Adventure: Make It Count

Maryland, Tennessee, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. All in the parking lot of our little room. Vacationland. Yep, it is. The season is short, too short some would say, but like New Mexico, short seasons force decision making, like editing for a photography book. You can’t leave it in. You can’t get sloppy. Whatever it is you need to do in this particular season, do it now, because before long, you will feel the shift. The transfer of humans back to cities. The ringing of school bells a sign that another year has passed. And the chill will arrive and wrap around you. A damp chill from the depths of the forest. Fall. Right there, waiting for the door to crack open.

The sea is clear and coldish now. Mounds of seaweed piled on the beach, the same issue I saw further south. In the land of dreads. Rising temps, changes in the rock we live on. Predators moving to lower temps, opportunists moving with the warmer flows. Jellyfish, drifting on holiday. Bare feet on rock and shell. Earthing here is easy. With only a few days, it feels like being cheated. Plans are hatched for next year. A month, minimum, like the old days. Uncle will come too. He shakes his head and says, “I don’t know,” but we know for him. He has real history here.

A double-digit mortgage, but still, there were months where the money wasn’t there. Downtown a shell of what it is now. Locals, mostly. The drive from the South Shore considered “long distance.” Pack a sandwich. Dress codes, dirt roads, and real winter. He shows pictures of nine-foot drifts—the two-season house buried under the prime season’s might. Get in, get out, before it’s too late. Up early this morning, I unpack my jacket and open the doors and windows. Mid-July, yet the foreshadowing is there.

The humans are different here. An enormous English flag draped in front of the hotel. The lads go down to the Argentines in the fading light—a death blow to an entire nation. The accents so dense I first think I’m hearing French. Two sentences behind in my translation, but the pain is evident. This had meaning. Four years is a long time to wait. I stay impartial. Not my fight. I walk around the edges on my way to the shoreline. Places I’ve photographed for thirty years, but places I can’t wait to return to. I just need one frame. Reminders.