Route 153

I am wearing an almost-black rubber wristband that says DESPAIR. I am wearing it for a week.

A couple of Christmases ago, Sewa Yoleme sent me this wristband as part of a satirical trio that also included the very-black NIHILISM and the very-light-gray APATHY. I wore APATHY once, but then I realized that I had cared enough to put it on, which muddled me rather.

Now that I have left my beloved Northbrook for what is likely the last time, I am wearing DESPAIR for a week. That’s the plan.

In keeping with our ongoing denial, we signed up for two weeks again next year, one in June and one in August, on the off chance that the place doesn’t sell and the owner opens it as a B&B. But it feels like a long shot. And, as I’ve said to others and possibly written somewhere, the uncertainty is beginning to feel like a long breakup. Is this the last time? Is this? Is it more painful to just stop, or is it OK to squeeze as much out of it as you possibly can if you’re really in love?

That spot on earth—and I mean that very spot—has felt like some sort of emotional home to me from the second I first set foot on it more than twenty years ago. It’s partly mine. But not mine in a way that has any legal standing. Maybe I should start thinking of it as the place where my grandfather Trespassers W used to live. The place he used to live that I can’t physically visit.

This is getting whinier than I’d planned. Random thoughts:

• Nothing can replace Northbrook.
• I really believe I’m going to see my Northbrook buddies again. We seem to have bonded.
• Something else will come along that I will love. Something different.
• Now I’ll have time to do things I haven’t done because I wouldn’t not go to Northbrook.

I cried a lot when I left. But I cry a lot every time I leave there. Maybe I can trick myself into thinking that this time’s no different—that nothing can keep us apart.

Uncle, by J. P. Martin (Thanks, Mrs. S! I loved it. In pursuing sequels, I’ve found that only Uncle and Uncle Cleans Up are available in recent reprint. Alas, I will have to await the reprint of the others, as I can’t afford those rare-book prices.)
A chilling short story by a fellow blogger (you know who you are)
Take the Cannoli, by Sarah Vowell
Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones
Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris

I am not a full-time nurturer. I am not someone who adds living things to my household that demand a lot of attention: children, pets, plants.

I am someone who lives in Vermont with neither garden nor dog. An anomaly.

But a few years ago, for Christmas, Marguerite—the mother of Sewa Yoleme—sent me a plant.

A sago palm. Beautiful little thing: four leaves sprouting out of the top of a shaggy little trunk. Fits on a plant stand. Looks fabulous with my décor, such as it is, and brings a little of the tropics into my home—specifically, into the corner of my bedroom.

It is still alive.

Let me repeat: I have a plant. I have had it for several years. It is still alive.

No, really.

Last year it sprouted a new leaf. The leaves are the type made up of a bunch of their own leaves—you know, like ferns. (Bear with me. This is not a language I speak.) This leaf didn’t look like the original four. It was bigger, and the texture was different. Tim at one point turned the plant away from the sun, and the leaf contorted, twisted back on itself. It stayed that way, like that face your mother told you not to make.

Right after I got back from Portland last month, the plant sprouted three new leaves. These mothers are huge. One sticks straight up, twenty-six inches so far, which, given the height of the plant stand, puts the top of its head almost dead even to mine.

This new growth is kind of creepy. There’s something almost Little Shop of Horrors about it. Perhaps I feel that way because we share sleeping quarters. (Goodnight, Audrey III. Have you been the one waking me in the wee hours?)

Apparently sago palms and pets don’t mix. Wikipedia reports that the plant is toxic to humans and animals, but pets seem to find it yummy. At least half of them who snack on a sago die. You have been warned.

Am I going to actually have to replant this thing? It’s in such a pretty, bonsai-sized planter. They look so good together.

Time will tell. I don’t want to piss it off.

Per requests. Twisty leaf coming straight at you.

Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him. He doesn’t know that he’s the potential target of well-aimed undergarments. He doesn’t know that when he plays his alto sax, it’s only him and me, and I can’t take my eyes off his hands. The man is all fingers and tongue and lung capacity. He doesn’t know that I know this.

Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him. And he will never know, because I am too shy to tell him. Before last night’s concert, he walked on stage alone to retrieve that sax and flute. I was mere feet from him. I could have said something. I kept very quiet.

Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him. And if I told him, what would he say? “Uh . . . thanks?” I’m sure other people tell him this all the time. I am not other people. I don’t need him to love me back. I am happy in unrequited awe, which I have perfected in my love for birds and their songs and their fierceness.

Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him, that I love him possibly even more than I love his impossibly astonishing quartetmates.* He doesn’t know that we were in the room together the night I turned fifteen, back when he was with Ferguson, back when I was falling in love with jazz and maybe some guy older than Bobby Militello.

No doubt Bobby Militello knows that everybody loves him. But Bobby Militello doesn’t know I love him. I’ll keep him guessing, sit back, and listen to him improvise.

*Dave, Michael, Randy.

During company prep yesterday, I went into the guest room to make sure all was well (or well enough). The little spiralbound book I keep as a guest book was on its side and open to a blank page. I’d noticed this before, but hadn’t bothered to check it out.

A few weeks ago, there was a marvelous impromptu happy hour at our house, during which three young ladies (ages 8, 8, and 9) asked if they could hang out in the guest room. (These same three were to later represent, in fact, one third of my circus posse.) Permission granted!

Yesterday, when I went to right the guest book, I found this note:

Hey [Indigo] and Tim your house is so awesome and cool.
With friendship
Kristina, Najwa, Aidy

I really love those guys. Finding that note was so awesome and cool.

It is difficult to live in the moment. Every moment I am doing something is a moment I am not doing something else. Some calmer personalities are able to handle this quite easily, whereas others of us were the kids who never wanted to fall asleep for fear of missing something.

I am working for three clients at the moment. Well, I am working for two—one is getting put off until one of the others is checked off the list. I give the jobs my all, but deciding who gets my attention at what point can cause a little stress. Where does one start when facing equally important piles?

Add to that the need to catch up with the regular bills, etc., that accumulated here during my week in Portland. And my shortened work week in the face of visiting friends. And the need to feed these friends as well as figure out what delightful nosh to provide at another friend’s champagne-and-art party Friday night. Today is Wednesday. Dana and Chris arrive tomorrow. Hmmmm.

But this isn’t simply a matter of triage. Certain things I am not doing in a particular moment will get done in a different moment. It’s those choices one makes to be in one place and not another—in moments one will never get back—that are harder. If I am in Portland, I am with my Portland friends, but I am missing my Route 153 friends and Route 153 happenings and everything that makes me happy that Route 153 is my home. If I am on Route 153, I am missing my friends all over this crazy country, and as I sit at my computer working on some textbook or other, I find myself dreaming of hanging out in their urban, tropical, deserty, mountainous, coastal, or landlocked lives. I miss other crazy countries too, as my mind wanders to a café in Verona or to the cliffs at the northern tip of the Shetland Islands. I remember that green kingfisher in Belize. I get all yearny.

Monday night, a neighbor’s relatives were in town, and I missed a game of kickball that will never come again. I regret that, but meanwhile, Tim prepared a lovely red snapper on the grill, and there’s no rushing that, and it took a bit longer than we’d expected, and then we were quite tired. Still. There are invitations from good friends that we have to turn down because we’ve already accepted invitations from other good friends. There are big events I’ll be missing in August while I’m clinging to my last week at my twenty-two-summers-running vacation spot. Like a spoiled child, even when what I’m getting is great, it hurts to miss anything. I’d throw a tantrum, but I have to get back to work.

They have names like Vignola, Evangeline, Bresca. They beckon me with their perfectly presented plates, with their come-hither menus. Once again, I’m in Portland, and I have eaten some impossibly good food three nights straight.

Can I withstand this much pleasure in a 52-hour period? Turns out I can.

One night, upon taking in our surroundings, perhaps upon tasting the duck with mascarpone polenta, in a moment of fully feeling the utter bliss that had become us, Tim made the obvious Judeo-Christian pronouncement: “I am going to hell.”

It is questionable whether I can afford this habit. It is especially questionable in light of the home heating oil contract I just signed. So, during the days, I’ve been working frantically on a textbook in the hopes that I can at least offset what I’ve eaten here. It is perhaps fitting that it is a textbook about oral diseases.

At night, supper; during the day, singing for it.

But that’s it. No more high-end eating this week. There will be no Back Bay Grill, no Street and Company, no Fore Street. There will be no Katahdin or Local 188. This excess has got to stop.

Yet still another temptress beckons: Louise. Tonight she is hosting an intimate happy hour on her famous dorch (Is it a deck? Is it a porch?). She has cast out bait that looks suspiciously like a Hendrick’s cucumber martini. It looks like I may bite.

A special thanks to Sewa Yoleme, who urged me to get off my ever-widening ass and post something.

Last night I went to the circus with nine of my close friends and associates. And at long last, I got to ride a camel.

This small traveling circus comes to the area nearly annually. I went for the first time three years ago and rode an elephant with my friend Aidan. I wanted to ride the camel then, but I was told I was too big. I found this so traumatizing that the next year I didn’t even ask to ride the camel—Aidan and I rode the elephant again.

The circus didn’t show up last year.

Last night I headed to the big top with renewed hope of riding a camel. My sister, who has already ridden a camel, had her sights set on an elephant.

But, oddly, there were no elephant rides. Only elephant-and-you photo ops.

Curious.

So I get in the camel line with Aidan. Only kids were getting on the camel—often just one kid at a time. Aidan and I watch a major drama unfold immediately ahead of us as a kid, when his brother gets off the camel, is obviously too terrified to take his turn. So his father tries to get him to get on with his brother. Brother gets back on the camel, Kid still won’t get on, but Brother, already on the camel, gets another ride. Aidan and I roll our eyes. Hey, it’s almost for time for the circus, and some of us want to ride the camel!

I ask the ticket taker: Can I get on with her?

He looks at Aidan. With her? he asks.

Yeah.

OK.

He probably thought I was Mom and that this was Aidan’s idea. I don’t know if he would have let me on alone. I didn’t ask any more questions. I wanted to ride the camel.

And we did. A man led the camel up and down the pen a couple of times, during which I learned (from him) this piece of trivia: No one could ride the elephants because the state of New York had made it illegal for the circus to offer elephant rides—something about their status as exotics. I guess camels don’t qualify as exotics. Who knows? This is what the camel guy said. I have not looked into it further.

And because of the chit-chatting, and because I had to watch my legs, what with being led a little too close to some metal posts, I didn’t really experience the Zen of Camel or anything, but it was fun, and hey, I rode a camel.

The circus was great fun too, if only because there’s something utterly surreal about it. It’s hard to believe that these small circuses still exist and that they play a different town every night. I look at the performers and animal handlers and wonder how many of them think they have the best job ever and how many of them can’t stand the thought of one more show. Of course, one could look at any workplace and wonder this. We all have our balancing acts. We all have balls to juggle and hoops to jump through.

Sign in front of a bar in rural New York:

Beer is now cheaper than gas.
Drink, don’t drive.

There are many things that impress me about my friend Terry (aka Pterry, after the pterodactyl Pterri, my favorite Pee-wee’s Playhouse character—come on, you know you have one too). Two of those things are how much she travels and how she keeps in touch with her friends when she’s traveling. She used to always send postcards (she would print out sheets of address labels in advance to take with her) and sometimes still does. More recently, she writes wonderfully detailed travelogues and sends them round the world via e-mail to keep us updated on her adventures.

When I go on vacation, I am just the opposite type of person. I don’t get in touch with anybody. I retreat from anything that feels like obligation, which, for me, includes writing postcards. The thing about Pterry is that these postcards she sends, either physically or electronically, clearly aren’t “obligation” for her. She does it because she loves it. I love that about her, and I am doing my best to accept that I’m not like that, and that’s OK.

So I’ve decided that during this, likely my second-to-last week ever at Northbrook Lodge, the camp I’ve been coming to for twenty-two consecutive summers, I will write postcards to Pterry and post them here. I will try to write a lot of them, because she has written a lot of them to me, from every corner of the globe, it seems. Et voilà:

Saturday, June 21
Front: Tail o’ the Pup, Ray Brook, NY
Back: Pterry—On our way to Adult Sleepover Camp, we made our annual stop at the restaurant we call Eurotail, in honor of the hot 20-year-old Eastern European waitresses always employed here to serve us our pulled pork. To think we used to regularly pass this place by til we got a firsthand recommendation! Yum. Indigo

Saturday, June 21
Front: Sphinx moth
Back: Pterry—One of the first things I saw when we arrived and got out of the car was one of these sphinx moths on the flowering bushes, flitting around like a hummingbird (its own proboscis quite impressive) and looking for all the world like a huge bee, what with its striped-butt coloration. Unbelievably cool. Indigo

Saturday, June 21
Front: Closeup of black fly
Back: Pterry—We’re finally settled at camp and have been reunited with some of our BFFs. First thing, Tim and I took a canoe out to Church Pond, where we somehow managed to successfully spot a northern parula (much easier heard than seen). It took no time at all for me to get a big black-fly hickey on my neck. I’d write more, but we’re on our way to a cocktail party at Tim and Valerie’s cabin. Wish you were here! Indigo

Sunday, June 22
Front: Common loon
Back: Pterry—I woke up at 3:15 a.m. thinking I was in my own bed and it was coyotes who had done the wakin’ me up—but it was actually the wolf cry of a loon right outside my window! Now I know I’m really here. Love, Indigo

Sunday, June 22
Front: Brown trout
Back: Pterry—Tim and I fished the Upper Saranac this morning. I hooked two trout, landed one. Tim hooked one so deep we had to keep it, which always makes me sad, but we shared it with our friends as a dinner appetizer tonight. In other news, I’ve been reading a YA novel about roller derby, and I took a nice long walk in the woods this afternoon for some exercise. I actually didn’t end up where I wanted to be at first, because (as I figured out when I retraced my steps) I had been completely seduced by the sound of a hooded warbler right when I should have turned right. I never spotted him. I got back just in time to shower before the cocktail party at Tom and Jinki’s cabin. More soon! Indigo

Monday, June 23
Front: Antique repro card featuring Adirondack guideboat
Back: Pterry—This morning Tim and I paddled across No-Name Pond to head up No-Name River, where we saw a loon on his/her nest. I’m hoping to see some babies when we come back in August. A great blue heron, looking somewhat immature but maybe the biggest we’d ever seen, kept flying ahead of us up the river. Indigo
P.S. You should see all the mosquito bites on my neck!

Monday, June 23
Front: Visitor Interpretive Center, great blue heron, Heron Marsh, Paul Smiths, NY
Back: Pterry—I’ve moved on from the roller derby novel to letters of Vincent Van Gogh and some short stories. I took an incredible walk at the interpretive center (wish you could see it—8 or so miles of incredible groomed trails through many habitats), during which I had some excellent bird encounters in the middle of the afternoon. Watch my blog for possible further detail. Gotta go host a cocktail party now at Tom and Jinki’s cabin! Soon-to-be-tipsy Indigo

Tuesday, June 24
Front: Donnelly’s ice cream stand, intersection of Routes 86 and 186, between Paul Smiths and Lake Clear, NY
Back: Pterry—The weather was most unsettled today. I woke up to a downpour and slept in to the sound of the rain. At noon, Tim, Virginia, and I headed into Saranac Lake for lunch and a trip to the used bookstore, as both Virginia and I were needing more uplifting reading. Tuesday is berry day at Donnelly’s, so I had to go. I’m not really a fan of soft-serve ice cream when what I consider real ice cream is available, but this place is an institution, and it’s a single flavor each day, twisted with vanilla—the only choice you have is the size, cup or cone. This makes for some frustrated children sometimes. We love that. Red raspberry today. Mmmm. Creamy Indigo

Tuesday, June 24
Front: Rodney Yee in lotus position
Back: Pterry—Lazy day. The most I could muster exercisewise was a short yoga session. Am breezing through a novel that, although not necessarily uplifting, is nonetheless a good vacation read. Oh, look, it’s nearly 5:00—time for happy hour at Tim and Valerie’s! Cobra Indigo

Wednesday, June 25
Front: Black Pond
Back: Pterry—This morning went birding with Tom and Jinki before breakfast, but couldn’t produce the aggressive ovenbirds from a couple of days ago. Still, there were warblers to be heard, and even a few to be seen. One of our BFFs, John, had to leave today. It felt like seeing the first Canada goose fly south. Virginia (who gets another day) and I took a 5ish-mile hike/walk, the prettiest part of which was around this pond. No cocktail party tonight. Sober Indigo

Thursday, June 26
Front: Magnolia warbler
Back: Pterry—Got up to canoe before breakfast and saw one of these on the far shore! Hey, I keep meaning to tell you how GREAT the dry sacks are that you gave us. We have been using the blue one in the canoe this week, and each time we’ve been out, we’ve hit a patch of rain and had to throw all sorts of stuff in it for safekeeping. You think of everything. Thanks. Grateful Indigo

Thursday, June 26
Front: Ausable River
Back: Pterry—Rain today. So Tim and I picked up lunch at Lake Placid and headed out to the Ausable to fish. Such a beautiful river. I missed a couple; Tim caught three. Virginia left today; Tim and Valerie leave tomorrow. The Big Dread is coming on strong. Why does Adult Sleepover Camp ever have to end? Blue Indigo

Thursday, June 26
Front: Marcy cabin, Northbrook Lodge
Back: Pterry—Through the walls, I can hear Tom singing, “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No.” I love that song. Broadway Indigo

Friday, June 27
Front: Snapping turtle
Back: Pterry—Tim and Valerie left today. We leave tomorrow. Today we threw the canoe on the roof and checked out a new pond, Moose Pond—bigger than we expected, but quite beautiful. We were passing some rocks when I noticed that one looked suspiciously turtlelike. It was a huge snapper sunning herself. She was so still and dry, I began to wonder whether she was alive, but we woke her up when we finally circled to her front. She was in the water in no time. We gave her plenty of space. Gorgeous. Indigo

Friday, June 27
Front: Strawberries
Back: Pterry—It’s strawberry day at Donnelly’s, and we were driving by anyway, so why not? So you know, and in case you’re passing through, here’s the schedule: Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, chocolate; Monday, nut surprise; Tuesday, red or black raspberry; Thursday, fruit surprise; Friday, strawberry. All flavors always twisted with vanilla. Pick a size and get out. I tend to avoid nut surprise day, because I am always hoping for pistachio, and it ends up being maple walnut. Apparently this past Monday it was butter pecan. I probably could have lived with that. Berry Indigo

Friday, June 27
Front: The point at Northbrook Lodge
Back: Pterry—We had a Northbrooky Friday, with an hour-long hike on the interpretive center trails, a long read on the point by the pond in the sun and breeze, a yummy dinner just the two of us, a rousing scorefree ping-pong battle, and a postprandial canoe on Osgood Pond. The water was so still you could see every cloud in it and pull your paddle through your cloud of choice. We got to see the larger merganser family—more than a dozen chicks (but too quick and too many to accurately count). The ones that could got on mom’s back. Saw a smaller family earlier in the week, just four chicks, all of whom could all fit on mom’s back. Indigo
P.S. Common merganser chicks are among the cutest baby animals in the world.

Saturday, June 28
Front: Woodchuck
Back: Pterry—We have come down from the mountains and are on our way home. I’m in a the parking lot of a sheet music store; Tim is inside browsing. I am in the passenger’s seat, door open to a small hill. I just looked up to see a woodchuck heading right toward me. I closed my door and we stared at one another for awhile, maybe four feet from each other, maybe not quite. He moved on. We are in the middle of town. Hope he doesn’t get hit by a car. Concerned Indigo

Sunday, June 29
Front: Hexagenia (mayfly)
Back: Pterry—It’s a good thing it’s pretty where I live and that I have good friends here. The days at Northbrook are so ephemeral. I am home, there are tasks to be done. Last week already feels dreamlike. Good dream. Between-worlds (but not for long) Indigo