Thursday, October 17, 2002

Thinking Back, Sappily

I want to go back to Ogunquit.
I want to walk on the beach past the dream house with the star in the facade and the fairy on the roof.
I want to be holding her soft hand and watching the wind blow her hair into strands of bronze and copper and dark oxblood caught by the sun as we walk up the beach.
I want the rocks and shells I brought home to be back in her red bucket, still damp and sandy from the sea. I want to relive the moment when she handed me a little black rock and said, "Well, it's kind of shaped like a heart."
I want to sit in that amber hued restaurant with the fire blazing and look at the tiny fishing boat fleet in the harbor below while I casually rip claws off a lobster and dredge the meat through clarified butter.
I told her that staying in the moment and reveling in the joy of it bodes for happy memories and a potentially great future. She worries what's next. She worries about the turbulent past we shared.
I unpack treasures. A matted photograph of the same little fishing boat harbor. A handmade journal. A wreath of little red berries and greenery for my mother. A little glass whale we picked out together. Canadian chocolates she brought me. Jams and mustards we bought at Stonewall Kitchens.
My clothes smell like creme brulee body lotion. Hers.
My navy suede shoes she said would be ruined by the sand weren't ruined at all.
She is troubled now. What next, she ponders.
I ponder, too.
We are polar opposites, like a brick and a feather. My oafish butchness attracts and repels her in equal amounts. Her ethereal femmeness scares and thrills me.
Our past was stormy. Trust was demolished.
Still, when I think of her now I think of Ogunquit, the beach and what could be.

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