Our Lady of the Blueberries, Ice Cream Cones, ATM

Becks she called herself, my mother's neighbor here in Rhode Island who offered to let us pick freely of the blueberries on the 8 bushes lining the left side of her driveway. I've seen a number of small scale produce sellers, people who have  a few quarts of strawberries on a table in front of their house, another family had about 8 squash from their garden lying available for sale in their driveway.

I don't recall seeing this sort of thing very often before, but maybe I never noticed. Maybe if Becks had time she'd pick her blueberries and sell them, or maybe she wouldn't, maybe she'd rather have people bring their kids over and have a sense of where berries come from.  The only thing I know for sure is that Becks is very busy but eagerly took the time to make an offer that changed my entire sense of this neighborhood. It's more than just suburbia now, but what is it, I'm not sure.

It is partly a place where a person might cheat in your favor. I was expecting to pay around 9 dollars for 4 ice cream cones today at a place by the Patuxet river, and was a little confused when I was charged 5.80. I had to ask.... sure enough she gave me two for one without mentioning it.

Elsewhere I got two for one when this woman kept being near the door that I needed opened to get in with the stroller. Somehow she was there to hold the door for me from the inside when I was going in, and then there again to hold the door for me from the outside when I was going out. She also directed me to the pedestrian friendly ATM hidden away at the drive through bank.

I'm sorry if you're getting a little tired of this convention that I'm working. I may soon tire of it, but I want to see where it goes because I notice that what I write about becomes amplified. I've written from despair and amplified that. But I'd rather amplify gratitude. 

I once had a dream about the Goddess, (in this case she looked like Guadalupe) and as she looked at me her eyes changed colors by the second, and I knew she was telling me that I'd find her in everyone, in anyone, so I'd better do something about my arrogance and despair as soon as possible since they weren't going to work for me anymore. 

Our Lady of the Coin-Operated Shower

At 5:15 the life guards at the Scarborough Beach State Park in Rhode Island announced that all the facilities would be closing at 6, NO EXCEPTIONS. At about 5:50 my little one announced that she needed to go, so we beat it across the grey sands, made irridescent in places by flecks of mica, over to the bathhouse. The bathroom was already locked, but a young woman with a broom redirected me to one inside the building, adjoining the bathhouse where hot showers were available. Perched on the potty, the niña told me that she couldn't go because she was too sandy. Of course, of course.

We went to the hot showers, and as if by some miracle I happened to have a quarter in my pocket. But I couldn't get it in the slot, and a young teenager (a tweener, I believe they are called by those who market things to them) offered to help us. She tried it and couldn't get it in either, so we headed around to the next aisle of showers where she was able to get one going with my quarter. Perhaps I could have gotten it in myself if I wasn't too panicked and distracted to focus. In a gush of gratitude I told her she was absolutely fabulous. And she was. And So was the water.

Our Lady of the Safety Pin

A while ago I was with someone who asked if I had a safety pin. It took me aback, no one's asked me that in a long time. The question carries with it a load of trust, hope and a feminine sort of intimacy I don't really feel worthy of answering since I would never have one anyway. Even if being able to hand one over at the moment of dangerous unfastening would make me feel like someone very put together. Like savior, nurse, mother, friend, seamstress and chamber maid all rolled into one, the bona fide preserver of appearances.

My mom always had safety pins when I was a kid, back when she may have used them to fasten my diapers. Those were the big kind with the fastening part coated in pastel colored plastic, but she also had the tiny ones good for fastening the strap on a sundress or the frill that has torn off the hem of a skirt.

I never bought the safety part, though, I understand what's meant by that, but the pin is actually a tiny machine that houses tremendous tension because of that tiny coil of wire at the base, which always threatens to force the needle point loose of its housing and prick the baby's terribly vulnerable bottom or whatever. I never quite trusted the pin.

I must have more faith these days because I found one on the floor of my mom's house and have decided to keep it in my bag indefinitely, waiting for that moment, if it ever comes again, when someone asks for one. It will be next to the band aids.  

And hopefully I won't drop it in the lake in Maine, like I did my canon powershot, which is why the photo above looks like it does. That's another story, though, one I'm not sure I have the heart to tell.