Thursday, June 18, 2009

Get Your Stuff

Yesterday we found the real, honestagod light of the late morning sun streaming through the windows in our kitchen. We saw it and we felt it. It made the dust sparkle and float like fairy dust and it had the same magical effect on us. The breeze from the ocean brought tales of a lowering tide. I brought my coffee onto the deck and sat down in one of the two Adirondack chairs, face tipped toward the sun. I thanked the heavens for making me a teacher in the summertime. What are the odds of that? Split second decision to call to the kids to get your stuff cause we're going to the beach. The sea glass isn't gonna wait around forever, I told them.

But it did wait for us, even those precious pieces of blue that we love so very much, and so did the hermit crabs and the beige baseball cap that floated in from the harbor. All those treasures greeted us at our favorite beach in town. It's the small beach where we said goodbye to our beloved Moanie, mixing our own saltwater with hers. It's the beach where we take a picture every year on the same rock so we are forced to acknowledge our kids' breakneck speed of growth. It's that beach where I can always breathe and time stands still except for the setting sun that takes me by surprise every time. It's the beach that creates tide pools just right for kids with buckets and shoes or no shoes. We make our crabby day cares and our drip castles, we crawl up on the high rocks to be the lookout pirate, we bury our feet in the sand and eat our peanut butter and jellies. We wave to the familiar people of this town who are passing by, and we drink in the joys of summer in this place.

It's summer. We live at the edge of land, just near our favorite place on earth. What do you suppose the odds of that are?

7 comments:

Vodka Mom said...

slim. very, very slim.



and I am right beside you...with my toes in the water and my ass full of sand. sigh.

Kari said...

That brought me right back to my recent trips to the mountains and the ocean - my favorite places in the world. I need them, like I need to breath.

Kate Coveny Hood said...

This was lovely. And it made me even more anxious for my trip to the beach next month (DC area is not that close to the ocean you know).

Pop and Ice said...

I really, really, really need to plan a vacation of some sort or I'll go crazy....

DKC said...

One of the true joys of living where we do!

Jen W said...

Sounds like a perfect place- and a perfect day!

Zip n Tizzy said...

I miss the feeling of the true seasonal changes you get on the east coast. I missed them even as a kid before I ever moved out there. Love California, but I miss the light of the atlantic, sun rises rather than the sunsets, and the beach glass... we don't get that out here any more. Apparently it's all been collected away.

But enough ennui... We're looking forward to the beach too. My mom lives right by it and 3 miles from the boardwalk. What are the odds indeed? I have some very anticipatory little boys who are anxious to get out their shovels.