"Standing By Peaceful Waters"

This pretty little book was published in 1973. I picked it up and put it back a few times over the years in the Cape Cod gift shop--I can't remember if it was at the National Seashore Visitor Center or the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. I've known their book inventories pretty well, with all that compounded vacation time to browse by peaceful waters. The colorful illustrated cover and the title called out to me, even if I never in my life make Beach Plum Jelly. I finally bought that soft cover version one year and just rediscovered it on the bookshelves in my home office. 

With quiet time alone this week, I've been reading it. Wonderful work by Elizabeth Post Mirel (who had three young children at the time, including a baby) with graceful illustrations by Betty Fraser. I do want the kind of calm where I make a pocket of time to read Plum Crazy, because it evokes a place and a passion. Our long-time Cape Cod friends Rite and Bob picked beach plums. I don't know if I ever learned to recognize the fruit until now, but there may be some nearby here in Connecticut.

Sis flew to the Midwest (New Mexico) to travel with her Peace Corps friend and family and called on me to dog-sit her enchanting pup, Galena, for more than a week. I walk that girly at least three times a day, and never sleep past 8, because she doesn't.

I'm loving it. Sis still gets The New York Times paper edition delivered daily. I sat on the sofa drinking in the Sunday Styles section. I met my friend/magazine colleague Mary Kate, who lives nearby, for a lovely catch-up breakfast in Cos Cob (part of Greenwich). I went to Mass in Stamford, and then asked Google to find the nearest Whole Foods, so ended up in high-end Darien midday Sunday, where I felt like a fish out of moneyed water. Two striking blonde women (not together) wore little immaculate white pleated tennis skirts, in perfect contrast to their golden tans. They were coming from or going to the courts. Eyewear was on trend, as were baby carriers and the handsome young dads wearing them for weekend duty. Some branded local products (cacao pudding and whipped bath scrub) were tempting but both went the way of Ice Cream Tulip bulbs, named for their colors but over my budget. The children, for the most part, seemed well-mannered and enchanting. The place was packed. Though the store was mostly stocked with the same products our Montclair Whole Foods carries, I felt an imbalance, shall we say, which I never feel in my diverse hometown.

Behold Ice Cream Tulips. I want to add some to our spring garden. 

You can also find Strawberry Ice Cream Tulips (red) 

and Banana Ice Cream Tulips (yellow). 

If I revisit Darien Whole Foods, I will buy a bag of bulbs.

Galena and I have been marina-gazing here in Shippan Point, turning our faces to the birds flying over the harbor and crossing paths with baby deer and other dogs (Pluto, Milo, Bo, etc.). We went to a small beach and walked out on the fishing pier, which has evenly spaced holes in the railings to rest poles while prepping bait or waiting for a bite.

When we go out back on the short boardwalk path by tall feathery grass and a Snowy Egret, Galena and I stop by the plaque that commemorates the trade between two chiefs of Onax Tribe No. 41, International Order of Red Men, and a white British captain in 1640 and memorialized for the city of Stamford in 1916. The original owners swapped this beauty for some coats, glasses, knives, kettles, wampum and a few other things. Read more about that here (excellent report by Chase Wright).

Harbors are calm, harbors are good, whether our paths are charted or uncharted. Which brings me to these beautiful lyrics from "Lake Marie," by John Prine, released in 1995:

We were standing

Standing by peaceful waters

Standing by peaceful waters.....

SPOKEN: Many years ago along the Illinois-Wisconsin Border

There was this Indian tribe

They found two babies in the woods

White babies

One of them was named Elizabeth

She was the fairer of the two

While the smaller and more fragile one was named Marie

Having never seen white girls before

And living on the two lakes known as the Twin Lakes

They named the larger and more beautiful Lake, Lake Elizabeth

And thus the smaller lake that was hidden from the highway

Became known forever as Lake Marie...

Onward now...

Correction: When I wrote this post on the fourth floor of the Shops at Hudson Yards in NYC yesterday, I put the wrong date for the tribal trade. It was 1640, not 1612. The plaque commemorates the original July 1, 1640 sale by American Indian Chiefs Ponus and Wascussue to British Capt. Nathaniel Turner, an agent for the New Haven Colony.