by Veronica Leroux
Way back when I was growing up, specifically through secondary school, I would wait for class to end so I could take a trip down Ten Mile Drive in Newport. Since I lived in southern Massachusetts, it wasn’t far and you’d maybe find one place where there’s a huge rock jetting out into the ocean that has this certain enclave at the ocean end. It was so beautiful there that I’d even go out in the middle of the night with a New England’s winter’s spraying seaside icy rain when nobody else would just because it was the kind of place where you can reset your mind. Of course blunt recognition of nature’s force came one day when, while standing on the expansive rock near the enclave all alone and with a rising tide, a wave came in that sent a saltwater jettison (and me) flying about four meters back and who knows how many into the air, and my second thought was of how I would not consciously experience my last drowning breath which was sure to come soon after the wall of water had set me back down headfirst onto that cold unforgiving rock, unbeknownst to anyone, letting the undertow wash me out to sure maritime peril in a lonely night’s wake.
My first thought was of even younger days, of something I had seen while on a school trip we had taken to visit a very old yet well-kept manor owned by a prominent (then and even now) family. I didn’t know if I thought of the place because I had passed it on my way down to the oceanic drive, or if it had anything to do with the day we had taken the field trip. As it were, and as we toured the marvelously adorned and overly ornate gilded walls and rugs of the rich yet comfortable place known as Hammersmith Farms, my sight had focused on one old photograph which stood out though tucked away, but hardly forgotten and obviously revered, in some not so well lit corner of the stately Victorian mansion. So of course I had asked my tour guide when I could take her aside, for I was a bit embarrassed by my question even though posed to the something-genarian lady. For surely I could not make her blush. However, I had to know, who was the girl in the picture, beautiful in her own way, not quite posing though radiant in her simple period dress, and why was it in such a simple wooden frame, so strangely contrasting to the estate’s worldly appeal, and furthermore why did her half-smile allude to some heartfelt longing for appreciation and endearment?
“Well,” she sought to answer, I thought curtly yet more appropriately as I am sure today with the purpose of being poignant (unlike me) and with the underlying dual intent of both answering my beckoning and intelligent question while not letting her purpose be too distracted by a child’s naive and flighty attentions. Perhaps she knew the girl in the picture, because by my calculations they would have had several good years to become friends. Or perhaps the stain on my shirt offset the angelic appearance of my blue eyes so much that it was the only right thing she could do, to answer my questions about the irony involved in the situation, to appease and assuage my curious wonder. “That’s just little Edie, and I suppose you would have to know her to understand.”
I have no idea why my thoughts on that day, in the throes of an ocean’s impending pernicious fury that somehow spared me from certain demise, turned to such a perfect spring day and such a silly question, why such memories should be provoked then or even now, but my question to you now is simpler than this. Shall you not set aside any amount of time to share such fond memories and create new ones with me? I doubt if my life had not been spared that you would have found more than a disintegrated remain of string washed up in some sand beneath your toes, but as happenstance goes you found me nonetheless, alive and in good health and curious about your nature as I was then about the perennial snapshot that caught my attention so long ago. I promise to avoid the ocean until such time as I hear back from you…