Apalachicola, Florida: Slow

I’m back, after a week of spring break family sun ’n’ fun ’n’ sunburn down in the Côte du Cou Rouge, the Forgotten Coast, the part of the Florida panhandle where the handle bolts onto the pan. You know—the end of the universe?  

The sky was epic. I thought often of the incredible Sugimoto exhibition I saw at the Sackler Gallery in Washington a while back. Photographs six feet wide, seascapes.

I spent the whole week in Apalachicola staring at the Sugimoto sky. 

Sugimoto writes, “Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing.” Exactly!

I stayed away from the Internet, except for the dreadful day when I peeked and discovered that Natasha Richardson had died. I mean: just the week before, I had watched her lovely, haunting performance in Merchant Ivory’s last, very slow movie, The White Countess. She seemed to smile even when she wasn’t smiling.

(The screenplay for The White Countess is by Kazuo Ishiguro, that master of the slow.)

I knitted steadily. We ran out of cloudy days, which was a shame. We’re like the Addams family at the beach, going out when the sun is setting. Twilight in general makes a lot of sense to us pale vampire types.