Cape Éveil
I was thirteen when I decided that we live in a world stuck in perpetual inertia.
Of course, then, I was too young to know quite how to put that thought into words. But even before I knew what it was, I have always felt as if I inhabited a world that is full to the brim with malaise, and I have sought the places that still feel as if they can be bothered to care that I am here, alive, on this earth, mind empty, heart weary, senses waiting to feast. This rocky outcrop of Maine coast is one such place and I’ve flocked there since childhood, summering like a delicate bird come north when the weather warms.
Once this place was my greatest joy. I would fill my backpack with the yellowed books from my grandmother’s shelves and jars of fresh berries, crumbly blueberry bars, leftover corners of cobbler or buttery shortbread or pillowy muffins, all wrapped haphazardly in cloth napkins that bore the blue-stained evidence of my adventures for years to come, and I would throw a blanket over my shoulder and walk down the grassy hill towards the edge of the cliff on which my grandparents’ home was perched. I would lay down my blanket, or maybe sit at its edge if I was feeling daring, dangling my feet over the cliff ledge as I shoved blueberries in my mouth with abandon. My mother warned me not to get too close, that the rocks could crumble under the weight of even the waifiest of young girls.
(My mother warned me of many things, few of which I heeded. Those which I did heed, I regretted. I have never regretted the feeling of kicking my heels against the rocky underside of the cliff ledge, the sea pounding the base of the cliffs, gloriously real, thrillingly powerful, and I am glad to have ignored her.)
But most days, I would stay safely in the grass. Even in my favorite place on earth I preferred the ones to which those dusty pages could convey me, and in the hours upon hours I spent on Cape Éveil, I travelled, feasting my senses. I can taste the soft sweetness of streussel topping cut through by the tartness of plump blueberries straight off the bramble even now; I can hear the water crash against the cliffs the way it used to then, for I have learned that the sea never changes even when it seems to do nothing but. I feel the pages of those books beneath my fingers, smell their perfume, see the little puffs of dust that they kicked up when I turned them.
And I can still feel the thrumming of my childish heart, awake and alive in this place, even though now it beats only as quickly as it must to survive.
But still, I’m here, though nothing is the same. Familiar hands haven’t rolled out a pie crust in the little house atop this cliff for years, and it hasn’t been ours since I was a bright-eyed undergraduate. The books I once loved have long since made their way to antique shops, save the copy of Jude the Obscure that I pilfered at Gandmother’s wake and used when I wrote my dissertation for the degree that lies unused at the bottom of my sock drawer. My heart hasn’t beaten for the joy of being alive since –
When? I can’t even bring myself to recall. But then a part of my mind that I hate forces me to admit that I do know, that I can remember.
Not since Bourbon Street in July. Not since the weight of the moisture in the air hung around us like a blanket, hemming us in, keeping the night in and the weight of my life out. Not since blue eyes and the black dress I can’t look at anymore. Not since I was drunk on my senses and the inexplicable feeling that I had something to celebrate.
Not since the end of that night have I felt my Maine-feeling again, and though I return here, it is but a hollow imitation of the feast for the senses I have searched the world in vain for.
And when I pull the blueberry pie I bought in town from my bag, lay out a beach towel, and tell myself that this is enough, my traitorous brain cannot help but remind me that this cliff is but a microcosm for a life that is always and never enough.
