Rocky Neck

Flotsam and jetsam from our trip up to Massachusetts in the summer. These are pictures taken in the Rocky Neck part of Gloucester. The day after we visited, I read The Perfect Storm, lying on the bed on the second floor of the house where we stayed, on our last evening, listening to the waves break on Back Beach in Rockport.

 

The book was the only one in the room, and belonged to the Inn. It had a broken spine. It was quite welcome relief after Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad etc. And it was strange to read about a town and about fishing boats I had only just seen. It's not my kind of book, yet I read it in one sitting (or lying). So it was compelling.

Someone here really wanted some cucumbers to grow...

Although art galleries have sprung up (the kind that signal the death knell of a way of life and the beginning of nostalgia for it), there is still real work going on.

And there were flowers, amongst the dilapidation.

Rockport in the sun

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For the full story from the Frenchie's point of view, click on his story and pictures of Rockport, just posted.

New York to Rockport

Contents of my traveling handbag. Read the new Gary Shteyngart on the train up, despite some misgivings after hearing him interviewed on NPR. Super cocky? It's about a future New York, one about to happen any second. Maybe next week. There are none of the sequences of arresting sentences or novel insights into the (my, our) human condition, that make me return to a book again and again, years later, but there are many compelling sketches of what we are heading towards, society-wise. It's also funny. I didn't find it very sad.

As usual, the cat watched the packing quite closely

Heading through Queens courtesy of our $120 roundtrip tickets on Amtrack from Penn Station to Boston, snaking around to the Bronx.

Goodbye, Manhattan.

Goodbye baseball.


Hello, French fries! At Boston we caught the subway from South Station to North Station and sat at the latter for an hour. There was a Macdonald's. I was feeling moody. So I did it.

THEY WERE GOOD! And I dipped them in ketchup.

Very moody.

And I realize why America is fat. This food is cheap. Unholy cow.

We saw a factory from the little train to Rockport.

And a bicycle hidden in the bushes at a station.

We started to see water and what floats.

And houses right on the tracks.

And signs.

Ponds.

And ponds.

Beautiful water meadows.

We were somewhere different, even from the train.

And then we were in Rockport. We walked to our much subdivided self-catering house, above Back Beach, from the station. We met Yann, Vincent's nephew, who carried my blue suitcases.

It was not at all what I was expecting.

Quite lovely.

The harbour had life to it. Despite the obvious, ambling tourist element (amongst which we numbered - Hippos - more about that later) and the unfortunate frou-frou and frippery that goes with it, there still seems to be an undercurrent of real salt water and work near the water.

Being near people who know what they are doing, in an entirely different element, is mesmerizing, and somehow reassuring.

The small boats on the glassy water reminded me of the Knysna lagoon.

Walking as we did every day after that, on Beach and Main Roads, up through Bearskin Neck, we passed alleyways and triangles between houses situated at angles to face the bay.

Always something to look down, or up. Something at the end.

The sea always to one side.

This shingled house right on Front Beach was my favourite, because of the garden. Apples, fat tomatoes. Unfortunately I spied a spray bottle of poisonous weed-be-gone tucked in a nook.

Rockport is under water restrictions. Perhaps the gardener waters furtively, at night.

Is there a flower decree in town. There Shall Be Flowers? For the Tourists Liketh Them?

Or do people really like them and plant them of their own accord?


Such happy, healthy plants.

A weed-be-gone world? What are the politics of these parts?

In the evening the scent of petunias rose from the flowerboxes.

And outside our modest room at the Beach Knoll with its windows open to the waves, South African nemesias blossomed in profusion. I looked carefully for seed, but I think they must be a seedless hybrid. I'm very sorry about that, because they were gorgeous.

That first night we had dinner with Vincent's extended family, whom he hadn't seen in over a decade, and I kept my head down and slurped my spaghetti at a picnic table while Quebecois French twanged about me. His aunt Marie, uncle Yves, Julie, Peter, the small Vincent and the large; Germaine, his mom, beaming from ear to ear to see her son and sister and nephews and nieces all together again. More family would arrive the next day.

We walked home in the dark, past the beach, and fell asleep quickly to the waves falling on the rocks and the sand in the two bays between which we lay. We slept straight through. Not a single eep from the bad black cat to wake us before dawn, demanding to be fed. Still, I wished he could be there too, sleeping on the seaside bed, on holiday from Brooklyn with his people, who missed him, despite everything.

Rockport

The rocks of Rockport.

Tide in.

Tide out.

We are back in Brooklyn. Arrived late, picked some cucumbers from the farm, made a thin, cold soup, poached some eggs and ate them on toast with chives and gratings of parmesan. The cat would not stop purring.

Everything on the terrace and farm is alive. Danielle, our neighbour, did a wonderful job all round looking after plants and cat. Someone even watered the plants on the stoop (I left a note)....

The hollyhocks from Fire Island have doubled in size in 5 days. Overripe figs were hanging from the tree. It rained! We missed the rain. I don't remember when last I saw real rain.

Rockport this morning was warm with white mist lifting off the calm breakers under a blue sky. It was hard to leave, and hard to say goodbye to Vincent's mom, Germaine, who is tanned brown from her two weeks of holiday to which she looks forward all year. She looks ten years younger. Mother-in-laws are supposed to be awful, but we are both lucky to love ours.

So, there will be more orderly pictures from New England, and there will be new plantings here, on the farm: I have all my cool weather leaves lined up in seed packets, waiting.

Lessons from New England

1. Swimming on a cold afternoon in summer in high surf is more fun than it sounds. Especially if you duck at the right time. Also, later, you find seaweed in interesting places.

2. No matter how hard you dig, there's always another wave coming.

Francois, cousin-in-law, in fort. Petit Vincent outside.

3. If you keep building, the fort will not crumble. But there can be no rest. Ergo: Is the fort worth it?

Grand Vincent holding my ex-pants.

4. Never, ever play beach tennis without a spare pair of pants handy. Showing off has its price.

Messing about in boats

Rockport daily pictures

Since we have located some roving Wifi, I will try to post a daily picture or pictures from this sparkling little town on Cape Anne.

It is beautiful here. There are flowers everywhere. The sea is clean and cold. The beaches pebbly. The lobster fresh. The clam bellies crispy. The natives friendly. The Frenchie's family all over town.

If this is New England, I have fallen for it.