Far across the broad Atlantic where the storms do rage severe

[sovay]

Before the thunderstorm broke in such steel-drum sheets of solid rain that we realized only after the fact that we had accidentally driven through a washed-out bridge on Route 127, I lay with my face against half a billion years of granite cooled in the volcanoes of Avalonia and weathered across aeons of which the ice ages were only the finishing touch to a boulder as rough as rust-cracked barnacles: it pushed into my palms like the denticles of sharkskin, my hair clung to it in the wind that smelled of high tide and the slap-glass of waves coiling around the sunken cobbles and combers of weed. The stone itself smelled of salt. I found a fragment of gull's feather tangled afterward in my hair. spatch had driven me out to Gloucester for a bonanza of fried smelts and scallops eaten within sea-breeze earshot of the harbor while the clouds built like a shield-wall against the sunset and the thunder held off just long enough for us to get back to the car, following which we were theoretically treated to the coastal picturesque of Manchester-by-the-Sea and realistically corrected course back to Route 128 when we saw a taller vehicle than ours headlights-deep. The sunset that came out after the rain was preposterously spectacular: a huge cliff of cloud the peach-pearl color of a bailer shell, the gold-edged stickles of smaller reefs and bars, the mauve undershadow of the disappearing rain, all sunk to a true ultramarine dusk by the time we were doing the shopping for my mother back in Lexington. I used to spend a lot more time out in the world and I need to be able to again. It is self-evidently good for me.

Comments

[selkie]

Cool rocks in abundance!
And people say you can never go back to the beginning, pssh.

[cmcmck]

What a lovely spot!

[sabotabby]

I want to photoshop in a mermaid tail so you can lure men to their deaths on the rocks.

[muccamukk]

I love this description of the sea. Also, you look e mermaid in that picture.

[sartorias]

Lovely photo! I really relished your description.

[theseatheseatheopensea]

The sunset that came out after the rain was preposterously spectacular: a huge cliff of cloud the peach-pearl color of a bailer shell, the gold-edged stickles of smaller reefs and bars, the mauve undershadow of the disappearing rain, all sunk to a true ultramarine dusk

That sounds so beautiful! Rocks and sea are definitely good things! <3

[regshoe]

What a place to be in with weather like that. Beautiful <3

[choco_frosh]

I used to spend a lot more time out in the world and I need to be able to again. It is self-evidently good for me.

Yes and yes, but yay that you DID get to go!

[gwynnega]

That photo would be great for your next book cover!

I hope you can spend more time in the world soon.

[sholio]

That's an amazing picture! You look just like a mermaid.

[thomasyan]

Sounds like you had a great time!

Did you ever go to the Singing Beach? KY and I went once. Alas, apparently these days the singing sand is much muted compared to the past.

One year we also joined a group where we all got clamming permits and dug out a bunch and brought them home to cook and eat.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, that's a beautiful photo! And I wish you a proper sufficiency of such trips to come, because you should absolutely have them. ♥

[asakiyume]

I found a fragment of gull's feather tangled afterward in my hair. The sea tried to hold you and you tried to stay. One day! One day!

The sunset that came out after the rain was preposterously spectacular: a huge cliff of cloud the peach-pearl color of a bailer shell, the gold-edged stickles of smaller reefs and bars, the mauve undershadow of the disappearing rain, all sunk to a true ultramarine dusk. --Thank you for this.

The photo of you is beautiful. Is it at Bass Rocks?

How, exactly

[jesse_the_k]

does one accidentally drive through a washed-out bridge on Route 127 without drowning?

(Perhaps further proof of your mermaidenhood.