Four months after the last time I made this same drive, I
find myself grossly disoriented. That
last time, spring begged to pop its glorious visage through the late throes of
New England winter. Hardened snow banks
dwindled along the sidewalks, and ice chunks the size of Fiats choked the
river.
Today the temperature is thirty, perhaps even forty degrees
warmer. So many trees have leafed over
that I don't recognize the once-desolate drive.
The Merrimack, calm and cubeless, shimmers in its careless flow to the
Atlantic a few miles away. Runners,
joggers, walkers, bikers, and skaters are out, weaving around families pushing
prams as they jockey for select scenic sights from the sidewalks that form seams
along the river banks.
The houses along route 113 are familiar and unfamiliar all
at once, hiding behind budding flowers and lush bushes. I nearly miss the teal house with the purple
door because summer's foliage swallows it into dark shadows despite the blazing
morning sun.
The winter parking for the café disappears, transformed into
a marina-only lot. I could park in a
different private lot, roped off where the boats launch, but I opt instead for
a dirt lot near the whale watch ticket booth.
It is quiet here for an early Sunday morning. The café line is out the door, spilling into
the marina lot. I pop my head inside,
cutting apologetically through the line to join my two friends who have already
secured the table. Not "a"
table; "the" table, the baby grand piano shell that serves as our
favorite writing spot. We can be and
have been productive at those other tables, those square tables, but we are
ridiculously productive at this one.
My writer friends arrive with technology. I'm still old-school, armed with pencils,
pens, colored pencils, and a sharpener.
I've been toying with technology for years and may finally be jumping on
the traveling laptop bandwagon, but, for now anyway, I'm all about wide-ruled
notebook pages and a bevy of fluid gel pens.
The river outside the window just east of the route 1 bridge
is surprisingly silent for a gorgeous summer Sunday. Even mid-morning, yachts and boats of all
sizes sit idle in their sloops, chomping at the docks for that trip out to sea. It's almost sad watching the mighty
fiberglass monsters bobbing listlessly in the midday glare.
So different and yet not.
The last time I was here, many of the vessels were dry-docked along the
café parking lot, behemoths biding their time until the ice jams cleared the
channel to the whale road and beyond.
How ironic that they are free yet remain in stasis.
 | |
| (My terrible sketch of the piano table) |
Even now, hours after I've arrived, Newburyport still seems
drowsy, as if dawn still stretches over the buildings and the water, as if
suburbia still sleeps while I write.
