The mountains that stand like Greek statues over the water, or their very home- for the Gods.
The water like Norwegian Fjords, with sparkling yellow jelly fish and perfect reflections from setting suns.
The little children, and adolescents, and hot teenagers, and hot young parents,
all about the fire pits and sandy activities
clipping train
grills
and a lonely man who makes little effort more than to show face at work picnics. You are right to have a dog. Who else but dog can make horrible lonliness fodder for friendship? These humans are terrible for that! It is Hell, this place where no one will say “hello”, let alone acknowledge you with eyes- a glance! or a nod?!
Sailboats, sunglasses, everyone is a ghost amongst ghosts. I think I saw someone begin to look, but when my eyes came to join, their’s fluttered away, leaving me as if I had imagined the whole thing!
In Philly you might get a brutal stare, a “what’s up” so gruff you are marked with fear or if you match the tone you won’t recognize yourself. You may forget and think you are tough now. But there is a greeting at least, acknowledgement. For that is what humans do, they acknowledge each other in a shared space. Like I finally got from the man in the Soundgarden shirt and solid mustache and beer, “hey” “hey how’s it going?” “pretty good, you?” “not bad.” Yes, this is how human beings are. But everyone else here thinks their neighbor is a mile away and fancies themselves hermetic mountain men, and I am only a body length away! Your solitude is 15 feet from me as you change your dress- and you making out in the sand!
For those who will talk, because we have been acquainted, you say again and again that this place is overcast and dark, blaming endless rain and clouds. I’ve only seen golden sunsets and majestic mountains. Nature, and the gloom cast over the hearts of the men and women- maybe spare the children? But they too are pale, not from lack of nutrient rich and free range organics, but from the life of joy that should spring from their parents. I am not sure that the parents don’t feel absolutely alone themselves even in the home with daughter, son and spouse. Only the dog gives them comfort, but maybe they are too cold to even see him any longer.
It is not only on faces, because that is subtle; there are clues in the sorts of gatherings, the way food is cooked; each booth with one patron in restaurants, or a few making little in the way of idle talk. There now, a five year old gazing off in absent reflection! And his father with such a grim look about him also with an absent stare. And the teenagers, clutching 40’s and anxiously walking about and back again, but not for butterflies, thoughts of whom they might hook up with, instead their lonesomeness demands the walking off at times, and they all ignore me completely perched on this here stump.
I thought maybe the homeless were different, but their absence is just as apparent; anywhere else I can always rely on the homeless for eye contact and a hello, but here they are angry for my effort to acknowledge them.
The carpool lane is empty. A flyer in the office begs for riders: “gas is $4 per gallon!” “Think of the global impact!” But the distance and lonesome infection is palpable in the emptiness of things like this clear lane.
This is a beautiful place. The mountains, the water, and the sky. This is a place to come, but no place to live; while the plants and animals thrive lush and vibrant, the people walk like the dead- worse than brooding poets, there is no life in them at all.