Here’s this week’s Smartmom from this week’s Brooklyn Paper, which is chock full of Brooklyn news and views.
Caution. Do not spend eight days alone on Block Island at the idyllic Sea Breeze Inn with its sunrise view of the ocean and salt ponds, a hammock, and a delicious breakfast of fresh fruit and muffins if you ever plan on coming home.
Re-entry is brutal.
The Sea Breeze’s manager, Gabby, had to peel Smartmom out of there.
“Should I call you a cab?” Gabby asked when it was close to time for Smartmom to catch the ferry to the Connecticut mainland.
“I guess,” Smartmom said, wanting her to do anything but.
Smartmom prayed, “Maybe the cab won’t come. Maybe I’ll miss the boat. Maybe I’ll have to spend another night. Maybe…”
But it wasn’t to be. The driver showed up promptly and delivered Smartmom to the New London high-speed ferry dock.
Standing on the ferry’s top deck, the wind blew Smartmom’s hair in all directions and none of the other passengers could tell that the tears in her eyes were tears of regret for having to leave her island paradise.
The Amtrak station in New London was just steps from the ferry. Smartmom lifted her heavy bag onto the train and spent much of the ride deep in thought about the delicious week she spent in utter solitude, finishing her novel holed up in a room right out of an Edward Hopper painting.
On the train, Smartmom daydreamed about riding her rented Raleigh seven-speed bicycle to the tip of the island.
She daydreamed about her daily four-mile run to the Southeast Lighthouse on a hilly road next to the ocean.
She daydreamed about writing daily postcards to OSFO at camp and Teen Spirit at home.
She daydreamed about the hours she spent reading, meditating, eating fresh seafood at Eli’s Restaurant and walking on the beach.
Mostly Smartmom daydreamed about being beholden to no one. She didn’t have to answer to anybody, she didn’t have to make dinner or pick up after anyone.
When the conductor called out, “New York–Penn Station,” Smartmom’s stomach clenched as she braced for her return to real life.
With her big suitcase, computer and gifts for the family, Smartmom hailed a cab to Brooklyn, which took practically as long as the train ride from New London.
No kidding.
The cabbie took the longest and most-inane route to Brooklyn that Smartmom has ever seen.
He took the FDR.
“Took much traffic in Manhattan,” he told Smartmom, mistaking her for a clueless tourist on her first trip to Brooklyn.
There was congestion a-plenty on the FDR, and the cab was stopped dead in its tracks on the Brooklyn Bridge ramp while a work crew slowly packed up.
Arriving on Third Street, the meter read: $36, an unheard of fare from Penn Station to Park Slope.
Smartmom tried to be very Zen about the whole thing; she tried to summon come of her Sea Breeze calm and joie de vivre.
The site of her beloved Hepcat waiting for her at the Third Street Café (the so-called umbrella table in front of their apartment building) was cheering.
She was very touched by his “Welcome Home” sign and the Clay Pot bag waiting for her.
Sadly, things got worse before they got better. Smartmom snapped when she saw that he’d added a new table to his office in the living room for his flat files and photographic equipment.
“So I guess, we’re just living in your office now,” Smartmom screamed, her eyes smarting with tears. “Why don’t you just take over the entire apartment?”
Smartmom is known for hyperbole.
She yearned to be back in that husbandless white room of her own with its view of the ocean.
There was some yelling. Mean things were said. Smartmom even walked back out of the apartment with her suitcase, fully intending to…
Standing in the hallway, contemplating a return to Penn Station, Smartmom wondered if Gabby had a room at the Sea Breeze.
She breathed in and out deeply and sheepishly wheeled her suitcase back into the apartment.
The living room didn’t look THAT bad. What had she gotten so crazy about? Hepcat looked depleted sitting on the red chair in living room.
Smartmom lay down on the couch. She had a bad case of Block Island withdrawal, but she was also sitting across from the man she loved the most in the world.
Still, she understood something about her own need to be alone from time to time.
That night they had dinner at the Stone Park Café. Afterwards they brought a blanket and a bottle of Chardonnay to J.J. Byrne Park and watched Mae West and Cary Grant in “I’m No Angel,” on the big outdoor screen.
Watching Mae West felt like a spirited validation of Smartmom’s need for independence. She reveled in all the great one-liners by this strong and sexy heroine.
Block Island was starting to recede into the distance. Mae West’s guttural growl was beginning to replace the sound of the ocean waves.
“Beulah, peel me a grape,” Mae West says famously to her on-screen maid. Smartmom knew she could love her husband and miss her solitude on Block Island.
“When I’m good, I’m good and when I’m bad I’m better,” West tells a very young Cary Grant.
Smartmom will always be Hepcat’s wife and OSFO and Teen Spirit’s mother. But she’s also a self that needs nurturing and time alone.
