself upstairs with the glass (yes glass) floors where technically children are not allowed without a grown up. My days are long and stretched out paths that avoid contact with as many people as is possible living on one square mile. I love and hate being a part of these people by virtue of our close proximity and way of life on this rock.

“The First Chakra: Tribal Power.”

“The first chakra grounds us. It is our connection to traditional familial beliefs that support the formation of identity and a sense of belonging to a group of people or a geographic location.”

-Caroline Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit

I am alone in a world of books with fabulous lighting and that soothing library smell. It is here I can find and create more secrets about the people of our town. The historic document signed by many prominent citizens swearing to the sighting of a sea serpent! Scalps behind glass…why? The blankets given for a town. Stuffed birds, ancient vessels. The panoramic shots of an entire summering population in paradise. I understand the voices in those rocks, the healing virtues of the salt air just as those first townies did. The five o’ clock whistle startles me into my final descent to Sunset Hill and that nightly event called dinner.

Back home I step into the sounds of Ray Price on the Grundig and notice my mother has begun to paint a very large blue tree climbing up the walls of the stairway. She is in the kitchen enjoying the late afternoon light, her view of the sea and a chilled martini up with 3 olives. According to cocktail lore the three olives represent health, love and wealth. Grown ups are so lucky. She is singing “Please release me let me go…” with her distinct melodic alto. Dinner is almost ready.

Saute onions garlic and apples

Add cubes of pork until done

Serve with baked apples and Jell-O salad.

Salad: Strawberry Jell-O with mixed fruit added

Buy large cut fruit in can

Blue cheese dressing is great on it!

-Written in permanent marker on the back of a cutting board filled with all gross recipes from Mom who was a notoriously bizarre cook. She painted a big pink rose on the front making the cutting board unusable except as decoration

Once home my big job is to make Mom’s second martini. She is in awe of my early gift for bartending and often brags to friends: how I never bruise the gin…my artful handling of the twist. We all believe that my innate understanding of the perfect martini will result in some outstanding future.

“Regardless of the “truth” of familial beliefs, every one of them directs a measure of our energy into an act of creation.”

-Blanche McCrary Boyd, The redneck Way of Knowledge