Symphony Hall

If you believe as I do that music began with the mix of rain drops, booming waves, whipping winds, and animal calls, then this has been the week of the symphony.

A large storm front established itself earlier this week in a place where it could tear the flag on the Tower to pieces, knock at the big jetty like the most persistent missionary ever, and send a mix of sun and rain and fog in and out from sea, in a round robin of the skies. Screens are filthy with dirt, car windows streaked with salt, the grounds scoured by a flailing wind that scooped up sand and top soil the way a poor man grabs up a dollar in the gutter.

The garden around the flag pole has been looking pretty good. I had thought that I would be posting photos of its progress soon. Today there are a few plants that look scarred, black at the tips instead of green, all from the hour to hour wind. The dirt on top is as dry and sandy as the Pharaoh's back forty. The garden that is protected by the utility room still looks great. Several new plantings that went in under the kitchen window on Mother's Day held up. Those beds get shelter from the Cottage and the Runway. The garden on the ocean side by the walkway is even more sandy than it was a week ago. I stopped in at a horse farm on Booth Hill Road today where I was able to pick up some compost to add in around the flagpole. Nature has brought all these sounds but my flowers need to eat.

I was asked several times this week about the noise from the waves and if it kept me up at night. I love that noise and I loved the noise of the hail stones last Saturday night, and the rain on the runway roof later in the week and the calling out of the gulls and that buzz I can hear from a family unloading and approaching the Tower. I can hear conversations when I am putting out the recycling in the shed; the questions of kids to their parents. The only cringe is when I hear some part of the Lighthouse story recalled incorrectly and I can't yell through the wall to set it straight.

It is quiet today, the ocean settled down to a normal back and forth. Two days ago the sea was that last movement of the 1812 Overture, cannons and all. The umbrella that I watched Mary Poppins out of its stand last week remains in place (for now.) I could wash a window or two and not get a mouthful of Windex for my trouble. The Blue and White Lighthouse sign is in place when two days ago one side had been blown free yet again. The symphony is in intermission for the moment.