Maybe it is better not to live in a vacation paradise. Or maybe, at the conclusion of the fourteenth month of a fifteen-month Gap “Year” I am deciding that twelve months would have been enough. But how could I have gone into my second summer on the coast of Maine without looking forward to more visits from family and friends, more boating – and freedom?
It turns out that there has been a hollow doldrums-like feel to these days in July. Although we have had several wonderful guest visits I am looking forward to the solitude of September.
The theatrical rehearsals anchor my day, both in the sense of supplying focus and camaraderie, but there are times that the show feels like a ball and chain. The responsibility to the team of actors and producers is gigantic. The music and lyrics cycle and reverberate through my brain night and day. I long for the quietude of the tide and the sea. The schedule is inviolable and flips my circadian rhythm. As a physician and a Down East Yankee wannabe I am a morning person. As an actor I am forced to come alive at night.
On another theater-related aside, I am ready for a haircut and a shave. From my perspective, my time as the Dos Equis pitchman has run its course. But, I have to wait for the wardrobe director’s instructions to adjust my personal grooming to the role. My historical character, Dr. B. Lake Noyes, had a luxurious mustache.
Casting a pall over all is the failure of our DC house to sell. Completing the downsizing and achieving some financial space was a major goal of exploring an unconventional period in our lives. Now, instead of enjoying our rowhouse in the form of a nest egg, the house has become an albatross requiring more trips to DC to manage and maintain.
Three days of fog and several days running errands to restock the island camp and the house have been dampening. I think I will walk to the dock, listen to the rattle of the floats and the tinkle of the halyards, look out into the fog and channel my inner Yankee. Then I will be ready for August.
Top photo credit: jar (away) on Flickr
Bottom photo: Bewhiskered Ba with grand babies Ruth Alice (2yo), left, and Lius (2yo), right.
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