Lubec Concert

I haven't taken the ferry to Lubec for the Summerkeys concert for a long time, but last night I decided to go with David to hear Charles Jones. The concerts are held in a church with little ventilation. On summer nights it becomes suffocating with the heat of many bodies. This has discouraged me in the past and over-ridden my desire to hear the performers. Nevertheless, I decided to brave the heat and take advantage of David's offer to fund my trip over the bay. The ride on the boat is such a pleasure that immediately upon pulling away from the dock I was happy I had come. The concert was very enjoyable, mostly because of the pianist's skill rather than the music itself. There was nothing on the program that would have drawn me there, but George Jones was worth the trip no matter what the music was.

Coming back across the water afterwards is wonderful, watching the lights of little Eastport shining out into the dark. As we approach, it is possible to pick out the steeple of the Congregational Church, then a few of the store fronts. Our gallery window lights glow out onto the street and even down to the water. Eventually we turn around the end of the breakwater and nestle in amoungst the other boats. We climb out onto the dock as best we can, as most of us are not as young and spry as we might be, using our captain's arm for balance.

I am fascinated with the water beside the boat as we chug home. It seems very thick and heavy, spreading out around us as we pass. We are just skimming the surface and disturb what goes on there in the ocean very little with our engine's propellar. We are irrelevant to the life that passes below us. Nevertheless, I always feel that I belong there in some basic way, maybe on a molecular level. I never fail to think that drowning would be my preferred way to die, a natural way. It is almost as if living on the land is a temporary state and that sliding into the water would be returning to a place where I had been for eons before, and would be for eons to come.

They say that the human body is 90% water. It is quite easy to imagine disintegrating into the ocean without changing much, to just slip out of that 10% of matter that keeps us from flowing along with the waves.