Really? It's Been A Week?

It’s Saturday and we’re packing it up. Got at least five loads of laundry to wash before we leave. Then we’ll remake the beds and fold up the towels and put all the food in the ice chest that we didn’t eat and leave everything tidy and neat for the next person that comes to stay.
We’ll shut the door and lock it and leave the house and the little poltergeist (which has teased me a little, but not much) to itself and also the osprey and the gulls and the heron and the hummingbird and the coons and the armadillos and the beach and the pines and bay, which changes its face every fifteen minutes.
At least.
And we’ll go home.
You know what?
I don’t want to.
I’m thinking I could live here. I could learn to grow tomatoes in the sand and the man could net mullet and we could go into Carabelle every few weeks for flour and sugar and coffee.
At least I have a new fantasy. At least when I get stressed out I can shut my eyes and imagine the bay, changing its face, letting the wind dress it in foamy lace.
And me sitting watching it, giving it an audience which it never asks for, never demands, but tolerates.
I’m already sad, imagining myself imagining.
Those dogwoods better be mighty special. The tung trees better be glorious, because this woman is going to need some seducing to get her back in love with real life.

Saturday, March 15, 2008
Dog Island, FL