Every Time I Blink

There was something so odd about walking the beach in November. The shore is empty, save for occasional little clumps of fishermen, their legs covered in rubber waders and their hands full of beer. Without the sounds of the summer beachgoers the ocean was free to be as soothing or as surly as it liked. The first day I walked along an ocean calm, the water the color of oxygenated avocado, the sky a crayola blue. The waves rolled and bounced shells toward shore, the broken bits sounding like shards of glass laughing. I'd never heard that sound.

The second day the ocean looked furious. As far out as I could see was white foam and water the color gray one use to describe old love gone old. The wind whipped everything it could, the sky built gray atop gray, like painting with only two colors. Tumbleweeds of seafoam skipped and rolled down the shore. The fishermen were gone. There was no one. The seashells kept coming but didn't laugh like the day before.

Not surprisingly, I thought of an Ani DiFranco song:

“The sky is gray, the sand is gray, and the ocean is gray
And I feel right at home in this stunning monochrome
Alone in my way
I smoke and I drink and every time I blink I have a tiny dream
And as bad as I am, I'm proud of the fact that I'm worse than I seem.”

I didn't get to write at the beach. I let every sort of distraction get the best of me.

Biological Casio

Saturday morning I woke up too early because two very small hands were squeezing my cheeks together and the face attached to those hands was uncomfortably close to mine.

“HIIIII AH-RAH. HIIII! AWWWWWIGHT! YAY BEACH!” was shouted at full volume into my slack face, which translated from 20-month old speak is the best sort of good morning expression. Ena, my quasi-goddaughter (and for the sake of this blog will be called as much) was sitting on my chest, her big green eyes staring at my bleary, sleep filled ones, and she was absolutely thrilled that I was still around in the morning. She kept touching me to make sure I was real. Usually I'm at the house to say goodnight to her but I'm gone when she gets up, but since I'd traveled to the beach with her and her parents, unlike at home we were going to be in the same house for a few days. Ena seemed to think this was the best idea. EVER. I say hello; she climbs down and goes screaming into the next room, on to bigger and better projects that don’t involve waking up a notorious non-morning person. Her morning speed is one I rarely get around to nearing in a day.

Ena's parents are my amazing friends Katherine and Andy (written about here and here and here).

I'm not a kid person; I don't usually like them, don't have a biological clock causing me to desire them...ok maybe I have a biological pocket watch; ever so slight and inconsistently functional. A biological digital calculator watch. A cheap biological Casio or Swatch. Nothing large or accurate to be sure. Ena breaks my baby rules. I pick her up; I hold her hand, wipe her face, run with her and feed her (cardinal sins in my baby book. Usually I'll just poke them and pat their heads). She has opened rooms in my heart full of draped furniture, covered with the dust of neglect and time. I am blessed to see her often.

This weekend at the beach with Ena, coupled with the Mother's Day holiday, caused me to think about loving children. It makes no sense.

Why do we love these little selfish parasites that require attention, fawning, food, care, cleaning and coaxing into the most basic exercises of sleeping and eating? They are extremely irrational, poor communicators with a mean streak and a penchant for destruction. But we love them. We would die for them. One laugh from that girl and I'm up for whatever she has next. I melt like an idiot.

Brennan Manning, he of 'Ragamuffin Gospel' fame, writes,
“Children are our model because they can have no claim on heaven. If they are close to God, it is because they are incompetent, not because they are innocent. If they receive anything it can only be as a gift.”

I do not love Ena because she is innocent; I love her because she is Ena.

I think that might just be what we, in any belief system, should strive for. We are not worth anything because of our abilities or our inabilities, our gifts or our struggles; we are worth much because we are first loved much. I am loved because I am a key component in something much bigger than me. I am loved because I fulfill a promise. I am loved because I am furthering my species. In this culture and society I am trained to do, to measure my success in tangibles.

My list of tangibles I made at 22 is woefully unfulfilled.

Today I am struggling mightily with this.

I want my reasons to be loved to read like a resume. I want love to be bullet points, I want clearly defined boundaries and rules.

It doesn't. It isn't.

And yet.

Just Like the Waves

Two weeks ago I went to the beach.

Margarita mentioned it, as did Goodboy Norman Featherstone, who, for a pug, is quite observant. Not that Margarita isn’t observant but she is, after all, a human. With a college degree. She should be able to formulate sentences.

Nathan’s family owns the most impressive beach house I’ve ever stayed in and they were gracious enough to share it with us for the extended weekend. I didn’t grow up going to the beach (I only remember going twice my whole childhood: 1987 to Virginia Beach and 1992 to Duck, NC) and haven’t quite grasped the appeal of it before this trip. My impression of the beach was this: airbrushed t-shirts, fat people in small swimwear, overpriced crappy beer, jelly fish, sunburn, lethargy and sand invasions. Not impressive.*

But this trip was relaxing, peaceful, delicious food, microbrews, bocce/root ball games, great conversation, love, dogs, naps and the general feeling of a contented sigh. I shucked oysters with Ian and Nathan, stunk up Wii baseball with Margarita, read on the deck outside my bedroom while the morning tide let out and played fetch with a few very dirty and happy dogs. Waking up to waves is like waking up to love: the sound like safe arms, the salt like warm breath. The first thought one of peace and safety, comfort and hope.

I could get used to that.

*I’d like to give a shout out to the North Myrtle Beach trip of May/June 2006 that was the initial impression breaker. That trip was HILARIOUS.

Into the Arms of Florida

So my blogging has been severely limited lately, due to several factors, among them time, access and a severe crackdown by The Man on computer usage at work. What like I'm not supposed to obsessively check and write blogs on the clock? Lame.

This weekend I ended up on a 62-foot Schooner with a plastic cup of red wine in one hand while the other gripped to whatever was available for gripping. The seas were high and it took all of my conscious energy to not yell “WHEEE!” at the crest of every wave. The sky was gray, the sand was gray, the ocean was gray but it did little to dampen my spirits. My ancestry is a long line of ship-captains and the sea truly is in my veins. I feel like a different bit of life comes to visit me out there.

I was in Saint Augustine for a four-day adventure that mostly included eating, planning the next place to eat, getting to the next place to eat, recovering from eating and then celebrating by having a beer. It was lovely. I love Asheville but it is such a joy to skip town and see something else.

The lighthouse on the island also served as a landmark; the spiral-painted tower the only denotation between cardinal directions. We climbed the lighthouse on Sunday morning; being that my only reoccurring nightmare involves spiral staircases I was less than enthused to undertake the process of ascension (and even less that of distention) and my knuckles were white with the strain of my grip. I got quiet; I do that when I'm terrified. I don't like it to be known how hard my heartbeats. I stood on the balcony with an underwater archaeologist who works at the site and he could point out histories and disasters only known by their wreckage. His words gave it all a sense of place.