New England's Daughter

In French, the word for the sea sounds the same as the word for mother. To me that's just one of those coincidences that shouldn't need explaining.

Today in class, like small children all over France, my classmates and I talked about the seasons. Our teacher had us close our eyes and listen to sound clips--they were wonderfully evocative.
A person walking through the leaves, through the snow, bird song, children at a pool; I was all a flutter with nostalgia and love. 

We talked about our senses--the related verbs and nouns. We played with the smart board, touching and making links.

We listened to a director give an interview about her favorite season.

She described blue skys that snap like  young green shoots. You've been there too. It feels rude to try and debase it with language. That deep cold breath you take when all the fall leaves are all the right shades, so close to falling. So alive, so very awake.

Our teacher asked us to close our eyes again and think about the place we were born. 

I stuttered momentarily because I am a child of two States. But I am wholly the daughter of New England. 

Cape Cod, you are my warm memories.
Walks at night. Such darkness, such privilege.
Coyotes and foxes: my friends and betters. Constellations so faithful in their arrangements even charlatans knew they deserve epic tales.
Shooting stars.
                 Every night. 
 Any night you want. After the fireflies, but before the june bugs. 

The beach. Boogie boards.

Playing pickle, sliding in the sand, trying not to get pegged. 

Waves: The science. The music. The salt. 

Feeling waterlogged when I take a deep breath. Remembering my mom calling it that.
The way she'd always take us to a pond around sunset, "To wash up."

My fingers pruned, so much more completely than bath time. 

Sand in my sandwich, sand in my suit. Sand in the car, in my sneakers, in my bed.

Dune surfing with Zack. Sunscreen on my back. 

Taking the boat down the channel, aways away from all the tourists.

Digging holes  with my feet. Letting the water evaporate on my skin. 

Body surfing. 

Fighting the current and failing. 

Sand sharks in the surf. Seaweed in my hair.

Blue, blue, blue is the sky. A crackling blue. 

No clouds. No wind, except sometimes both.
The ocean right before a hurricane, fearsome turbid and shards of stain-glass. 

The shore birds. The seals.
The horseshoe crabs, ugly, ancient and immobile--being dressed up by children.

My hair when it's bleach by the sun, hard crusty and tasting of salt.

The freckles I can't escape. 

The final shake out my towel.

Putting my foot through the last sand castle standing,
Bidding the tide take the rest.

Southern Vermont, you are my cold memories.
Checking the sugaring lines--that first time you go out collecting. 
Stars as you've never seen them. Clear cold, dead or dying. Corn fields in the moonlight. Pumpkins and gords in every shade of sunshine.

The smell of the cows, of the sheep, of the hens. 

How feral now, cat--on my lap? 
              Here, you purr.

A flat palm with an apple, a gratified horse. 

A old Holstein named Tony. 

Too heavy for one hand, the hay.

The last harvest. 

Sugar on snow. 

Two, three four steps from the door--shin deep and not even a drift. 
Icicles like cave formations, dangerous and thrilling.

All children with snow suits slide like penguins in the end. 
Lay on your belly and lick the ice.

Down hills in twos on plastic, brace your feet for that fence--painted white and white again, last summer--such a long way from now.

Gloves when they work, mittens when they don't.

The clouds parting to illuminate a clearing high along the other side of the valley. Making you think of old paintings, and of god. 

Mud season. When the river runs thick again. The first melt. 

The first growth, soft and promising--all the way back to the first frost--

Crystals on the pumpkins, their blossoms becoming earth.

Letting your cup of syrup cool in the snowbank before you drink it down, gulp after gulp. 

Heading home wet, smelling like smoke.

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