summer beach {life}

We were beach vacationers when I was growing up. The Outer Banks of North Carolina; Isle of Palms, South Carolina; St. Simons Island, Georgia; back to Isle of Palms. For one week out of each summer (minus the summer of my 14th year when we went to London), the Atlantic Ocean and its southern coastal beaches were my playground.  

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year in college, my BFF (ha! like that term existed back then!) Sarah and I traveled to Charleston to see a friend of hers and spend a couple of days on Isle of Palms. (We felt very grown up.) One night we went to dinner with Sarah's friend, her friend's brother and a bunch of other people to a Greek restaurant (my first taste of Greek food, and the beginning of another life-long love affair), and as we were walking out to our cars, the velvet curtain of humidity hit me slap in the face. Sea gulls keened above our cars, and miles inland you still smell the salt spray. I had the thought in that moment, under the muddied haze of a street light, that I'd give just about anything to live near the ocean.

And here we are.  

Cue my restless heart.  

I have been beyond restless this summer. Tapping into emotions I can't even begin to share with you here. (I doubt you want to hear them anyway.) And always, always, it's back to the water for calm, for peace. For my soul.  

It's been the funniest summer here. Cool. Rainy. Gray. Not the hot days we usually have that inspire you to want to dip your toe in the water. No days where you literally hot foot it across the white expanse of sand to get to the tide line. Our beach days came in a flurry at the end of the summer, enough so that on each car ride Cal would say, "I wish we'd taken advantage of it more." Even then, most were monochromes of gray and tan. Not the bright whites, blues and golds that we're used to.

I'll take it though, any way it comes.  

Different every day and achingly familiar too, I'll take it any way it comes.  

I say it too often for my family's comfort, that we're not close enough. It's not convenient to get to the ocean, but I'm starting to think it's necessary. Christine has written, quite longingly, in the comments of my posts about the beach, of our ocean with its warm waters and gentle swells. I know what she means. It feels like home.

My friend Marianne and I have developed a habit of taking walks at the oceanfront on Wednesday mornings, early, when no one is out and about. You can tell that it's fall there already. The sun is still warm, but the sea is foamy and the light is just different somehow. Last week, she'd hurt her foot and I was bone-tired, so instead of walking we sat and talked. The light sparkled golden, and the ocean was slatey blue. There was a brisk wind, and white caps dotted the water and the waves chopped onto shore, not curling gracefully toward the sand. Every so often, we'd draw breath from another hilarious story, and I'd look around and think, I can't believe I live here.

Funny. This isn't at all the post I intended to write when I went to tell you about our beach this summer. Writing does that to you. Like I said, it's totally different here in the autumn. I'll show you that too. Soon. I promise.  

the dream lives, part 2 {still + life}

My mom and her minister Pope standing together at the March. 

To read Part One of my mom's story, please go to yesterday's post on Still + Life.

It was very exciting when we got to the Washington Monument. We picked up signs and banners and everybody started walking toward the Lincoln Memorial. The March itself was very moving. Many of us joined arms or hands and sang “Freedom, Freedom” or “We Shall Overcome.” I think I began to get an idea what a big deal this was... all these people who didn’t know each other but were united in this cause and committed to doing something brave for it. And on a personal level it was clear that people were committed to being nice to each other. It always fascinates and reassures me that what one chooses to do on a personal level can have such an enormous impact on a much broader scale. Anyway, I never saw anything that resembled hostility or even testiness the entire time we were there, or on the whole trip for that matter. That in itself kind of tells the story of the event. 

Here’s the disappointing part, at least as far as a good story is concerned. As I said, when we got to the Lincoln Memorial we found it impossible to see or hear anything. Well, I take that back. We could hear some of the speakers but not well. We heard Mahalia Jackson and we heard the applause and cheers for the speeches...especially MLK’s. If you look at that picture on Wikipedia looking out from the Lincoln Memorial there are trees lining the left side of the mall. We were behind those trees, about a quarter of the way back. At the time we weren’t really disappointed. We were happy to be there and felt very much a part of something profound. We were actually lucky about the trees because it was HOT. There was a special on CNN on Sunday night and on it one woman mentioned the heat, saying it had to be the hottest day of the year. There were sandwiches and drinks for the crowd along the March so it was kind of like a picnic at times.

The churches in the surrounding area were opened up so we could use the bathrooms and wash up at the end of the day. After we washed up and ate a bite (more sandwiches at the churches) we got back on the buses and rode all night and all day and arrived in Carbondale the next evening. The mood on the bus going back was pretty joyful with lots of singing until most of us fell asleep. We were exhausted, of course.  I’m sure there was relief as well as pride in how well everything went. And more hope. 

It wasn’t until after the whole thing was over that I heard and saw some of the speeches on TV.  I could see then the same kind of uplifting experience I had felt at the march. As the years have gone by I’ve become even more impressed about what happened. Of course, no one at the time could have foreseen just how important the March was. It was a critical moment in the civil rights movement.  Even though there was plenty of violence both before and after that event...(Medgar Evers, Birmingham bombing, assassinations, murders) I think the intention of non-violence and the spirit of peace among the demonstrators at the March had a profound impact on the civil rights movement and on how the people of America in general saw the movement.  This was the moment that MLK had the audience he needed to get his message across to the nation.

I am proud I was there.