In Anna Maria, it was around 5 p.m. The beaches quickly cleared as people showered and headed to dinner. In the fading light of day, the waves take on a majestic hue and I look around for someone with whom I can share the beauty...and...no one.
It's just me. Out here with the wind and the waves and the beach and the gulls. It seems that I'm the only one for miles. I gaze down the beach and marvel at my luck to have such a piece of creation to myself.
The beach is mine. No one to share it with...but what I want most is something with whom I can share the experience.
A similar encounter occured the other day during our Lake Michigan beach house escape. Once again, we are vacationing with our beautiful friends, loving and tolerating and patient. They teach us what love is about and accept us through all the hysterically funny times and crazy down times. We're family and it's just what we do.
But on an overcast Monday afternoon, Jack and our friends all wanted to nap. I didn't fault them this but felt the draw of the beach, beckoning me to visit. So I packed up my chair, towel, and bug spray, and hit the beach. When I first arrived at 3:30 p.m. or so, the beach was pretty crowded. Dads playing with toddler kids and moms chasing after preteens to coat them in sunscreen.
But as the time progressed, fewer and fewer shared the beach space with me. By 5:15, it was me and the gulls. Everyone disappeared to their beach houses, in pursuit of the perfect burger or kabob concoction. One other guy was out there on the wind-swept beach, teaching his young golden retriever how to retrieve, praising him with every successful return. Soon after, even he and the puppy went in and it was me, left to discern my thoughts and absorb enough sunshine to get me through until March.
I've always been a beach bum. My mom taught me the art of sunbathing when I was a kid. The goal was to relax, get just enough sun so you don't burn, and come back from the beach with at least one good story.
My mom had skin cancer last year and she's done with the "just enough sun" phenomenon. I like just enough sun for a souvenir tan, so that I can feel as though I've been somewhere great, absorbing said greatness to max out my bars as though I'm in a Sims game.
The beach is always where I have felt whole. Complete. Gestalt. Like a piece of me is missing when I am inland, going about my day-to-day business. Like there is an itch, a longing, of something I can't quite obtain when I'm somewhere else. There are few things I like more than to watch waves rolling in from afar, wondering about their origins, their stories. Did a storm rile them? Wind out of the north? Small earthquake? Why is that pulse of energy rippling through the water at that point in time?
But as we sat on the windy beach, hair billowing in the breeze, I noticed something different in the waves. Their story changed....they were no longer angry, seeking the shore in mad pursuit. They seemed...reluctant. As though they didn't want to pound the shore, their energy spent, anger receding. They seemed almost apologetic and yet destined to roll over, just because there was enough wind and energy to compel them.
They seemed placid. Six-foot tall waves on Lake Michigan were placid.
I felt placid. No longer angry but compelled to keep rolling because of the energy I've been riding for a long time, for hundreds of miles.
It made me reflective about my father. I still keep thinking about him, wondering if I will randomly run into him in SB, Chicago, or anywhere in northern Indiana. I think about him way more often than I thought; his death was four months ago and I still think I could meet him in the neighborhood Meijer.
He's gone. I will not see his particular shade of green eyes ever again. I will not be able to look into his eyes and see the placid green I observed in the waves, on the beach tonight. Anger gone, just the waves riding out the stored-up energy propelling them for miles. I don't know nearly enough about his later life and I really don't want to create a psychologicial complex about how I never really knew my dad and then he went off and died without us reconciling. Yet when I return to the beach, my soul feels a wholeness and I know he's there with me.
The angry waves have passed. Now we are riding out all that stored-up energy until peace and calmness return, once again, to the shore.
And to my heart.
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