As I walked from the beach house where I was staying with friends toward the bay, I felt the long-awaited sunshine and heat on my neck and shoulders, the first gifts of approaching summer.
I was born in July, a month of heavy humidity and friends away at the shore, making my birthday parties as a little girl somewhat lonesome affairs. Just me and my dog Lucky, a mix of cocker spaniel and terrier, at my side as I splashed in the plastic swimming pool Dad had blown up for me in our backyard. My birthday is exactly a week after July 4th, a holiday usually spent alone or driving somewhere to watch fireworks.
Still, I remember the sweet scent of honeysuckle on those warm days, and now, as I approached the bay, I smelled it again, the purity of summer in full bloom and a bit of nostalgia for long-gone childhood. The pale yellow and white flowers grew in abundance above the dunes.
A jogger passed me; his face contorted with the effort of running, and neither he nor I acknowledged the other. This is our world now, in many ways…ships passing in the night, the friendly wave or hello gone the way of .35-cent-a-gallon gas when I first started driving.
As I looked out toward the bay, it shone with azure…was that a ship on the far horizon? A seagull alighted, head bobbing, long beak picking apart a dead hermit crab washed ashore.
Whenever I go to the shore, my thoughts invariably turn to those who are gone—John, my parents, my brother, Andy, my best friend, Paula. And so I’m forced now to answer the question that the writer Charles Bukowski once asked… “And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?”
My life is defined by being a widow for almost thirty-two years. What does widow really mean? There had been others, just not others I married over the years. Alone, but not alone.
The gentle breeze and the sharp cry of the gulls remind me that this was a moment not to be overtaken by sorrow and nostalgia. My friend had asked me earlier. You’re a very confident woman. Was your mother that way? No, I answered. When you have a house paid off and money in the bank that breeds confidence, I joked, although it is the truth. And I don’t need a man for a house, money, or kids, I added.
So this morning, I practiced mindfulness. “Stay in the moment” is the mantra, and let the sea be a meditation on gratitude.
I walked down the steep wooden steps to the beach and felt the sand’s roughness on my bare toes. Iridescent white and cream-colored seashells awaited. I picked them up to take home. Like those seashells, the peculiarity of memories resides in how their fragility is weathered with time. Some remain as defining moments, like that little girl alone in her swimming pool.
Like memories, we’re all fragile. It’s just that some of us weather time better than others.
When I get home, I arrange the seashells in a Waterford crystal bowl, a wedding present given to him and me so long ago. I put them near the sink in my powder room. No one waits for me except Lily, of course. My “Old Yeller”, now 13 but with hints of the puppy she once was, jumps up and greets me like I’ve been gone three years, not three days. It’s a moment to enjoy.
Writing can be done anywhere, anytime, and so now, I look back on that time, writing to my own prompt for our Women’s Writing Circle, which asks us to take a walk, and write what we see and feel.
Along the Writer's Way 