So… Monday I was up @ Wawayanda State Park in Sussex NJ (for those unfamiliar that is extreme north/west New Jersey… also known as NJ Bear Country), New Jersey gets a bad rap, OK, we deserve some of it, but my mission the past few years has been to show off some of what makes this little old state so great (it is I tell ya!), so I got my ass up to Wawayanda, it’s a huge area and I only got to maybe 50% of it at best, I was setting up my tripod to film this nice stream at the very open of the Laurel Pond trail area… and got surprised… I had no zoom set up so the footage is not perfect but you can see what is going on… a mama bear and her 2 pretty sizeable cubs, I kept my distance (obviously) but they did eye me up, I saw their faces, it is a quite a moment when you lock eyes with a wild animal than can take you out, I was in no real danger as I was on a bridge and near my car, but it was very surreal.
the fall, approaches
a perception, the air feels desperate
maybe this is the season
the radiance of the summer sun
bleeding out through the leaves
spilled upon the ground
in sudden ponds
thrown about by the wind
browned to decay
by the rain
the growing nights
the advancing cold
yes, I know you
yes – I know
the earth, a cradle, my time in such…
the mother
and her dying children
yearning to be born
so I am sold this is a circle
but what if this is
nothing-more,
than a line?
birth… day… (a poem about life)
So, I have crested oe’r the gateway
into the dawning of my greying age
a fading age
held in the palm
of the scales of time
in counted breathes
and a beating heart
for within this vessel of godly constraint
grows and dies, expands and retracts,
a life, my life
notes… why this song? it always makes me thinky … yeah, not exactly a technical term, I know… but accurate just the same. Angel or a Rat ? or the same ? in the same domain ? so… I was thinking…
A spicy story… (about spice, you know, in culinary terms)
A Spicy Story…The Photo: Seafood (diver scallops and shrimp) Jambalaya @ Oyster Bay (Cape May NJ), a couple of years ago I challenged the chef to spice it to the max, the bartender leans in “are you sure about that buddy” (with an inviting yet menacing grin), being over confident and also a chili head, (and cornered into dumb testosterone driven male bravado mode)… I said “bring it on”… the bartender departed to deliver the news, and then the chef peaked out from the kitchen doors, eyed me up and down, “are you sure” (both warning me but I could see he was also charged up to meet the challenge)… I gave him the nod (how could I not, it’s like being all in and poker and then trying to pull your chips, you can’t do that!), the minutes stretched to hours… no, just minutes but it felt longer… and then the doors swing open, angels on harps played and light rained down from heaven, or not… dish delivered, looked just like the one below, but I knew it held a terrible secret of hellfire… and boy, talk about performance anxiety, now I knew how those guys on those Food network shows feel, the whole bar had apparently gotten the memo and an an entire room of eyes was set on me and my um.. prize? so… I make sure my beverages are full, all the accoutrements are set, and I dive in, ahhh, no problem, the first carriage of food passes through my mouth gate with no problem, sure, there is some warmth there, a nice tidy warmth, and the overall flavor is so delicious that maybe I did not see, or feel, the trojan fire-steed being wheeled slowly beyond my doors, to unleash the hellfire in my innards like a precisely timed demolition, but I am not there yet, the crowd, waiting for me to sweat, waiting for me to bow out, no way, no how, I can take this, after all I grow habaneros fer crissake, I take some more bites, I pause to gloat a bit perhaps, and to pace myself just in case, I have been down these roads to hell before, and performed well, so, but man, the problem is the enticing flavor, the roux was dark brown, sweet and savory, sure, spicy but the flavor was so round I kept digging in, then I noticed, a few traitors, a few beads of sweat growing on my brow, what is this ? in my exuberance I had let the flavors lead to a trap, and then I began to feel it, both in mouth and lower regions, a complete rebellion, or at least a wildfire threating the calm beauty of my inner forest, I can now picture the grin of the chef, knowing his plan has a chance to succeed, but no, I will not go gently into that spice night, I push on, I enjoy the burn but not the piling on, halfway done now, pausing a bit more often to check my brow and to have a drink, and thankfully some bread that they bake on site, a delight but more a lifeline this night, I can feel the grit of extra cayenne powder in the roux, this is not ultra level heat mind you, this is sustained abrasion, an invasion and an occupation, where as a ghost pepper can make you gag, properly applied cayenne can coat your insides with building layers of fire, but again… the flavor is so good I can’t help but delve more in, the eyes of the bar are not as trained on me anymore, I am hiding my semi-struggle well I suppose, but the bartenders, no, I am the entertainment for the night, they are watching me like hawks and jesters, I imagine not many people are dumb… I mean bold! enough to challenge the chef in this regard, but I am, and damn he knows his audience, the scallops are almost like butter, my fork slices them , no it actually gets near them and they part like the red sea, effortlessly, the shrimp ? huge fat things, with that snap when you bite into them, which makes you forget about the pepper powder keg packages you are bringing gladly into your own house…
Sorry to say… I won the day, did I suffer a but ? sure, but I loved every moment of it. To this day I go there and since it is a family place many of the faces remain the same. They all remember me, not immediately, but when I mention the story there is total recall there. Have I done it since? What do you think ? No.. Way… I just want to sit down and have a meal, leave the battles to someone else, I may have won but I certainly learned a lesson…
notes.. you people will never know what you will get here… because I don’t care about the audience…I mean, I do… but you know what I mean, you either get it or not… and I am cool with that, this is an outlet for me, a place for you to plug in and draw power out, gee, what a clever outlet analogy, or not…
Norbury’s Landing (beach), Cape May NJ
Some NJ beach wildlife (cape may area)
music to accompany the photos by…. trust me, it vibes…
the gratuitous beach sunrise photos… (cape may nj)
last night (of vacation, stream of thoughts).
the last night of a vacation is always a strange one, I can’t complain about a thing, the office left me alone (mostly), the universe provided a spot, the weather, all of it really, the amazing confluence of the universe, but some how still, I feel like a crowd of strangers crashed the party at the end, for most of the week I have been able to dodge it, skulking about the edges and corners of the town, haunting nearly forgotten (or just not well known) beaches and refuges, returning nightly to a nearly empty (albeit on the ocean) hotel, I prefer the solitude in order to decompress, you might never know this, to talk to me that is, I usually light up the room, like a wily wild experienced entertainer, I can read eyes and minds, and like a magician I weave my words into superstition and illusion, slight of mind I suppose, everyone has their pillars, both to hold and to look imposing from most angles, but I do not always want to perform, not these days, not vacation days, I am here to unplug, there will be plenty of days to banter away but that switch is so on ‘off’ this evening, I dread negotiating for a seat at one of my favorite restaurants here, the anticipation every year… seafood pot pie, I can not explain the devilish grin that pops in my head and lights on fire all my senses just thinking about it, just the mass of people between me and that, I understand the economics, but that does not always check my inner selfish at the door (selfish for shellfish? perhaps), can’t I be self serving sometimes? well, at least in my inner monologue, as usual my concerns are probably overblown, but I won’t know until later, I’m on the porch at the hotel, above the pool, ocean view, close enough to hear the surf, not at the moment, four floors below the outdoor bar is a roar, one hundred conversations and I am a part of none, a couple of my fellow hotel fellows are flanked out on their porches, absorbed in their own worlds as well, the streets seem to be swelling with passer byes, and the clamor of horse drawn carriages (yes, they have those here), and a trolly, old time bicycle bells ringing, mounted to baskets above the front rims, bikes all dressed in those made for summer or the tropics, pastels, the colors that tend to fade quickly from neon birthing, ‘american pie‘ the one man band at the bar took the request, then joined in jam with a harmonica player who happened to be on hand, my cynical side smells a setup but I am enjoying the vibe besides anyway, I bathe in the utter familiarity of it all, not a song I would normally choose but hard to argue with in this open air sunny beach venue, all just seems to strum the right mood, and I look left, glad no one is using the hot tub, that thing, that beast is loud, I can only imagine being in it knowing the volume it shoots up, before the pandemic, this time of year, this place was more dead than alive, or maybe just in hibernation, I don’t think some things will ever be the same, good, bad or different, my concentration wanders back to the bar tops below, I wonder about each set, table, couples and the like, stories I never heard or never will, lives crossing right through my latitude, like astral bodies set to collide but never meeting, enough to lock eye-to-eye, I almost want to intrude but not be an intruder, the singer at the bar then breaks into “I want to grow old with you” from a movie I can relate to, I am oddly… moved.
showing my age… ah… who cares… I think I will post some photos next, I had an interesting week here in my home state… visiting little beaches up the coast, or down the coast, as it were… stay tuned, or not, I will post anyway, but thanks for any and all looks, until next time…
Stream of beach consciousness… (aka thoughts from the beach…)
at the border, the line, where civilization and the beach both meet and divide, so, here I am again, under an artificial light, wondering about life, as it happens, just over there, a Friday celebratory night, lights, all colors, conversations, all comers and I, invariably, wind up here, on the night beach, the surf ahead of me with a lullaby roar, this will outlast us all and yet as well itself, just a mantle of timing really, and behind me, laughter, arguments, love, consequence, all the buildings standing tall, and I wonder for what, or why, or is that the point, and then mix in the smells, the crisp bright ocean air mixed with the offerings of the thoroughfare, is this what I have been conditioned to know, to be happy with, is this my path, for I seem to gravitste to the same places, and ask myself and the universe the very same questions, and tommorow, is yet another day forward, another chance, and yet – here I am.
there is lightning on the horizon, I do not mean that metaphorically, out -over the dark ocean water, surely miles from here but still real, the sugar feel sand is cool not cold, the weather is seasonably warm, which enables the bold or just lack of decent restrain, I seem to wait, as I do, for something to break, or is this all there is, and my place in it is just a bellwether documenting same, a snapshot, a painter, an observer, how am I to criticize from where I come and what I may yet desperately want to be a part of, at some level? I feel at home and in a strange place, but yet- I must admit my choices have brought me to this gate, my joys, my sadness, my triumphs, my worst and my best – have all led to this reservation, to this fleeting week of floating, I kept ties on my ‘real world’, I surely did, but so quickly those threads dissipated, I wonder how important they really are, like a mighty spider’s web, a wonder, hours of construction, and smashed in a a day or so, left to rebuild a masterpiece just to eat, or so it was, and so I am ready, once again, to be thrown back into the blender of life, even armed with this sojourn in calm, all these nights to contemplate my fate, my life, my dreams, the gone, the now, the in-between, can I don this armor of self realization and beat the blitz, to climb out onto that field and make my own way, past cavalry, infantry, and me, I have all the tools I need, have I now the experience to utilize them fully, once more and again…
I watch the slow river of clouds, mix like solutions, like milk swirling my morning coffee, the composition is random but ruled by laws, I would rather think of them as free dreams inspiring the earth, and the river has slid down, engulfing the moon, but some light still escapes in highlights, somewhere submerged, the moon is still there, waiting, waxing. waning, a light not to be denied, and to never succumb fully regardless of the folly, we preach beneath…
Shades of My Garden 