I am sitting on a bench at Inveraray park overlooking the mudflats. It is 9:35am. The sun is shining. I watch a pot-bellied man in white T-shirt, blue jeans, and olive-green waders search for clams. He looks down at the seaweed-covered mud, carries a white plastic pail with no handle; the inside is yellowed, as if it's seen a lot of clams in its day. Every so often he pauses to kick a pitchfork into the sand, lever up a pile of mud, sift through it, do it again. Nothing. I watch him for half an hour.Pigeons pick at the seaweed. Seagulls skim around, bob in the water, drop shells on the rocks to break them open. Two herons stand in the shallows. Sunshine beats down on me. I lay back on the bench and nap.
11:00--the church bells chime. I sit up. The tide has come in about 20 feet. Still lots of mud.
I slept poorly last night--too hot in our room. There are the same three other girls from the large group; one of whom seems to have spent much of yesterday in bed and seemed to have no intention of getting up this morning. The room is stuffy and it stinks of bad breath and sleep. Got up in the middle of the night to move the curtains aside for some hope of airflow. Propping the door open lets in too much light from the hall, right onto the face of my upper bunk mate. I'm hoping they leave today, but they don't seem to be. I plan to go back this afternoon to try to air out the room.
I've been wishing lately for a place that offers a comfortable lounge for spreading out in. I don't like being cooped up in a bottom bunk, and the travel paraphernalia of four women can't help but ooze over most of the floor space in the small room. The dining room is OK for projects like postcards and scrapbooking, but not for comfortable reading, and the tiny alcove with the Internet computer has an uncomfortably hard sofa--no squishy padding and pillows to settle into with a good book.
I'm feeling very tired today. As if lots of healing is going on and I need to rest. Not interested in shopping or eating or sightseeing or walking. Have my paints with me, and not interested in them, either. Just want to keep sleeping. The herons have left.
I nap on the bench for another 10 minutes, wake to watch clouds form. They go slowly. So slowly. I can see them roll and change, but I can hardly stand the stillness of it. I sit up. A heron stands in the water. The sky has filled with clouds.
Sitting quiet like this today brings an almost physical nausea. A billowing belly, discomfort of Being. I fight the urge to get up, to move around, to do. I stay on the bench, choosing to live through this discomfort, see where it goes.
The growing tide has lifted a pair of boats in the harbor. They float at anchor. The water isn't yet affecting the Vital Spark and Inveraray Maritime Museum, two ships that are moored at the quay.
A pair of adolescent jackdaws practice takeoffs and flights from the sea wall near me. They're about two-thirds the size of their parents. They yell for food, a screechy kind of caw. A black-headed tern coasts around.
Lots of motorcycles on the road today. Sunny day, winding road--perfect combo for riding. They roar in over the Aray bridge heading south through town. There's one main road in these parts--a scenic path that follows the coastline much of the way; it makes a loop at the top of the peninsula then becomes a miles-long dead-end road to Campbeltown. An accident my first night here turned fatal for a biker. They closed the road until midnight. People had to sit for hours in parked cars or go the long way around the loop to get to Inverarary.
Just got joined by two German women on the bench. I feel a moment of irritation at the intrusion, then think, Sunny day: the bench is worth sharing. I start a game of Sudoku. They talk for thirteen minutes without stopping. One talks more while the other gives nods and yahs and uh-huhs. They each indicate parts of their feet and shoes. Perhaps discussing travel aches and pains, or fashion footwear. The one nearest me looks at her watch. It is 12:23 by Perry. They stand up and go, still talking. I finish my game of Sudoku in a record, for me, 15:38 minutes. The tide is about one-third in now. Taking my mind off into a game has reduced the nausea. I can't do this Being for more than short stints at a time.
The tide comes in more slowly here than it did over the causeway at St. Michaels. It doesn't stink here like it did at St Michaels, either. There are mud flats, seaweed, etc., but no stench.
The more I look, the more I see. A fat gray and silver-backed fly lands on my trouser leg. Black-and-white oystercatchers, red beaks, red legs. Eight to nine of them cluster twenty feet from the water's creeping edge. One of them pokes among the smooth rocks that are just now getting wet. Swallows flit over the seaweed. It's 12:43. The brick red and rusted hull of the Vital Spark are reflected in smooth water. A gray heron tiptoes through the shallows, one foot, next foot, head tilting at the waters.
What's on the other side of this boredom? Of this vague nausea? What would happen if I tossed my cookies on the beach there? Or at Jura?
I feel afraid to go to Jura. It's a place unpopulated and rural, where there really is nothing to do and nowhere to go except right there, wherever I am. I can barely sit still for an hour here at this park bench. What will happen at Jura?
