The pond is on its way to becoming a freshwater marsh as the grasses and other water plants die and decay along the bottom. I can’t tell how fast it is filling in; the water level seems to fluctuate every season. This year it features an abundance of lilies, which like the shallow water, as well as cattails growing along shore. Call it a deep marsh or a shallow pond, either way the ducks don’t mind.
The wild things come down to the water: small white butterflies and red-winged blackbirds, muskrats and weasels and skunks and raccoons, and green and black snails with stripes that curl inward to form a single eye. Another day there might be a wood duck, or even an eagle. In October, the Canada geese will rest here on their migration, making a convention of it, as they paddle the shadows and discuss the progress of their journeys. The pond receives its visitors quietly. All year its population changes. The red squirrels and the chickadees consider themselves residents, but other species come and go; the water holds their wavering reflections. Weeds stand up straight in the still water, grasses tapering to points. Cattails, some slim and firm velvet, others splitting their seams to loose a foam of seeds packed in fluff, stand seven feet tall on woody stems—a stick forest detonating blossom, leaf, seed. An earthworm basks in the path and the sunlight edges away from him. There are territories within territories, overlapping realms of insect, salamander, turtle and fox. All have their claim to this world, ringed by thickets of catbrier and viburnum.
We continued to circle the pond from above, as the path edged along steep banks. Occasional side trails led off into little clearings surrounded by thick scrub. We wandered into one that was littered with beer cans, a plastic bag caught on a bush, and some scattered trash. A circle of scorched stones from a campfire, along with a generally trampled look around the bushes, seemed to indicate repeated, though probably not recent, use. In summer, would-be campers would be driven away by mosquitoes and no-see-ums. Spring and fall bring people into the woods, sometimes drunks from town, or partying high-school kids.
Bert made a sort of harumphing sound, kicking at old ashes in the dirt. “Nice cleanup job, guys,” he told the woods sarcastically, as if the villains might still be lurking about to hear. Camping here is strictly against park regulations. Much more of this and there’d be squatter settlements in the woods. Still, I felt oddly pleased by the site. I pictured boys sneaking out of their houses, to light a fire and sit in a circle in the dark, scaring themselves with stories. I pictured young lovers, desperate for the privacy the woods offer. This urge to go off into the woods is old and strong, prehistoric, perhaps even instinctive. I was glad to see the desire prevail against bureaucracy, even a bureaucracy I mostly support.
I plucked the plastic bag from its branch and started putting the beer cans inside it to carry out. “It’s probably just kids,” I said. “What’s the harm? Didn’t you ever break any rules?”
“Oh yeah,” Bert said. “I forgot you’re an outlaw.”
The woods end abruptly, sand spilling down the trail between the trees. Scrambling up the bank, we found a sheltered place next to the treetops and sat looking out. Waves of dunes stretched below us, the blue sky touching them all around. Bert took off his shoes and socks, emptied out the sand, and then peeled off his shirt, folded it under his head and lay back. I looked over at him and followed suit. The air was just cool enough to make my skin alert all over: the little hairs on my arms pricked up, and my nipples tightened as a breeze played over my bare chest and Bert ran his fingers lightly across my breasts and belly.
We lay there without talking. Chickadees chipped in the branches and chatted about us; the air grew warmer. Some ducks flew over, black specks on a blue sky. A perfect day, if only it would stay.
Lying there, the stiff grass scratching my back, my elbows puckered from leaning hard on the earth, press of the world against me, and the air moving over my bare breasts and shoulders, I felt inside me a quickening, a longing to reach out and hold the moment. It is all going too fast, I thought. The summer is going, spinning away from us, and where are we? We’re like those birds, flown away, a momentary shape of wings passing. The sky vaulted out of reach, blue and bright, and I tried to breathe it in all at once, my head thrown back, everything in me reaching out, opening to take in the fleeting world—an ache I swore I would not feel—September.
I wanted to reach for Bert, make him hold me, ask him what lasts. We live in time, that eats its children. What bond, or plan or promise holds us on this earth, keeps us together? A fly hung overhead, turned to a scarab in the low light, all gold armor glinting in the sun. Bert’s breath rose and fell; I could feel his body beside me, alive and strong. I rolled over on top of him, pinning him, rubbing my bare chest against his, catching him by surprise as he lay staring up into the sky. Our mouths opened one on another; his arms tightened around me as I ground my hips into his, breathing harder. We know this at least, the hungers of the body, the power that flows through our flesh and nerves. Kissing, stroking each other deeply, shoulders and neck and waist and ass, we were both lost in a wave of dense, salty desire, our blood rising, swelling us, pushing forward, and he rolled me over and raised himself up on his elbows, his head thrown back. Sliding my shorts down, I opened his jeans and found his cock already hard, pressing forward. It pulsed in my hand like another creature, and I lifted my hips and slid it into me in one motion, moaning.
We fucked under the open sky, rocking and thrusting, in scant shelter beside the woods, given up to want and the need to lose ourselves in our bodies, to be simply alive, sure at least of that. Dumb pleasure, our hip bones rubbing, the sweat shining our chests and arms. Our bodies, these salt houses of memory and desire, know what they want and need; lust rises clear and compelling, finds its way forward without asking for guarantees. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. Maybe this is all we know of giving ourselves over to anything greater. This is what lasts, after all, the endless recurring hunger of life, beating through us. What is, and no more.
We lay back, there under the sky. How is it done—how do you know the bond is true, when do you begin to trust it and let go, to simply live without weighing or asking? Five years? Twenty? You hear of people changing their minds after fifty years (“We were waiting until the children were dead”). People change their minds always, lives break and reform, nothing is set. I entered this marriage as I entered this country, seeking refuge and constancy, wanting ground under my feet. But I chose a home on sand. It’s turned out to be a different life than I imagined, a life I move inside of, held, not holding on. But it seems you can’t always be thinking of it, wondering, or you won’t be living your life. You need to keep two minds, realizing that everything changes, behaving as if it would not.
Bert sat up and took out his sketchbook, turning the page past the bird with the ants marching through its flesh, and began drawing a half-buried tree off to the left. Covered and then exposed by moving dunes, the tips of its branches were honed and whitened by the wind. The marks he makes appear abstract if you don’t look too closely, but they are marks of the world. Sitting beside him I could see exactly what he was drawing, the tree top and wisps of grass beside it, drawing them faithfully, realistically, but with a vision so detailed it removes itself from ordinary reality—he will draw just the grain of a log, draw everything swirling and vital in it and you may never see what it is.
I looked away and into the sky. “I lift my eyes unto the hills. From whence cometh my help?” I remembered the beginning of that psalm, the question and answer, but I couldn’t summon the rest. I pulled the card from my back pocket. Its garish sky streamed radiance over an implausible, pastel landscape, a different sort of artistic vision. “He shall preserve thy soul,” the psalm says. A card for a girl’s confirmation. It’s a promise, but not what you first think. It’s not our lives that are promised. We lose those, going in and out of selves, worlds, seasons, and in losing all, we are protected.
I closed my eyes; of course nothing human lasts. Nothing lasts, but still we a
re not hurt; our souls cannot be hurt. Can I believe this? I drift. Grassheads lean toward me, bursting with seed. We are meant to come apart in the wind, we are born to lose ourselves. What survives? No promise, no plan, not last year’s grass… Words of a dead king, pencil marks on a sheaf of paper, these last a little while. “He shall preserve thy soul.”
It is still summer by the calendar; neither earlier nor later. It is an act of will to take the changing days as true in their own right, not justified by a progression. It is a moral act to treat the uncertain days of our lives as real and complete. You can see in the moment, the moment passing, or you can see eternity. To be mortal, to love what dies, to let everything you love turn from you and wait for it to turn back. To live in time, safe from harm.
I lay back on the warm earth on a late summer afternoon, safe and mortal, here before time. Now rain patters on the boards over my head, in slow, gentle drops, tapping separately in a light rhythm, gaining speed. I turn into my pillow, at rest here. The folded shirt under my head, warm with my body’s heat, the dappled sun and green shade. Weight of his body beside me, our breathing together. The leaves waving up and down on the branches. Sand in the folds of the sheets, the smell of ocean, the smell of rain. The rain falls and the roof catches it and I listen to each impact and diversion, the small reverberations of breaking drops, softly thrumming against the wood. This was my life: It was bright afternoon, and we walked together. We reached the small, quiet pond and circled along shore and could not go down to it, so we went on. We rested on a hilltop. The sun warmed our skin and we turned to one another there in the open and embraced. Our skin was warm and smooth and the little breezes played over us. Sound and motion came back to the place when we finished. The clouds turned round above. Gilded flies hung in the air. I reached up and caught one in my hand and felt its wings against the soft center of my palm, minuscule, intent, beating until I flung it away from me, spinning, the sun catching the filament of its wings as it reeled across the air and disappeared into the wide blue sky, beginning its new life then. The heart rattles, spinning off into the green world.
TWENTY-NINE
Wild Fruits
In late September the shack starts to fill with leaves. Where do they come from, out here where there are no trees? How do they get in? I don’t know. They pile up and hang by threads in the corners and crumble into little piles like nests.
They seem very old, stripped down to veins and fragile brown netting. Open the door and they rise and fall in response. Before a storm they rattle warnings, trying to lift and fly away.
The leaves appear some weeks before we leave, and seem to anticipate, or even urge, our going. I push open the door, and there they are. Sweep them down today and there are more tomorrow, though the windows stay shut all night now.
One morning I find a mouse nesting in the corner behind the lime basket. She has chewed up the hem of a green scarf that was folded on the top shelf, and taken small, careful bites from my old wool socks. She waits, gently bold. She only has to stay out of the way, very quietly take what she needs, modestly and without argument, to lie low and wait us out. Sock-fleece and bits of lint and cotton rolled up together make a sleepy warmth, a corner where all is well. Clear it out and she’ll begin another. But I let her have it: I’m giving up territory now by inches.
It’s the last weekend in September and the air has turned clear and cold. I’ve come back to spend two nights here before we close up the shack for winter. Ten days ago we moved back to town; our new apartment has three rooms, each of them larger than Euphoria, but crowded with furniture and books they seem small. We’re lucky this year: I’ve found a part-time job that will pay the rent and give me time to write. Pay the rent is about all I will manage, while Bert’s somewhat better job will buy groceries, gas, and (incredibly, and I do not scoff) health insurance.
Euphoria has a clean, spare look as the season finishes. Shelves stacked high in May with canned food, soap, matches and batteries are nearly empty now; the woodpile is down to scraps and we’re out of coffee. The gaps between the boards are a real presence now, blowing cold air across the floor, leaving little difference between inside and out.
This morning the hill is alive with warblers. They’re not shy at all and fly very close to me, looking all around. One with barred wings, a yellow stain along his tail, makes a soft sound ruffling up his wings, then the sweet question in his voice. If I reached out my hand I might touch him. Another one flies past my knee, veering off at the last moment in polite surprise when he notices me. I’m watching wasps crawl over the door frame, exploring cracks under the eaves. They seem obsessed with the spot, mulling it like a question as they crawl in and out, measuring the spaces with their long bodies. They circle each other slowly and seem to drag themselves across the boards.
The wasps arrived as if on some signal, flying dazed and clumsy, drawing stiff circles in the chilly air. Now, as the sun warms them they begin a low drone, coming slowly back to life. These long autumn nights they die over and over, wakening to move painfully. They seem to be looking for a nest this morning, a place to settle in for winter, though winter will surely kill most of them.
These are the golden days, the last ones. One last thing after another happens, and every morning it seems somebody turns up missing. The rosehips are deep orange, and there are small white flowers along the ground under the grass. The seaside goldenrod is brilliant; the dune grass pales, green and blond strands mixed together, the heavy, seeded heads leaning into the hills.
Gulls congregate on the high dune, little black dots against the sand, arrayed as if awaiting orders. They aren’t going anywhere. But whales are swimming down the Gulf Stream toward winter feeding grounds. Monarch butterflies have headed to Mexico, and swarms of dragonflies flee west with swift intent.
When did the song sparrow leave? We heard him all summer; a soloist as big as a salt shaker, he clung to the top of the bayberry proclaiming his dominion all day long. Then one day he stopped, and flew around feeding peacefully on seeds, tearing the roses apart with great good cheer. A quiet fellow, unassuming. I didn’t even see him go.
The terns gave up their hard-fought territory on the beach just as casually. All summer they defended their ground with religious zeal, driving off intruders with shrill cries and sharply aimed dives. Then one day it was over. They plodded along the beach, sedate and mild, indifferent to everyone. They stayed around a while, fishing and diving, and gradually drifted away to join up with larger flocks just in from the north. They waited for the next signal that would tell them when to go, and when it came they were off for South America without a backward look.
They’re gone now, and the red-winged blackbirds too, who were so noisy and so noticeable all summer, and that flock of tree swallows rising and falling in nervous waves down in the valley must be on its way out of town. I have never seen so many together. Winter finches pass through, and warblers, hundreds of thousands of them, headed south in mixed flocks.
Next week we will pack up the last of our gear and nail up shutters over the windows. Sealed tight, dark inside, Euphoria rides out the winter storms, rocking, while the sand blows all around. When we’re gone, the place returns to itself, to a greater wildness.
Our time here is bounded by the seasons. The whole Outer Cape, particularly these dunes, has a long history of settlement, but this land has never been permanently occupied. Fishermen, beachcombers, hunters and gatherers, Coast Guardsmen, artists, tourists and loners have come here, gone away, and returned. I wonder what the meaning of home is for any of us migrants. All populations here, human and otherwise, change with the seasons. There is a strength to this place that cannot be owned, but only inhabited—as animals inhabit each place in its own time, in full confidence of belonging.
The summer tenants had barely packed up their last picnics and taken half-damp towels down from the line when we moved into our winter quarters. We found a child’s swimsuit and a half bottle of dark rum left behind. The
town is quiet now, but not quite shut down for winter; it’s a peaceful time, good for walking the harbor and empty beaches; there’s plenty of space between one person and another for once. I return to town in circular fashion, my range identified within sight of the water tower and the Pilgrim Monument. I live in one improvised home after another, becoming resident without ever holding a deed, or even a year-round lease.
Mornings, it’s cold enough to light a fire. All summer we saved up paper: newspapers and letters, and a sad-looking box of discarded notebook pages written over and crossed out—a testament to my struggles here. I begin my fire with paper, burning words to drive off the chill and ignite deeper memories in wood. Black and white of old records, tide charts, ads, births, deaths, and deliberations of the zoning board: these burn so easily, crumble and smoke and send fire into the sticks and wood scraps I use for kindling. All the strange pieces we picked up along shore end up in the woodpile, along with stakes from the old snow fence we thought would hold back a moving dune one winter. The weight of sand burst its wires and left the pickets standing like broken teeth. The wood catches fire, detonating orange and red blossoms that crack and open and give off light. Old shingles, scraps of driftwood, boards thrown off boats, all these Euphoria burns in its stove, using the stored heat of the sun. Closed up, behind the metal door, the fire gulps and gasps, drinking air, making light out of the past.
The marsh hawk is back. I see her flying past the window and go to the door to look out. Her wings beat shallow and slow as she tacks back and forth over the tall grasses. I remember: there has always been a marsh hawk at Euphoria. Winters, she nests in the woods near town; we’ll be neighbors again then. She flies over the valley, aware of me now, uninterested. She listens instead for mice and voles, what runs along the ground. The grass grows quiet under her spell. Alive, every heartbeat a sign, a danger just to breathe. Something will come to her.
The Salt House Page 17