The World Made New

Anyone can tell you that the best way to see the world all fresh and sparkling and bright and new — the way God made it — is to see it through the eyes of a child. No matter how much in love with out world we may be, and I think I love Gloucester a great deal— sharing that world with a beloved child shifts everything and wonderfully so.

Last week my sister Lisa, her friend from kindergarten, Kim, and Lisa’s two boys, Cal and Patrick, were here in Gloucester and it was a wonderful time for me as well as for them. Because I work at home and because I needed to get a few hours work in each day, we decided they would stay in a little cottage at Mark’s house that overlooks the tidal marsh and is within a few yards of the bridge over the tidal creek to Good Harbor Beach. Mark and his mother were generous beyond generosity in letting them have that cottage and it was a delicious treat for them as well as a great convenience for me.

When I first lived here I was at the beach every day that weather permitted. I still spend a considerable amount of time there but listening to Cal and Patrick recount their adventures on the beach at the end of every day was a pure joy. In the late afternoons, when they were straggling back from the beach or whatever adventure they had embarked on, I would join them to cook dinner for them or go out to dinner, and listen to the stories about their days. It was always joyful and exciting and amazing to hear. Tales of seashells found and starfish wrapping around a finger and hermit crabs and their ongoing astonishment at the ebb and flow of tides. Living in a land-locked part of Pennsylvania, their only experience of beaches was at area lakes and a few vacations on the Presque Isle beaches of Lake Erie. Tides were a new and astonishing experience to them.

They certainly sucked the life out of every minute of their rime here. In between beach time they went on a whale watch, wandered Bearskin Neck and Rocky Neck, explored the wonderful Maritime Heritage Center on Harbor Loop (their favorite thing other than the beach), spent one day in Boston at the Aquarium, spent an evening exploring the quarries and ledges around Walker Hancock’s old studio in Lanesville while my friends prepared a fabulous dinner for us and met Lisa and Kim. Everything through the eyes of those boys was incredible. Even staying at the cottage while Lisa and Kim and I visited was great with those two boys. They brought their binoculars and bird books and sat out on the seawall watching birds. I hope I never forget the excitement when eight year old Patrick came bursting through the door calling to his brother, “Cal, I saw three Snowy Egrets! Hurry up before they fly!”

I have to add that Cal and Patrick are wonderful kids who are benefitting from being raised by parents who want their kids to be kids. They have chosen to remain in a small rural town, Coudersport, PA, where values are somewhat old-fashioned and life is pleasant. Neighbors visit, families do things together, kids play outside for hours and hours, and there is far less pressure to fill up time with sports and activities that involve running here and running there to get to every practice session and meeting. There are no malls. Kids catch fireflies and go fishing and build snowmen and pick blueberries.

And turn into wonderful people. Both Cal and Patrick are avid readers. Cal can name every bird he sees and identifies most of them by their calls. Patrick loves to color, draw, and can play alone for hours. Right now he loves his plastic models of knights and he sings to himself quietly as he recreates battles with his knights and his imagination. Both boys are polite and respectful to grownups. Mark’s mother, Elizabeth, went to dinner with us one evening and was delighted when Cal told her the story of Joan of Arc when she mentioned the statue.

I had a great week. They are safely back in Pennsylvania now and I miss them but it was a joy to have them in my world for awhile. Everything seems different and I owe great thanks to Mark and his mother for the gift of their wonderful little cottage on the beach and to my sister Lisa for making two such spectacular boys and sharing them with me.

Thanks for reading.