[Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk delivered last weekend (Feb. 19-20) at the "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show performed at the Rec Hall in Coupeville.]
The theme of the “Postcards” show this month is everything to do with love and sex and romance, and I’m supposed to blog about how all that applies to us on Whidbey Island. Well now. That shouldn’t take very long, should it?
I think I can sum up this whole subject by repeating something I heard a guy say to his female companion in line at the Red Apple the other day: “I love ya and all that . . . but do I have to keep sayin’ it?”
Here on the Rock, we’re just not the gushy, sweetie-pie type. We don’t go in much for moon and June and swoon and croon. As my Tacoma-born mother used to say, “For heaven sake! This ain’t New York!” No, indeed, it’s not. We’ve got too many fish to fry . . . or mussels to steam . . . to waste much time on that gushy stuff.
Now, for instance, you take the conversation I overheard a week or so ago at a restaurant down on Front Street. Picture this with me. There sits a long-married couple, having lunch. Let’s call them Kat and Bill. I know this couple is long-married because they are dressed alike: all denim, flannel, fleece and New Balance. Her hair is short, gray and curly-permed, and his is gone. She wears no makeup and neither does he.
She’s eating a plate of Penn Cove mussels, nicely steamed in white wine, garlic and butter. He’s having some broiled salmon on a bed of Ebey’s Prairie vegetables. I’d call them locavaores, except I imagine these folks were eating mussels and salmon with veggies before most of today’s trendy locavores were born.
Like most long-married couples at lunch, they aren’t saying much to each other. When they speak, it’s in a sort of Neanderthal code. He leans over and examines her plate of mussels.
“Your mussels any good?” he asks. “May want to try one.” She says nothing but grabs a mussel with her fork and spoon and puts it on his plate. Obviously, this is a ritual being repeated for the umpteenth time. He eats it and smiles.
“Salmon’s good too,” he says. He takes piece from his plate and sets it on hers. She eats it and smiles. “Good,” she nods and then says, “But way too much food. We can’t eat it all. Get a box.”
He knows the routine and signals the waiter to bring them a takeout container. “Looks like it finally stopped rainin’. Glad we got out of the house,” he says, helping her on with her fleece jacket. “Um hum. But just look at those clouds. Let’s get home before it starts again,” she says.
He knows the routine and signals the waiter to bring them a takeout container. “Looks like it finally stopped rainin’. Glad we got out of the house,” he says, helping her on with her fleece jacket. “Um hum. But just look at those clouds. Let’s get home before it starts again,” she says.
As they walk out the restaurant door, one of his hands gently rests on her shoulder and the other carries the leftover mussels and salmon.
Ah, yes. That’s what I call romance on the Rock. True love without all the folderol. Almost makes you want to cry, doesn’t it? And right now, who knows? Maybe Kat and Bill are sitting here in the audience. If you recognized yourselves, please raise your hands!
We do enjoy a healthy romantic life here, even if it doesn’t always show. It’s just that our words of love don’t sound like Shakespeare and Keats. Actually, more like Bert and Ernie.
There’s another kind of romance that goes on here on the Rock, and it’s very different from sharing a Penn Cove mussel with the one you’ve lived with forever. This kind is flaunted right out there in public. It happens between men and women, or men and men, or women and women, or even kids and kids.
I call it co-mance because it happens in places where our community gathers. . . like the Post Office, the Rec Hall or, even more spectacularly, at the recycling center. Now I already mentioned our general aversion to folderol in romance here on the Rock. But all those rules are tossed out the window when it comes to co-mance.
Have you ever seen more hugging or shoulder fondling or cheek-pecking than at the Post Office? The other day I saw a woman squeeze another woman so hard she dropped her roll of stamps. And a man gave his neighbor such a warm hug that she got all flush and forgot to check her P-O Box.
And then there’s what happens right here at the Rec Hall. Take a free glass of wine here and the next thing you know you’ve volunteered for the Water Festival or the Lions Club or the noxious weed cleanup at the Town Park. And, believe me, there’s no morning-after pill for what happens at the Rec Hall!
Say hello to a friend at a gathering here and they shake your hand so hard with their big, garden-calloused paw that you feel bruised. Or head for your car in the parking lot and end up in a conversation with a friend for an hour in 30-degree weather, and wake up with a lousy cold the next day.
But the best place by far for co-mance is at our recycling center. Have you ever seen such love and affection as when two strangers toss their empty wine bottles into the dumpster together at the recycling center? Don’t you enjoy those goo-goo eyes they make as the glass shatters and they ask each other how they enjoyed a particular variety?
But the best place by far for co-mance is at our recycling center. Have you ever seen such love and affection as when two strangers toss their empty wine bottles into the dumpster together at the recycling center? Don’t you enjoy those goo-goo eyes they make as the glass shatters and they ask each other how they enjoyed a particular variety?
Well, I should amend that. It’s co-mance when they toss their clear bottles in the correct dumpster and their green ones in the other. If they should happen to co-mingle their bottles, the recycling cop will put a quick end to their co-mance.
Tossing your junk mail into the appropriate dumpster at the recycling center together can also lead to a lovely co-mantic experience. “Can you believe how many Pottery Barn catalogues we get?” somebody will ask. “I know what you mean,” the other will say. “And here we are turning them into packaging for more Pottery Barn merchandise from China,” the other will say. They chuckle. Sparks fly. Ah, sweet mystery of life!
And finally there’s the co-mance that begins while stuffing cardboard boxes – carefully flattened, of course – into the designated recycling container. “Oh, I see from the box that you must’ve bought a new computer,” the boy will say. “Yeah,” the girl will answer demurely, “and I still don’t know how to set it up.” “It’s not too difficult,” he’ll say. “I’d be glad to help if you want.”
Ah . . . Can’t you just hear Cupid’s arrow flying through the air? Before you know it, they’ll be googling. And isn’t it co-mantic?
Any way. I’d like to tell all you folks that I love you. But for heaven sake, this ain’t New York! And besides I’ve got some mussels to steam. So I’ll just say, see ya!
