Wandering

Yesterday, in a meandering, deep-thinking state of mind, I took the long, slow ride out to the furthest end of the North Fork...out to Orient Point and then into Orient Park. It was a brilliant, sunny day with the wind blowing across the water on both sides of the road. In East Marian, I stopped on the Orient Harbor side of the road to take pictures of the sun shining across the lightly ruffled waters...(the photo at the end of this site is of that exact spot in early September, sailboats drifting off in the distance)...across the road the Sound water was choppy and wild...the wind almost knocking me over when I stepped out onto the beach to take my pictures. It was the best of both worlds and all on the same east-west roadway. I passed vineyards and farmstands and just beyond them on the opposite side of the road, inlets and bays. A small farmstand sits close on the road with the water just a few hundred feet behind it. There are two lavendar farms heading east toward Orient with deep patches of lavendar visible from the road; one serves tea and hot soup. The apple farms were serving fresh squeezed cider, produce farmstands selling roasted corn on the cob...hoards of pumpin pickers cruising the seasonal fall festivals, winery tours, corn mazes...antique stores, farm houses, B&B's and motels on the water...people fishing along the roadway, daytrippers snaking along the same path I had taken...a long, slow crawl heading east along the narrow roadways...the natural world spread out on both sides, so much to notice, so much that could be missed.
I am getting the urge now to make some kind of move, to step off from the crossroad, pick a path and start another journey...I am thinking about this, mulling ideas that are surfacing from somewhere far back in my head...not quite ready to become, but a stirring of the pot, a simmering and bubbling...