Warning: I’m going to rant, but I’m not going to name names or link sites.

I recently joined a local group that has meetups. The focus of these meetups is tea. Our last organizer went AWOL, and so I was very excited when the new Organizer stepped up! I would have myself ages ago except it costs to become an Organizer, it’s free to just be a member. Anyway, I messaged the new organizer expressing an interest in meetups around local tea shops and cafes in Vancouver. I included website links and several location suggestions just incase the Organizer wasn’t from Vancouver proper. I got the most infuriating response back… and when I read it at work, I actually said out loud: “Tea snob!”

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After posting my review and thoughts about Barnacle Love, I thought how I first felt hearing about the book. I thought, “okay, sounds interesting, but what’s so good about it?” And by the end of the book, I could answer my question: it was the writing. So I spoke to the publisher about posting an excerpt. I got the approval to post this, so here you go, from Anthony De Sa’s book, Barnacle Love:

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TERRA NOVA

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

James Baldwin

~ OF GOD AND COD ~

There is nothing he can do. He is lifted high into the air by the swells that roll, break, and crash upon themselves. His dory is smashed, the flotsam scattered: pieces of white jagged wood afloat, tangled in knotted rope, nothing much to grab hold of before the ocean lifts him higher, only to drop him into its turbulent waters, catching him in the current. Again, he pierces the surface, the biting cold filling his lungs as he coughs and sputters. It is the moment he needs. He reaches into his sweater and draws out the crucifix, which glistens in the moon’s light. He twirls it between puckered fingers, places it in his mouth–between his clicking teeth. He feels its weight and shape cushioned on his tongue, closes his blue lips and allows himself to let go, to sink beneath the foaming surface into the dark molasses sea.

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