The Home of my Heart

I've lived a number of places in the world, and visited many more, but Bellport will always be the home of my heart. My family lived there when I was born, but we moved to the middle of the country when I was five. We returned for many long summer visits, and Bellport grew in my mind as the aquatic marine summer paradise place I longed to be all the time. We moved back permanently as I started high school, and the acquisition of a sailboat cemented the deal. My high school years were not particularly happy and there certainly is not enough money in the world to ever convince me to relive them. It was the sixties, and traumas both political and personal were significant. But the place I lived was much of what made those years bearable.

I come from a family of great indoors people. Touring the great capitals of the world was their idea of an ideal vacation. My parents were profoundly bored by the beach, we never once went camping, and the idea of scrambling around a little sailboat buffeted by wind and waves was anathema to them. The year we moved back to Bellport, my mother wrote in her Christmas letter how sad we all were to leave the delights of a college town in the midwest. She clearly never checked in with me, her middle child, to find out how I felt about it.

Carmen's River, where we sailed

Bellport gave me the freedom to go places and do things as an adolescent I couldn't have done in many other places. It was a small rural and prosperous town back then, with some summer people, but not with ostentatious wealth or fashion. Alone or with friends, I could bike through small roads and over a bridge to the beach on Fire Island. On weekends, we would go birdwatching with some avid adult birders, hanging out in marshes and on beaches throughout the east end of Long Island. Even more delightfully, my friends and I could sail to Fire Island, or other destinations along the Great South Bay, one of the best small boat sailing areas in the world. It has the steady and strong ocean breeze, but very sheltered water so no big waves. Even better, at least half the area of the Bay is so shallow that if a boat capsizes you can stand on the bottom to right it! Astonishing to me now, my friends and I were allowed to take a family small sailboat each summer for up to week, cruising along the Bay and tying up to shore at night. Our boats were completely open with no toilet or cooking facilities aboard, but the Fire Island National Seashore provided docks to tie up to and places to put a small campstove for cooking. Generally there were also payphones, and we tried to remember to call in each night to assure them we were still alive.

I left to go to college (in the midwest, ironically) in 1972. I never spent a whole summer back in Bellport afterwards. But my family was dug in there, until my mother moved down near me in DC in 2006. Even then, she and I would go back for visits, once or twice a year, until about ten years ago when we went back for the funeral of one of her best friends. Her declining health and declining pool of friends decided against any more trips.

So it was a lovely surprise when I got an invitation to the eightieth birthday party for one of my close friends there, and realized the calendar was free and I really wanted to go. The birthday girl was also a close friend of J, my boat partner who was my friend in high school, and who actually moved back to Bellport (well, ok, Brookhaven, a mere hamlet to Bellport's village) as an adult for about a decade. She decided to come as well - she hadn't been back in nearly 30 years!

The Birthday Girl, Jo, is about a dozen years older than me. That was perfect when I was in high school. I think every adolescent can benefit from adult friends to show alternative ways to be in the world, something different from the parents. Jo and her husband, Phil, provided a safe place to hang out, drop in, drink tea, and sometimes meet other kids from the next town over where Phil was a teacher.

The beach

We had an uneventful but tedious nearly seven hour drive up to the island on Friday. We went directly to Smith Point beach on Fire Island, as Friday had the best weather forecast of the weekend. One of our objectives for the weekend was to walk along the beach to where Superstorm Sandy had made a breach in Fire Island, letting the ocean in directly to the Bay. The breach has since filled in with sand, on all but the highest of high tides. It was a bit of a hike - 4 1/2 miles round trip - but we took our time and watched some birds and stood in the very low spot where the ocean had been washing over the sand. We had spent many many hours in roughly the same spot, and sailing over the waters of the bay just inside the barrier beach, so it was fun to spot landmarks on the far shore. Many of them were just the same.

We stayed in a bargain Airbnb just outside Bellport. I think we may have been the fourth set of guests to stay there - we were the fourth folks to review it, anyway. It was very clean and very basic. I would guess the owner had done the work himself (or hired a friend) because it was not skillful work. There was no weather stripping on the outside door, and when the wind blew the puffs came in. There were stripes of wall paint on the ceiling where the taping wasn't sufficient. There was no book of instructions or local area tips. It had a fancy coffee machine, ground coffee and mugs, but no sugar or cream. The fridge was entirely empty. No ironing board, no hair dryer, sparse furniture. But comfy bed, plenty of bedlinens and towels, a decent shower. It did the job. We left some suggestions on the private feedback, and stressed the positive on the public review.

Friday night, we ate at the fancy Bellport Restaurant. We had no reservation, and we were shuttled to a back room, away from the hopping main part where very attractive people were socializing between tables and the bar. But we asked our server to let the head chef know we were there (using the first names we used back in the day which is not how we are now known to friends). The head chef is the son of the birthday girl, and we used to change his diapers! He came out, astounded, as his sister the party organizer had elected to keep our attendance a secret. So we got excellent food and service and a discount on the drinks. It was fun to see him as an adult in his element - the last time J had seen him, he was babysitting her children! 

Saturday was kind of drizzly, but we made a pilgrimage out to see my mother's building. Back in the year 2000, a local health center was renamed in her honor. I wouldn't have been surprised to see it renamed or even the whole building repurposed, because it's been twenty-five years. I was really touched to find it is not only still a community health center, but even though it's under new management and has a new name, they kept the "Marilyn Shellabarger". 

It's still her building!

 

We took another hike, through a wildlife refuge and along a marsh, seeing more birds and wildlife. We also visited all of our former houses and favorite places in a driving tour, commenting on the changes, not always favorably. Highly enjoyable!

The birthday party was fun! Jo has many many health challenges running back over many years, but she is still gutsy and independent and sharp and funny. Of course, the food was excellent, because not only is her son a fancy chef, but her daughter is a professional baker. There were not lots of people there, but an unexpected treat were the couple who lived behind my parents' house. Also eighty years old, they had sold their house last year and moved back to their old neighborhood on the upper west side, and driven out for the weekend. They were both very bent over and walked very slowly with canes. Also still sharp and funny and highly opinionated, I enjoyed talking to them both. 

Sunday morning we got up early, hit a diner for breakfast, and were off the island and to the NJ turnpike by 9 am. The trip home was uneventful, and a full 90 minutes shorter than the trip up.

I don't know that I will ever go back to Bellport. Jo and her family are my only people links to the place. Being there, I feel both at home and a stranger. I go to a familiar place, but nobody knows me and knows that I belong there, though I feel strongly that I do. The first time I played the game of "what will I do if I win the mega-lottery?" the first thing that popped up was "buy a place in Bellport". But that's really the only way it would happen. 

Maybe it's better to just keep it in my heart, and not allow myself to be disappointed by any inconvenient realities.

The Dog Watch

Sadie in a bad patch

Few things are sadder than a sad dog. All of my empathy cells vibrate to the sight and sound of a dog in pain. 

Sadie, my girl's dog who lives with me when she is out of town, has been having issues since mid-March. The tiny little thing is doing much better now than she was, probably no longer in pain, but not back to her vigorous self.  She has been having some kind of muscular-skeletal issue, probably caused by pinched nerves in her neck. At her worst, she could barely walk, and the pain caused non-stop shaking. There was a fairly quick onset of initial symptoms, followed by progressively more aggressive interventions with steriods and other medications. After each intervention, she got a bit better, then got even worse as soon as she started to feel better and moved around again. The one bright spot is that I was referred to a relatively new and close emergency-and-specialist vet practice that I really like. I have twice left there with a bill under $100!

Sadie in her living room cell (I mean kennel)

Now, we're on a long, slow, taper of steroids (and other meds) and her activity is strictly limited by me. She literally has a kennel in the middle of my living room, and another pen in the backyard. She gets time snuggling with me, often outdoors so her little nose gets stimulated, and a little leash walk each day. In an effort to keep her from jumping (and inevitably falling) I can't leave her loose in a room where she is used to jumping on the furniture. Blocking her in the kitchen while I'm there works as a change of pace from the living room kennel. She is used to being fed in her little spot in the living room, and the steroids are driving a big increase in appetite, so she willingly returns to it when she gets a chance. I have food puzzles for her, to give her a bit more
stimulation.

My two assistant cooks, drugged

Meanwhile, Bixby, my dog of roughly the same size, has been anxious since he first came to live with me. He is afraid of intruders at the house, and afraid of any people or dogs seen while out. Often times, his fear turns into barking fiercely and non-stop. At its worst he goes into what I call "Rumpelstiltskin mode" where I think he will burst out of his own skin, turning circles and unable to stop himself, showing the whites of his eyes and trembling. Other times, he goes into "autobark" where he just keeps barking, without any outside stimulus to keep him going - not so frantic, but again, in a loop, unable to stop himself. We've been working with a trainer on counter conditioning for over a year. Sadly, his "trigger point" where he gets hyper-activated has been very high, and so my alternative positive association (ie, physical comfort and/or treats) fails to catch his attention. While of course I find the barking annoying and sometimes embarrassing, I have been more concerned about his quality of life - it can't be comfortable to feel under threat all the time, to feel that hyper-vigilance is your only possible mode of survival. 

So now I've got Bixby on anti-anxiety meds. The plan is to lower his trigger points and overall anxiety level, during which time I'll intensively work on counter-conditioning (trying to change his response to a stimulus.) After two weeks, he is sleeping more, (peering anxiously out the window less) and has only had a couple of melt-downs into full Rumpelstiltskin mode in the house. I can usually calm him quickly by touching him. On walks, I'm still avoiding as best I can other dogs. Sadly, the drugs seem to have put him off his appetite, and so treats are less effective on walks. I've taken away his food bowl, and he has to work for all his food, which helps. But sometimes, he doesn't even get excited about a kong filled with frozen canned dog food. I will probably seek more advice, and consult with the vet on the meds.

Daily med administration

I've got a full blown dog-medication station in my kitchen, for the twice-a-day administration to each dog. Multiple pills have to be sliced into tiny pieces for tiny dogs, and stuffed into a soft pill pocket. Sadie gets five different meds, different morning and night, with a quarter of a tylenol tablet added if she is having a bad patch. Bixby gets two meds, at least they are the same morning and night. I have a routine turned into almost autopilot, designed to minimize the possibility of getting these multiple drugs for each dog wrong. I'm hoping this is temporary for both dogs, but each of them is having a better time now than a month or so ago, at least.