Getting My Moorings

Wed AM: Newburyport Waterfront

It’s a noisy morning in Newburyport. The street cleaner is sweeping away the road sands of winter. For some reason the cars crossing the Route One Bridge seem louder today and there’s a metal clang when each one passes over the drawbridge section. Most loud though are the trucks in the parking lot delivering the wharves, soon to be placed in the river and readied for boats.

Today, though, there are no boats moored in the river. It’s a wide expanse of empty water shimmering in the morning sun. Looking downstream toward the mouth and that small strand of empty horizon, I can feel the wide open possibilities of spring.

But the longer one looks downriver, the more one becomes aware of moorings and navigation markers of all sorts. At this time of year, there appears to be no purpose to such things. What are they mooring? Who are they guiding? The ghosts of last summer? The spirits of this coming one?

Well, there goes a lobster boat brimmed with traps heading out to sea ready to build this year’s workplace. So much for the markers. I sometimes forget this is still a working fishing port. As for the moorings, I suppose they’re just pinning down the current from the past. Keeping the river there and available. For the real new year is coming.