Low tide

I am in my place. That I find comfort, beauty and solace. The place that, as a child, I could just wash away with the tide, when no one noticed me. Sea creatures became my companions. Tidal pools my never land. Sand bars my comfortable, old chairs.

The sun beating down, my sunburned skin blotched with freckles. I'd cast my eyes towards the straw landscape, lined with weathered dunes, watched over by cedar shingled cottages, dotted with old scratchy boats, anchored and stranded. White barnacles and a thick red stripe. Seagulls crying for crab. My hair salty and damp, whipping across my cheeks in the rippling wind, pulling it from the corners of my lips.

It is the first place. The first place where I felt one with my maker.

I unearth. I collect. I distance myself from every other soul. I center. I feel loved by the weather around me. I lift my arms out to the side, tilt my face to the sun, I close my eyes and I breathe in and out. Deliberately. Problematically. I steady. I absorb. I grow thicker skin. I continue on.

I return to this place, year after year. Struggling, arguing, plotting, saving, planning my reunion. Nothing ever seems to be easy about getting here, but it is worth it. I wash, I dry. I explain, I pack and I pack, even though I know I will better resemble a naked silhouette. I buy food. Too much food. I am not hungry. I unpack, I sweep the sand out of the corners. And off the porch. And then I walk. Up the sandy road lined with bamboo and beach plum. Indigo hydrangeas and beach peas. I reach the walkway, newly replaced and at once almost lose my footing on its new, slippery, smooth blond planks, replacing the weathered, reliable ashen ones. I descend the stairs and then I see. The almost waterless beach with the sand bar and tidal pool repetition that stretches towards the horizon. The air is mist. The floor is gritty powder. The sky is gray. I don't mind the lack of baby blue with fluffy white clouds, for that will come. For now, I welcome neutral ground.

As I move through this place and become one with it again, we reacquaint. I kick off my flip flops at the boulders piled up against the ravaged dunes, and say a silent prayer for them. I head out in a crooked line and feel the temperature of the low water with my toes, cool at first, and as I make it past each new pool, warming up to the perfect bath water. The sound of the distant conversations that beach goers think are private, a wind chime above the dune from some crackled old porch, the taste of sea salt and the smell of pink beach roses that make me light headed. Careful notice is paid to the intricacies in the sands beneath me. The oblong curves and raises and water marks in perfect design that make every tide it's very own. Pronged sandpiper's foot prints. The mark of a razor clam. The abandoned scallop shell. Scattered seaweed. This place welcomes me back, like an old sea captain. Steady and sure, unchanged. Wrinkled, yet childlike.

My days pass in steps. Centering. Loosening. Letting go. A dichotomy. I commemorate some of life's moments.  The ups and downs. I mourn for lost love. For missed opportunities. For the existence of anxiety. For the flawed moments. For the friendships that carelessly fade. For the dreams that I let die. And at the same time, I celebrate the beauty. The progress. The growth. The achievements. The challenges overcome. The aging. The grace. The evolving being, who is morphing into something new.

I watch other people move through this place and take what they will. This place is giving. They come here for relief. They come for a family vacation. To make memories. They come here for peace and tranquility. They come here to love and be loved. They even come here to die. Every face tells a different story. Every soul searching for what is all at once the same desire, yet different, the captain of our own ship, maybe lost at sea.

I run. I run with tears and sweat. I circle around and around relentlessly pushing myself past what I thought would be the line. I talk myself through what feels like the impossible and remind myself that I can do anything I set my mind to. My body will forgive me if I don't quit. My thoughts won't if I do. Step after step, closer to the finish, the ocean. The water runs through me. It spits at me, and I don't mind. I let the wind push me back a little. I then push past it, forcing it out of my way. To my left and to my right, empty beach. Quiet and solemn. Congratulatory.

With my toes circling in the sand, and a comfortable old sweatshirt, I watch the sunset. A spectacle that brings with it the passion of star fire and the coolness of relief. Shades of orange, yellow, violet and soft pink. Sometimes crimson red and charcoal. The kite with long tails pushing towards the heavens without a prayer. As night creeps in, fireflies twinkle around me in my rocking chair. A reminder that somewhere out there, someone is dancing. Voices, happy children, fireworks, celebration of sweet life.

When each new morning arrives the sands are renewed, twice over. The mourning doves nest and call out. The ocean breeze brush the damp towels off the railings. The sand settles into the cracks. The skin cools. The salt heals.

Some things will stay the same. The three sisters. The three friends. The mother and child connection and conflict. The wife, enveloped. The woman in transition. The evolving.

When I leave here a few days from now, the sun, the sand, the forgiveness and the irreconcilable will move forward with me. I will carry it all in a little sea shell. The days will be bright. The days will be dark. The definition will change. The tide will ebb and flow. The sun will rise and set. The sand will form and reform, but never in the same design.  My thoughts, my heart, my soul will come back here often, waiting to come back and hoping there is and will always be, a next time.