The wilderness without and within

The majority of the nature experienced today was tangled in all of the wild hormones within, riling my uterus and, you know, my outlook on all things. 

There were also the house sparrows at work, hopping and cocking their inchy heads, going after a gummy on the floor and the birdseed on display. I fought them without violence, clapping my hands and ineffectively kicking away the gummy which moved slow, sticking with tenacity to the cement floor.

I also found some funky, Mardi Gras costume-wearing, mantis-like creature in the sacred basil during the morning harvest. And I was sucked on by mosquitoes. Lastly, I found a cabbage moth in the greenhouse and a green caterpillar, dead and composed halfway of orange slime, also in the sacred basil. Amazing that so much life, death, and violence can exist within the juicy branches of such a holy plant.

Divine Days: A log of a Cape Ann jaunt and the return home.

When last we met I was bidding you adieu so that I could continue the lovely, long weekend that my boyfriend and I were luxuriating in. Now, a quick swing back in time.

On Friday the heavens rained upon us from the moment we left the little studio apartment we were renting to the second we entered a distant cousin’s Gloucester bed and breakfast, The Inn at Babson Court, and fell into cups of coffee and a million stories. 

It was wet enough that, again, the majority of wildlife experienced was in the perfect haddock that I had for dinner. We were surrounded by so many secrets, though, as we soaked up rain along the sea: the jellyfish, the right whales, lobsters, clams, mussels, and sharks. There were hidden tidal pools with hermit crabs, fluttering barnacles, and cities of unbelievable microscopic shapes and means of living. Even when marine life shies away from me I am awed by its certain presence. I grew up on fresh water and visited with it intimately in my youth. Saltwater, of course, is a whole different ballgame. The dead jellyfish floating in Boston Harbor, the tiny, vivacious pools in low-tide Gloucester; they thrill me again and again, even on a day spent without a view of anything marine aside from waves through a window, models of ships, and a whole lot of gulls.