Archive - Aug 2011
August 26th
Before the storm
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/26/2011 - 21:53It is Friday night at the campsite. It seems quieter tonight than most nights. There are no campfires to be seen. Many campers have left.
Hurricane Irene is heading up the Atlantic seaboard. The news is full of reports about the storm. The talk at the beach, the stores, and the restaurants is about the coming storm.
I read reports from home about shelters being open and transportation shirting down. Yet I am more worried about other things, careers, life goals, etc.
Fiona talks about wishing on a star and Kim replies about wishing for things we can make happen.
With storms, we can prepare, but you can never know for sure what will happen. So it it's with life.
So I continue to work on my writing. We will drive home tomorrow and prepare the house, and we will wait.
All in all, it has been a good vacation. The storms in the background have kept a damper on things, and now we head home to confront some storms. Are we prepared enough? Who can say? So without that assurance, we need could always use a little luck as well.
August 25th
Beach Reading
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/25/2011 - 09:56When I was a kid, I would spend all my time in the water, until I was blue and exhausted. I never took time to sit and read.
Kim likes her books on the beach, and now I do a little more reading on the beach as well. Yet typically, most of my reading is online and there isn't any signal at the beach.
The other kind of reading I like when I am at the beach is the newsletters from the park rangers and the informatory signs along various trails. During a hike the other day, I saw quotes from Emerson or Throreau. I thought of how different their writing is from Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts.
On Monday, Colin McEnroe was supposed to do a show about the reported dearth of big ideas in modern thinking. I couldn't tine in from Race Point. The Friday before he spoke about some guy writing for the Times lamenting this dearth and blaming it on social media.
I wondered what sort of big ideas the columnist for the Times had. Now, I'm wondering how much it is because of the commercialization of bread and circuses.
So, I sit on the beach, watching the waves and the clouds and try to get into more of a Transcendentalist frame of mind. I probably won't come up with any big ideas, but perhaps I can encourage others and share a few ideas that might build into something.
Meanwhile, I'll relax, work a little but on my writing and wait for a big storm.
August 24th
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 08:54August 23rd
A Cape Cod Wish
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 08:18Stepping out of the camp trailer on the Cape, I look up through the scraggy pines.
Start light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight. I wish...
I pause for a moment. What do I wish for? Riches of some sort? No, there was a time in my life when I made a lot of money. True, there are things I would like to do if I were better off financially. There are plenty of good causes to give to. Fiona wishes we had a trailer here for the summer, and so on. But that's not really what I wish for. Riches aren't al they are cracked up to be.
I could wish for a better work environment. I have a really interesting job doing what I believe is important work. Yet it comes with more than enough stress and not enough security.
Perhaps a wish that friends and family were healthier. That would be nice. We would ask be a lot happier and do more fun things if people were a little healthier.
This morning, I sit on the deck next to the camper. I hear the wind through the leaves and the tapping sounds of pine needles falling on the canopy. In the distance, birds are chirping. Families are starting to get going. Mostly it is the sound of young children. There are little squabbles and bickering here and there and the occasional response of an adult. Older folks scuffle by on their way to the bathroom. The night sky and first star have given way to blue with small fluffy cumulus clouds floating by.
The time for that evening wish is gone. Perhaps, if I had been less tired I would have wished to be able to capture the moment in words. This morning, I have sat and in my own way made a little bit of that wish come true.
August 22nd
Cape Cod Monday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 20:35The storms passed to the north of us last night and today was another pleasant day. At the beach, the surf was a little rougher and the ocean was full of sea weed, pieces of fish and who knows what else.
Find and I did a little body surfing. Later in the day we went to the kettle pond and swan for a while.
In the evening, we went to P-town for dinner. We are back st the trailer and I'm too tired to go into more details.