Travelling Thoughts

The mind travels to the ocean state, to that summer house closed all winter long, awaiting our arrival with the spring. It is true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Not every recollection is a good one. I begin to think more seriously of the honeybees in the cricket on the roof, and how I must remove them. It is cold; they are relatively dormant. I'll need to do this soon. And then there are the leaks in the porous roof, the broken and rotten screen doors, the window sash in the garage and the mess I need to clear out just to reach it, the pile of brush in the field which must be burned, the perennial plantings, the driveway, the gates that never happened in the fall, the bedroom windows that need replacement but surely will not be done before the season begins, the taxes and the tenants, the lawn, the unfinished trellis above the porch. And on and on. The sort of things I think about in the middle of the night, awake, twisiting. Actually, these are the welcome things, all minor compared to death and sickness, work and wealth, love and marriage, illusions of happiness and dreams. The dream of gold-glowing sunsets over the wide estuary, the bands of color, land, water, land and sky. And then those dinners, served with a flinty local wine, a walk through the wildflowers of the wetlands. This is a lovely reverie. I can see the century old arbor vitae standing sentinel, guarding the premises while we are away. I see the sea, I hear the rocks grinding with each sweep of a wave, in and out, a bold wall of sound that dominates yet goes unnoticed every minute, every month of every year.