WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Car climbs up the center-hall stairs of (the century old farm house on the water) puts a cup of coffee on my bedside table and says,

"It's amazing out there, the weather is perfect! They said it was going to rain. It's so nice!"

We got in so late last night.  The weather doesn't have much impact on my expectations for the day. I don't really know where I am yet. I feel like I fell asleep on a speeding train and (hours later) found myself in a different state.

Car is caffeined and full of ideas.
I can't really hear or see anything until my first (or second) sip of coffee. But after my first (or second) sip, Car and I laugh and fumble around and make plans (like we did in college).

"We should get the paper! I want to make lists for you. I think there are eggs, you want eggs benedict?
I'm not sure if we have cream, though.  I want you to see downtown. Let's drive into town. And later we can go to Target! That's a great idea!  We should figure out everything you need and do some bulk shopping at Target!"

My mind is open and giddy (in the very early morning).  Yesterday's confusion has been worked out through eight hours of sleep.  (I am a blessed and gifted sleeper).  When I wake up, for a short time, I see life anew. For this short time, the hopeful expectations of the day, the joy in knowing I'll spend it with my friend, the smell of fresh brewed coffee - (the caffeine!) fuels my giddiness.

I like a good high.

(And) then there is always something oddly absurd and funny about waking up with your friends.
(or to Car and me, apparently).

Eventually, I'm forced to accept my place in the life I have and know.  So, I make my way down the bare wooden stairs.  I climb down them carefully and patiently, like a drunk who has sobered up just enough to know to slow down and watch it.

I find CAR in the kitchen making eggs.  We plan our day... this time more sensibly (I need my ritual hot bath), a bike ride, a drive into town, swimming in the pool, gin and tonics by the water, dinner on the porch?

I fish Carrie Fisher's slim memoir, “Wishful Drinking” out my my man-bag and hand it to Car.  (I got it in on the Cape for the beach).  I thought she'd fan the pages and say "thanks... maybe later" - but she swallows it up and carries it around for the rest of the weekend.

(I didn’t think much of it, but sometimes she lets out an astonished guffaw which makes me reconsider).

We go over to the pool house, (I bike, Car walks) and I take a bath to heal my angry body. I steep in a claw foot tub (a gift from a falling down embassy in DC?) and read a novel written by a friend of CAR's. 

We take a short bike trip.

The Duponts live next door.

There is an Audubon Sanctuary two driveways down.

We bike to a pier.

I've never been to the Chesapeake Bay.

The land is squat around the water.

The water is more friendly than the Cape and cleaner (of course) than Long Island Sound. The historic town looks like Main Street USA at Disney World.

I ask CAR "who lives over there? On that big piece of land directly across from us... is that a private home?"

"hmm...” says CAR. “I'm not really sure. Actually, I've never really thought about it before. Good question Charlie. Very good question, now stop bothering me."

On the bike ride home, I ask her about writing. We discuss how impossible it would be to come up with full blow fictional characters. "How do people do it?"

"It's something that must come to you over the years, trial and error, and getting involved with other writers, asking questions."

I tell Car that sometimes writing falls out of me and there is no struggle but other times, it's just plodding at the key board."

(Since I'm new to writing, it allows me to talk naively)

Car says "Of course, there are all kinds of theories about one's muse. About writers missing their daily appointment with their muse."

"Huh." I like that. I can chew on that. Get lost in that.

We drive through the sleepy historic town St. Michael's or is it Easton?

I’m not sure. There are piles of Mums by the roadside. 2 for $15! Big and healthy.
(I always planted mums for my parents in Connecticut. I miss these seasonal cues).

CAR and I find a health food market at a strip mall. We buy organic, non gluten products. I sit down at a booth and let CAR do the hunting and gathering.  A store employee has taken a shine to her and advices her which non gluten products are digestible.

CAR (in her enthusiasm) becomes interested (on my behalf) in many non gluten products, she becomes interested in all the possible non gluten products we could test out! She brings products to my table like I'm sitting outside a dressing-room and CAR swings by to model the possibilities. I think we bought some non-gluten pancake batter.

We agree to organic chicken for dinner. Later CAR cooks it in fresh herbs from her mother's garden. The chicken is tough and plain. It takes a lot of chewing to get it down.

"Are you afraid you're going to choke on the chicken?"

It takes me a full twenty minutes longer than Car to finish my dinner.

(Terrible chicken)

Before dinner, I go for a swim in their beautiful swimming pool.

The pool uses salt water. It feels like soothing and organic.

While I lower myself into the pool,  CAR tells me about a medication she is on. We compete about the dangerous side effects of our competing medications. Her medication adds weight, mine causes liver disease! Car jokes that she knows exactly what I’m going through because of her weight gain.
"It's just like ALS!"

ALS becomes a punch line for a few jokes throughout the weekend.

The drama of the word, the absurdity of having it, is pretty funny.

CAR is worried that the water will be too cold for me. She's worried that I might cramp up in the water. (Because of my disease? Others have warned me about this cramping thing. I swim every day and have never experienced cramping. Has CAR done some preventative investigating on the web?

“DO NOT LET YOUR FRIENDS WITH ALS SWIM IN YOUR POOL. OFTEN THEY WILL INSIST, BUT DON'T LET THEM. THEY CRAMP AND DIE AND LATER THERE ARE LAW SUITS."

... such is my mind these days.

I swim in my boxers. When I get out of the pool, CAR has to help me put my shoes back on. I stand there (like a preschooler) as we try to shove them back on my feet.

Car cooks dinner and I bike around the property leaving loopy grooves in the manicured lawns. The house is like a movie set.  Most of the windows have gorgeous water views. There are chairs set up around the property for reading, contemplation, or a late afternoon vodka tonic.

There is a dock with a Boston Whaler.

We have drinks under a grape arbor.

"You must sit out here all the time."

"We never do. We mostly eat on the porch." But later she admits. "this house really has been kind of a great thing for our family which is why I'm reluctant for my family to give it up."

We eat guacamole and drink wine and I begin the tale of my family history and Car is a good listener. I tell her that I realized that my family is not old money but old timey. We’ve been here for centuries but never really climbed too high.

After dinner, we get into a complicated discussion about G-d.

I try to tell her about how I arrived at the idea that the world was created.

That all material, comes from an idea.

That G-d is right here and now, that we are made from the same force the same material that G-d is.
This idea, this material is eternal, universal and ubiquitous and endless.

I tell her I thought about this through a window of the unfathomable concept of infinity and the blunt realization of my own plight.

CAR says she’s interested in Mary Baker Eddy but "I don't believe it. I think the opposite. I think our existence is a cosmic mistake.”

She does allow that there is something to prayer and a world of communication we simply don't understand yet. Like the invention of the internet and the arrival of space age technology, we will discover (in the future) a mindful communication that we can't conceive of yet.

CAR is articulate and opinionated and her mind is (generally) swifter than mine, so I retreat. Glumly.

I feel defensive.

(I should have gone to grad school if only to learn to out BS other people!)

But I do know that people who are near death shake cynicism and (shake the hand) of spirituality which in their former healthier lives, wouldn't have been possible.

Ricky Gervais has a new movie where he laughs at Christianity and spirituality. I can’t help but feeling anger. So egocentric!  Our world is a BIG “if” so what makes him think he can sneer at the possibility of a spiritual world. Let us all concede that we’re limited in what we are seeing and experiencing. Like the fish in the sea, we don't really know what we are in.

We watch movie trailers on the web site HULU.

Jennifer Anniston movies, Sandra Bullock movies,  A Serious Man, A Single Man.

and Where the Wild Things Are directed by Spike Jonze and written by Davie Eggers.
I can't wait to see "Where the Wild Things Are".