Friends in the Surf

There were few people on the beach this morning and nothing to block my far off view of two young women lying in the surf. The caution flags flew from the lifeguard station, and there were Portuguese man-of-wars all along the beach, but these friends had found a safe place. As I reached them, I heard them talking compatibly. They lay on their stomachs; the ocean washed over them. The water was cold, the sun warm. I could hear their light voices for a minute or two after I had passed them, an easy back and forth in the dissolving foam, the waves played out. I couldn't hear much of what they were saying. It didn't matter. The rhythm and sound of friendship stayed with me as I walked north.

Rites of Friendship

Roland Barthes has a graceful, original view of friendship. In his 'autobiography' he writes about himself in the third person, which I believe allows him an insouciant distance and the appearance of objectivity:

Just as we decompose the odor of violets or the taste of tea, each so particular, so inimitable, so ineffable, into several elements whose subtle combination produces the entire identity of the substance, so he realized that the identity of each friend, which made that friend lovable, was based upon a delicately proportioned and henceforth absolutely original combination of tiny characteristics organized in fugitive scenes, from day to day. Thus each friend deployed in his presence the brilliant staging of his personality.

. . . he liked to abide by the minor rites of friendship to celebrate with a friend the release from a task, the solving of a problem: the celebration improves upon the event, adds to it an unnecessary addition, a perverse pleasure.

By "perverse" I believe he means "surprising" rather than "kinky." What were these "minor rites of friendship"? His must have included food and drink: he was French. What else: cigars? Do you celebrate rites of friendship? Tell me about them, please. As for me, I'm all for celebrating, with a friend or myself, "the release from a task, the solving of a problem." Turning the trick on work by following it with pleasure--light, graceful pleasure. When I think this way, work itself becomes less arduous, less threatening. I imagine Barthes across the table from a friend who "deployed in his presence the brilliant staging of his personality."

Sailing to Provincetown

Last night I waited for our friend A. to arrive at our place for drinks before dinner. He was sailing from Wellfleet to Provincetown. I scanned the harbor from our terrace and saw a boat heading to shore. It had three sails and a white hull. I knew A. had recently bought a large boat, and I thought this one might be it. I called him and left a message on his cell phone. If he had answered I would have waved the red bandana I held ready to signal, but I thought, That's a large boat for him to sail single-handedly. What a land-lubber I am! The boat was a three-masted schooner, too large for a crew of one.

A. arrived at six as promised. The trip had taken four hours; by car it takes twenty minutes. We sat on the terrace, while the dropping sun turned the lighthouse pink and the sailboats amber, and drank a Bordeaux, Chateau de Brondeau, 2006--a wonderful wine--under twenty dollars--from University Wine on Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. John fished big green olives stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes out of the narrow jar. A. talked about "Julie and Julia," comparing the slow time of the 1950's, when Julia Child and her husband Paul were in France. He could come home for lunch; they could converse; she took eight years to finish "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." They never seemed rushed, unlike the contemporary couple in the film--Julie is always frantic.

We exchanged dreary publishing stories, but nothing could ruin our mood, not the failure of A.'s friend to place her novel, nor our failure to get a table at the Mews. A. led us to The Mayflower where we ate fish and clams. A. asked if we would walk him to the shore and see him off. The three of us went down a dark narrow cut between buildings on Commercial Street and walked to the dinghy. A. turned the boat over, dragged it to the water, came back to say goodnight, touching my shoulder. There was a sliver of a moon. The tide was low; he had to haul the little boat out past a sandbar before it would float. We saw the oars flash. He was on his way. He would sleep in the sailboat anchored off shore, and in the morning sail back to Wellfleet.

Sir K. & Lady Doocot at Hawthornden Castle

A friend called it a homey castle, never mind that a hundred people could fit into the drawing room.  Thanks to Drew Heinz, of the ketchup fortune, five writers at time are invited to live at Hawthornden for a month, expenses paid.  Drew Heinz owns the place.  

I loved being there.  At breakfast K, one of the writers, would read us snippets from the newspaper--a woman was found wandering confused in Torquey.  When asked what the trouble was, she said she had asked for directions to the airport for the plane to Turkey. I wonder if K. made up the story.

One day, K. and I went sight-seeing and came upon a doocot (dovecot).  After taking a picture of me in front of this charming building, he nick-named me, Lady Miriam of the Doocot.  Now he just calls me Lady or Lady Doocot.  I call him Sir.  He's from Brooklyn; I'm from Paterson, New Jersey--land of the untitled.  

Sir K. was a wonderful traveling companion.  If I hesitated to spend money, he urged me on.  He turned out to be right.  John is still praising a sweater I would never have bought for him if it weren't for Sir K.

On our last night at the castle, we decorated ourselves with lapel pins we made from ketchup packets we had taken from a pub.  Not a drop of ketchup was ever served in the castle.

I remember the views from the windows into the green glen, the sound of the loch, the taste of sherry in the little orange-painted garden room, the wood fires, the cool air, the thrilling absurdity of Sir K. of Brooklyn and Lady Doocot of Paterson living in a castle.  Did I get any lasting work done?  I don't know.  But back home I'm still living on some of those cool green days at Hawthornden.  This morning I heard from Sir K.  He was back from more travel, and eager to tell Lady all about it.