The Wind

The wind wakes me, rustling brittle leaves. It sounds like the ocean. That first winter on Cape Cod when I lived right on the water, a narrowing inlet known as Lucy's Crotch that led to a kettle pond where rich people kept their boats in winter. I wrote a trashy Gothic novel, that I later burned, and walked the beaches. It spoiled me forever, the isolation; no TV, no telephone. I ate cod, clams, and potatoes, listened to the pounding surf off Nauset, and fed frozen eels to a harbor seal. A simple life. Played poker once a week with a local gang for chump change. The past, as it happens, adumbrates the future. Now, I consider time alone as a reward for having survived. LSD was still legal and I tripped often, listened to Bach in the morning (WGBH) and scoured the littoral for my next meal. It was an easy life, and I was unaware. I had a cat, and I told her everything, she was completely nonchalant, only demanded her share of whatever fish I was eating. A 'perfect relationship' except she was a cat and I was a human being. I hate this species specific shit. I'd rather a fox than most humans. TR allowed that Linda was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and Zack had said the same thing, that he couldn't believe he was working with this person. I merely, simply, allow things to happen. The phone has been out, and I usually wouldn't complain, but there was a Frontier repair truck where the line junctions and I stopped to ask him when I might have service, he said he was working tonight until it was restored. Elevator inspection tomorrow and the guys didn't work today, so they must feel ready. Two Cirque Halloween shows tomorrow night and I need the elevator to empty the theater of things that have accumulated while the re-build was happening. Finished packing the pottery show and D got back to the museum right at five with the next (prints) show. Got that unloaded into the back hall and headed home. Low Gap Hollow is lovely, all yellow and red , mercurochrome, iodine, and tokay. I picked up some frozen meatballs, a jar of Newman's sauce, and some of that fresh pasta that cooks in just a couple of minutes. I'm trying to increase my caloric intact. I stop at Kroger most mornings, to see if there's a protein smoothie discounted. A crab soup, at the pup today, that was quite good. Makes me think about doing a seafood stew. They'll have mussels soon at Kroger. When they do I'll caramelize a large chopped onion in olive oil, add a large diced potato and part of a bottle of clam juice, when the potato is cooked I add a can of diced roasted tomatoes with chilies, some roasted garlic, a can of crabmeat, some fillets of some firm white fish in bite size pieces, half a pound of shrimp, and the mussels, the rest of the bottle of clam juice and some white wine. This is a very fast dish and good. Way better than the some of its parts. Add a can of tuna fish (in oil) and serve it on egg noodles, you could feed a crowd. On Cape Cod, and then again on the Vineyard, I always had all the blue mussels, oysters, and scallops I could eat, the work of an afternoon, and I could keep them under seawater soaked seaweed for weeks. On the Cape I actually planted beds of mussels, to harvest a few years later. Me and my pirogue, haunting the estuaries.