the circumnavigation of violets.

For the past nine months I have lived in one of the quaintest and most highly sought after towns in the North Shore. Rockport, MA has approximately three ice cream shops, one coffee shop, about 6 t-shirt stores, a pizza place, three of the same silversmith store, and one all around local café It is called the Greenery and it is where I am currently sitting. I’m a local. I walk into town at night for my coffee and a rendezvous with the ocean. I’m one of those. Those people who have essential needs in life that involves the smell of salt water and the sound of the waves, who like mountains, but prefer water. As a result I am also typically surrounded by those people, except I have differing opinions on them. As I walk through Rockport at night and see their large houses and picturesque views of the ocean, I realize they are more often than not- inside, not home, too busy. And I think, what a waste, I would appreciate it more.

Except, I’m not so sure that I have. For many of these nine months I have spent my nights with people, at work, traveling, or simply sitting in my tiny apartment. It has warmed up in the past few weeks though, and I stretched my “local” legs, so to speak. I gave up going to the gym in order to invest time in life. Rather that life should invest in me actually. Life looks like the bright purple violets in the window boxes outside the café, the lacy curtains in that white house with red shutters, the red fishing boat called the Sweden, the flat stone on the left of the bend in the road that’s perfect to sit and stare out at the ocean, and the older couples who walk into town every night and talk about life. That is, they talk about the purple flowers, the fishing boat, and themselves. And then my thoughts are this, when does life start? “So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around?”. That’s kind of it “shopgirl”, when do I stop walking around feeling like I’m just an observer, a local only for a time, a nomad, an observer? Or will it stop? At what point does someone sit back and think “ah yes, my life- here it is, I’m in it”. Does one always feel like they are circumnavigating their own story, writing it out so as to have a reference for how it started? Next to me are two women talking about their ambitions, but also their accomplishments. The younger is bragging to the older, and much like her tiny face contrasted with the broad shoulder pads of her tweed blazer, is she aware of the contrast of how she has defined life as compared to what it is? Namely the violets outside the window that she can’t see from her position. I wonder.

I am just as guilty. I have not sufficiently taken into account the blessings of where I am and what or who has gotten me there. Except, unlike this woman’s preoccupation with her board meeting, I believe I am too preoccupied with the future, and believe it would be in my best interest to take a couple of steps back and see the lines in the sand that this tide has left. My best friend once said that she would like to sit with me with tea and scones and simply honor the past by remembering it. I think this is one of the most loving things she has ever told me. Perhaps this too is key, to have the ability to stop and recognize. To let the future be mentored by the past and recognize the purpose of the correlation between the two. Or perhaps to simply remind one another of the beauty of where they are, despite the complications of life- or what we have defined it as: accomplishments. Oh that we should point out the deep purple of the violets and say yes, this is a gift.

The older woman has turned down the younger’s offer to come back and see her house. I can’t say that I’m surprised. She has talked about herself quite a bit, and now the sun has set, she can no longer see the flowers that are hidden in the dark and perhaps the older woman would like to go to her own home and remember them. Perhaps she too has spent time circumnavigating life and would like to live it instead. Or perhaps I am thinking of something I read in a book…