Friday, August 27, 2010
Time and Tide
One of the things I love most about Frank Conroy's Time and Tide, aside from the companionable voice, the rich description, the invitation into private jokes, is its willingness to admit to the frustrations of loving a place, in this case, Nantucket. What beautiful place was not better once?--think about it. Quieter beaches, humbler houses, kinder, gentler people, and whether those things are objectively true or not, long term attachment often insists that the perfected is not in front of us, but behind us. I know I think that about New York, I know I think that about Provincetown. I know my brother thinks that about South Beach, a place he'd lived for twenty years before he couldn't take the tourists and the tidiness anymore, and bought a house just last week across the bay in Belle Meade. Frank, of course, stayed with Nantucket for the rest of his life, at least in the summer months, and it's a relief to read and finish a book that still believes in the crucial wonder of a place in spite of all the ways it might have gone wrong. But of course it is never wrong to those who first come upon it. Someone is falling under the spell of South Beach right at this minute, as he strolls down Lincoln Road, past the shops and the glittering restaurants, while across the bay, my brother holds a paint brush in his hand, spreading a coat of light gray over his living room wall.
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11 comments:
I loved Time and Tide long ago. What you say here is profound, and disquieting. Is something perfected in the past, based on one's own first encounter? Good question, Paul Lisicky. I remember a strenuous argument with a friend about whether or not Eden was behind or ahead; he thought in the past, I thought--but but but...isn't the point that we are making it, so it's always ahead, or at least present? (That was a weirdly strenuous and threatening chat--as it assumed Eden.) It is jarring to see a place change, but does leaving restore it to the perfect love?
I'd say off the top of my head that the notion of Eden is dangerous, that it deliberately ignores all sorts of dark reports, as wholeness is so alluring. Human nature seems to want wholeness, though it's never the whole story. Then again how could the young you have seen what was to come in Cape May? Do you love Cape May more now that it's been left behind? I think I am just echoing what you just said.
I think a lot about what it means to love a place. I fell in love with Bloomington, Indiana in 1979 when I was 18, and have lived here ever since - but sometimes I walk around town and all I can see is ghosts. And I've fallen in love with a couple of places I can't afford to visit very often (Provincetown, Maui) & have thought about the ways in which distance does make the heart grow fonder, and the ways in which being a tourist makes the heart a little blinder.
Haven't read Time and Tide, but I suspect now that I should.
Time and Tide is wonderful, Anne. It looks like a modest little volume, part of a series once put out by Crown, but it's a profound little book. Says as much about the places we love as it does about Nantucket.
Yes, that's one of the costs (and privileges) of staying in one place a long time. You know who once lived in that house, you remember the former coffee place that once had the best muffins. Ghosts, ghosts everywhere. I guess we have to make friends with them--as well as with the others who are standing in their wake for just a while.
What you said toward the end of your post about the first encounter..."it is never wrong to those who first come upon it"...is such a true insight. Can't we always be that person? Beginner's mind. I do think the perfected is in front--right in front, always. Where else? We only have now, including the past.
I suspect that love of place is linked with the familiarity of all first loves, most typically of mother or mother substitutes. The landscape as person. The landscape for survival.
I, too, can't go past that which is familiar.
As much as we might despise it, there is a beauty in the familiar, the place where we were born for instance and it cannot be surpassed.
Thanks, Paul. I love the image of your brother here, paint brush in hand.
what about places one loathes? for two years, i lived in bakersfield, california, a place i fondly refer to as "America's toilet bowl." it's very polluted, a dull gray hanging out at the horizon most days, lots of buildings without the protection of trees. whenever i see a place that resembles that, my gut tightens a bit. i saw such a place when i worked in fargo, north dakota summer...old highway 10, gray businesses out in the open. oddly, i thought i'd love being in fargo (70 miles south of us here in grand forks) fargo's got a hopping downtown and a pretty good assortment of restaurants. my time there changed my perception of grand forks; i'm starting to see more beauty in it here, places where my mind and heart can relax.
Nothing can replace that first eye opening encounter with a place just like nothing can replace that first sense of falling in love. The best we can hope for in both instances is a sense of growing depth of attachment...Still we all have our tipping points, we become too haunted by loss, too involved in what could be instead of what is and we move on. But the thing we never know is whether the place gave up on us or we gave up on the place. Thanks for this post P, you got my mind off of Earl and into places it never expected on this Monday morn...
Alice--thanks for raising the question. "Can we always be that person?" All we have is now: The Flaming Lips!
Elisabeth--landscape as mother, landscape as person. That's such a smart perception. Of course, of course.
Nancy--"places one loathes." Hard not to count those, especially if one has moved around a lot, forced to live in places against one's wishes. I wonder, though, if one needs to be beyond childhood to hate a place. How would you have experienced Bakersfield if you'd been born there, if your indelible first memories had happened there? But I do know exactly what you mean about that gut-clenching when you come upon a place that reminds you of the loathed place. (There's a whole blog post embedded in this one...)
Bill, I know exactly the place you must be thinking about in these words! I'm hoping you guys are unwinding this morning after days and days of tension. I'm assuming your house sailed through the storm scott-free, as they say. (What is scott-free, anyway?) I hope you're out on the deck, looking at a much calmer sea.
Bill, I know exactly the place you must be thinking about in these words! I'm hoping you guys are unwinding this morning after days and days of tension. I'm assuming your house sailed through the storm scott-free, as they say. (What is scott-free, anyway?) I hope you're out on the deck, looking at a much calmer sea.
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