So is swimming in a crystal-clear body of water full of little fish who will happily glide around you.
We also hung out at a winery, where P took this rather civilized-seeming photograph of me. You can't tell I'd just come from swimming in the lake and was trying to figure out how to convince P to stop at the lake again for another quick swim before we went back to the house for dinner, right? I just look like one of those smug bastards from the city who show up on holiday weekends and expect the locals to be excited to see me.
Dawn, I hope you know, you have an open forever invitation to take over my dilapidated apartment anytime you want to come breathe in the sooty air and experience the hobo-and-nut-filled streets of my grubby neighborhood. We're here for you with open arms!
6 comments:
i spent all my summer vacations on walton lake, pulling leaches off my feet and swimming across to the boat house, in the winter we'd drive cars across too~
nice weekend
Hey Jocelyn, I wrote this piece this morning before I read your blog and Neil's comment. I am participating in the Hudson Valley Writers Workshop. Our prompt was to write an essay directed to a friend. Here goes:
On Friendship.
You once said to me that I am very good at putting people together. You stressed what a great gift and talent that was. I filed it away at the time, recognizing the idea’s importance to me but not really able to acknowledge it. It’s been hovering around the edges of my mind ever since. Occasionally, your comment will resurface, particularly when I find myself doing what I have termed, intellectual matchmaking. The goal of this behavior is not to put people together to date or even marry but to bring them together to create. I do it unconsciously, like those old Jewish lady matchmakers who see every man and woman as potential partners for singles.
A couple of weeks ago, I had dinner at my friend’s house. He is always low on funds but at this moment he was dead broke. I brought up a friend that is a set designer who uses video projection. As I spoke, I realized that she could use someone with his problem solving experience and technological wizardry. Putting these two people in touch would obviously be beneficial to both. Together they could create something magical. This combination would make me happy, even proud because I would have some part in this collaboration and the end product.
The next recent incident involves you and an extension of your insightful observation. Not only can I put people together but I enjoy linking people and place. The setting is an empty house complete with clean sheets on a comfy bed, a wild, English garden and a nearby pristine lake. Enter, two New York City writers longing for green space. For me, it was a simple offer to make for the 4th of July weekend. We all would be away and why not make our house your own for a few days. Mi casa es su casa in a very tangible sense. You joked that I was being too nice when I told you to raid the fridge, to use anything you could find; beef, chicken or fish. In response to your protests, I tried to find words that would make you feel less obliged. I jokingly said, “Don’t waste water.”
Disappointed that you and your significant other wouldn’t be there to greet us because you had to get back to the city, I was pleased to see your illustrated note overflowing with thanks and compliments to my abode. Additionally, two bottles of hard cider, (one raspberry flavored-- my favorite) and sour cherry cordial. Funnily enough, I had given the same gift the week before to friends who were celebrating a milestone birthday. I was glad your weekend revolved around eating, swimming and resting on the hammock,in no particular order. I also know although you didn’t say in your note that you both wrote sitting on my peeling, green-tinged white cast iron furniture. You wrote lounging on the hammock. You wrote on the shaded back porch that overlooks the lower part of our property that we call the lower forty. You wrote funny, touching and amazing stories that I would read on your blog, or hear in your plays. No, I wasn’t being too nice or altruistic. My payment would be getting to read your words, payment enough. But then you already understand this because you are the one who recognized my talent for bringing people together in the first place.
oh you Vandervloeds, I love you guys so much. For reals. Dawn, I'm going to send you an email and say more...
I wrote lying on the couch.
lake water leaves the hair so soft too!!!
Hey was that Lake Hopatcong in NJ?
xoox
Nope Cat, Walton Lake in upstate New Yawk.
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