“Why is the ocean so soothing to the soul?”
My man-child, freshly graduated from high school, turns away from the deck where he stands surveying the Pacific that surges and sweeps below. The question is his. His deepened voice lilts upward in curious query.
“Because we come from it.”
This from Martha, the grandmother who stands next to Sebastian in the darkening twilight of the Oregon coast.
I smile, listening. They stand, side by side, still and silent as the weltering waves of a late July wind swell up from the sandy beach to touch their quiet words.
Stillness and the slap of seawater mingle into purple nightsong.
The sun tips into the blue-green waves as the silence grows. A star, then two, then three, gleam into presence. Bathed in their glimmer, we quiet our hearts to sink into the serenade of the soulful sea.
I always sleep better at the beach.
The air is salted with a coastal chill. The ocean laps at the edges of my dreams.
I forget the nightmares I have already lived.
Outside, the ocean watches over me. Sleepless, it lures my heart. Dark and churning, it is fueled with the fiery force of one thousand and one forgotten dreams.
The ocean never sleeps. It laps at my toes, knees, and thighs. It caresses my fingers. It licks my cheek with a watery tongue that tastes of sun and midnight salt.
I sink into the darkness. I sink into the sea’s saline embrace.
I sink and sink — and sleep.
The salty air and sandy strolls set our appetite alight. Hungry, we cook.
These are meals of abandon. We relax culinary rules and eat when our stomachs call. Waffles with fresh Hood strawberries and lemon curd at midnight. Grilled lamb before noon. S’mores for breakfast.
Wine anytime.
Food nourishes our conversation. Cathy watches DIY videos on American Test Kitchen to prep her perfectly precise popovers. I stop at the farm stand for Rainier cherries, plump and purple with juice. Martha’s brought a giant white sphere of fresh Italian mozzarella along with plump and pretty heirloom tomatoes and gracefully green basil.
Food nourishes our conversation.
We summon the memories of meals past: that June my daughter declared she’d make waffles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, falling into a strawberry sugary fatigue by 10 p.m., solemnly stating she’d never eat another waffle ever again. That powerful and passionate pasta Vongole improved with extra shots of Sauv Blanc. Yellow onions magically caramelized and draped over the salt-crusted rib roast. That one-time failure of a chocolate black bean flourless cake.
We talk and argue and banter while we peel, chop, and dice. We quibble over the best way to mince garlic. We disagree over the correct recipe for mashed potatoes. We power-play over when to start the coals, how to toss the salad, which bowls to set on the round table.
We tear open drawers to seek suitable serving spoons, rummage through cabinets for a GoodWill blender, scatter the pantry in search of Panko bread crumbs.
Pans sizzle, oil hisses, and broth bubbles. In between the chemistry of cooking, a salted symphony weaves a waltz of directives, suggestions, laughter, and snippets of remembered verse.
Cathy breaks out in song: “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, a Yankee Doodle do or diiiiiiiiiie.”
The table bursts into being, a Tischlein-Deck-Dich of German fable wherein a magical tablecloth materializes luscious meals to a pair of starving children.
We take our seats, then jump up for forgotten napkins, errant teaspoons, and necessary Dijon. Eventually, we settle into a circle, pausing one slender second to admire the largesse of steaming, salacious sustenance bedecking the table. We pour wine, toast the durability of friendship and the enduring poignancy of those we’ve lost — and dig in.
My phone sings.
It’s evening, and we’re deep in rosé and stories and advice and words of wisdom from my two moms. The two good witches. The twin forces of fortitude and favor.
I glance down.
“Tell him you’re with your mothers,” Martha says.
“No, with your witches,” Cathy grins.
I laugh. Our coven of conversation. Spirited sermons. The lessons of lingering luminosity as their words surround me like so many sparkling gems. The words and wit proffered with intent and humor — and love, always love.
They listen more than they talk, I fear. My life is in transition, and I bend their patient ears.
Like the waves that whisper beachside, like the hardy blades of grass, like the times and trials they’ve birthed and bourne, they overflow with multitudes of experiences, jobs, stories, children, and men. They’ve lived and seen more than I, and willingly share that store.
“Don’t sweat things,” Martha waves her hand. “You’re smart and beautiful. You’ll know what your heart wants.” She pauses, lips pursing. “You’ll get there.”
“You’re on your way,” Cathy nods.
“And,” Martha adds, “The Moms are behind you. We’re always here. You have our support.”
This I feel and this I know, but it’s a salve to hear those words. I listen, I laugh, and I let my fingers linger against the wine’s cool stem. Outside, the rush of waves mingles with the wisdom of women. It’s the ballad of beauty that binds us, woman to woman, each to each.
It swells and sings into the late-night air. I memorize its tune and tuck it under my heart.
We’re always here. We’re always here.
The morning Sebastian and I leave, Cathy heads outside with kitchen shears. She lays two Calla lilies on the outside bench. The small ceremony is her idea.
“It will be good for Sebastian,” she says. I nod.
I pop out onto the deck where Marth is sunning to say we’re ready.
“I’m coming,” she promises, pulling her dress over her swimsuit.
Together, we walk across the lumpy lawn and over the small wooden bridge. I spot a cluster of the crisp, cool Callas. I motion for the shears. I reach my hand down their long stalk to cut them tall.
Now we have 4 lilies: one for each of us.
We traipse down the rickety wooden stairs that lead to a sandy and secluded cove.
A month ago, Cathy and her grown boys and grandson scattered Bob’s ashes into the stretching sea. Martha and Sebastian and I weren’t there. Now, we want to celebrate him by tossing the lilies into the ocean where his memory swims.
Now we have 4 lilies: one for each of us.
We walk onto some smooth black stones, settling into a circle. The waves lap at our feet.
I’ve saved 2 poems on my phone.
I read the first. My voice catches on the second line.
Gather ye rosebuds wile ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
I read to the end.
We pause. I shuffle my feet and turn to our little group.
“The most Scottish of Scottish poets,” I say, passing the phone to Sebastian.
“Robert Burns,” Martha murmurs.
Sebastian reads. His voice rumbles deep. Sonorous, So unlike the sparrow lilt of his little boy voice as he called out, chasing up and down the sandy shore, Bob steadfast in his wake.
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here.
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
I listen to his voice spin on, weaving word after word. I listen to the boy he was, and I hear the man he becomes. I see his long blonde surfer hair drifting behind his 5-year-old self as he scares seagulls off the beach-black rocks. I feel the warm clasp of his small, sweaty hand in mine as we walk, palm in palm, along the wild, wide beach.
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go
I remember him tucked tight to Bob on the old sofa, picture book open across both their legs, pages turning to rapt attention. I hear his tingled laugh and Bob’s chuckle as they watch silly animal scenes and Russian car crash videos on YouTube.
Bob left. One day he was here, and the next he was gone.
Such is the path for all.
Here today; gone the next.
Still loved, still remembered.
There’s not much more to say other than a few select words. We say them. We toss our tall lilies into the surf. We stand for a moment, watching the current sweep them away.
We turn to walk a while along the sandy shore. Now and then, Cathy bends and stoops to pick an agate to hold it, gleaming, in the sun. She has an eye for the agate’s hidden glow. Mystically, she bends and finds another. She presses one into my palm. One into Martha’s.
“Once, agates covered this beach. I’d come early, before the tide. Before beach-walkers picked them over.”
I nod. At her house, Cathy has a heaping hillock of aquatic agates stacked high on an antique table. They tumble over each other, glinting in the morning light.
“Now, it’s hard to find them,” she says.
“What happened?” I ask.
Cathy shrugs.
“I think there was a rich vein just offshore.” She motions to a spot just past the distant rocks. She pauses. Looks toward the horizon.
“They stopped.”
We stand there, three women side by side by side, looking out toward the deep, dark place where agates once twisted and tossed and turned.
Once were plenty. Feast, then famine. So it is.
Children grow up, move out, change. People come into our lives, stay for a while, leave.
Agates come and go.
But they gleam. They glitter. Their glow is pressed hard into the palm.
This we remember. This small magic remains.
Cathy bends to the sand, then straightens. In her hand, one small golden agate. It gleams as if the soul of the sea is trapped within.
She closes her palm. The golden light dims, then disappears.
Together, we turn into our shadows and walk back along the shore.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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