So… this park was built originally as a work project after the great depression, it was designed by the same architects as Central Park NYC, and oddly it is like an oasis in the middle of bustle, just like Central Park (it stretches miles along) , I have been trying to show off my state, my home, and honestly explore all the nooks and crannies here in New Jersey that I don’t know, so this was one of those days, I figured the hurricane would have cleared out most of the weather, not so much as it was a mixed day but… a good one, just the same, great walking park, great for families at the southernmost end with tons to do and a dog park !!!
post script: I did bring my trusty journal but no inspiration, which is typical, sometimes, ok, many times when I am out and about in nature I am absorbed by it, so I rarely write when I am on vacation or exploring, I must have looked like quite the odd duck, all dressed up in my work clothes hiking all along and peeking over the brook banks for those perfect duck shots, one woman asked if I was with the survey team (for the trees) and another asked if I was that nice young man who took the photos for the newspaper, I was neither, just someone determined to show that New Jersey is many things, yes, we have our down areas but for a small state we have more than people know, and being a homegrown joizee boy I should highlight all that because even I am unfamiliar with all the amazing things here, but I will show them off, or that is the plan, and maybe write some interesting things in the process…
Oyster Creek Restaurant and Boat Bar, Galloway NJ (Leeds Point), two weeks since I was peering out onto the salt marshes, and then dinner, this is the real jersey shore (for me), some raw top neck clams, some oysters, fresh local line caught tuna steak, all in a packed house, every generation from 2 months old to 100 years, parties of two to sixteen, kids first jobs of the summer, red and white checker table cloths, all Jersey…. am I biased ? sure… but I’m OK with that… The spider? I don’t know why but there is always huge spiders at these shore places, ok, well, I do know, big bugs = big spiders, duh, I will always remember the crazy amount of huge spiders @ Two Mile Landing in Wildwood, another iconic spot if you are in that area (further south), cracking crabs with a wood mallet is oddly satisfying… and time consuming… and generally worth it…
I was perusing the fish section of my local Wegman’s supermarket today, and they had Fluke, now Fluke is often referred to as “summer flounder” and is a very east coast thing, especially this time of year as they migrate close to shore abandoning their deep ocean homes, because like everything in jersey, it flocks to the shore in the summer, even the damn fish… I haven’t seen Fluke in a while, maybe I wasn’t quite looking, or maybe happening upon it today was just a fluke… they remind me of summer, day boating, or as we more common in these parts referred to them as “party boats”, you can do the math, but suffice it to say they were quite lax on allowing libations as stowaways, hell, you could not even spell “fishing charter” without ‘beer’, I must say the night boat trips were rather interesting, so yeah, I used to fish for Fluke as a kid, one of those very summer memories even though you can fish for them year round surely, I recall the party boats were with friends, but I remember the times with my dad more vividly, on my uncle’s boat, I don’t even recall how old I was, but the whole routine, getting on the boat not falling in, untying the ropes and such, the shiny white surfaces, chugging out slowly out of the marina, stopping at the gas station dock for fuel, food and bait-fish, eventually picking up a little speed out of the harbor, passing sandy hook, then skipping along the water until whatever destination was chosen was met, casting out our lines, catching mostly sea robins, and the occasional fluke, large enough to keep and then consume, that feeling when as the smallest person on board and you catch the catch of the day, the biggest fish, not often but sometimes, following the seagulls around as they spot schools, casting out to catch some blues among the frenzy, spending the whole day on the water, hours not mattering, starting at sunrise and finishing near sunset, all in a blink, I so romanticize it now, forgetting the work, getting up before dawn (ahem, not my specialty, ever), scrubbing everything down on the boat, the slime of the fish on your hands, the gunk on your shirt and shorts, that time my brother was unloading the catch and picked up my fish (the champ, the trophy of the day) and dropped it… back into the water, right by the dock, my heart swam away with the fish I lost, the rank old dead fish odor of the fillet station on the dock, the errant old scales all about like shiny little plates on a tangled fishing line wind chime, gutting the fish, evisceration of organs, the seagulls and shore birds in a veritable orgy of gore that they found so tasty as we threw the scraps and bits into the water next to the moored boat, and then becoming the bearer of a proud ziploc of perfect triangles of fish, to be had later as a reward or frozen – never seen from again… but my immediate recollection was all the positive things, and maybe just maybe that should be my focus when experiencing life, as it seems that is what we most remember anyway, there must be a reason for this, some biological thing I suppose, I doubt that it is just… a fluke…
in this sub/urban domain, there are many parts of my little state, that are, amazing places tucked away in plain sight, you just have to know where to look… and take the time to do so… seek out the beauty, treasure map not needed.
just something I wrote that I felt pertains to this post…
“a prayer for the living so they might know to fully embrace the miracle of being”
notes… find that space, or many of them, your space, wherever you may be, let the earth cleanse you of all the bad crap in your day, in your life, watch the ripples on a lake, one by one, watch a dragonfly hop from reed to reed and try to read it’s intentions, sit still for a moment and let the world wash over you, there is no better reality TV than nature, unscripted, and let it return you to when we were just travelers in this land, for we are.
Sometimes things align, and you just feel it in your bones, I stepped out of my usual routine and took a trip, a chance, this weekend (I usually work 6 days) and traveled not so far, in my own state, I literally pulled up a map and said “where haven’t I been?” Well, as it turns out, I have been missing out, the photo is the culmination of a day’s journey, it feels like a week, in a good way, I pit stopped in Absecon NJ as it would be a good jump off point to travel from (and being close to Atlantic City there are tons of hotel choices), the trip started off, um, not so well… driving from Hackensack to Absecon on a Friday night in the summer? yeah… probably not such a good idea but I was determined, hit some rain in the north but managed to make time south of home (Edison), in all I arrived around 9pm, tired but not wiped, and then the wait to check in, I figured there would be no one here, I was wrong, and to boot their reservation system had problems with online bookings… and sure, I had booked online… so after about a 20 minute wait I was panicking to find all my proof, the damn hotels.com app would not load, surely this was not a good sign, but… should I doubt, my reservation was fine, and I had wrapped myself in an anxiety pretzel for no reason (there might be a lesson in there), nice enough hotel, comfy king size bed into which I melted…
and the banging on the door, 8am, what the hell? I know I hung the do not disturb tag, but apparently in my tired blindness I had requested a maid… after hostage negotiations through the door we came to an understanding, understanding I put the wrong sign up, my bad, and back to sleep I was as I rarely get to sleep in and wanted to catch that extra wink before embarking on my exploration(s) I had planned for the day…
so a few weird dreams later I wake up, shower, and embark, off to Great Bay Wildlife Refuge, a large area of salt marshes connected by some rickety bridges and traffic lights that seem to be in the middle of nowhere, sweeping views, lots of shore birds, the sound of the wind on the reeds and grass, I’ll spare you the details but this is total zen for me, I drove all the way down as far as you can go, and hiked from there as far as you can go, and I did not learn my lesson about walking in crocs… not exactly the best footwear for long walks but great in the fact that who cares if they get muddy etc… fair trade off I guess. and then I visited Edwin Forsyth Wildlife Refuge which you can drive through, although I hopped out often for photos… so I walked a lot, and then drove … a bunch and walked some more. Both preserves were awesome, what a great day to visit, you could see Atlantic City in the distance like some weird metropolitan art skyline, my only complaint ? the damn greenies, damn they are persistent and vicious, greenies… are green headed flies and they bite… really bite, like draw blood bite, if you smack one at the right time (after it has fed) your hand is bloody, yeah… as fun as it sounds, you even smack them and they are still dug in and you have to pull them off, my legs look like they were hit by pre-pubescent acne, well.. at least they don’t itch as much as mosquito bites….
so that leads me to the photo, which was a night cap, the ending, I was the only “party of one” waiting for a table, Oyster Creek Bar and Restaurant, oddly enough it is on the edge of the very park I was routing around earlier (Edwin Forsyth Wildlife Refuge), this is a very Jersey experience, so visceral for me, this part of this jersey shore has such a distinct smell, it is like inherent to my instinct, I recognize it, it brings me back, it makes me feel at once like a child and at most immortal like time has stopped to make this perfect moment, this place is the type where you can stroll up in your boat, tie up and have some great food, mixed with regular folk looking for the same, but you are all right there on the precipice of where the food actually comes from, the sea, right there, the salt marsh is teeming with life, and tasty life, and then not so far off is the Atlantic ocean, you smell it all, the diesel, the semi sweet rot of a swamp, the salty air, the gentle aroma of wet wood, the short waves slowly lapping at the docks, the conversations you have had yourself, couples bringing their babies out for the first time, the families with their grandparents, the parties of nine, all of it, terrible chairs, red and white table cloths, local kids waiting out the shift, this is so familiar, so damn visceral, it makes me feel immediately comfortable, I could watch this all day… and night, but they just called my name, and damn I am hungry, hope it lives up to the hype, it probably will…
note: I am uploading a bunch of videos to my YouTube Channel, I finally got off my ass and learned how to use my ThiEYE cam
the sound of my bathroom exhaust fan rattling from years of revolutions, outside I put my ear to the ground to listen for that very sound but to the surface dwellers this is imperceptible or on a frequency not given this is a frequency for which I am not equipped.
notes… I call this observational poetry, something catches my eye (or ear) with a hook of metaphor, what for ? I don’t know, ask the muse, I just work here.
work was getting to me, my usual brick and mortar exterior was showing cracks, is this Monday? which is even a worse thought when it is not, but then you think “well, one day closer to the end of the week then”, which holds your hope over for about four seconds before returning to the pounding pace, the check in stamping work clock ticking just above your right shoulder, ever closer, sure, you flick your head around and it retreats to where it actually is, but that sneaky bastard just keeps ticking and mocking you just the same, the phone, I swear they work in tandem, tick – ringinging – tick – ringinging – tick – ringinging, is anyone going to answer that goddamn phone? and half the time it is one of my technicians calling. I believe it was jesus who said that you if you teach a man to fish he will eat all year, or something to that effect, well, I have taught some of my technicians to fish… but they wind up casting their lines in parking lot puddles, and I assure you the catch there is certainly not edible, nor is their ineptitude understandable or put-able on a day like today, in between thunderclaps of the boss’ pages, I decide to dash for the door, even a dreary wannabe rain day beats the inside of this joint today, I think of braveheart as my inner soul screams “F R E E D O M!!!!!”
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Ah, lovely suburbanHackensack New Jersey, a collection of non de-script homes nestled ‘tween aged industrial buildings of little or none architectural flair (a true monument to utilitarianism boredom), the gleaming, bustling highway route 80 off to my left (scene of the morning crawl), the effervescent Hackensack river one block behind me (nothing can live in the water it is so utterly polluted), the once black mulch adorning the sides of the walkway with lovely petals of newport and marlboro scattered about, ah, this is my refuge from that cubicle of torture (even though it is a not a cubicle, I might actually prefer the semi-privacy granted by such walls), I need to catch my breath and shake off the ox plow of the day, what better way than to amuse myself with the viciousness of local traffic, I swear I saw fangs bared (I could be mistaken), but the strict adherence to subtle traffic common law does bring out the beast in people, take more than two seconds at a light? you will get a rather subtle reminder from the courteous traveler behind you, sometimes even shouting encouraging words such as “move it moron” or “what the f’ is wrong with you, you stupid piece of s*!”, who on god’s good green earth would dare question the civility and harmony of humanity in times such as these? I was also unaware that the stretch of local road outside was an honorary speed race track (I think it is christened Chuck Yeager memorial or something), and off they go in all sorts of various vehicles gunning it down the street to some unknown checkered flag, all to my amusement, there are lights every 100 or so feet as you approach downtown, and the courthouse as well, oh well, these brave pioneers know better than I, I am not sure if I witness the death of courtesy or both sides being, well, complete friggin jerkoffs, my neighbor across the way, this sort of blair witch house thing, that has been through (barely) many floods, and certainly even more occupants, not sure which has done more damage but both wind up leaving various furniture and objects at the curb in their wake, but back to the traffic at hand, my neighbor whom I do not know (we office types do not mix with the ‘residentials’, it is forbidden or to say it with more panache – ‘verboten’), he decides to just back right up into the street with nary a pause, well, Mr J Lexus was having none of that I tell you, I mean I get it, I truly do, being the first to sit at a red light is quite the high honor, but it was hard for me to decide who was more in the wrong here, technically ‘we-be-jammin-can’t-see-through-the-night-tinted-glass-Lexus-man’ had the right of way, he clearly demonstrated this with a light tap on his horn that lasted nearly ten seconds, I could not hear the verbal gems he hurled at my poor lonely neighbor, who incidentally took this verbal assault to simply back up right into the road and force a sudden stop of a different car (one of lower standard in the caste system than Sir Lexus the Great), I can’t tell you how much this whole scene amused me, and I think I got a couple of death stares in my general direction, but I felt safe with the door to my office within grasping distance of my big white rear in case a hasty retreat was needed, so I filled my lungs with the filthy air of industry, racing cars for no reason, the highway fumes floating down like smog mana from heaven, and I was revived…can I get an Amen (cough * cough *)… but I must admit I felt refreshed, revitalized, ready to put on my invisible armor and march back in there to the battle that can not be won, but I struggle on, with renewed vigor, renewed belief in the goodness of man!
Epilogue: As fate laughs, down at me, as fate would have it, this very night, driving home (as I tend to do), I get off my normal exit on the GSP, no biggie, I make the usual turn onto Magnolia (glad there is no train arriving @ Metropark), and WHAM… a livery vehicle in front of me (that’s a fancy taxi to the uninitiated), said livery vehicle proceeds to race ahead at 10-15 mph in front of me… honestly at this point I could have turned into a traffic madman like I expounded about in this post, but alas, I just laughed at the utter irony of it all (being I wrote all this today), and let the jackass behind me do all the road rage-y stuff for me, you know, the swerving, the lights, the horn, this just amused me more and more, local street, double yellow line (no passing), so I just bided my time and livery guy made a left, “good luck” I thought to those behind, poor bastards. (and heck, it doesn’t hurt to have some good tunes to take the old edge off, I must admit).
silly but performed so well, can you recognize all the songs and riffs (so many classics in there) ? ? ? ? and with that I sign off my friends, as always, all eyes, loose eyeballs, looks, half looks, stink eyes, and other none such… are… well appreciated. tell your friends, ego has a blog, and this is it…
Just the side street next to my office, a day moon, a night moon (happened to be one of the blood moons we had this year), and… the street light masquerading as a moon in my view. I find some pleasure in the aesthetic of mundane things, ‘finding beauty wherever I may go’ has become sort of a motto for me, or a mantra, or a mental exercise that really helps, walk outside, regardless of how urban your situation, there are birds, squirrels, bugs and all sorts of life making a go of it with no self reflection getting in the way, I am jealous of this purity and aim to inject it into my daily reality, it’s simple – to say but like all else the bones are in the execution of same.
‘available for lease‘ I remember this place I always meant to stop in but never did, cause and consequence.
notes… things change, this much we know, but do we? We feel like we are going to live forever, that all existence is now because of our presence, perhaps that is the spark of life deep down? I wrote this passing by this farmer”s market/garden store I have driven by thousands of times on route 27 in Edison, I guess I didn’t learn my lesson, after all the Parsonage Diner just down the street is now a Rite Aid for some time… I can remember so many nights rolling up on that dinner at some ungodly hour after a night of doing quite ungodly things, sure, Jersey is the land of diners, we have an over representation, but this was OUR diner, kind of the last landmark, the shore, the safety point of going home, the edge of the neighborhood after excursions into New Brunswick or Princeton or beyond… what’s the point? ah… you get it.
the gentle but solitary coo of the mourning dove the last ten top feet of copper fading atop the highest trees three quarters full day moon above artfully placed against the blue even surface features visible to this naked eye, and onward the call woo-ah, coo… coo… coo woo-ah, coo… coo… coo robin’s still bickering, over this lullaby a jack’s seasoned camo so sublime even a good size one nearly escapes my view a bird of prey enters the scene across the street I carefully stride forward, closer to identify and get a clean look with a great whoosh down in flight crossing my eyes a falcon’s unmistakable lines for a moment all other sounds commit to silence I was not the only one paying attention.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
notes… wrote this sunday night (I thought my post sunday made more sense to post with the St Patty’s theme, call me pandering, I agree), I have some crummy photos of the falcon from my phone, which sucks because I had it framed against the day moon, a huge bird of prey sitting on a perch in my backyard under a day moon… damn I suck, lesson learned, I will bring my SLR out more when I write… but it is so apparent the world is ready to bloom, to explode, I can feel the feeling building each time I go out and listen, spring is ready to break through the not so perma frost, I can feel it.
MUSIC, as always my friends I love to infuse you with my musical madness…
And… to be fair, I was at this show, I have seen many shows in my day (thousands), and I am a total metal head… but this… this… she owned everything from the material, the performance and the crowd…. this was a special night, thank you Tori for all…
Shades of My Garden 