Sunday, October 7, 2012

In Which I Painted My Fingernails With Glitter


There. That's my camp. I spent a good part of today sitting in that chair in the shade of that umbrella which I have closed for the night. It will be fine on the beach unless a storm comes up tonight, which I do not think will happen.
Not that I've checked the weather. I mean, really. The weather.

Hank and Togi have headed back to Tallahassee and tonight, no one else is here but me. To be quite clear- I am alone.

I am utterly happy. But part of that is knowing that tomorrow May will be here and Jessie, too, probably, and then Lily and then the boys and then...oh, who knows? I teared up when Hank and Togi left today. I am so grateful to have these incredible people in my life, the ones I'm related to by blood, the ones I'm related to by something else, maybe as strong and invisible as the silver spider webs I've been running into all summer long.

Billy and Shayla brought Waylon out today for a little visit. It was precious, having them here. One of the things I love about this little place on the beach is that it IS old and funky. There ain't nothing a kid can do that's going to mess anything up. The couch, the chairs, the beds- they are all comfortable and worn in and completely accustomed and accommodating to the human form.

The sunset tonight dyed the Gulf as pink as a perfectly cooked shrimp and I took a sunset walk and saw folks fishing and a mama leaning to kiss her baby's head and a child flying a kite and a man holding his woman close to him as she reeled in her line and I've seen dolphin today, slowly making their way to the east, rolling up and down and everyone on the beach stopping whatever they were doing to say with great awe and reverence- Dolphin! The water was clearer today, last week's storms another day gone and when I waded into it, I thought, "Clear as gin," and I wondered why we don't just say, "Clear as water," but gin does have that juniper/pine tang to it which makes it even more clear than water somehow, and yes, it was clear as gin.

I'm going to cook my supper. I've got the curtains pulled so that possible turtle hatchlings won't be confused by the light and I'll be checking the sky for stars and then for that crazy orange moon and tomorrow I'll sit there in that chair under the umbrella, open and ruffling to the breeze, the Gulf a few steps away, waiting for my daughters, and I can't believe I've only been here for a day.

It feels like a lifetime, already, a slow roll like the dolphins, dipping down and then coming up for air. I didn't wear a bra on either of my walks today, my old-mama breasts doing whatever it was they needed to do as I stepped, stepped, stepped, right on the edge of the water part/earth part, and I did not give one thought to what anyone might think and I doubt they thought a thing.


I am at the beach. I am myself.


5 comments:

  1. Perfect.

    Tell May I love her, and miss her.

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  2. O I know. And you are always yourself, grumpy or frustrated or sad or angry. We love all the parts.

    XXX Beth

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  3. I had a dream about the ocean last night. It looked exactly like this. Blue and cloudy - dusk and dawn all at once.

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  4. Nothing like it. That solitude of just being in Nature where you think you are alone but really aren't.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.