Beach Endings

These pictures are a conglomerate of whoever had dad's camera. Attempt to cite follows. 

[Dad's]

[Dad's]

[Abby's]

[Mine]

[Dad's]

[Dad's]

[Mine]

[Dad's]

[Cass's]

[1]All three of us in what can only be a dad inspired photo in extremely characteristic postures for each of us. It rained three days and we found the grey relaxing and calming. [2] No one wandered the beach and it was ours for the taking.  Perhaps months in Scotland has taught me that much enjoyment can be sought from a grey day, and perhaps aren't as tiring as the sunny ones. [3] Abby collected sand dollars, all broken, paper thin, and fragile.  [4] Abby with the skim board.  Mitchell by far excelling, making it look graceful and easy.  Abby, ever determined and fierce, improves the most.  And me?  I gather courage from a graduation gift to Abby: Do one thing every day that scares you.  By the third day, I've practiced enough to feel confident, and I'm getting the hang of it, when I wipe out, spread-eagle, spraining my wrist.  It's not until evening the pain sets in, and then, I'm very glad mama is near as I just want to curl up in her lap and cry. [5] Each night we supped on the widow's watch and watched the sun set.  Sometimes the full moon rose over the waters and it seemed as if it belonged to a Poe story. [6] Mitchell scampered like a monkey into hammock, flipping over.  I once made a hammock of my own and I loved flipping over. I felt something between a vampire and a winged bat, hovering over the ground, swaying.  [7] Our attempt to walk to bird island was confounded but we did see this lovely [stork?] stalk through the marshes, snipping up prey. [8] I love live oaks: their gnarled limbs that extend finger like in any direction.  These seemed naked without Spanish Moss.  In Spain I never saw Spanish Moss, but it makes the oaks here more elegant and eerie.  When I was young, I used to pretend it was old women's hair, the three sisters of MacBeth made of this stuff.  It frightened me.  Now it's home.  I made that dress and I get irritated it still doesn't fit well. [8] Finally, a few precious days spent with my cousins.  We are notoriously bad for taking family photos: Abby and Mitch both left, as if dropping out like Ten Little Indians, and this remnant here, taken just before we too, returned home.  Aunt Jayne is right. This is the end of an era of sorts. Mitch and Abby graduated, me in Great Britain, Mom and Dad with an empty nest. The next few years seem less straight than the branches of the live oak. 

Yet here we are and tomorrow I leave to go back. If I stop to think about it, I'll get desperately sad.  Perhaps life as an MK with a myriad of goodbyes and hellos makes it easier to cope. [The one thing I remember most about growing up is living out of a suitcase. I've never lived in one house for more than three years. Rootless if you like.]  But it doesn't. Not really.  It makes me less fussy to the prospect of goodbyes, to greet them like I do strangers on walks: the side-eye, the nod, the slight wave. Gruff and short.  But no less emotionally wrought. Goodbyes are easier when they aren't acknowledged, and I know I often leave seeming unemotional or without saying goodbye directly. But that isn't the case at all. After years and years of goodbyes, one can only take so much. Besides, all true friends, and especially Christians, know that it's never really goodbye, but merely, in the words of Kipling and the Bastables, "Good Hunting."