Sun and Sand
”You look like you’re glowing, Jewel.” My co-worker is nudging me, and I can feel the familiar tightening in my stomach of excitement. This weekend will be another adventure, another great moment in time for my memories. I know already it will be an entry, I just don’t know in what way.
I tell her that my boyfriend will be picking me up from work with the kids, and she says she wants to meet them. More overhear and ask if they can meet him too. This quickly turns into a brief Q & A and one of them catches me off guard a little. “What do they call you?” Referring to the kids.
“Usually ‘mean’,” I say. They laugh and I shrug and that’s the end of it. The phone rings and I have to go back to work. As the day wears on, I feel myself becoming more and more excited. Even when he’s late departing and we’re late to close, I feel only elation. It’s actually times perfectly and so he meets people I talk about frequently and they can put both faces with names. Matt has shown up as well.
It’s wonderful finishing the paperwork and giving the high fives to my team for the hard day’s work and then stepping out to see them waiting for me. It’s been nine months, and things are starting to mesh beautifully now. What was new and consuming is becoming established and comfortable. Affection flows freely from the kids. There is no awkwardness when I hold two hands.
After we pile into cars, we head to Market Commons to meet my Aunt Tammy and my cousin Travis with his wife and daughters. Like T and S, they have been married since just after high school, both the only person the other has dated. The similarities have me smirking.
My aunt is the second youngest daughter of seven and the only one of my dad’s siblings I can stomach. At every reunion she was quick to be real about her feelings, and always had the kindest words for me. She has always been fearless and blunt, and whenever she used to speak at the reunions, everyone listened.
It was wild seeing them. I had never met my cousin’s wife or his daughters. The older of the two is almost exactly like me personality-wise when I was her age. Sassy, vocal, and completely sure the world was exactly what I wanted it to be. No more and no less. “But moooom, I didn’t *this* time!”
I can feel the pain in my feet starting to pulsate more now though, and there’s still a long drive back to home. So I wish them luck on their return trip and then we head for Cookout on the way home. Matt arranges for mutual friends to meet up with is, Chris and Sabrina, and I can’t help but grin. Friends. Family. All the things of my youth that I have been desperate to recapture now come so easily.
We sit to a table and when Z talks about his paper, he’s engaged by Sabrina and Matt. He smiles and does his head tilt when explaining what parts he gets snagged up on. I see myself just wanting to be noticed at his age and I hope he remembers moments like this later. It strikes me that this is my life. This is really happening and I’m sitting here because of a string of decisions I have made.
When we make it to the house, there’s a little chatter and then bed. How does time fly so fast?
The next day I work a half day, which is oddly still eight hours. Then the family will come and meet me to go to the beach, and so I work with the hopes that it soars past. It takes longer to close again, but the timing still works out phenomenally, and I walk out to find them in the lot.
We use the bathrooms and the truck to change into swim gear, and stop to buy food and T some swim trunks as he forgot his, then meet up with Beth from the poly community. As a stroke of luck she’s up here and able to join.
Have I mentioned how bizarrely happy it makes me that we can just now say “Come join us” and people are starting to?
The beach isn’t terribly crowded, and the water is cold, but that doesn’t matter. It’s warm enough in the sun and a little frisbee toss warms the blood. I watch T build sand castles with his sons and lounge with K on towels, dreaming about summer. Beth humors us by taking pictures and blowing bubbles, and Matt helps bury Z in the sand.
It’s Matt who helps take R to the water to pee and is standing there when he rips down his trunks to pee in the sea. The pictures will live forever.
At some point, Z goes to where the surf breaks to roll on the wet sand and try to clean off. Travis runs up and Z doesn’t see him until it’s too late. He screams and scrambles and T catches him and throws him into the salty brine and even though Z comes up sputtering and crying, he’s congratulated with a warm towel and high fives for having tried to outrun and escape his fate.
I see the pier where he first told me ‘I love you’. I can feel the warmth and the sheer happiness flood through me. A golden afternoon. I lay back and stare up at the swirling clouds in the sky, feeling my heart drain into the sand at my back. It will always be here, this memory, this moment, caught in the grains, caught in the swelling and ebbing tides. Like magic, I leave an invisible sigil here, an anchor for many long years of happiness.
Did we end up in the background of other photos? Will that hidden cache of love forever consecrate that sand? Will the pier be infused with some kind of ethereal joy others accidentally step into?
Another night, another sleep that feels deep and serene.
This morning dawns on sex and murmurs of devotion. How could I possibly have done anything to deserve this happiness? How is he sitting there as if he’s the culmination of every wish and dream I thought to give up, made flesh and bone, holding his arms out to me?
Sometimes I feel surprised that he’s indeed real. And then he grins and I forget everything. There were no past hurts, no painful moments. They were all just steps leading to this.
Matt makes pancakes from breakfast and without trying we sit to the table and eat. It’s awkward for a few moments, but then that starts to break and then by virtue of just living, it fades. I still can’t believe I can have Sundays like this. That the sun can filter in like a whisper and illuminate my heart.
We break out the pool and the water toys, the hoses and the sprinkler. It’s not warm, but it’s warm enough and after a few extremely cold exchanges with R, who accidentally sets off my competitive side, we’re joined by the rest. I’m already soaked when I carry K to the pool and dunk her in. Z screams betrayal. T and Matt are breathlessly running around, sniping and spraying.
During all of that I stop to soak up the moment. They’re howling in laughter and screams, my wet hair is plastered to my face and I’m nearly hysterical watching T try to out maneuver my water gun. How did my life become so great? How did I become this lucky? I never, ever want to go back. I want this life forever.
When we pack up and head back inside, I’m beaming. They’re soaked and cold and smiling, laughing about who got whom or what was the funniest moment. We take warm baths and bundle up, curl up beneath blankets and watch Infinity War.
I glance over to see Z curled up with Tux while he does his homework and my heart stops. It’s happened. It’s happening. How many times did I hold Tux in that tiny first apartment and talk about the day we’d have kids he could guard while they did homework or studied? How many times did I tell him he’d be Papa Boog to little ones, curling up with them? To see it, to have that driven straight into my heart like a hot spike was indescribable.
One more moment edging closer. One more place in my heart these kids gently open without knowing, just by virtue of being themselves. One more dark and cold corner lights up and warmth spreads. God, how can I have earned any of this? How many times have I ached and dreamed? And how easily it happens, how nonchalant. I never breathed a word of it except to Matt, I never dared to even dream it could, because who can explain that to either of them? Cats care not for human affairs.
When they must leave I feel the stinging in my throat. But they have just opened this place.. must they leave now? Must you go too? It feels raw and open to leave it as it is, and yet I am filled with such hope. Longer stays, more time to just let them be them near me. More moments and warmth.
More sun. More sand. Who will I be in a year?
I tell her that my boyfriend will be picking me up from work with the kids, and she says she wants to meet them. More overhear and ask if they can meet him too. This quickly turns into a brief Q & A and one of them catches me off guard a little. “What do they call you?” Referring to the kids.
“Usually ‘mean’,” I say. They laugh and I shrug and that’s the end of it. The phone rings and I have to go back to work. As the day wears on, I feel myself becoming more and more excited. Even when he’s late departing and we’re late to close, I feel only elation. It’s actually times perfectly and so he meets people I talk about frequently and they can put both faces with names. Matt has shown up as well.
It’s wonderful finishing the paperwork and giving the high fives to my team for the hard day’s work and then stepping out to see them waiting for me. It’s been nine months, and things are starting to mesh beautifully now. What was new and consuming is becoming established and comfortable. Affection flows freely from the kids. There is no awkwardness when I hold two hands.
After we pile into cars, we head to Market Commons to meet my Aunt Tammy and my cousin Travis with his wife and daughters. Like T and S, they have been married since just after high school, both the only person the other has dated. The similarities have me smirking.
My aunt is the second youngest daughter of seven and the only one of my dad’s siblings I can stomach. At every reunion she was quick to be real about her feelings, and always had the kindest words for me. She has always been fearless and blunt, and whenever she used to speak at the reunions, everyone listened.
It was wild seeing them. I had never met my cousin’s wife or his daughters. The older of the two is almost exactly like me personality-wise when I was her age. Sassy, vocal, and completely sure the world was exactly what I wanted it to be. No more and no less. “But moooom, I didn’t *this* time!”
I can feel the pain in my feet starting to pulsate more now though, and there’s still a long drive back to home. So I wish them luck on their return trip and then we head for Cookout on the way home. Matt arranges for mutual friends to meet up with is, Chris and Sabrina, and I can’t help but grin. Friends. Family. All the things of my youth that I have been desperate to recapture now come so easily.
We sit to a table and when Z talks about his paper, he’s engaged by Sabrina and Matt. He smiles and does his head tilt when explaining what parts he gets snagged up on. I see myself just wanting to be noticed at his age and I hope he remembers moments like this later. It strikes me that this is my life. This is really happening and I’m sitting here because of a string of decisions I have made.
When we make it to the house, there’s a little chatter and then bed. How does time fly so fast?
The next day I work a half day, which is oddly still eight hours. Then the family will come and meet me to go to the beach, and so I work with the hopes that it soars past. It takes longer to close again, but the timing still works out phenomenally, and I walk out to find them in the lot.
We use the bathrooms and the truck to change into swim gear, and stop to buy food and T some swim trunks as he forgot his, then meet up with Beth from the poly community. As a stroke of luck she’s up here and able to join.
Have I mentioned how bizarrely happy it makes me that we can just now say “Come join us” and people are starting to?
The beach isn’t terribly crowded, and the water is cold, but that doesn’t matter. It’s warm enough in the sun and a little frisbee toss warms the blood. I watch T build sand castles with his sons and lounge with K on towels, dreaming about summer. Beth humors us by taking pictures and blowing bubbles, and Matt helps bury Z in the sand.
It’s Matt who helps take R to the water to pee and is standing there when he rips down his trunks to pee in the sea. The pictures will live forever.
At some point, Z goes to where the surf breaks to roll on the wet sand and try to clean off. Travis runs up and Z doesn’t see him until it’s too late. He screams and scrambles and T catches him and throws him into the salty brine and even though Z comes up sputtering and crying, he’s congratulated with a warm towel and high fives for having tried to outrun and escape his fate.
I see the pier where he first told me ‘I love you’. I can feel the warmth and the sheer happiness flood through me. A golden afternoon. I lay back and stare up at the swirling clouds in the sky, feeling my heart drain into the sand at my back. It will always be here, this memory, this moment, caught in the grains, caught in the swelling and ebbing tides. Like magic, I leave an invisible sigil here, an anchor for many long years of happiness.
Did we end up in the background of other photos? Will that hidden cache of love forever consecrate that sand? Will the pier be infused with some kind of ethereal joy others accidentally step into?
Another night, another sleep that feels deep and serene.
This morning dawns on sex and murmurs of devotion. How could I possibly have done anything to deserve this happiness? How is he sitting there as if he’s the culmination of every wish and dream I thought to give up, made flesh and bone, holding his arms out to me?
Sometimes I feel surprised that he’s indeed real. And then he grins and I forget everything. There were no past hurts, no painful moments. They were all just steps leading to this.
Matt makes pancakes from breakfast and without trying we sit to the table and eat. It’s awkward for a few moments, but then that starts to break and then by virtue of just living, it fades. I still can’t believe I can have Sundays like this. That the sun can filter in like a whisper and illuminate my heart.
We break out the pool and the water toys, the hoses and the sprinkler. It’s not warm, but it’s warm enough and after a few extremely cold exchanges with R, who accidentally sets off my competitive side, we’re joined by the rest. I’m already soaked when I carry K to the pool and dunk her in. Z screams betrayal. T and Matt are breathlessly running around, sniping and spraying.
During all of that I stop to soak up the moment. They’re howling in laughter and screams, my wet hair is plastered to my face and I’m nearly hysterical watching T try to out maneuver my water gun. How did my life become so great? How did I become this lucky? I never, ever want to go back. I want this life forever.
When we pack up and head back inside, I’m beaming. They’re soaked and cold and smiling, laughing about who got whom or what was the funniest moment. We take warm baths and bundle up, curl up beneath blankets and watch Infinity War.
I glance over to see Z curled up with Tux while he does his homework and my heart stops. It’s happened. It’s happening. How many times did I hold Tux in that tiny first apartment and talk about the day we’d have kids he could guard while they did homework or studied? How many times did I tell him he’d be Papa Boog to little ones, curling up with them? To see it, to have that driven straight into my heart like a hot spike was indescribable.
One more moment edging closer. One more place in my heart these kids gently open without knowing, just by virtue of being themselves. One more dark and cold corner lights up and warmth spreads. God, how can I have earned any of this? How many times have I ached and dreamed? And how easily it happens, how nonchalant. I never breathed a word of it except to Matt, I never dared to even dream it could, because who can explain that to either of them? Cats care not for human affairs.
When they must leave I feel the stinging in my throat. But they have just opened this place.. must they leave now? Must you go too? It feels raw and open to leave it as it is, and yet I am filled with such hope. Longer stays, more time to just let them be them near me. More moments and warmth.
More sun. More sand. Who will I be in a year?
Comments
Post a Comment