Summer in the Low from Lowcountry Journal (Doug Roland) on Vimeo.
I faded away today. I was on a conference call on the 4th floor of my office building on King Street. My window looks out across the north side of the peninsula. Off in the distance I can make out the church steeples and sometimes a sailboat mast, bells ringing off somewhere and bouncing around the side streets past sun burned tourists. I could hear a lawyer, miles away in my speakers, babbling about Wal-Mart’s credit rating and the waning reputation of the S&P. My eyes were closing and opening, a curtain falling and rising on the gravel in the parking lot at Cherry Point. I wondered if it was filling up. Fisherman jumping from car doors, excited and fumbling with bags of gear they wouldn’t use and coolers of cheap beer. Damn their lucky souls. I listened to the lawyer droll on and I tried hard to recall my friend Eric’s favorite line from Blood Meridian, something about the greatest thrill of all being the journey “on the way” to the bar. It was mirrored in those faces I was imagining at the dock, excited and thrilled , envisioning how amazing they’re day would be. I was lost. Cormac McCarthy had wrote, “ God made the world, but he didn’t make it to suit everybody, did he?.” I didn’t want to be in this office. I wanted to feel fiberglass on my bare feet and the chill that kicked off the deck with the hull shot. Mud, spartina, and shells. Small creeks draining and southeastern gusts of wind crawling over my back and into my cast. Subtle pushes and wakes. Sweat and foggy glasses. Ole’ Summer, I missed you old friend, feels so good to see you again.
Doug Roland
