(This isn't my photo, but may I please borrow it?)
At first, I didn't think we would be able to include during the Labor Day weekend, but when I found out that a cab was unnecessary and that a bus ran from Gloucester to Rockport, we went directly there after check out, our arriving around noon. We boarded the bus out of Rockport right before the rain. Donna went shopping and I visited Motif Number One, which I haven't seen in twenty years. The first time I visited was on a bicycle in high school. There is a scrimshaw shop that had almost the same schooner pendant that had bought that year in Manchester harbor, but the artist had closed the shop for the season and will soon be retiring. Donna came across a ring that she liked, a silver claddagh. She has that happy with it. It now replaces the ring I quickly brought her back from Park Street in Boston. It almost seemed fitting that Hammond Castle and being alone at sunset on Good Harbor Beach would end the summer, our having been alone together all summer in a small apartment compared to the vast expanse of the horizon on the beach, a contrast having been established between the indoor and outdoor spaces, and Rockport in the rain, quieter, colder, a harbor seen from inside a coffee shop, would begin the Fall: Rockport before the leaves begin to change. We did have coffee on Bearskin Neck; it was beautiful. The night before she had found the North Shore Radio Station (oldies-Seventies A.M.) and had stayed up late singing. When we passed the church at Dock Square I asked her if we she wanted to go in and pray. I began it when she prayed at both King's Chapel and the Park Street Church. If we are out, and I find a church that is open, I ask her if she would like to go to the altar. My theorem is that you can go inside any open church and more important you can escort anyone into any church if they have the need or desire to use it for worship. I asked the minister and she went inside the church, which is Baptist. Before departing from Gloucester I bought Donna a copy of the Mass. It's a thin black volume that says something like liturgical on it with petitions to Saints and the Communion, the Lord's Prayer interrupted by the words of a Priest about sin. I have seen her cross herself, so I thought she might be interested in the actual Mass as celebrated. [Plus she went to Georgian Court College for the Philosophy of Art and Journalism after her having decided against scholarships to Douglas, Cedar Crest, Muhlenburg (she got in!).]
I told her it was sincerely from me. While we were taking the trolley, she wanted to buy a necklace on Rocky Neck and was thrilled that I later brought her to Bearskin Neck. I found out that I may have just missed Liv Ullmann. According to a Cape Ann publication, she evidently will be speaking in Gloucester movie theater later in the month of September, 2011. Please pass on a blessing if you happen to speak to her, if not a many thanks in general. The film Faithless is scheduled for a screening- I was there three weeks too early.
