Monday, December 12, 2011

65. In the drawer is a box made of carved and joined bits of driftwood, which holds objects meaningless to anyone else but sacred, precious, unforgettable to you..

Walking along the sandy beach with my friends, I sort of feel at peace with the world. Yeah, when I return to Old Town on Sunday I have a lot of work to do and I'll have things to worry about. 
But now, I'm with my friends, and all seems well. 
The sky is bluer then I have ever seen it, and the ocean stretches on before us. It touches the horizon and creates a straight line of blue. The sun creates a sparkling sight as far as the eye can sea. 
I watch the waves as they move slowly and melodically in and out. The breeze swept my hair over my shoulders.  
Felicia, Laura, Gilman and I were walking slowly down the sandy beach, our shoes in a pile by the rocks just off shore. We were walking in silence; not a heavy silence or a burdening silence, but an enjoyable silence. A pleasant silence. A peaceful silence that talking would ruin. 
I've always thought that friends who were good enough friends didn't need to talk all the time. 
I was wearing my favorite white Irish knit sweater as a coat. It had a sash to tie around the waist and and wooden buttons.  Accompanied with my favorite colorful earrings, flowered sunglasses, bright blue shirt, pink scarf and gray skinny jeans and gray boots, I thought this was the perfect outfit for a day out on the town. 
"It's crazy that this is your backyard," I said to Laura. We were in Biddeford at Laura's school, the University of New England. In the back of the school was this beautiful sandy beach that we were strolling on. 
"Believe it or not, this is the first time I've been out here this year," Laura replied as her, Felicia and I sat down in the sand, "I'm always so busy I forget it's here sometimes." 
I pushed my sunglasses over my eyes and felt for my camera next me, "If this were in my backyard, I'd be here all the time."  
Further away on the beach was a long stone wall. There were many people sitting on the stone wall with books. Some of them were writing, some of them reading. I remember being young and reading while sitting on rocks at that craggy old by my grandparents lived on. 
This beach was much different. 
There were expensive beach houses as far as the eye could see. All of them had wrap around porches, whiter then white shutters and gardeners in the front yard. 
In the outfit I primarily bought at Goodwill, I felt slightly out of place. 
Earlier that day, we met Laura's room mates on campus. The four of them lived in an on-campus suite. All three of them came from money and they were all flat landers. None of them were born in Maine. They did nothing but complain about Maine and how much they hated it. 
The Maine they lived in was definitely not the real Maine. This was the 'other' Maine. The Maine you see on postcards. 
Their condescending nature and attitude is what encouraged me to suggest this walk on the beach. I already couldn't stand them. 
"It's so beautiful." I said and started snapping pictures. 
While Gilman wasn't paying attention, I snapped some pictures of him. He was walking along the beach looking for shells. I collected sea glass and seashells, so I've been keeping my eye out as well. I took a picture of a shell that was sitting in the sand next to us. 
We started to make small talk. Gilman was still walking around the beach. He'd bend down occasionally to pick up something. Laura, Felicia and I laughed together as we sat in the sand. 
"We could take a walk around downtown Biddeford," Laura started as she took a stick and started writing her name in the sand, "I'd like to see if I could show you guys the old theater. The one I took a class in last semester." 
"That actually would be really cool." Felicia agreed, "I'm pretty much up for anything." 
"We could get breakfast at the dining hall," Laura continued, "I would have to use up all my guest swipes but that's not a huge deal." 
The emptiness in my stomach agreed with that statement, "Breakfast sounds wonderful." 
Felicia and Laura laughed. As my father told me once, "Holliann, you have the same problem as I do. We both truly love to eat." 
Out of all my friends, I was the one who was always concerned when dinner was, I always had snacks in my purse, and I have never and will never be the type who could just 'skip breakfast'. 
"And Tom's soccer game is later. And after that I was thinking we could go to the Maine Mall." Laura went on. 
"We have a full day, huh?" Felicia said. 
Laura smiled, "Well, there are a lot of cool things I'd like you guys to see. And we really only have today." 
We all stood up from the sand and decided to take a walk along the rock wall. We motioned for Gilman to join us. 
"Here," Gilman said once he got to us, "Some sea glass. I know you collect it." 
He held his hand out to me and gave me a handful of green, blue, brown and clear sea glass. 
I thanked him and put the sea glass in my camera bag with some of the other shells and things I had found. 
We walked along the rock wall in a line. I was snapping pictures and saying 'hello' to people who we came across. We walked past some people who were being talked to by a man who appeared to be a teacher. 
We got to an interesting rock formation. The rock wall went out into the water and seemed to separate the ocean into two pieces. 
"This is really cool," I said and pointed at some graffiti on the rock formation. 
In big green letters painted on the rocks it read, 

We can live this way. 

I didn't know what the artist was referring to. Hear on the ocean? Hear under the sun and on the sand? Here on this rock wall, watching the waves move in and out and listening to them crash? 
The ocean has always fascinated humans. Why is that? I can think of many reasons why. 
It's endless, it's beautiful, it's dangerous, it's mysterious. But at all the same time, it's peaceful. It's unchanging. It's vast. With an ever changing world and lives that are a little different every day, something that is constant is a comfort. 
Laura walked up to me with pieces of smooth and soft driftwood in her hands. 
"Here," Laura said and handed it to me, "I have too much driftwood already. You can have these pieces." 
"Well, thanks," I said happily and put the driftwood in my camera case with the other things. 
For a long time we meandered around that beach and talked for what seemed like hours. 


Some months later, I was cleaning my room. With a small room and enough stuff to fill a big room, I was always tripping over ridiculous amounts of stuff. 
I was throwing some of my dirty clothes into my hamper when I knocked over a basket that sat atop of my purple book case. 
I cried out a curse word and bent down to pick up the contents of the basket. 
Seashells, sea glass, and driftwood scattered all over my carpeted floor. I started quickly picking them up; I was in a bit of hurry. 
But something slowed me down. As I held each item in my hand, I realized that I had had some of these shells for years. Some of them were ones that I had collected on that bay in Robinson. One of them had a painted tree on it that I had purchased at a gift shop in Eastport after the first time I went whale watching. 
A handful of sea glass sat in my hand and I wondered how many of these pieces were found on that beach in Biddeford. 
Each of these things had floated in that vast ocean, and somehow it ended up here, in my messy bedroom, sitting in my hands. How many places had these seen? 
How many memories had been created finding these pieces that I have collected for years?
I placed all of the items back in my blue basket. I set the basket back at its spot on top of the purple book case. 
I collected my things and went to leave the still messy room. Before I turned out my light, I looked back at that basket and had a little thought. 
How often do we forget the little things? 
And why do they seem to hold the biggest space in our hearts?

2 comments:

  1. Interesting piece--falls into three parts: the dorm, the beach, the basket. Since I've already confessed to you my taste for the grim, edgy, and dark, let me say now that I was hoping you were going to devote most of the piece to slagging those snooty flatlanders who don't get Maine and are too twerpy to ever get Maine or beach glass or even beaches.

    That's sort of thing I relish when done by a meanie pro, which you are not, of course--but maybe you have the makings?

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  2. ...and having occasional meanieness in your arsenal is a writer's plus!

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