It's okay. I really wouldn't read this either, but I have a large table in the back of a hotel restaurant and am alone. Lydia and Christina are upstairs snoozing like teenagers do and Dad and Steve are long gone. I heard brash whispers this morning, "Pssst. Steve. Hey Steve..."
"Ya, he replied in a Maryland accent..."Let's go".
I saw him push the blanket over from across the room and heard Dad grabbed his keys. It was about 5am, but the crabs were waiting under the waves.
I tried to sleep longer but ended up just working on some writing and waiting for the contentential breakfast to open, which is why I am here right now. This hotel is full of characters as if to add to the already elaborate characters that seem to make up this town, Westport WA. Literally, a large man with a beard to his chest and a old cap makes his way around the back lawn with his dog, and he walks on a pegleg. After spending the day on the docks pulling in crab cages and smelling the salty air it wasn't a leap to imagine him a salty old seaman full of tales of grandour, and there is no reason to believe he is not. Yesterday I was sitting at the computer in the hotel lobby, researching a kite festival that is going on today and felt a nudge on my arm. Looking over I saw the bulging eyes of a greyhound looking up at me, tail wagging. He looked like a stretched out tiger the way his fur stripped him up and down in shades of grey. Two men marched in carrying a mysterious large strapped case and Steve leaner over and suggested that it contained one of the exquisite kites that would be whipping through the air later on.
Yesterday we grabbed some towels and wandered down a empty road that anti-climactically seemed to lead nowhere, until we heard the constant whoosh of the ocean. The road turned into a sandy path lined with long sea grasses and the hill curved up and over until the whole of the Pacific Ocean was waiting, lapping at the shore. For as far as you could see on each side was beach and behind the sand, dunes of grasses and old fences, falling voluntarily it seemed towards the ever calling water. Blues deep faded from light to dark into the water and mirrored into the sky. I left my sandals at the foot of a smooth stump and coasted down to the water. The sand was smooth and light as silk, warmed in the sun and let me sink deep with each step until I got closer to the water, where it turned into a mosaic of broken shells, sandollars and water-smoothed pebbles in every color. With each rush of the water the jewels rolled with the push up the shore and down again as it retreated with a delicate tinkle and clattering as they hit one another. Again and again.
You could walk to the end of the world it seemed on this beach, and perhaps come back again from the other side, glorious adventures in between. Pirates and mermaids and the old man and the sea. I considered my options and headed towards the end, to see if maybe beyond that hazy cloud there really was something. The water teased me into it more deeply as the tide pulled closer to shore and I soon was wet and felt the little stones and shells skip over my feet as they rocked back and forth with the waves.
I've been to the oceans before and seen the country from both sides, but it never gets old. Staring into the water, wondering if the ocean itself knows the rhythm it is keeping, a method to the swirls of its waves. It seems to, as it pushes you in and out and tempts you further in, or chases you back it with an especially hard splash.
Later that evening we came back to the shore to watch the sun slip underneath the waves. Rounding the corner over the hill to the ocean was breathtaking. For as far as you could see the sky was pink and yellow, orange and purple. The water loyally rushed back and forth, ignoring the brilliant colors and carrying on with its duty. As time and the sun slipped down the colors grew explosive, a grand finale to the day and I watched with great satisfaction that this happens every night, but that night, I was able to see it.
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