The New England heart.
They forget about the corners, the hot, sticky summer corners of the state where the traffic is less dense and the trees are denser. There are still noises, I will not say the silence is deafening, but the unusual sounds away from the city are surely less damaging. The greenery is thick and overwhelming, but jubilant and constantly thriving. Between them are rivers, Housatonic and Connecticut, with small streams hugging the counties. I can hear the light snap and switch of fly rods bending forwards and back, small laughs and mumbles among the abundance of families spread along the wide beds, distant gentle splashes bouncing in between.
The county I am from is loud, harsh at times, unruly, and unforgiving. Now and again I paint, I dream, I write, I waft away into oblivion, the honking cars, the flashing yellow lights through my midnight window. I hum to drown out the chaos, but I sink into the sound, and I rest and rest and rest. I see my friends and bend melting Cow Tales until, slowly, one gooey caramel rod is split into two. I drink lots of lemonade and swim in small holes with pathetic, wonderful waterfalls. I merge into the summer, it is no longer it and I, it is us, and I am hopeless when we part.
The Northwest side of the state has much to offer, as in it has mostly nothing; signs that read Visitor Center, Restoration, Guides on rotting wooden poles with washed white paint. Other signs that read Milk, Eggs, Yogurt Plain and Flavored far through the tall brush and out into an opening, small barns with potted flowers and few cows lolling in the fading sun. Several nights rotate into a disarray of booming thunder and wind, smacking thick splats of rain onto my air conditioning, which is already fighting to stay alive. These moments of fear bring understanding as we wake up many mornings to green fields and tall trees, thriving brush and entangled weeds, all thanks to the storms the nights before. I patiently prophesize for the mayflies to hatch and sway above the murky waters, and for the cicadas to purr steadily, calling from the outlandish sap-wadded and deciduous trunks of maples.
Everything out there seems to be at the verge of collapse and it is all far and wide. I drive and drive, at three in the morning and at six, and all the times in between. I occasionally walk, but it doesn’t get me far. My machine accelerates to its fullest extent, beyond the sugar maples, eastern white pines, wetlands, coasts, the roaring midnight bars, the angry drunks, and the sundown mosquitoes. My skin stays fair as I sit in the shade, basking in the relentless echo of nature before me in all directions. I bless the quiet and the natural and sulk into the questions of the universe with empty answers constantly preceding me. I break off bits of chocolate and lay them across my thigh in abstract patterns out of boredom and the want to imagine as a child would, I drink the lemon-y sugar goodness, and I sail through the pastoral in all its glory. I let the sun scorch my cheeks and for the air to wipe me clean, blowing off the city and its customs to poison me.
I know we are nutmegs, rolling from town to county to state, living, writing, working, laughing, crying, yelling, confused about the state we are in physically and within. Reaching blindly into the identity of the state, the originals of 1639, and the 1700s, beyond and before. The cruel people and the kind people. We know that the cold is how we make ready for the bounties of summer, in the same way that grief is how we pay for the gift of love, and even if we cannot see, we can feel. The barreling, steep, icy winter hills, fearful our cars will glissade down again and again, test our time, our patience, and our strength. Triumphantly, we all reach the top, not to succumb but to accomplish, and what is just beyond is where I sit, bending my candy, drinking my lemonade.
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