I love the rain and
it has rained almost every day for the last month.
For others this has become monotonous, a growing
torment of too much gray and gloom. It was during one
of those gray days with occasional sprinkles that I
accompanied Ms Keogh, my more significant other, to
Ocean City, New Jersey.
Ms Keogh had sold a painting. It is a long and narrow
landscape, a view of the National Mall from the Abram
Lerner Room at the Hirshhorn Museum, part of the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. She was
reluctant to part with the painting. It had hung in a
location in our kitchen that it suited perfectly.
Being a spectacular procrastinator, Ms Keogh needed
something to display at the Highwire Gallery in
Philadelphia. Undecided until the last moment, she
grabbed the painting off the wall assuring herself it
probably wouldn't sell, but it did.
The transaction had the air of skullduggery, as if
there were a sinister twist to the deal. We drove a
distance of eighty-five miles to Ocean City, New
Jersey, a place we've never been before. The
arrangement was to meet the buyer at an intersection
and complete the transaction in the street. The
arrangement and the clandestine nature of the deal
was fun for both of us.
I never much cared for the ocean. Reclining on a
blanket, baking in the sun, is utterly boring; the
resulting tan is of a dubious value. Then there is
the persistent irritation of sand that accompanies
you after leaving the beach. However, I love the
water. I have always been a good swimmer and never
thought about drowning. I spent a considerable
portion of my childhood gliding along the bottom of
the community pool enjoying the sensation that I was
another species. In my long periods underwater, I
felt a headiness; it was an altered state of mind
that was very peaceful. (According to Ms Keogh, I was
suffering oxygen deprivation.) Still a crystal clear
pool is one thing, while the murky green ocean is
another. With the ocean one is swimming in cold soup.
Another point, in suburbia I am at the top of the
food chain, but in the ocean I am a thrashing
transient, out of my element and advertising my
presence to any number of things that pinch, squeeze,
or bite. I might only be the happenstance victim of
an opportunistic Portuguese man-of-war. The thing is,
ninety-nine percent of the ocean is under the surface
where you can't see it or the approach of something
as big as an angry Moby Dick.
Okay, for someone like me who drives too fast and
eats fatty foods, I am more likely to die on land
than during the occasional swim in the sea. And when
I do go to the beach, I put aside my distaste for it
and thoroughly enjoy getting bounced and tumbled by
the waves. As soon as I was able to drive, I was
making trips with friends to Long Beach Island, New
Jersey, ostensibly for a young man's notion of
romance. It happened for everyone else, but never for
me, who was too shy, too finicky, and whom the
opposite sex rarely found attractive.
Those drives across the southern part of New Jersey
to Long Beach Island were across a remarkably flat
region. The trip meant driving through the hellish
Pine Barrens, a trackless region choked by a forest
of tormented pygmy pines. From the raised roadway
they stretched to either horizon, and legend has it
the Jersey Devil haunts that bonsai forest, a
creature that is half man and half goat. For many
miles there are no hills or other obstacles to stem
the advance of that half a mile high tsunami of my
active imagination. How was I to outrun such a wave?
The drive to Ocean City was different. Using the
Atlantic City Expressway to reach it, the expressway
is lined on either side with tall trees. But then the
old fear itched again when we crossed the bridge into
Ocean City, New Jersey. It was hardly more than a
sandbar crowded with middleclass summer homes. The
entire community seemed merely inches above sea level
(actually six feet above sea level). Ms Keogh could
do little more than scoff disrespectfully at my
unrealistic fear. (In 1821, in Cape May County, New
Jersey, the ocean first withdrew and then a wall of
water rushed back. It carried one man six miles
inland.)
But I exaggerate. I didn't really allow my silly fear
to spoil the adventure. Having sold the painting, and
with fresh money in our pockets, we strolled the
boardwalk from end to end. The bad weather had kept
the crowds away. The only people in the water were
hardcore surfers in wet suits.
The shops along the boardwalk were opened and we
explored them buying nothing more than candy,
especially saltwater taffy. We entered the seaside
amusement park and took a ride on the 138 foot Ferris
wheel. We could see the whole of the city and far out
to sea, although on this overcast day there was no
horizon, the sea and sky were seamlessly joined.
It was worth one visit, but Ocean City is dry,
nowhere is alcohol sold. It makes for a better family
community and spurns the rowdy behavior of some other
seaside resorts. It is also the reason I probably
will never go back.
Well, it is raining, again, as I write this. The
office where I am employed to watch over AT&T's
network through the night is surmounted by a glorious
storm. It began as distant lightning. As it neared,
the percussion from the thunder rattled the glass
panes. Now the rain is loud and furious, drumming on
the roof with shocking violence. It is wonderful, and
I think of Ms Keogh.
I think about her alone in the dark house. We had
lost the electricity earlier this night. Before I
left for my job, we played five hundred rummy at the
kitchen table using an array of candles. And now this
same rogue thunderstorm is probably blasting through
our opened windows, waking her from a sound sleep.
How wonderful and refreshing it must be for her. I am
able to imagine her in our bed, caressed and drowsed
by the air, lullabied by the rain, the thunder
serving to wake her so as to enjoy the moment, the
comfort, and that particular pleasure of going back
to sleep, repeatedly. I envy her. I wish I was there
in that sudden influx of cooler air snuggled against
her. |