Up the Coast

On Monday we woke early and set off for the drive from Chantilly VA to just south of Boston. It's a (mostly) beautiful 9-hour drive through several major cities, the experience of which never seems to get old for us. We had plenty of great music and podcasts, and an immensely beautiful day for driving... About 75 degrees, clear and cloudless, breezy, amazing.

We arrived at our respite of a place that night, this home just south of Boston, with enough time to settle in, have a beautiful dinner (oh vegetables -- how we've missed you!), and watch an episode of This American Life, which we'd never seen before. (I'm sure you've caught on that we have a serious crush on the radio show. I now have a serious crush on the TV version. All of it is so great; really, can there be too much Ira Glass in the world? And where did he get those awesome glasses?)

So we're enormously, ridiculously blessed with this temporary home on the water: overlooking the marsh and off into the Atlantic. At high tide it's all one big body of water; at low tide the marsh becomes a labyrinth with walls 10 feet tall -- dark muddy paths cutting through the weeds. And at any time, out the windows of this amazing room, the view goes on forever -- The back lawn, the dock, the marsh, the crashing waves, the island, the atlantic, the horizon.
There is no comparable gift.

The last time we were here, we arrived after a couple high-stress days, one which involved arriving in Harvard Square during OktoberFest and nearly missing our Club Passim show because all the streets were blocked. (An experience which is much more palatable now that it's over.) :)

But arriving here after that show was an immediate balm: The suddenly-deeper breaths, the salty air, the monumental breezes, the waving trees and bushes, the rippling water, the tide's slow and reliable ebb and flow, the seagulls and herons flying effortlessly, broadly, lighting and watching for fish, all of it un-self-consciously, being what they are and doing what they do in a testament to life-as-it-should-be.

And so it's been the same kind of healing respite this time around, perhaps even more poignantly.
The air is cool (60 degrees right now), the windows are open to the sea-salt air and the sound of the wind, you can hear the Atlantic waves crashing from far off, and every now and then the seagulls fly up and around to a new spot on the neighbor's dock.

Yesterday it was bright and sunny, utterly beautiful, and Justin was able to take the kayak out again--
I stayed in and did what I'm prone to do in these situations, which is to work like crazy until I forget the beautiful place I'm in. But my workaholism is a work in progress (of course), :) and I'm doing what I can with a little help from beautiful books (Kathleen Norris, Rilke), from runs along the water and through the charming town nearby, and from, obviously, Ira Glass. :)

Last night we played Toad in Cambridge; we opened the show followed by Kyler and then Kristin Cifelli, who sounded truly stunning with her band (and a new song called Fault Line that we're anxious for her to record)...

Toad is a very small, very "cozy" place... It was a bit of a sardines scenario last night -- Everyone pressed and packed in, loud and buzzing with a crammed kind of energy. Definitely a new experience for the Goldens! But very fun; so many great folks and a truly great crowd... So, so good to see new and familiar faces and, as always, to hear great music from Kyler and from Kristin. We've decided that we love the Boston area; such a beautiful and bustling little city, so much going on, an amazing pocket of great music artists--

Finding our way back to this home last night proved to be more interesting than we bargained for. And you know, VZ Navigator is great but I'm not sure it knows where we are right now. It sent us in a couple circles last night, which thankfully were very small... But the Navigator, (and the terrible voice she has on our phone!) -- They were both confused. :) Luckily, we spotted a couple things we recognized before we spent too much time wandering the narrow wooded roads around us.

And coming in last night, we had to open the screen door and listen to the wind and waves, smell the air--
We're hoping when we drive off today we'll take some of its magic with us.