The Beaches

Image: Free Spirit

"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes."

- Kurt Vonnegut

Looking back, I see my distance.

If these walls could talk, they'd tell you how much they love me. They are what holds me. The walls of this pre-WWII craftsman style house in Hintonburg/West Wellington Village were built strong to survive the storms. They are like my grandparents -- quite unshakeable.

This is the house where my mother was born and my grandparents lived. This is the house I grew up in. With the same creaky wood floors and tired old doors. The same tangled grape vines and dusty back lane.

There's the maple tree where I learned to ride my bike. And the sidewalk where I smashed my teeth. And grandad's pear tree where we constructed snow forts. And the hole in the fence I (still) crawl through to collect lost tennis balls.

I have lived so many lives, I've forgotten my time. No longer moved by hours and minutes, I live as an ocean by the current. I flow with moments and turning tides. I seek sunlight to break a surface where I may venture into new world. I may sink, I may float, or I may swim. But no matter how far or low, how lazy or frustrated, I always find my way back to the shore.

The shore I call my home is a sacred ground with the energy of a thousand memories. Lying in bed with my fate and my free will, I'm listening to The Avett Brothers and my breathing -- inhale/exhale, just like the ebb and flow of an ocean. Two halves, one rhythmic flow. The ocean is never still. The tide is constant in that it comes and goes. But it is always there - a whole ocean.

Whatever you want, I hope you have it. For breath is time and we are the beaches. As for me, I am still working on mine.

So it goes.

If it's the beaches/ If it's the beaches' sands you want/ Then you will have them/ If it's the mountains' bending rivers/ Then you will have them/ If it's the wish to run away / Then I will grant it/ Take whatever you think of/ While I go gas up the truck/ Pack the old love letters up/ We will read them when we forget why we left here

-- The Avett Brothers