beach
Once again, it is the season I look forward to each year at this time…my sabbatical journey to the most wonderful place on earth, the sugary sand beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama. Normally this is a trip I take alone, a time to regroup and refresh, make plans for business and personal life and in general just get away from it all. But this year, my mom is along for the ride and we are 4 days into the trip and having a great time doing a lot of nothing. And each of us is pretty darned happy with that aspect. It has been a difficult year for both of us. My normally very healthy Dad was stricken with a mysterious condition in April of 2012, and the ensuing year was full of doctors’ visits, medications, bouts with a body that is not functioning as it should, and no real answers about much of anything. My Dad is a strapping 6 foot tall big guy, and although he has lost a lot of weight through this, he still is a lot to handle for my petite 5 ft 2 Mom. But she has managed, they have grown a lot through the experience, and he is better although still not diagnosed to our liking.
I, on the other hand, have had a very interesting and involved year as well. This time last year I drove to the beach fresh from a divorce, and was also pretty unsure of some business decisions that were pending. I had started a new business in addition to my cleaning company, and the estate business was overtaking the cleaning company profits almost daily, but not to the level yet of paying all the bills, so I was still struggling with some decisions of where to go from that point professionally. It was a time of uncertainty, remorse in some ways, and just a general feeling of helplessness in many areas. But like Mom, I girded my loins, dug in and decided that my life could either turn down a sad path and one filled with anxiety or trepidation each day, or I could accept the unknowns as part of the journey and just move forward with as much strength as I could muster. This plan has worked pretty well and with mostly success for both of us. I also think we have both come to somewhat the same conclusion in at least one area. Neither of us needs what we thought we did this time last year, and our wants have changed to fit our circumstances and current lifestyles as well. And I think we are both the better because of it.
I wonder if there are multitudes of others like me…those wanting and needing so many things that ultimately we don’t have any use for and probably wouldn’t be happy attaining. I mull over what I may have thought I needed and wanted this time last year, and what I am willing to accept as best for me now and I marvel. The simple events and conversations at today’s sales kind of put me in that mindset, and as I sit writing I am reminded again of the complications of life that are usually brought on by the refusal of the simple things.
We headed out bright and early this morning and were eager to see how many new treasure troves we could find in this new stomping ground of thrift stores. We began with a few yard sales, an estate sale, and one interesting moving sale. The host couple were very beatnik, hippy-ish, but engaging and friendly as we pawed through their belongings. “Everything in the house is pretty much for sale, we are letting it all go and moving” said the young man. He stood there in flip flops, a tie-dyed shirt and jeans, and his pretty wife was attired in a flowing maxi skirt, tank top and barefoot, showing us this trinket or that bauble, informing about their online vintage goods store they had, their current job at LuLu’s the local hangout for beach goers, and the side detail that her hubby has a pilot’s license. The chit chat was light and fun, they were mild-mannered but smiling, but something told me there was a story here. I knew I was right when he volunteered to take our things to the car and the conversation continued on the way down the stairs and around the corner. “Yeah, we are selling it all and moving” he said once again and so I felt he was wanting me to ask “ And where are you moving?” so I obliged. He pointed out in the yard and said “There.” I turned and saw an old, not quite ancient RV sitting in the sand near the house. “Really? ” I said smiling, and he proceeded to tell Mom and me that they were simplifying things, moving into the RV and travelling and working wherever they ended up. The sale was to gain some travel money, lighten their load, and only involved them taking the most essential items…if they had a want along the way they would work for it and get it for the moment, anything they needed would be gained the same way. They were going to live a life of doing the next best thing, and just taking the next right step.
“What made you decide to do this, if you don’t mind me asking?” he hesitated only a second and said, with a bit of pride, “Well we realized we really didn’t need as much as others thought we did, or even we thought we did. We wanted to have an easier, quiet life. I told her all we really need is somewhere to sleep, something to eat, and a bit of company.” I realized then that this young man was describing what I have spent the last 53 years trying to gain, and have gone about it in mostly the wrong ways.
What do we really need when it comes right down to it? Not much I am thinking. We let TV, friends, family and that voice inside tell us we have to have the newest this and the brightest that to be happy. We have to have a great job, we have to know where our next sale is going to be made, or if the bills are going to be paid next week because we worked our rears off the right way this week. We want to know that our spouse is going to always be there for us, that our health is not going to tank and bring us down with some cruel and unrelenting disease. Our wants get so out of hand and blown out of proportion that we begin to confuse them with needs. And that’s where the trouble begins.
There are many times I go to a sale or thrift store and I come across a piece of furniture that looks ok enough but there is something not quite right about it. I can’t immediately put my finger on the maker or the era, and it is confusing to me to identify because there are so many indicators either missing from it or there are pieces and points that are there but shouldn’t be on that particular type piece. After careful inspection I see that the original patina is gone, the original paint is covered over with many years worth of finishes and latexes and it is nothing like it started out when the woodworker carved and joined the pieces lovingly in his shop many moons before.
It is the same with people. There comes a time when we must strip down the layers of lies in our own lives. If we do not, we become like that old piece of furniture that has so many loads of unnecessary paint from over the years on the surface that the piece itself has even changed shape and started to become unrecognizable. I don’t want to wake up and not recognize my own life. And to make sure that doesn’t happen, it is time to strip away the old wants and come face to face with my real needs, then begin rebuilding and refinishing that life into what it was meant to be in the first place.
Later as I sat on the balcony of my condo in the quietness of approaching evening, I watched a little boy playing and jumping from each abandoned slatted beach chair to the ground wielding an imaginary sword in his hand. He was solo, and he seemed pretty happy and content all alone in his world of make-believe. All around him the beach crawled with Labor Day visitors, other much louder, boisterous youngsters playing with some sophisticated boogie boards and beach paraphernalia. From the 12th floor, I could hear radios playing, and winced at the loud raucous laughter of beachgoers with a few too many umbrella drinks under their belts, and could view all kinds of frenetic activity all around this boy…and he still played his game, all alone, and smiling. And I suddenly wanted to be him. Or maybe I wanted to be in the RV with the young couple forging their new life. Either way, it was enticing and a “moment” for me.
I sat and thought a lot on the balcony this day and spent some time quietly reflecting back on all the transitions I have gone through in my life, and I realized that the things I learned today are the real secret to a truly happy life. Wants and needs can pretty much look the same on the surface and I will get dramatically confused if I pile on too much of either in life. It’s best to keep it simple, don’t worry HOW it is going to happen, or WHEN it will all make a turn…just find a place to sleep, something to eat, and a bit of company and my guess is I will be as happy as the little beach boy.
At the end of my musing, a small plane flew by over all the loud noisy beachgoers. Trailing out behind it was a billboard banner claiming “Best fried shrimp in the civilized world”. I looked down and saw the boy stop his jumping, look up at the plane and wave, while all around him others went right on with their noisy behavior. I waved too…and thought maybe I would like to try that shrimp, and maybe talk Mom into going too…it was, after all, high time for us both to get something to eat…
I recently returned from my annual trip to the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The weather was beautiful the full ten days, and rest and relaxation was the storyline. Good times with friends, much time for reflection alone, reading on my Kindle…all made for a perfect trip. Plans to go on this trip were made far ahead of time, deposits paid, my directives for staff in readiness and I was so looking forward to this trip. Then the news of an impending hurricane…Isaac…threatened to thwart all my wonderful plans.
The week before my departure, it was looking more and more like I may have to cancel my trip. I was watching a friend’s Facebook page. He lived right in the area where I was to stay, and the pictures he was posting looked fierce. When I expressed my concerns about cancelling my trip he assured me “Don’t worry, by the time you come next week you won’t even know the storm has blown through here.”
So after thinking about it for a few days, I decided to take my chances and not cancel my trip. I was hoping for the situation to change exactly as he said it would. And it was the right decision. The storm hooked, moved past the area, the bit of messiness was cleaned up in record time and I arrived to find a beautiful white sandy beach and all things in their rightful, safe places as I always had in the past.
On a particular day during my visit I was sitting quietly watching the children play and the pelicans swoop down for fish. I thought back to the wisdom of my friend’s advice and how it relates to life in general. I also thought how the beach is a beautiful example of the ever-changing life we are called to lead. I also thought back a bit further…
In high school,as an aspiring Journalist, it was quite natural that I would choose Creative Writing as one of my electives in my senior year. That year our class self-published a book full of some of the best of the literary works written by its students. The following work was chosen to grace the cover of the book. As I sat on the beach that day, I thought back to the words of this poem:
The secrets of the earth are written in the sand.
Each grain a different story, for those who understand.
The author is the ocean who left her book on shore.
Her waters hold the copyright, and now…just as before
The sea keeps on writing and her waves keep on churning,
And even now as we speak, another page is turning…
I pondered the meaning here and the words of my friend from the week before and how it related to my life at that very moment. So many of us are given a book of life, so to speak. It is full of pages of memories and moments…some laughter, some tears, some good times and some not so good, but they are all a vital part of our own book. Sometimes we have a book that others convincingly perceive as so perfect, that even we begin to think it is perfect and indestructible. Then a storm brews, the clouds lay low in the sky, the wind picks up and before we know it the tempest has become a full-fledged hurricane leaving debris and wreckage in its wake, and perhaps taking away buildings, a pier, the white purity of the sand and replacing it with seaweed and blackened piles of wood and mess. It is as if the book of our own life that was so beautiful one moment had pages ripped from it, and the remains were tossed on shore like flotsam, and forgotten.
We may deal with many things in our own book of life….the loss of a job, death of spouse, divorce, cancer or other illness, betrayal of a friend. We may feel as if our perfect life at that moment had an unrelenting storm blow through, crushing us, ripping a page from our life…and we find ourselves wondering if our book of life will ever be normal and whole again. Many end up turning to outer means to salve the inside heartbrokeness. They look for the missing pieces in another person, frenetic activity, a bottle of pills, or a martini glass. And they realize no matter how many things come into our life on the outside to cover over the sadness, the page will still be missing…but… it’s ok to have a missing page. It doesn’t mean you no longer have a book…
How many times do you keep going back to that same spot in your own book, looking for the missing page, and ignoring all your other beautiful and joyful pages in the process? How many of the other pages appear pristine and look as if no one has ever visited them? Shouldn’t they be lovingly dogeared, thin from where you have handled them, reading and re-reading the wonderful parts of your life, and remembering? Isn’t your life to be like the sea…getting written over and over each day with new stories, new experiences, new opportunities to cover up and
wash away the harshness that is the missing page?
Perhaps the secret…is in the sand…
It’s my next to last night at the beach. I had felt a need to get away alone, reflect, write a bit, think some, regroup mostly. And the trip has been a wonderful opportunity for this, along with enjoying near perfect weather, meeting a few new friends, and getting some use out of my Kindle.
I meandered out of the condo about 7 and headed toward a local Mexican restaurant where I planned to sit and read the Kindle, people watch, and have dinner and one of their nice margaritas. But instead, at the last minute before my turn, I thought “Chinese buffet sounds a little better.” I had planned all week to go tonight to the Mexican place, so it was kinda funkily weird for me to change my mind at the last minute, but isn’t that what vacay is all about?
I sat down to a yummy dinner which included some really great sushi and was thinking I had made a good choice. A few tables emptied out, some others filled in and across from me a 40ish woman and two pretty teen girls sat down to have what appeared to be a Girl’s Night Out together. I had finished my dinner and lingered over a small bowl of chocolate pudding for dessert and was making my way through the last of Cybill Shepherd’s book on the Kindle.
“I just…well…I am just confused…”. I heard this drift over from the girls’ table, and even though the voices were quiet and subdued I could hear enough to know one of the young girls wasn’t a daughter of the woman, but her daughter’s friend. She was in a relationship, and the words “sad”, and “breaking my heart”, and the reassurance of the daughter and mother “we will be there for you if you decide to break this off” piqued my interest. Something inside me remembered, and I felt a sudden sorrow for this young girl.
I sat absently peering at my Kindle, but not reading, for the next half hour as the mom, with much wisdom, told the girl that the boyfriend was controlling her, and using her affections for his own purposes and not for her good. I heard how the Christian boy talked about things that were important to her when they were alone, treated her well, said and did all the right things, made all the right promises “I am sorry, it won’t happen again, I know this isn’t what ‘we’ are supposed to be together”…but when they were in public he shunned and ignored her, and treated her as if she had no worth. This young girl with an aching voice told of several times that she was trampled on by this young man doing things or saying things that he knew were not edifying her or their relationship, but he felt he could get away with the bad behavior because she was a person with a “good heart” and forgiving. Then the mom and girls went over to the buffet and began to get seconds.
You know how you will deep down know you are supposed to speak, and you begin to fight with yourself saying ” I don’t know them, they will think I am crazy or nosy”. But the feeling is so strong, it rushes over you and your insides start swirling and tumbling as you feel like there is a universe-ordained moment that you will miss if you don’t choose to voice what thoughts are in your own mind?
I felt that moment. And I chose to share her tears.
I dug out my phone and looked up a website quickly, wrote it on a notepad, along with the verse of Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” And I waited for them to return.
I gathered my things, and when I was sure I could give the information and then bolt, I said ” excuse me”. All three looked up and for the first time I saw the girl’s face and my heart was torn out of my chest. Beautiful, blonde, cheerleader-type. Her words, even about this young man who was treating her cruelly were soft and kind and gentle sounding…but her face was worn with sadness, engrained with rivulets of tears that stained her tanned cheeks. I recognized that face…it had been my face, more than once, over the last 51 years.
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable but I couldn’t help overhearing some of what was said…” The mom said ” Oh, I am sorry, I talk so loudly.” But I stopped her…” No, you were very quiet and discreet…I am a mom, and moms have sensitive ears.” They all smiled, even the tear-stained girl for a brief moment. ” I just wanted to give you something…I have been where you are many times in my life, and I felt moved to give you something that helped me know how to make the hard decisions at times.”
I handed her my paper with the website for The Awakening by Sonny Carroll. I told her to get alone, read the poem and keep a copy with her and read it whenever she needed redirection. “In the middle of a relationship, it’s not always easy to see it for what it really is, and what it really isn’t”, I said. She teared up and said very quietly…”Did you have to leave someone you love even when you didn’t want to, because you knew it was better for yourself?” “I told her yes, more than once. She said ” How can you do that though, how do you know when to leave?”
I asked her to give me the paper back, and scribbled something on it and said “Keep this as a reminder, you will always do what is best for you if you look at it often.” I had written ” When is it time to go? When the pain of staying is greater than the pain of leaving.”
As I drove back to my condo…and the young girl crawled under her covers alone in her room tonight…I imagine once more…we shared each other’s tears.