I went to Maine this past weekend, to see Becky. When I arrived, early afternoon, it was still warm and she was in the garden with Melanie and Malindi, sweaty-faced and bug-bitten. They all looked up toward the house, saw me standing in the window. Her hair has grown since she's been up there, and she swished through the long grass, up to the house to meet me. Later, in the car, she knew all the roads to all the places, and that people from away are co-opting Maine lingo, and even her wanting to make a skirt out of bandanas (the idea of which came from a magazine, and would probably make it onto her list no matter where she was) suggested that she's grown into it a bit--into the state of Maine--and it's nice to see her like that, even if there's now ten miles between gas stations and she's still as jittery as the cat.

�����I don't think there's much to say beyond that. In the last several weeks I've had a few instances of my own situation coming into focus. It's neat to have it happen, but it's useless to try to explain it. It's things you just know, that you just see. Things that are, at least initially, ineffable. Besides -- Becky and I each are very recently streaked-on-an-agar-gel. You don't want to speculate, or narrate or anything. You just want to snake calmly forward through what you trust is an adequately and generically nutritious medium, not jinxing the development of legs for your slimy tadpole body.

����And speaking of slimy tadpole bodies, before I forget, I was yesterday reading a surfing magazine and this guy was writing about how summer is his enemy because, I don't know, it gets crowded and there aren't any storms or something... but at least he's got the Pacific coast and a board to stand on, so you know, I don't take no stock in his blah blah etc. But that was yesterday. Today my attitude is a bit better and while there's honestly no chance of me acquiring a surfboard and putting it to use this summer, just to remind you to remind me: there's Coast Guard, Beachcomber, Nauset, Whitecrest, Marconi, Hampton, and an Atlantic Hurricane Season that just started yesterday.

����So remind me.


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