Farewell Summer

I Loved You. Though You Were Cold.

Near the Beach and the Ocean, A Cactus

We spent the sacred trilogy of J, J and A here on the Alentejo coast in Odemira county. Why go anywhere, we figured? We have beautiful sand and ocean right near us. People come here on vacation expressly to enjoy them.

And we did. We had many days on the beach, many dinners on our patio. K taught EC, age 6, to swim, or close to it. I walked around town a lot. Sometimes at night, I would stroll through the old town, which is the most touristed section, and see families out and about, late into the evening. I liked that.

Still, the water in the river and ocean never really warmed up, and the air, while always warm, seldom got really hot. It’s this combo that I would prefer to be different. While friends and family in United States in Florida, Brooklyn, Texas, North Carolina and Louisiana complained of oppressive heat, I was often wishing it could just be a little warmer, both in the liquid and gaseous forms.

The swimming water here reminded me of playing in the waves in early June in Virginia Beach, where I grew up. Cold, but bearable.

In August, the “river beach” as we call it, perversely got colder. A friend told me the water was 15 degrees celsius, which is 59 degrees fahrenheit. That’s cold. In past years, he said it has gotten as high as 21 degrees celsius, or 70 degrees fahrenheit.

EC didn’t mind. She would play for hours in the water and on the edge, with all the other kids who didn’t mind. And quite a few adults didn’t mind. Me, I found I usually had to push myself to go in the water, and then push myself to stay there. If I did, I would go numb and become more used to the cold.

The cold water lay underneath warm, but seldom really hot, air. The two components worked in tandem. If the air was really hot, I could tolerate or even enjoy the colder water. I would be sitting on the sand, my e-reader in hand, and feel my body overheating. Then I would throw myself in the cold water, and get deliciously chilled. Then I could emerge, and be good for another hour under the umbrella.

But these hot days, with temperatures in the low to mid 80s, were about one in five, I’d say. Most of the time the air temperature hovered around the mid 70s, and with a breeze. With this combo, my long, skinny body was not really hot so I would not want to go in the water. And I had enough experience to know that if I did, I would become chilled in a way that would require a warm blanket, which I wasn’t in the habit of bringing to the beach. (Maybe I should?)

This lack of extreme heat on our portion of the Alentejo coast is mostly a good thing. The heat, unless you are standing in the piercing sun, does not bake you. It’s pleasant most of the time. At night, the air drops down into the low 60s or 50s, which is refreshing and makes for good sleeping.

So if I could just fix the swimming thing, this climate would be perfect.

Meanwhile, a few hours south of here down in the Algarve, which is the southern coast of Portugal, the water hit a pleasant 25 degrees celsius in late August, or 77 degrees fahrenheit. The newspaper told me that. The air was hotter too. It makes sense that this is the traditional vacationing area for Portuguese. And for many foreigners. It’s also why this coast is stuffed with condominiums, golf courses and shopping malls, all things I don’t like.

So maybe I will take the chilly waters and less hot-air, in exchange for fewer crowds.

Summer Feet

When I was a kid growing up in the 1960s in the then brand-new suburb called Bay Colony in the brand-new city of Virginia Beach, which was created out of Princess Anne County in 1963 to fend off annexation by Norfolk, including all its desegregation troubles, I would remove my shoes at the start of summer in June, and only put them on again to go to church. My parents had no problem with this. Everyone did it.

At first the soles of my feet would be tender to the touch of the rocks on the street or in our driveway. But by summer’s end I could run across a rocky road without thinking about it, and only occasionally get a cut from some broken glass, or a puncture by a thorn. My soles would be tough to the touch. Then school would resume after Labor Day in September, and the shoes would go back on. Next summer, repeat.

Eager to recreate my childhood, I told this story to our daughter, knowing that she would likely take this propaganda to heart. And I added a moniker, always helpful in propaganda campaigns. When I was a boy, I told her, we had “summer feet.”

It worked. She quickly started taking off her sandals and walking barefoot when at the beach. But also on the playgrounds, and sometimes just walking around town.

Her mother K was not thrilled about this, but perhaps choosing her battles with me, did not complain too much.

But others did. Once walking back from the beach, a group of older Portuguese women began berating me for allowing my daughter to walk barefoot. They pointed to the sidewalks, and (I think) told me there could be glass there, and that I should put some shoes on her.

I attempted to counter in Portuguese with a pointed question. When you were a child in the summer, did you wear shoes I asked them? I didn’t understand their answers, but I bet the answer was no, we went barefoot.

That I persist in wanting my child to have “summer feet” is evidence of something in me. Conservatism, traditionalism, liking the old better than the new. Thinking that progress doesn’t always mean leaving habits and customs behind.

I think EC enjoyed her experience of attempting to have and develop “summer feet,” and she actually didn’t get cut or scratched once. But truthfully, though I didn’t tell her this, her feet only toughened up a little. She wore shoes and sandals too much. As did other kids. Having bare feet all the time was no longer part of the culture here.

I can’t help but mention Jimmy Carter’s memoir of growing up in rural Georgia, An Hour Before Daylight, one of my favorite books of all time and one that I am constantly promoting to others.

Carter recalled that he and everyone he knew would take off their shoes in early spring, and not put them on again until November or December. Even in elementary school, kids would go shoeless for most of the year.

While I believe Carter recalled this time fondly, he also was open about the downsides, particularly the diseases children often picked up, like worms, transmitted through the bottoms of the feet.

Now EC’s days of summer feet are over because she has just started first grade at the elementary school in our town. School begins late here in Portugal, mid September.

We will see whether she and we try “summer feet” next summer.

What I’m Reading: Strolling Through Middlemarch

Praise often retards or hinders the exploration of things, that is my personal experience.

For years I had heard how good Middlemarch was, the large, 19th century novel written by the woman with the masculine pen name, George Eliot. At least one critic called it the best novel ever written.

But this intimidated me more than drew me in. I envisioned a weighty tome, with dense prose, above my ease-of-reading level.

But needing something to put me back to sleep during those pre-dawn hours, I downloaded a copy and put it on my e-reader. And I am now about a third through it.

It is basically a description of goings on in the county or region of Middlemarch. There are a few love stories, some struggles over money, and conflicts among some interrelated characters. It would be quite at home as an extended series on HBO or some other network. In fact, a quick Google tells me that Amazon made a series of it in 1994. It only lasted one season, hardly enough to tell the whole story I suspect.

It’s not nearly as hard to read as I expected, and is quite enjoyable, with some surprises.

The largest is the tone and voice of the narrator. It’s incredibly assertive. The narrator is constantly given wry and ironic commentary on the characters she herself created. It’s a very modern thing, and at times it’s hard to believe I am reading a 19th century novel.

What does remind me of the novel’s time of writing is the so-far complete absence of any sexuality or even physical attraction, even though romance is driving many of the book’s plots.

In one of these love stories, a lovely young woman of 20 becomes eager to marry a much older man, in his late 50s or thereabouts. The narrator describes all this with much commentary, but never anything commenting perhaps bedding down with a tired old man for life may not be the most desirable state of affairs. Nor addressing whether the woman in question was attracted to the older man physically.

Actually, there was one sentence or phrase, when another character said of this match that the woman might as well go to a nunnery, for all the chance of having kids this match would produce. But that was as close to a commentary on sexuality that I saw.

Eliot’s narrator does openly describe and clearly admire this character’s beauty, which is lovingly described. She describes her long neck and golden hair. For another character, the narrator is quite forthright about the character’s homiliness. But again, it is mostly from the neck up. There is no gaze put on the character’s body. I wonder what Eliot would say to this observation about her writing?

Another more expected absence was description or involvement of people beyond the quite limited social set of Middlemarch. The bulk of the population then were probably peasants. Their presence has been known only once so far in the book, when the character set on marrying the older gentleman suggests building better housing for them. This is meant as more a sign of her idealistic and pleasure-denying side of her, and so far is not evolved further.

Here in Portugal, all novels are called “romances.” This seemed odd at first, but I can feel how my interest grows whenever Eliot’s narrator starts getting into the love stories in Middlemarch. Perhaps that is the essence of most novels, though Moby Dick or To Kill A Mockingbird don’t have prominent ones.

I will keep reading Middlemarch.

Tummy Time: Filet of Fish Makes for a Happier Family

When K and I lived on West 15th street between 9th and 10th avenues in Manhattan in the early 2000s, before children, we would often walk up 9th (or was it 8th?) to about 19th street to what I remember was called the Galaxy II Diner for dinner.

There we would often order something that was on the printed menu, broiled bluefish. It was always good, flavorful and sweet. Which meant that the bluefish was fresh. I was surprised that it was on the menu, because bluefish is less appealing visually (thus the name), and can be fishy tasting if not absolutely fresh. I wonder if the Galaxy diner is still there, and if bluefish is still on the menu? I sus lpect not. Back then it cost $10.

I mention this because K is more open than many people to different types of fish. But she does have what is probably typical for Americans, which is a dislike of wrestling with a whole fish, and having to work around the various rows of bones.

So I have been endeavoring to get filets for her at the the fish market. My sense is this goes against the grain here. As I have recounted, the Portuguese are fearless when it comes to bones. I don’t ever recall seeing filets on a menu. Even chunks of fried fish here will have bones.

But lately I have been asking successfully at the fish market for filets. It actually wasn’t so hard. The man behind the row of fish understood, and we settled on a fish, a sargo or seabream. He took it and then I got to watch a real artist at work. He sharpened his knife for a quite a while on a whetstone, and then sliced the main filets from each side. Then he got to work trimming other stuff off, the exterior bones probably. It took him a good 10 minutes. I doubt he minded. He probably liked showing off his stuff.

I took them home and pan fried them, serving them with a butter lemon caper sauce. They were a hit.

In truth, I like a good filet myself.

A Pro Filets My Fish.