It’s about feet on the sand. The smell of everything. About people near, but not close. Bending low to choose small shells. Walking, walking, along the coastline. The ocean there, moving and causing a stir. When asked if I’m lonely (it’s been quite some time since any la-la-la) the ocean comes to mind.

The sand in my shoes, between my toes, in my pockets and as precious as anything.

The sun high, or at times behind a cloud, or the rain falling into the water as I smile from the shore.

I’m not lonely, I’m on my own.

And at this time in life what man could bring the lightning and shake me silly in the way I’m turned inside out when returning to the ocean? I’ve had men. I’ve had the promises, the anticipation, the love or his interpretation of it, I’ve had a home and domesticity and taken someone else’s family name and all of it. Things I wanted, things dear, things now complete. I’m not jaded or confused – I’m an emotionally grounded woman in her sixties. I must readjust where romance will lead, and how far I wish it to evolve beyond the super fun part. Certainly not to motherhood or re-spousing. Uh-uh and ew.

And none of that was ever the sand. Even in retrospect, chunks of married life fell short. Even the very first bit of emotion and feeling that only the newness of another person creates cannot push through me with the force of what goes on inside me when I am on the sand, looking out over the water. Unequal gravitas.

Whoever I am isn’t complete without feet in and on and into the sand. If there’s no sand, there is the sea stretching in a liquid yawn, opening wide so that I can imagine those other shores, those other places on the other side, and remember there is always return.

Pulled back again and again, to the coast of Maine and the edges of southern islands, to black sand beaches on Maui and the to secret, rocky coves in Bermuda, the passage of time falls away and on the sand I am home again. I arrive at a place that is a part of me. A place where I am a little girl, wondering. A place where I am in my late teens, yearning. A place where I stand on the sand near the Yachtsman with my daughter, knowing something. Standing on the sand and no matter the island or continent, I am in a place where proximity has bred a sort of acquaintance. If we don’t know each other well, we are familiar- seaside and human, human and shoreline. I know the color of her sand, and she knows the scent of my skin.

And if there isn’t return then there are options.

Home is where something waits. And mostly, the sand and sea are an extension of my bedroom, my garden yard, the hallways and other spaces in my house. Cleaning up, after entertaining my thoughts and desire while standing on the sand, is impossible. I’ve left a mess behind in each of the places that I’ve spent time, but these are invisible things that are just remnants of memory. The mess is nostalgia. I’ve been there in those places at times with my children and other times with only my shadow, and if you have places like this then you understand; you can return, but sometimes you can’t go back.

So there must be a new place. A new part of the world that is very small. I will be there on my own, independent of another set of eyes or another voice to add something or take something away from the initial impressions. It will be a first time that would be hard to describe to another person- a new place that won’t hold weight in the way a family vacation carries accumulated expectations, histories, obligations, and emotional weight. An island with moments that won’t be diluted. There will be an absence of microseconds of experience lost between one person wanting to stand longer and the other making an early exit. There hasn’t been a time before this that I’d want such a thing. But I do. I want to be in the world the way I was decades ago. Just me. Not as someone’s mother or wife or sister, in terms of memories that are defined by a relationship. I will miss my people. I will regret in many of those moments the absence of my son. But more so, I will find something new. Said every woman near an age that is hella close to that milestone of being that older woman.

I want to wake up and miss my house, miss our cat, miss my son’s voice and our morning talks, our evening ‘night’ walks. I want to long for my own bed, my own sky, my car and the food in my refrigerator. To be far away and to return here, to my town. All of those years, heading away from home for a week or two, for the day or a few days, culminating in a return. Four, five, six times from January to December. Always going, always coming back. Customized carry-ons half-filled so that the basics were tucked inside always waiting their own wait for a stay on the Allure, at the Beachmere, for a week at St. Andrews Commons, or a clandestine stay in Bal Harbour, for a trip to Oahu or Maui, to Pointe Santo, or an overnight or five on a road trip up and down the east coast. Carry-ons patient, with space for a few pieces of wardrobe and coordinating shoes so that they could be rolled and lifted and taken along on their own anticipated journey.

And here is today. She is damn fine looking.

I’ve emptied out the Ogunquit carryon, the Cruise Ship carryon, and the Secret Road Trips with My Son carryon. I’ve emptied a dozen zippered inserts. Those slippery cord cases, the various necessity bags within bags, and the packing cubes with tank tops, scarves, hair bands, sundresses, and other island-y basics tucked inside as a base for my outfits customized for each destination. They are now thin and lifeless, stacked on a shelf.

Equally disturbing is the fabric Aquatalia drawstring, filled with curling irons from each of the pre-filled, designated carryons.

+

The Cruise Ship inserts were the most difficult to unpack. The gut-sting that drives deep into my insides as I unzip a fabric case filled with small tubes of sunblock, a mirror, my foundation and sleep socks and various shells from all over the Caribbean and East Coast and receipts and cabin key cards is pure saudade. It is knowing that even if I do begin to Cruise again it will not be on the Allure. As with all sadness tied into our memories, a very personal experience that can be written down, but never really shared.

Dead, the cliché.

It is time to gather new remnants of travel, to tuck the old treasures into the memory boxes my son and I have created, for a time when I’m dead and he wants a moment or two alone with the tangibles of our adventures. To begin something you’ve always done and always will do in a different way is like loss. The way you’ve done something forever, now left behind in the to make way for the excitement of something new. The change, in its wake, creating a storm cloud of deep melancholy, dark but beautiful and run through with a bright, wide rainbow. 

above right + ogunquit, maine + ‘bottom of the steps’ beach

below + near the st. simons light + my son near the ocean

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