Winter Beach

Walk out the door just as the sun is going, because you are not now nor have you ever been immune to symbolism. Dodge the loopy face-sized dragonflies and the delicate lizards on the path to the beach, skip over the filmy purple jellyfish blemishing the heaped-up seaweed. This evening’s sea is smooth and dark and clear, barely rippling at the edges; step in up to your ankles and feel the sand shift under your feet under the pinked and yellowed sky.

Stretch your legs with honest pleasure and let the exhaustion of the past few days slip off. Pace out past the last of the afternoon’s families and notice that the sea turtle nests are gone for the year. Think that the next time you come you may consider wearing a shirt with sleeves. Let your hair blow in the wind. Think about your year of summer and about all the beaches you’ve been on all over the world. Think about walking all the way around this island in your bare feet.

Look out to the skyline of your childhood’s city and think about the cliffs at Cape Reinga, the fale in Samoa, the train down to Rome. Walk along the shore and take a deep breath. Walk along the water and decide not to think about any of those things right now. Walk along through the twilight and think about them anyway.

Think about all the other loves, all the other years, flickering and pulsing as they do in the back corridors of your memory. Ponder the histories, analyze the outcomes, consider the alternatives. Reconstruct their bodies into the full flight of their beauty and realign your own. Where would you be now, tonight, if you’d stayed with that one? What would you be doing at this very moment had another one stayed? You would not have gone where you’ve been so far, you’d be comprised now of some other material entirely. Think about every word you said or screamed and try to fit them all in time and place–the tide comes in and the dark gets darker but you still cannot say how much of the truth, how many of the truths you told.

Walk along the winter beach and watch your step to avoid the innocent poison underfoot. Bathe your face in salt water. Close your eyes, open your chest, and salute the dying sun.