Saturday 6:30 am
There is no early morning alone time this departure day. I try to sneak away but just before sunrise The Hubs decides to come too. We are all awake, dressing, rushing out the door into the humid morning. The boys are clutching hunks of stale baguette smeared with soft cheese and raspberry jam. One is wearing silly monster pajamas, pants rolled up past the knees. The other grips a favorite puppy, its face now smeared with jam.
We go to the beach one last time to say goodbye, a motley crew trailing along the sidewalk. The traffic at 6:45 is already busy but we cross and walk the length of scrub to the sidewalk entrance. At just the right moment Jr Jr listens, points, and says “Ocean!” His joy mirrors my own, and it hasn’t gotten old all week: just past that high dune is the sea, the ancient and eternal sea.
It is overcast on the beach and the sunrise is a blur of faint colors. I’m overcome with gratitude that this family of mine wanted to come with me in the early morning hours to say goodbye to the ocean. I see tiny footprints in the sand. I watch my four year old stretch his pajama clad legs to fit his feet inside The Hubs’ larger stride.
There are new shapes on the beach, as there are every morning: a hill I didn’t remember, a swath of sand where yesterday the waves were lapping up close. The tiny crabs are everywhere, yet never slow enough to be stepped on. They skitter and careen as we soak into our soles these memories of sand and waves.
I hold a tiny hand and watch two sets of feet kissed by the surf, the foam; this freedom that we leave behind but carry forth in the deepness of our breath and the suppleness of our muscles.
At the public beach entrance I hang back. The boys stand at the top of the dune, are framed by the now risen sun and the tall fronds of sea grass for a moment, and then they are gone. I turn my back to the ocean, willing my feet to remember the bliss of every stumbling sinking step, and face the journey home.
That night as we enter Pennsylvania there is orange heat lightning flashing on the quickly darkening purple grey horizon. The two-year-old wails of liberation from the bonds of his ever thwarting carseat: “Come out! Come out!”
The car thrums. The lightning flashes white now, we are approaching the storm. Two children finally sleep in the back, one slipping gently into dreams and the other howling his way down. We are inside the storm. I am struck by how much the sky lit by lightning resembles the ocean at dawn. It is all the same blues – sky, horizons, waves of light, washes of color.
At home the grasses are tall, their dripping fronds waving heavily after the storm. As they sway above my head I can almost catch the sea breeze. For just a bit longer I am suspended between two places, anchored by the same grass and the same sky. My body will eventually give up the ocean and surrender to its rootedness in this familiar place. But my ocean heart is never quite landlocked.
