Full On Sweet Mystery

In summer’s fading glory there is joy sublime.  Patches of once vibrant but now slightly dusky flowers abound. Breath deep and you will sense of both infinite and finite time.  The blooms upon the flowers still strike the eye from afar.  Upon closer inspection even the untrained eye can see the tints of age have started to scar.  Bright red and yellow and purple flowers abound shout out to the eyes of bees and bugs and humankind I am here, I am alive for this glorious moment.  They roar singing let me fill you heart. But the end of the green stems supporting them grow straw-like and burnt/brittle at the edges.

The glory of the flower takes us away from the finite moment into an eternity of delicious joy, I would call these moments the time of ripe peaches.  As the liquid from that soft fleshy fruit drizzles down after you take a mouthful the sweetness is fully satisfying, almost as sensual as great sex.  The sloppy joy of the sweet taste take us beyond this mortal space into a moment of eternity.

This single summer’s kingdom will come falling down.  Look my friend, you can see it in the silvering leaves of the trees.  This year’s time of short sleeves, short pants and water play will be done soon.  The beaches where we retreated seeking relief from the heat will soon be cold and desolate places. But when you see flowers full and exploding you suspend the reality of time and age and fragility. The tall grasses blowing back and forth with full beard let the clock slow for a minute so that it tick-tock-tick cannot even be perceived.  The thumping of the human heart is lost in the background. 

In the summer warmth of late August I will wrap my warped and worried frame in the joyful colors of the spectrum.  I will let the bird song and the rhythmic hymn of bees’ wings seduce me and hypnotize me into believing this will be forever. Let us celebrate the time of sweet tastes and perfume like smells. Let us revel in the sounds of nature wildly at work, the rustling grass and the buzzing bee.  Let the soft grass be our bed. Let our eyes be awash in the royal purple of lavender as time winds down on this short eternity.

Walking Toward the Water

Last day at the beach today. Waking early (after sunrise but out of the house by 7:40 a.m.) I made my trek the 3 or 4 blocks to Wawa for 20 ounces of decaffeinated coffee. While there I grabbed a cookie and a Philadelphia Inquirer. This my friends was the breakfast of my youth or some variant of it.

Walking out of the packed store (man those Wawas are busy first thing in the morning) I adjusted my purchase, cookie in pocket and paper under my arm. Standing just off the concrete steps that led to the entrance I was trying to make that decision, do I walk up to the boardwalk and eat this or do I instead walk back to the house and sit on the breezy deck to enjoy it? Pondering this I noticed a gentleman about 10 years older than me riding his bicycle up to the store. He was puffing a little bit.

“Good morning,” says I as he begins to dismount. Do all us older men look alike? Is there a handbook we read somewhere we read inadvertently absorbing the information but forgetting the source? The gent was wearing the outfit of virtually all the men of my age, nondescript tan shorts, sneakers, a knit off white shirt with two (maybe three) buttons at the top and a ball cap from an event five years ago.

He looked at me as he got off the bike and said, “I am too old for this shit.” He was panting from the bike ride because it has gotten quite humid this morning. I smiled and looked at him and said, “We do this shit so we don’t feel any older than we have to.” He laughed. “Yeah,” he said “We don’t get to be any younger but we don’t have to fall to pieces.” I responded with an, “Absolutely, look at me, two of the three things I am doing are in complete accordance with my cardiologist’s directions. I am walking and this coffee is decaf. The cookie in my pocket well not so much.” He responded, “I am here for my chocolate dipped double donut. I am not supposed to have it either. You know what pal, we have to eat ‘em here and eat ‘em now because we are going to be dead a long, long time and I doubt we’ll get donuts then” Point taken.

After we talked about where his was from (Montgomery County) I shared where I was from (East Lansing Michigan home of the Spartans). He asked me why I was back and I told him to see an old friend and to go to my 40th high school class reunion. The second round of where are your really from began Salem County in my case and South Philly somewhere down Broad Street in his. By this time he had stopped panting. As we both turned to go our separate ways we laughed, waved and wished each other a good day. My choice was made I was headed up to the boardwalk.

Why the boardwalk? Like the man said I doubt when you are dead there are many sunrises to appreciate. I placed my folded paper up under my arm and sipped my hot brown dirty water and made my way to the beach’s edge. I walked down the beach entry pathway mat to a point where I could see across the strand. The sun was a few degrees above the horizon and was cutting a silver swath across the water’s surface. One family with their balloon tired beach cart was making its way to the water’s edge.

I could hear joggers and bicycles behind me on the boardwalk going to and fro. I could also hear the sounds of the gulls spinning in the sky above looking for that tidbit that morsel. Pulling out my phone I took a few shots of what lay out there in front of me. What was I looking at well God’s great Atlantic Ocean and all of eternity as far as I am concerned. I stood there for a moment just soaking it in. As Paul Bowles said and I am paraphrasing there are moments, events if you would, that happen at places that you cannot imagine your life being without. But those seminal moments don’t come very often and then they are gone forever.

Staring out across a nearly empty swath of sand was and remains one of those seminal moments for me. It was with a little regret that I turned and walked back up the path to the boardwalk to find a bench so as to allow me to eat that cookie and read the news of this irrelevant day conveniently. My coffee was cooler and the cookie wasn’t as crisp as it might have been. But I could hear the waves and feel the sun beginning to warm another beach day. Carpe diem, not really. Rather let the day wash over me with sun and sand and humid air and squalling children and screeching birds and sand between my toes. I may never be back again but I am here now and today is a day to be savored.

Summer's Glory

Summer's glory arrives at days end. It is an admixture, a concoction or maybe a distillation of so many wonderful things.

You can start with sleeping in on a comfortable bed and soft sheets. Breakfast with coffee from a nearby shop and fried ham on Italian rolls adds to the growing joy.

A cloudless day with warm temperatures and a sea breeze adds more to the sense of delight. Reading leisurely a yellowed and brittle  little paperback novel just adds so much more. 

And then clams, flounder and fries. And conversation with good people about things that matter to us. There may be better days somewhere but I really want to savor this one.