Life's a beach

We've got roots along the coastline.  This time of year, we go back to visit them.
When you touch shore roots, you're bound to get a bit salty and sandy in the process.
We sure did.

Its a wonderful place for making memories - rejuvenating salty air, lulling waves, the great bigness of the ocean and your own little moments next to it.

Over a decade ago, he asked me to marry him on the rocks of this coast.
Generations of his family have this sea in their lifeblood; living, working, dying in and around this ocean.  I've seen it in his father's eyes, when he stares out to the horizon where blue meets blue - the listening look, yearning to answer that call from the wind and waves.  He doesn't have a boat anymore, yet he's still home when he's by the sea.

Times aren't what they used to be; the profession handed down many times over isn't continuing with my husband's line.  When I said "yes," it wasn't to be the wife of a fisherman, though I didn't much care at that moment.  It is my husband's history, but not his present.  So we go to the shore these days looking more like summer tourists than kin.

For this visit, we had to jumpstart the van to get moving.  That's always a good sign.  The doors were open too long while packing everything but the kitchen sink (didn't need it; I had baby wipes, prepackaged water bottles, and hand sanitizer to cover our lack.  Amazingly, we survived.)

The boys love a road trip - so many great trucks to see on a highway - but after a few pit stops along the road to christen the bushes, they got antsy and bored.  So they naturally started a classic hit-your-brother, back and forth, game.  Did the air conditioning suddenly quit or was my blood pressure rising?  The baby woke from his junky car-nap kind of sleep quite perturbed to find he was still locked in a car seat.  He added his lungs to the clamor.  I passed around graham crackers, the remnants of which are even today still embedded in the carpets of the van interior.  It quieted the back seat choir for a few minutes.  Quiet often costs me vacuuming time later.

Digging for treasure.

We made it, eventually.  The van released its contents like a pent up circus clown car.  We did our round of familiar greetings and ran back to pull sunscreen, buckets and shovels out of the trunk.  The boys happily begin treasure hunting along the shore while I rummaged around the kitchen to dig up lunch, baby at my heels.

The young menfolk ate hurriedly, as a matter of obligation to the stomach, hearing the ocean calling their own little hearts out again.  I put the baby down for a nap and followed them out to watch their virgin attempt at fishing.

I had fished for the first time with my own daddy off that dock.  Sometimes we caught something; often we watched others catch something.  It is a chance to see your own father quiet, watchful, waiting.  I learned many lessons from my father over the years, but that occasional practice of quiet waiting was so valuable in the midst of learning from him how to do so much.  Stop moving.  It is your job, right now, to wait.  Often our little fishing trips involved one of my dad's friends or brothers.  They chatted and joked amicably, sometimes falling into unstrained silence, having agreed to leave the endless chores and projects and daily work at home for a time.

First time.

My boys have a ways to go before they grasp the greatness of quiet waiting.  Practicing waiting will take time - by definition.  They didn't catch anything, naturally.  It is hard to catch a fish when you are three years old, harder still when you want to use the brightest (most inappropriate) lure, and yet harder when your line spends most of its time getting tangled in itself, or the dock, or your brother, and when you simply put down the pole and sneak over to finish the remnants of your father's highly caffeinated and thus off limits soda.  But nobody fell in this time.  So they all came back considering it a success.

Ben's view.

We had seafood for supper, the daily catch of a far more experienced fisherman.  Even Ben got an authentic taste on his plate.  Sand was all over the floor from everybody's carefree traipsing between outdoors and in.  He rolled pieces of his supper all over the gritty layer before tasting it several times.  I guess its in his blood too, after all.  Or at least in his stomach.

The boys fell asleep to the sounds of endlessly breaking waves, breathing deeply the salty air.  I inhaled the first moment of quiet I'd had that day, savoring it.  Dishes awaited, and a general clean up of the joyful mayhem my little seafarers trail.  But I sat for a moment in the twilight of the open window, the open sea ready to swallow the sun on its seeming orbit.  A few fireflies danced in and out of the pine trees and ageless beach roses.  If I had learned anything from those fishing trips, perhaps patiently waiting for moments like this is the reward.
 
Gulls cawed to each other, scuttling across the beach to see if my children had left them any treasures they would value.  Most of the sea glass Gavin had collected was safely on the table, but I wondered if they found the crab he had kept in his pocket.  Since it was still alive, I didn't think we could keep it as treasure.  I made him put it back.  The seagulls probably appreciated that.

We had to go back home the next day, back to busy and daily and life sustaining work and play.  The beach is for memories; it isn't for our practical needs.  In fact, if I do say so myself, a beach vacation is rather exhausting.  My kids ate too much ice cream and chips, got too much sun and not enough diaper changes or sleep.  We looked forward to being home in our own beds the next night, back to humdrum and chores and chicken and potatoes.

I love the beach.  I love the memories we make there, the history we share with it.  The treasures are beautiful, the air is delightful, the relatives are great fun to catch up with.  The lessons about waiting and patience and looking for treasure between waves and watching a child enraptured with a tidal pool are priceless.
I wouldn't want to spend endless days scouring the beach for pretty rocks.  There's more to life than that.  Still I 'm glad God made the timeless shore, so old and new at the same time, to visit and to make me remember what is precious.
Its a family place where we can all be together and - eventually - savor those waiting moments as well as the boisterous ones.
Its a place to make me stop and be quiet for a moment.
A place to be still and know.
A place to eat sand.
A place to remember.

Now its time to vacuum the van.