I watch myself get fussy with details; put on socks with shoes to walk the beach. I wear a sun hat, bring a key for the van, lip balm and I’ve doused myself in sun-screen. This unfamiliar open space does that; makes me what to find myself in the details; reassure myself that I am here amidst the blues, gulls and sand. I am on my first solo holiday since the accident, five years go.
It is important to retain routine in an unfamiliar environment. It helps ground me. I need that to locate myself some days. It is one of those things after an acquired brain injury. Maintain familiarity in the minutia. If that means socks and shoes for the beech, it simply means socks and shoes for the beach. It has no significance other than that. This morning when I was out, I had neither one of them. Somehow it was unimportant. Now it is important. To acknowledge that need is significant enough so I honour it, and go with it.
In my fanny pack, I have a little book and pen to scribble down observations. To waddle on the beach gives me great pleasure. Months on my back, has offered enormous appreciation for movement. The tide is out, and the sand damp and pooled. There are sand dollars; bevelled sand formations like waves thin, spread across the sand; shells, and minnows that dance in the warm shallows. I take off my socks and shoes, tie the laces, and hang them around my neck. I chuckle at my need for them only moments earlier. Now I could do without their dangle and weight.
I hike towards the dry sand and caste my shoes onto the beach like a Frisbee. I sit; settle into the warm sand and look around. I hanker to return to the edge of the ocean, and I will.
A guy with an English accent is looking after the dog, Juno he announces to the young woman half naked on the beach. It’s his son’s dog he claims, a large husky. The dog takes a huge crap in the sand while the man chats on.
Meanwhile his wife throws balls to another dog, a retriever. She sees the crap. He spies it too. He walks over to the pile, picks it up with his blue bag stashed in his shorts.
The naked girl yells, “You’ll smell it, or step in it first,” and laughs.
“Come here you rotten dog,” yells the wife. The dog lopes and bounds along the shore oblivious.
The half-naked girl smiles at me, and goes back to her book. Dogs and people disperse along the beach.
The sand is warm on my back; I want to rest my eyes, my back.
I hear voices at a distance. The half-naked woman’s children play in the sand, their voices blend. I know there is a para-kite flyer tracking the sea breeze above, and a float plane overhead; I hear its roar. I know sail ships face the head winds with their white masks against the blue- grey sky, and herons flap along the shore, lazy before they land to fish again. A bald eagle screeches.
I doze. My head rests on my socks and shoes, a perfect pillow; I’m glad I got fussy, my sunhat now over my face. I doze like a lizard…
writingmybrain 