Women on a Beach

WOMEN ON A BEACH

 

Light chooses white sails, the bellies of gulls.



Far away in a boat, someone wears a red shirt,


a tiny stab in the pale sky.



Your three bodies form a curving shoreline,


pink and brown sweaters, bare legs.



The beach glows grainy under the sun's copper pressure,


air the colour of tangerines.


One of you is sleeping, the wind's finger


on your cheek like a tendril of hair.



Night exhales its long held breath.


Stars puncture through.



At dusk you are a small soft heap, a kind of moss.


In the moonlight, a boulder of women.
                                  Anne Michaels

It’s a small wish I have - to hold a writers’ retreat at the beach.  I want us to stay in one of those beachfront properties with broad balconies decorated with comfortable blue and white striped cushions on lounge chairs overlooking the Atlantic.  I want a big house with enough room for privacy and places to share, a Jacuzzi and a pool would be nice, a large dining table, intimate corners where small lamps with sea shells carefully glued to the side of the base glow into the amber sunset. 

I want us to be able to walk on the firm crust of sand in the first morning light when the sand looks like stone and crumbles beneath our weight.  I want to look up from a page of just written words and see the pelicans glide across the ocean’s aura.  Reach for an ice chilled club soda with a slice of lemon sizzling in the bubbles.  Breathe in the salty air crashed across the dunes from a million frothy wave ripples, watch the sea saliva peel from the sand like a thousand slippery tongues, and find just the right next word on the slipstream of a screeching gull hawking its belly need.

In the evening I want to dine at my favorite restaurant, “just hooked,” completing a meal of encrusted ahi tuna with a fine decadent slice of rich flourless chocolate cake with sea salt and toasted chopped hazelnuts and served with a scoop of coffee ice cream.  Eaten slowly, perhaps shared because it’s richness is nearly too much for one person to endure in a single sitting.

I want to fall into a soft large bed with fine cotton sheets to the sound of the sea crooning to the stars around the moon, spinning a fine tale in the repetition of the drumming on the shore.  I want to turn over on my bed, and there on the shore, spot my companions, watching the moon dance across the ebbing tide creating a boulder of women, dark against the coagulating stone of sand, cool after the heat of the day, holding onto the warmth of each other.

Photo:Full Moon Over Varkala Beach by Nitin Joseph

A Birthday Blog

"If we didn’t have birthdays,  you wouldn’t be you. If you’d never been born, well then what would you do? If you’d never been born, well then what would you be? You might be a fish! Or a toad in a tree! You might be a doorknob! Or three baked potatoes! You might be a bag full of hard green tomatoes."

"Or worse than all that…Why, you might be a WASN’T! A Wasn’t has no fun at all. No, he doesn’t. A Wasn’t just isn’t. He just isn’t present. But you…You ARE YOU! And, now isn’t that pleasant!" "Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive...

...who is you-er than you!


Shout loud, “I am lucky 
to be what I am!


Thank goodness I’m not 
just a clam or a ham


Or a dusty old jar of 
sour gooseberry jam!


I am what I am! That’s a 
great thing to be!


If I say so myself, 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!”  Dr. Seuss

Last Saturday was my birthday.  So was the day before.  It’s not that I was born twice or any thing esoteric.  I was born in New Zealand on August 11^th.  It’s August 11^th on the 10^th in New Zealand.  So I celebrate a trans Pacific birthday.  It’s not that I do anything terribly wild or even wonderful.  There comes a point where birthdays are low-key affairs.  But, I definitely celebrate myself.  I’d hate to be “a doorknob” or “a dusty old jar of gooseberry jam” or, God forbid, a “WASN”T!”

In truth, I use any excuse in August to celebrate myself.  I buy myself presents, take myself out to dinner with friends and sometimes without, get a massage, go to the beach, and am generally very kind to myself.  I like birthdays.  I don’t mind getting older except for the aches and pains that come creeping in the door and end up staying as permanent guests. 

This year I bought myself a sky blue sun hat and a print of a wonderful painting by Damon Pla called “Stillness of August.”  Stillness is the greatest gift I give myself these days.  I allow extra time in bed if that is what my body asks for.  I spend time in my meditation room, candles lit, prayer shawl on, allowing time for my mind to become still. 

It’s a restless mind.  It likes to wander to the day’s activities or tomorrow’s concerns or yesterday’s fears but generally after a time, it will come to a point of brief rest.  In those brief moments of rest I am aware of an immense gratitude for all the small things that make up my life, a small but comfortable home, my tiny abundant garden, the welcome of friends, the health of my children, this cracked body laptop, the stack of unread books, the job about which I complain.  I can’t imagine my life without gratitude but I know there was a time when it eluded me.  I can’t imagine my life without birthdays either.

I’m a bit of a news junkie.  Yesterday as I tuned in to my favorite morning news show I was dismayed to see that Mitt Romney had selected Paul Ryan as his running mate.  It told me even more bad news about Mitt Romney and the Republican party.  I couldn’t watch the speeches and back slapping or endure the layers of propaganda.  I had to turn it all off and take myself to place of stillness and quiet.

A friend and former colleague of mine who is a member of the LDS church told me that they don’t celebrate birthdays.  So, there was no cake for her on her birthday.  It seemed a very sad omission from religious life.  Apparently, not all Mormons adhere to the omission of birthday celebrations; there are conflicting reports of how these celebrations happen if and when they occur.   Perhaps Mr. Romney does not celebrate.  Perhaps that’s why he seems such a “wasn’t,” a person who is not really here, present to his own life and the lives of others.  I feel as if I were to get close enough to him to tap on his arm or torso, there would be a sort of hollow echo instead of the pulse of a heart. 

For my part, cake is a must whether it is a reflection of the old Pagan ritual of honoring the moon or not.  I prefer chocolate cake.  In deference to my increasing cholesterol numbers, I bought a $3.25 “designer” chocolate raspberry cupcake.  I ate half on each of my birthdays.