Thoughts on today

22 July
St. John's, New Brunswick
St. Martin's New Brunswick
The Bay of Fundy

I remember as a child my mother talking about the tides in the Bay of Fundy. Today I got to see both high and low tides. Maybe because my mother was such a good storyteller or maybe because of my summers on Cape Cod, the tides did not impress overly much. I did enjoy the Reversing Rapids where the ducks and geese could not make progress. The geology of St. John's is very interesting. I do like the red limestone limned with quartz. I picked up several samples from the rocky beach. The area is picturesque and the rapids are amazing. The kayaking in the rapids was certainly exciting even if no one could seem to win the fight against the whitewater.

But,I found myself bored by the trip and had forgotten to take along my book. I was reduced to taking macro shots of my fingers on my denim shorts. Nice texture.

My mind kept going back to Tony who died early yesterday morning. It seems as though there have been so many deaths since my neighbor John died alone and home as he sat in his easy chair unmissed by anyone for 2 weeks. No one knew he was gone until the smell of death became so overpowering that the police were called.

Then Flaquita. Then Susan Kleckner. Then another neighbor, a lovely and gracious woman. And now Tony. A man ten years younger than I am with teenaged sons. It was so totally unpredictable and unexpected. I thought about my own experience as a teenager who lost her father so suddenly when Dad and I were both young. I don't believe that I have ever gotten passed that experience. It was life-changing and not in a good way.

I thought about being a mother like Marie and what a tragedy losing child must be. I don't think that I could ever go on after that kind of an experience. But for Marie, there are her other son and daughter and of course all the grandchildren. Of course people do go on, but life is forever changed.

When I saw the Bay of Fundy and thought about my mother telling her stories about that trip to Canada with my father in the 1940's...about boats stranded on the mud or hanging from ropes as the tide went out at amazing speed and in such volume...about the pre-teen brother and sister who caddied for them at a golf course in Nova Scotia and who could already play golf like pros even in a major wind...I realized that some things are so good in the telling that the reality pales by comparison.

I liked what we saw today. I am glad we came here. But the memory of life is sometimes more appealing than the real thing.

"twilight and an evening bell and after that the dark/and may there be no moaning of farewell when I embark."

My father used to quote that often, and now I thought of it as a tug pushed the Summit back out to sea and as the buoys rang their farewell. Sadly there is always moaning at the bar because while the sleep of death brings peace to the man or woman or child or animal that passes on, it does not do that for those of us left behind. Everything that goes on after seems colored by that which has gone on before. Sometimes that's to the good, and often it's not.