Convergence

      

When I walked into his house, I could see clear through the wall of windows to the water. And even though it is full-on summer, the first thing that popped into my head was. "This place must be beautiful in winter."

I had no cogent idea why I said that. But spending last weekend in that wonderful place, I kept thinking, someone could write a book here, someone could use this place as a setting for a story.

I half expected Daisy and Tom Buchanan to pull up on a polished wood sailboat, just across from East Egg, probably Great Neck in reality, just in time for cocktails. "Darling, wouldn't you just kill to have some of that iced gin?"

In truth, I never spent time on the Long Island Sound, much less the Connecticut side. And yet here I was, and I adored every blissful second.

One hundred years from now, when the sea-level rises at least one hundred feet, at least one hundred feet, this house and this place will be gone. Boy-oh-boy, am I happy I was there, if only for a weekend.

I took a walk the second day, about a mile out, along the water's edge, east and north. The beach here is not like that which faces the wild wind and waves of the Atlantic. There is sand, to be sure, but the Sound is one giant mollusk bed, a never-ending food supply for the tens of gulls overhead, the beach is scrambled by all kinds of shells. At least four different kinds of clams, oysters, mussels, and more. Most of the shells are broken, in shards. They are like broken glass, they cut tender flesh, flip-flops are essential.

I could make out a lighthouse off, close to shore.

And I had watched as the tide covered and revealed the same curving spit of land that arced its way, but never reached that light house. I made for the spit. As I climbed up over the rock jetty, I realized that the spit was almost nothing but shells. Crunch. I suspected that the tide was turning, and the water was racing back to fill the shoreline, but I kept going.

The water, I knew, was very warm, and shallow. If I did get caught, I knew I could splash my way back. I nearly made it to the end, when I stopped. The waves, though tiny, were indeed bringing the water back up and over the spit. The gulls were swooping overhead, dropping mollusks, cracking them open for the food inside. A few more squatted in front of me.

When I stopped, and paused, I could feel, as much as I heard and saw, the waves hitting both sides, not more than two feet wide now. The waves beat in even, simultaneous strikes. And it felt to me as if the air around me compressed so slightly each time they hit, in unison, from either side. When I focused out to the vanishing end point, it was as though the power of the water was so enormous, but so controlled, in these little, lilting laps.

Harmonics.

It felt like physics.

Comments

[jess]

What a fantastic post.

I absolutely loved reading your description, and it made me remember moments like that from my own past. Beautifully written, and very expressive.

I'd love to go there. :)