Summer Reading List

Gulf Shores, AL, May 2010

The waves slam against the damp sand and dissolve into an almost calm pond of water and foam at land’s edge. Before we could absorb that process more waves came ashore and then a moment later, even more waves follow. Walking in the ankle deep water grew interesting as we tried to watch every step and time our strides with the next wave washing in yet mostly all we could do was feel a bit dizzy and use all our power just to remain steady on our feet.

Walking away from the water our feet touch dry white sand, toasty warm from the heat of the sun. We take our seats under an umbrella and proceed to pull out books and read. For me, the reading is something to do in between watching the passing parade before my eyes.

I place my finger in the book on page 36 and hold my place as I watch a child make his first visit to the beach, wide-eyed in sights and alert to the various sounds of this place he had been told about. Later, I watch some brave soul charge into the water and try to leap above the wall of waves rushing for the shoreline only to be defeated by nature’s will. Now and then, someone strolls by with a dark tan and confident stroll making me wonder from their complexion and their countenance if this place, or somewhere almost like it, is a place they call home. At the edge of the water, an older couple walks by slowly and so close to each other they appear to be leaning on one another and I imagine they have made so many visits here they lost count many years ago and look back at all those years and all those visits now and laugh, and smile, about it all.

I dig one of my feet into the sand, down into the place where it is clammy-cold and darkly-damp, and burrow it out enough to catapult sand onto her foot. She has been diligently reading away while I have been preoccupied with everything else going on around us. She looks up from her book, uses her feet to toss some sand back onto my feet, smiles, and returns to her book. I smile back, reopen my book, and continue reading as well.

The warmth of the sun makes me drowsy, so I place my finger in the book on page 39 to hold my place. I close my eyes and sense a pale red glow all around me. I sluggishly fight the urge to fall asleep. Overhead, a plane chugs by and the sound causes me to open my eyes just so I can read the sign the plane is pulling behind it. I discover it is the same local restaurant sign advertising fresh shrimp the plane has been dragging the last half hour. I take off my sunglasses so that the colors I see are the true colors of what is here. Each time I do this, I am spellbound by the blue-green of the water at this distance and how as it stretches out in my line of vision it becomes inseparable with the color of the sky at the same distance.

And so it continues this way for hours. Plastic sand buckets and shovels, water wings, boogie boards, beach grass, sand castles and picking through the sea shells washing ashore. Dump some sand on her foot; expect some sand tossed onto my foot; read a page or two of the book in my lap; then watch the people go by. The woman on her cell phone walking by and demanding from the person on the other end of the phone line, “Guess where I am right now.” Then there’s the group of people just arriving on the beach with their cooler, their elaborate folding chairs and over-sized, neon colored towels who begin their search for just the right spot to settle down for a time. And the guy who walks and from just a glance you can tell that he forgot sun block and will realize this without a doubt himself tomorrow morning in a very painful way.

I look up and notice she has stopped reading. I place my finger on page 44 of the book to hold my place and look more intently at her. I see the freckles on her skin that the last few days in the sun have made more visible. Lost in thought, she looks straight ahead at the waves crashing in, never noticing I am watching her. Instead of the book in my hands, I now try to read the look on her face. The serious look she has makes me think she is thinking our time here will soon be over for now. Soon, we will have to return back to the everyday world and the challenges, worries and opportunities it holds. Just thinking what her thoughts might be makes me reconsider the look on her face as more reflective than I originally thought.

I dig my feet into the sand again and toss some out onto her feet. She breaks her gaze away from her thoughts, looks at me, smiles and tosses some of the sand back onto my feet. I smile back then we both open our books and begin reading again. Some birds fly around in a mid-air dance while others run around on their skinny legs staying just out of reach of the cool water. Beyond this, the ocean rocks water onto the shore pushed by never-ending rows of waves creating a symphony loud enough to drown out the world we have to return to soon enough.