It’s quiet as a dream out on the rocks.  The waves waltz gently along the shore, and small slow drops of rain fall in a gentle hiss.  Somewhere in the fog is a channel marker, its deep-throated bell rolling across the water.  During the day, it is loud as color-coordinated families crouch next to tide pools, exclaiming over algae.  Now, everything is painted in shades of dusk.  The wide swaths of granite fold down from the road, swaying gently until they take a sudden turn and sweep into the sea.  I stand on the rocks, in the rain, and suddenly everything makes sense.  There is an order to the way the land juts in ragged lines out into the ocean, an order in the swells of hills across the bay and the brooding currents of the water.  I take deep breaths, close my eyes, and open them again to study the lines of shadow and relief around me.  Everything is calm and still, and balances the part of me that has been in turmoil.  Then I notice that a mosquito has bitten me in the middle of my forehead.  With a sigh of regret, I turn back towards my car.  


          I walk down the Shore Path, hands wrapped close around my cup of hot chocolate.  It tastes like layer cake, and keeps me warm against the fierce southeast wind coming off of the water around the Porcupine Islands.  In a couple of months this place will be overrun by tourists, tiny shuttle boats running back and forth to the towering masses that are the cruise ships.  For now, though, it is empty.  It is a ghost town from November to April, all barren streets and shuttered windows.  A man walks by with his golden retriever, heading in the other direction, and we smile at each other because in the silence we know a secret that the tourists never will.  My ears sting in a gust of wind, and I wrap my fingers more tightly around the hot chocolate.  I decide that my walk will be longer than was originally intended.  


          I’ve heard that Portuguese writers are in love with the ocean.  All of them, a translator of Portuguese poetry once said, have a love affair with the sea.  I think they’re onto something.  


          The sign hanging over the table reads, in faded, once-white letters on a faded, once-black background, “Medomak View.”  It’s a name that belongs to another era, one of wooden yachts and sleek black cars and dinner parties.  This house was built for the ice workers, though, nothing so glamorous as cocktails and tuxedos.  It’s humble and small, and a few years ago had to have its first actual foundation put in because we were afraid it was going to slide into the water.  There’s a place on the rocks where there’s always a puddle, right under the crabapple tree, where my sister and I use to make mud pies and she would tell me I was doing it wrong.  When the tide goes out, it leaves a pool a few feet away from the crabapples, about six inches at its deepest point.  We would splash in the water, warmed to a comfortable temperature under the sun, crouching to pluck up periwinkles and hum to them in hopes of luring them out of their shells.  On brave days we would stand at the ledge of the rocks, staring down into the waves at our feet and watching lobster boats putter by.  We would take a deep breath and then jump in, shrieking as the flash of cold hit us.  After a few minutes of paddling around, we would retreat to the warmth of ratty old towels, enjoying the sense of at least temporary camaraderie.  


          I remember standing on the Santa Cruz boardwalk when I was eight, looking out at the Pacific.  It was different than my familiar Atlantic, deeper and wider and more brooding.  It intrigued me.  I thought, This is not my ocean.


          There’s a road that I walk on sometimes, to get into town from school.  On one side, a hill comes down in clefts of blasted rocks and climbing vines.  On the other, there is a section of tall, tall white pines, stretching for the sky so hard that their branches don’t even start until twenty feet up.  A dirt driveway wanders through these trees at one point, leading to an old white house behind a simple wooden fence.  Behind the house, the landscape dips into a valley before rising into the next hill.  Every time I walk past, I look at the house with a sense of familiarity that surprises me.  Every time I expect to see gentle waves lapping in the valley between the swells of land, expect to see the blue glint of water peeking through the trees.  I am always disappointed when I realize that there is no water there.  I told this to a friend, once, who grew up in Chicago, thinking that he would call me crazy and we would laugh about it.  Instead, he turned to me with wide eyes and said, “Me too!”



I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
-W. B. Yeats


         We are sitting on the rocks, at the end of the magic-forest path, and it’s drizzling.  The ocean throws its edges at our feet.  Huddling under a coat, we settle our backs into the planes of stone.  The waves are rolling in past the islands, breaking over rocks that we can’t see.  I try to dry off my glasses, and succeed only in spreading the droplets into abstract, clumping streaks.  We sit and don’t speak.  The crash of the water, washing in and out, and the static of rain on the sea say more than our words could find.  Gray settles slowly around the coat-tent, starting to seep through our roof.  We rest our heads together, and feel drips on our hair, and we laugh.