Deprivation Disorder
“Cold enough for you?” Mainers I love are experts at cheerful annihilation. We cherish the hope of bracing for the coldest day of all and swooping out to the beach. “Hey, out there! Happy 2019!”
Sometimes it’s just us and the gulls on an insanely cold day like this, bright and shiny. It’s essential to think of a warm song. I think you’re hearing it, too. It’s Antônio Carlos Jobim’s lovely “Wave.”
Which flashes us to the apocalyptic waves that visit our coast from far away in the winter. When they really get huge, breaking waves sound like breaking china.
Which in turn flashes me to Charles Lamb’s sweet essay “Old China.” He’s remembering the first set of china he and his wife had, mismatched and chipped. They were flat busted for money, but never so near and dear.
That’s why our shared sensations of cold are so precious. Without knowing bone-chilling cold, how could we ever experience the pleasure of warm? It’s not like I keep a piñata in our editorial office this time of year (see photo). I love their astonished eyes.
Nancy and I make a point of walking along Gooch’s Beach on New Year’s Day in the arctic sea smoke to check out the closed doors of the old bathhouse near the Kennebunk River. The enfilade of over 100 locked doors is an infinite recursion—each hiding the promise of summer inside. What a sweet place to duck out of the wind for a kiss.
The fundamental loneliness goes whenever two can dream a dream together. —From “Wave”
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