Hawksbill to the Left
“With looks that lose themselves in cherished looks;
The hour of steaming tea and banished books;
The sweetness of the evening at an end . . .” ~ Paul Verlaine, from “The Rosy Hearth”
Saturday, late afternoon. Sunny and mild, 76° F.
Well . . where to begin?
Corey got under way yesterday afternoon (I remember my AP Style Manual was very specific that under way is two words when referring to nautical movement). I drove him to the ship at 3:30 in the morning, and that was that. They took the ship out to test the radar, made a few tweaks, and left for Antigua. That’s right, Antigua. Did you know that there are 365 beaches on Antigua? I didn’t. He has tried to take the sting out of that by assuring me that they won’t spend any time in port, to which I reminded him that at least he’ll see the incredible blue waters, the azure blue, the Caribbean blue.
And then there was that mention of the Virgin Islands . . .
They should have good weather going down, which is good, as he had terrible weather off Dover, which is not surprising. He was actually seasick, something that is not par for him.
Anyway, I came home from leaving him at the ship, crawled back into bed, and awoke around 9 a.m. with a killer migraine. To say that I was not surprised is an understatement. However, I was surprised by the duration—all day. As a result, I did nothing all day, but I was able to read last night. I conquered about 400 pages of the third book in the Game of Thrones series, read until I was exhausted, and then prayed for sleep.
When it came, it brought nightmares that had me screaming in my sleep again. I remember Jews being marched off to ovens next to a garden party, but there was more, so much more, including my father taking a shower and telling me good night, and my mother tearing apart her kitchen. Then I was at a corporate Christmas party with the builders I used to know, and there was a wedding, and I wanted good bourbon, but the bar only had cheap stuff, and then I was teaching again . . . too much, too much . . .
“I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am.” ~ Virginia Woolf, from The Waves
So today I awoke with . . . wait for it . . . another migraine. I’ve been stuffing my meds in all day, and I decided that nothing was going to get better (as regards my back), so I went ahead and bathed the dogs. They really needed their flea medicine, and I always like to give them a bath beforehand. The dog baths led to scrubbing the bathroom, which led to cleaning the bathroom floor, which led to cleaning the hardwood floors, which led to stripping the beds, and in between, starting laundry. My hands smell of bleach and aloe, and are tight and achy.
I’m sitting here in a daze. My back is on fire, right below my neck, between my shoulder blades. I’m writing blind again, with my eyes squinting against the sun coming through Eamonn’s window, and yes, I’m back on this POS computer. The squinting is definitely not forestalling the headache that is seeping back in at the left corner of my forehead.
Of the three dogs, Shakes was actually the best this time, and Tillie was the worst. She does not like baths, but she loves the pool, such a silly dog. Alfie tried to bite me when I tried to clean out his ongoing wound below his right eye, but I fought and won. He has this, for lack of a better word, hole directly below his eye where he had a cyst. We cannot get it to heal because he always ends up scratching it. I cannot put a cone on him because, well, he’s a wee bit insane, and a cone would drive him over the edge, so we clean it and medicate it, and he walks around with a hole in his face the size of a very small pea.
Don’t judge. Our dogs are spoiled and healthy, and now they smell clean, my back be damned.
(Informational aside: While the Wal Mart flea medicine claims to be as good as Frontline, I have found that it just doesn’t seem to last as long, so I went back to Frontline.)
“There is almost nothing that does not signal loneliness,
then loveliness, then something connecting all we will become.” ~ Stanley Plumley, from “In Passing”
Corey will be crossing the equator this trip, something he’s never done before. That’s a milestone for a seaman, and he’s supposed to get a turtle tattoo, according to traditional lore. His Atlantic crossing means that he can wear an anchor tattoo, which is something that he’s been wanting for several years, and if he crosses the International Date Line, he can get a dragon.
I don’t think the International Date Line will be happening anytime soon, especially since the company has sold their Pacific ship. But at least he’s going to be able to finish this hitch, which is going to earn him more deap-sea time, and just a few days ago, we weren’t even certain about that. After that, who knows?
I miss him already, miss sleeping next to him, miss reaching out in the middle of the night to touch his arm. Even though he was working most of the time that he was in port, it was simply reassuring to know that he was just a few miles from home. I’m trying not to think too much about the upcoming weeks. At least with Brett starting summer school on Monday, I’ll have some distractions.
“What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.” ~ Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness
So this weekend I need to print and mail the shower invitations. However, there’s just one problem: The ink cartridges that I ordered, which were supposed to arrive yesterday, have not yet appeared. I really did not want to pay full price for ink cartridges; they’re just too blasted expensive in a store, but I also need to get these invitations in the mail.
I also have Corey’s Mom’s Mother’s Day card and present to mail. Have I done that yet? Nope. Sorry. I just realized that it’s Saturday and that the post office closed about five hours ago. I’m hopeless. But my dogs are clean . . .
Time out to make sun-dried tomato wraps for Brett and myself: Honey-baked turkey, guacamole (for me), Muenster (again, for me), tomato slices, sea salt, lettuce, and Vidalia onion dressing. Quite yummy, actually. Speaking of fresh, I wonder if we’ll get a garden in this year. Because of the climate around here, we can still put things in the ground in July and harvest in September, one of the better aspects of living where we live.
I would love some fresh garden tomatoes as store-bought ones have no flavor, that is unless I splurge and buy the vine-ripened ones. And nothing beats fresh cucumbers.
“There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.” ~ T.S. Eliot, from “East Coker” from Four Quartets
Well, as to Mother’s Day tomorrow, I hope that all of you out there in the ether have a lovely day. I plan to do a whole lot of nothing. Preferably, reading for hours and hours.
Tomorrow is also our wedding anniversary: Eleven years ago tomorrow, Corey and I married on a lovely Sunday afternoon in an old house in Ghent, surrounded by family and friends. The night before was pure hell as we were having everyone over for dinner. I was making table arrangements and the bridesmaids’ bouquets, and that overall sense of panic was consuming me.
But Sunday? That was good, in spite of the table arrangements tipping over in the car, trying to decorate the house hours before the wedding, having to clean up afterwards, not having all of the food that we had ordered (yes, I noticed), being surprised by the condition of the rental chairs, having my hair ruined by my mother’s friend, taking my hair down and completely redoing it one hour before the wedding, having the groomsmen refuse to wear the ties for the tuxedo European style, and just a few other things. In spite of all of that, it was one of the best days of my life, certainly one of the happiest.
The years since have been filled with highs and lows, but through it all I have never regretted marrying a much younger man who has come to be my best friend and true companion, a man who knows me far better than I know myself sometimes.
Years are meaningless to the heart.
Joyeux anniversaire, mon amour, où que vous soyez . . .
More later. Peace.
Music by Lonestar, “I’m Already There”
Passage
More than air
More than water
More than lips
Light light
Your body is the trace of your body
~ Octavio Paz
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 