Instead of exploring the island more, I gave into the ongoing restlessness and continued to drive to Lews where I could catch the ferry across the Delaware Bay to Cape May. The seventy minute ride was not unpleasant; it did feel good to stop driving and let someone else take over. I enjoyed letting the sun warm my face. I was reminded of my Catamaran ride in Maine last year and the embarrassing moment I unexpectedly lost my sea legs. I also lost my breakfast over the side, and into the wind. What came up did not go over, it flew back at me and the unfortunate souls who happened to be just behind me. It took me three days to get my land legs back. No, this was an easier ride, the swells low, and the ride smooth. On the other end, Cape May, New Jersey, I anticipated visiting some shipwreck I’d heard about but found the area so overly full of tourists, I did not have the patience to wade through the crowds. I spent about an hour walking near the water at a less populated beach, watching people play with their dogs. There was a family of dolphins swimming close to shore, a middle-aged truck driver and his school teacher wife said they were so happy to see them in the area again. A father and son were fishing. I could almost hear the sizzling of an elderly couple with already too baked and sagging skins. They were dozing in lawn chairs, each with a new york times crossword puzzle neatly folded in their lap.
I continued to wander up the east coast through New Jersey, New York. Both were white knuckle driving. Too many cars, too much speed, too much traffic, too much road construction. I just wanted to slow down. The good thing was that it kept me alert, scared and awake enough to want to get the hell away from both, and I was happy to finally get into Connecticut. I did not stop there, however, and drove until I reached Galiee, Rhode Island. Though I had only driven six hours, the daily miles were catching up with me. It felt like the same drive in which I make my art was spilling over into my traveling, and I needed to push less, relax more, and go with the flow.
Galilee is a small fishing village that has a connection to Canada. The story goes a man from Nova Scotia, Thomas Mann, settled in the area. One day he was fishing and happened to name the town Galilee after a passerby asked where he was. It just stuck. Jerusalem is a short distance.....that away. Cloudy and misting, I got out of the car and walked along the beach towards town, about a half a mile. The space opened wider than the container housing my loneliness. Solitude is just solitude, and other days it feels like I am a 61 year old endurance swimmer attempting to stretch my body between two strange and unfamiliar borders. What the hell I was doing, driving 7000 + miles alone, mostly in silence, to sit in silence on some craggy rock over-looking the St. Lawrence Seaway? Inside my head, the conversation was getting pretty loud. Out of the corner of my mind’s eye, the old woman who used to tie my fish nets in knots lit an oil lamp in the lighthouse, and laughed like a drunken sailor.
0 comments:
Post a Comment