What More Can You Say?

Our Judy has gone home. Lovey, aka Denise, came and got her and so we are three.
Vicki, Kathleen and I.
I don't feel like talking very much. And we haven't talked much, we women.

Do you want some scrambled eggs? Should we go and get lunch? Do you like this dress?

The other stuff, the deep, profound stuff?
Nah.
We don't seem to need it.
We just go down to the water and float in the waves and let the tiny fish nibble on us and try not to step on the blue crabs. We come in and take a nap. We make guacamole and we open a beer and we pour a tiny shot of rum and we cook scallops with an onion and garlic and olive oil and eat them with tortellinis.
We walk on the beach and find sea shells and watch the sky change from this to that, watch the pink turn to dark blue,

watch the lightening turn the dark blue back to pink, watch the moon rise up as round and full as a Buffalo nickel and light a pathway across the water to some magical place we could walk to if we were holy enough, good enough, sure enough of ourselves.

Kathleen has eaten so well today and she stayed up until nine o'clock before saying, "I need to go lay down." She got in the water as we all have and we and she are coated with salt and happy to go to bed that way, knowing that it's good for us somehow, that essential mineral which seasons the amniotically-warm Gulf where we floated as the pelicans flew above us.

And here we are, the three of us, and we're going to have to leave tomorrow. We'll check out here and drive over the bridge to Apalachicola and shop at River Lily which is one of the very best shops in the world, and have lunch and then drive back to our real lives in the woods.

As Denise and Judy were leaving tonight, Denise said, "Come on, Judy, let's go back to civilization," and Judy said, "What are you talking about? We're going back to the woods. We're leaving civilization."

All of us, each and every one of us has said in the last twenty-four hours, "Why did we stop coming here?" and we do not know. Everything about this place: the sun, the sky, the moon, the water, the air, the sea oats, the birds- all of it is something we grew up suckling and thrived on and which we obviously need.
We'll be back.

We will.


You can count on that.