The prodigal daughter is home again. Home at the white gulf beach where I cried one million tears and laughed 5 million laughs and earned at least my first 10 crow's feet. Home where I was abused and survived and home where I found resolve and became strong like an oak tree is strong. Home where the water calls me like a lover, and the sun paints me a rainbow every night in passionate, violent skies. Home where today I floated on my back over the rolling waves and into the sunset feet first with the dolphins and pelicans and the blushing clouds overhead.
This week I brought my children here--to this place. What I found was a deep rooted joy of watching them fall in love with the things I have always loved--at their delight in finding an interesting shell, or building a drip castle on the beach, or diving in the waves like mermaids. My pride at having a very hard time getting them out of the water because I just know. I wanted to bring them to this ocean--to feel the peace of immersion and surrender to that rhythm, and play in, and marvel at. Just like I marvel every time I stand on the edge of the mysterious vastness with a heart so full it might bust right open. Just like I have every single time I have stood there, humbled, as long as I have had memories.
The evenings are warm and breezy and there are glorious cloud formations that catch the pinks and oranges--oval wombs that flicker with heat lightening like the night my mother died, right here. I remember the way it smelled of salty gritty humidity that night and every night. I remember the salt tears burning my newly 20 year old wind blown face the day I lost her and how I never thought I would smile again. I remember the people who loved me through my heart splitting in two because the only anchor in my world returned to serenity. And she watched over me then and watches over me still, and she is pleased I am home.
Monday I brought the children to the grave to see the stone with our name on it--their first visit with my parents. It was the discount grave from the government for a man who never thought past next week and was harsh and mean and funny and charismatic enough to make sure you never knew exactly what to expect. So, there was my mother who tickled my back every day for 18 years when she tucked me in and we talked about the world and our day...who stole money from work for my high school yearbook because it was $50 more than she could afford but wanted me to have one, and her impatient, demanding and sometimes charming husband. For all his lack of endearment, he made sure music was planted deep in my soul very young, so I am grateful. Those were my parents, and they did what they could do with what they knew. So, my beautiful girls put their arms around me then, at that grave marker, and held me close with iterations of their love, and I wept for them. Because I never really knew them at all. They were both dead by the time I was old enough that I realized I needed to know things that they could tell me.
We played and swam and enjoyed our little old Florida no-frills hotel room by a perfect and well used little pool two blocks from the ocean. One of my oldest friends brought her daughter with her and our girls are fast friends. At this moment I have enjoyed a day of reflection with this friend as the children have been deposited with grandparents (mine) and home (hers). We woke for the sunrise and walked and shelled and watched the dolphins playing in the waves, and ended our day over wine and in the end enveloped in the ocean set fire by the sleepy sun. We talked about our lives and growing older and wiser and being parents and wives. It is a blessing to journey through this life with people that can see you. The days are growing too short for people who don't.
