Most of the nation's beaches have now been closed. Always a feeling you've lost something you wanted for some reason you can't remember. e.e.cummings put it this way: "For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) its always ourselves we find in the sea."
My last beach was Chicago's lakefront. An August visitor. The others, summer residents. A proprietary flush said to visitors: You can look, but you can't stay. So I sat down and looked.
A windy-haired young woman was working with her drawing pad. You could tell she was trying to catch the cadence of the blue-black tides. With each stroke, you're reminded of what Ms. Lambert used to say in class: "Art imitates nature." What she could have added is artists seem bent on translating nature into exactly the colors, notes and words they've decided upon. A compulsion to find a message....?
The skinny kid with the thatch of red kept methodically filling his sand castle with lake water. You just can't ignore that kind of commitment. "What are you doing?" "Putting the lake into my moat." "Isn't that impossible?" "Not if you understand the laws of the tides." Hmmm? Maybe his Ms. Lambert was big on the science of gravity. Another Stephen Hawking who fathoms the laws but not the law-giver...?
If you know your beaches, you also know they're studded with studs. The bronzed Adonis was working out to the stolen glances of bikined girls. Nice looking fella. Reminded me of all the other nice looking fellas who used to blight my beach as a kid. Nothing wrong with powerful abs. But did my sagging body have the last laugh knowing how power is never permanent...?
Oh, all sorts and sizes of beachers that day. The eater...the reader...the meditator...the lovers. And yet, those who most drew my heart was that pair of other saggy bodies. Quiet eyes out to the lake, veined hands each in the others, and a certain something which spoke of age well earned. Was it wrong of me to envy them the most...?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Jack, my beach here in Florida is open year around. Currently the gulf temp is 80 degrees. That will change some to be sure.
ReplyDeleteI have two distinct memory threads of North Avenue beach: When we were young, making that trip across town in the summer to swim in 64 degree Lake Michigan water. I still have photos of myself and Pat Curda and others. The other memory is of when I lived a block from the same beach as an adult. I would ride my bike from my condo to the beach to watch the checkers players and my fellow professionals jogging on up to Fullerson Avenue. Can't go back except for the memories, as you so often point out.
Jerry, I'm assuming your Florida beaches are a lot lovelier. Whether they hold as many memories, is open to question. For me, North Avenue Beach was always a "test" to see how I would match up with the other guys. Usually, I lost ...you know, the dreaded Charles Atlas thing.!
ReplyDelete