July 22
 
 
 

Look what I got!  Ignore what your eyes are telling you here, these are babies.  The white one is substantially bigger than the brown one, yes, but not as much as this photo would lead you to believe.  Now, the hard part:  What do I name them?
 
 
 
 

By god, I'd started writing one thing, and decided I didn't at all feel like writing about it.  Instead, I have to talk about the woman we saw in Boston.  On Saturday, we were all a little hung over, but not terribly so, and we decided to take a walk down to Quincy Market.  It's touristy, but it's the law or something, especially when the hotel you're staying at is nearby.  Anyhow, we walked down to QM, and had some lunch (Or tried.  Free advice from me to you:  If you are even remotely hungover, read the ingredients in your Cobb Salad carefully.  Also, after reading, ASK whether or not you're going to be presented with a plate of what looks like the innards of a shark, topped with a fried egg), and went to a few stores, and decided to mosey down to the water to check it all out.

There is some dock path type thing we followed, past the Long Wharf Marriott, past monster yachts and down to the end.  Before we reached the end, however, we hear this tremedous splash and some laughter.  We look down in the water and see that there are PEOPLE in there.  Swimming and frolicking and having a great old time.  In the harbor.  We all stare, briefly, as we pass, and take seats at the end so that we can check everything out.  It's a lovely spot and a stunning, perfect day.  It becomes quickly apparent, though, that we as a whole, are unable to stop looking at the people in the water, who have emerged, LOUDLY, shaking off and casing the area around them.

In particular, we are fascinated with the woman, who is wearing cut off, skintight blue jeans and a shirt.  She is swimming, in the Boston Harbor, in her clothes.  We come up with scenarios.  Cooling off while the methodone clinic restocked?  Diving for long buried doubloons? Mermaid?  Why would dive in, climb out, shake off, and accost tourists?  Was it an every day thing?  We wanted to hear her voice, but were almost afraid to move closer.  Erin leaned in, and said in a new voice that I am only able to describe as posessed by a spirit: "Got a Merit??"  she paused, nodded emphatically, and said "I'd take a Kool!!"  Jessie and I were dumbstruck.  The woman, standing dripping not 20 feet from us, had entered Erin's body.  If I was a better writer, perhaps I'd be able to tell this in a way that would make more sense and be even remotely as funny as it was at the time,  but as the words left Erin's mouth and when we recovered from the astonished pause, we lost our shit.

We decided to leave after watching the Lady in the Lake (as we'd dubbed her) crawl up to a particularly horrified looking Chinese baby, and shriek "Ooh, how CUTE, is it a BOY OR A GIRL? Them Chinese babies are SO CUTE!"  As we made our way past her (whispering "Got a Merit?" and laughing to one another) chosen dry-off spot, where she'd soddenly flopped after terrifying several families, she called out to us.  That's right.  To US.  We did that thing people do when they're in the vacinity of a famous person, we were all tittery and couldn't look up.  She called out:  "HEY LADIES, BEAUTIFUL DAY, INNIT?"  We all replied, almost in unison "Yes, it is a beautiful day!"  She said a few other things, but we never slowed down, never made eye contact and never looked back, so it was all said to the backs of our heads.  Her male companion muttered loudly about wanting us to give them some money, which of course, we did not do.

We spent a great deal of time over the remainder of the weekend discussing her.  What she did, why she did it, what her life was like, what made her the way she was.  The tragic beauty she posessed, the cigarettes she smoked, the men she'd loved and lost.  The life we created for her was one of a feisty woman, beaten down by life and love and her own poor choices.
 

I have not been able to get this woman out of my mind since then, and I think that part of the reason is that I heard a song.  One that I am not able to disassociate with our Lady of the Lake.  Listen, and come back.  See?  SEE??  I keep thinking about her tending bar somewhere down in the financial district, someplace dark and coldly nautical.  Or, I see her on the Cape, wind through her beautiful, lush hair, closing up the restaurant one October night and walking off to her house, pausing to look out at the blustery Atlantic Ocean, sighing softly.

I can not connect, though, how she went from being this dramatic person we created and then I extrapolated and filled in, this strong young self sufficient sailor lover to a raspy voiced woman swimming in clothes that she stole out of the Salvation Army donation box.  How does that shit happen?? I mean, what's to prevent it from happening to me?  Jesus! I like to swim.  Some day, there will be three sassy women, walking down that dock in Boston, and they will hear a splash.  They will look down, and it'll be ME climbing out of the water in my cut off Wrangler jeans and too tight shirt.  It'll be ME who wants the Merit, but who'd take a Kool.  It'll be me scratching at the door of the VD clinic and scaring tourists from other countries.  I mean, if it could happen to HER, why NOT me?  Why not YOU?  And lastly, where would I swim during the winter?
 
 
 

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