Summer Soul Quest: Part I The Obvious
"Once a Selkie finds its skin again, neither chains of steel nor chains of love can keep her from the sea" - The Secret of Roan Inish
I knew it the moment I said yes. This wasn't just a vacation, it was a soul quest. There is much to tell. There was the obvious and there was the hidden...there was the seen and there was the unseen, but lets start with seen, shall we?
With my eyes, with my cameras, with my heart....
(I will share what was hidden beneath the surface in Part II)
The first morning at his grandmother's house on Long Island he ran outside in his pajamas looking for worms and bugs.
There was a dinner date with his grandma and an evening walk by the bay, and a mysterious fairy door at the base of an old tree covered in ivy, and there were fake mustaches and a Chaplin impersonation...
and bonding with a cousin, and light-up cars to race along the driveway under the night sky and sleeping bags, and little boy secrets whispered in the dark, and mischief of one kind or another...
There were sand castles on the south shore...
and the seaweed that he lifted gently from the surf and squealed, "Look...Mermaid hair!"
There was a visit to Peppermint Stik Farms where my childhood memories linger along with my gratitude...
There was a family BBQ at my childhood home and there was a short jaunt to Mannahatta my second island home....
where his honorary sister "poofed" him into a prince and they roared like lions and laughed about things known only to them...
To the sprinklers in Tompkins Square...
and to the Doughnut Plant for a sweet nosh before heading back to Long Island once again...
where we began a new day with a run down the giant dunes that I once ran upon with my late dad...
and onto the rocky northern shore where I once searched for colorful quartz for polishing and hematite for painting...
where Satch insisted that he would catch a crab...and he DID, with his bare hands...
a spider crab that he named, "Fergy" with whom he played gently and talked to for quite some time.
He cried when it was time to let Fergy go. I said, "I'm sure Fergy is telling his whole family about his adventure...and how he met a REAL boy who was gentle and kind".
And the night before we left for home, there was feasting and laughing with 12 friends and one VERY long table...
and a stop in NJ on the way back to VA for a pizza party with cherished cousins. Memories of our grandmother (their great grandmother) were shared and her presence felt...
And woven within the fabric of these outings and innings was a 30th high school reunion where I went to celebrate life with old friends, and took a dip into the sea of the past where I was reacquainted with my skin...
"Into the blue again
in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones
there is water underground...." - Talking Heads
I knew it the moment I said yes. This wasn't just a vacation, it was a soul quest. There is much to tell. There was the obvious and there was the hidden...there was the seen and there was the unseen, but lets start with seen, shall we?
With my eyes, with my cameras, with my heart....
(I will share what was hidden beneath the surface in Part II)
The first morning at his grandmother's house on Long Island he ran outside in his pajamas looking for worms and bugs.
There was a dinner date with his grandma and an evening walk by the bay, and a mysterious fairy door at the base of an old tree covered in ivy, and there were fake mustaches and a Chaplin impersonation...
and bonding with a cousin, and light-up cars to race along the driveway under the night sky and sleeping bags, and little boy secrets whispered in the dark, and mischief of one kind or another...
There were sand castles on the south shore...
and the seaweed that he lifted gently from the surf and squealed, "Look...Mermaid hair!"
There was a visit to Peppermint Stik Farms where my childhood memories linger along with my gratitude...
There was a family BBQ at my childhood home and there was a short jaunt to Mannahatta my second island home....
where his honorary sister "poofed" him into a prince and they roared like lions and laughed about things known only to them...
To the sprinklers in Tompkins Square...
and to the Doughnut Plant for a sweet nosh before heading back to Long Island once again...
where we began a new day with a run down the giant dunes that I once ran upon with my late dad...
and onto the rocky northern shore where I once searched for colorful quartz for polishing and hematite for painting...
where Satch insisted that he would catch a crab...and he DID, with his bare hands...
a spider crab that he named, "Fergy" with whom he played gently and talked to for quite some time.
He cried when it was time to let Fergy go. I said, "I'm sure Fergy is telling his whole family about his adventure...and how he met a REAL boy who was gentle and kind".
And the night before we left for home, there was feasting and laughing with 12 friends and one VERY long table...
and a stop in NJ on the way back to VA for a pizza party with cherished cousins. Memories of our grandmother (their great grandmother) were shared and her presence felt...
And woven within the fabric of these outings and innings was a 30th high school reunion where I went to celebrate life with old friends, and took a dip into the sea of the past where I was reacquainted with my skin...
"Into the blue again
in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones
there is water underground...." - Talking Heads
Labels: ds
1 Comments:
so much. and i love it all.
i didn't know you were a native long islander. :)
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