Little brother

The hospice room is cold.  But that’s the way my brother wants it, and it is his death, so be it.  He wants it dark as well.  So the blinds are pinched tight, so now, even at noon, just the barest sliver of sunlight seeps inside.  And quiet…so very, very quiet.  The television that sits high upon a pedestal attached to the wall is dark and mute; voices behind that wall waver somewhere between hushed and a whisper.  That’s the way he wants it, it's his death, and I am but an observer.  

One sconce wall light aims a pale glow toward the ceiling, and, with the door closed tight, the silence and darkness create a tomb.   My brother's physical being has already begun to take on a waxy pallor, almost a translucence…a delicate, ivory container of a soul preparing to drift away.  He lies on his back, his breathing a soft snore.  He wakes sporadically, or appears to wake, his slitted eyes barely focusing with just a ghost of a glint,  his mouth barely moving, suggesting just the hint of a smile.  This wonderful man, this brother of mine, always bigger than life, always pleasantly loud, and with a presence that crowded rooms in a comfortable fashion.

Where is he going, this brother of mine?  I knew where he had been, I knew where he thought he would be going over the next several years of his life, the silver, golden, and platinum years, but melanoma stepped in and said, “Hey there, Buddy, hang on a minute.  There’s been a change of plans.”  My wife said that she was mad at the melanoma and I told her that hey, it’s just cancer being cancer.  Truth told though, if I could have personified it, I would have grabbed it and choked the life out of it, and sent it back to the bowels of hell from whence it came.

I profess my love over several hours but suspect my timing sucks.  It isn't the first time I've told him I love him, but I have to admit that the two of us only came to terms with terms of endearment late in life.  But I suppose that when it comes to expressing love, it may be late, but it doesn’t ever have to be too late.

I hold his right hand.  The one that I shook so many times before we got comfortable with man hugs.  If we ever did get comfortable with them.  His hand is cold, really cold.  And it makes me think:  you know, it just isn't right for him to be lying there in that bed.  That’s not the territory that he is supposed to be exploring.  He is supposed to be on the beach with his wife and with Dude, the rescue dog, while Pearl, the rescue cat, waits for them to return to their retreat on St. George Island.  He is supposed to be cleaning his pool or claiming a stalk of bananas from his tree out back or seeing what's good on the tube for the evening.  He is supposed to be walking and talking and breathing big, huge breaths of humid, salty Gulf of Mexico air.  Or planning to return to the farm on Champ Road in Kelso to prep seedlings for the upcoming garden season.  Or just sitting on the front porch of his cabin and gazing in the direction of the Elk River, wondering if the herons would return in the spring after last year's tornado turned their century old habitat into splintered and twisted ruins.

He isn't supposed to be taking shallow breaths and making restless movements in a metal bed in the hospice wing of a hospital in Panama City, Florida.  He isn't supposed to be battered and beaten by a nasty, aggressive cancer that made the fury of last year’s tornado  as innocuous as an April breeze.  He isn't supposed to be dying in front of my eyes.

Little brothers aren’t supposed to die before big brothers.  It’s the big brother’s job to see the little brother all the way through.  A big brothers’ work doesn’t stop at holding onto the back of the bicycle until the little brother  learns the physics of balance… running alongside him as he gains confidence…faster and faster…until the little brother says, “Hey, I got it!”  Until he wobbles and twists to that point of no return, where, if you love him, you let him go.

 It doesn’t stop at the sideline coaching of Little League games.  A big brother doesn’t get to stop pacing the floor when his little brother with brand new driver's license isn't home at midnight or when you stand with him at the altar waiting on the love of his life to appear or any of those times as an adult  when he asks for a little advice he doesn't plan to heed anyway.  It doesn't stop just because you're both north of sixty and with more age spots than hair.

Oh, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen.  Because I’m here to tell you it does.  I’m hear to tell you that little brothers sometimes leave this world before big brothers.  Oh, yes, they do. And it isn't pretty but it is what it is.

So I sit in that cold, dark, quiet room and listen to my little brother breathe.  I whisper I love him in case he can hear.  I pat his hand and kiss his forehead.  I cling to the seat of that strange ride he’s on...as he goes faster and faster, I strain to maintain my grasp.  I run alongside him as we both grow breathless.  Until eventually something tells me he’s got it…that, yes, it is time...for he has reached that point of no return.

And then, because I do love him, I let him go.

Re-tire-ment

The online etymology dictionary tells us this about the word "retirement":

  

retire (v.)

1530s, of armies, "to retreat," from Middle French retirer "to withdraw (something)," from re- "back" + old French tirer "to draw" (see tirade).  

Meaning "to withdraw" to some place, especially for the sake of privacy, is recorded from 1530s; sense of "leave an occupation" first attested 1640s (implied in retirement).  Meaning "to leave company and go to bed" is from the 1660s.  

I suppose retirement is a little of all those things.  Now, with nearly a full year under my belt, I wish I had volumes of wise thoughts and profound suggestions for those of you a year or a decade or several decades from retirement.  Heck, I'd settle for being able to provide a few words of wisdom, but, unfortunately, deeper wisdom isn't something I can claim as a result of retirement.

I have retreated a bit.  But to an introvert, that's not only natural, but it feels welcoming as well.  Withdraw?  I suppose.  Though I would prefer the word "redraw" if there's such a word...as in redrawing priorities.  

What have I missed...being retired and all?  

I would quickly say the "social" side of being employed.  It likely makes some people smile, and others cringe, to realize and be comfortable with the fact that the majority of your life is spent with your co-workers.  Your waking life anyway.  If you do the math, you've got at least eight hours a day "at work," eight hours a day sleeping, and then the rest of the time is divided between non-work friends and social activities, traveling (sometimes for work) and family.  And let me be quick to say that spending the time with these "work people" isn't a bad thing.  I'd argue that much of who you are at the end of your work life is molded by these folks - your work family.  That will be where the majority of your memories lie, like it or not.

What else have I missed?

Well...the paycheck was pretty darn nice.  I realize that many of you work for the sheer pleasure of it.  Me?  I worked for the moolah.  Fortunately, I enjoyed what I did, so getting paid for something you enjoy doing is definitely a blessing.

What else?

A sense of productivity.  Which, I readily admit, can be satisfactorily replaced if I get off my rear end and do some or all of the things I said I was going to do when I retired.  But, let me say this, it's been nice to be lazy.  To have no goals to hit.  To have no objectives to meet or exceed.  To have no responsibility toward anyone but myself and those close to me.  I figure that I owed myself a year of that.

There is one thing I can tell you without hesitation.  And this is something that has been percolating for the entire first year of my retirement.  Something that has risen to the surface in all its glory and splendor.  (the caveat here is that I don't expect any of you to accept this at my face value...you'll probably have to experience it for yourselves.)  It's not deep.  It's not wise.  It's just fact.  

It is a waste of good brain cells to worry about whether you will have "enough money." You likely will, and, if you don't, folks are standing in line to hire the cheapest labor known in modern times:  Baby Boomer retirees.  What you will come to realize is that your continuing prayer will be that you will have enough time.  Enough time to, in a fully unencumbered way, enjoy waking each morning to a fresh day...a brand new number on the calendar...a newly printed lease on life, with the ink still wet and glistening like morning dew.  Enough time to laugh at the silly things that you once thought were so serious and important.  Enough time to radiate in the smiles of friends and family.  Enough time to curl up with a good book; take long, ground-grabbing strides through the woods or along the river; hold tightly to the hand of someone you love; or sit quietly at the ocean or atop a ridge or in a comfortable chair and just luxuriate in the glory of God.

Let me repeat...it ain't about the money.  It's about the time.  

Instead of dollars and cents, make my currency days and months and years.

One more thing.  If you're really up for a challenge, go and ahead and start practicing some of those retirement activities now...you know, the ones that don't require a red cent to enjoy.  And that bring priceless joy to your life.  Go ahead and practice a little unencumberedness.  It'll give you a leg up when your retirement genie knocks on the door.  

Sort of a preview of coming distractions.

Happy New Year - all.

Thanksgiving Eve ramblings

At the farm this morning, a seasonal chill slowly gave way to an optimistic fried-egg sun simmering on an icy blue sky.  The weak attempt of a frost from the night before surrendered, turning to a harmless dew that produced thousands of quivering rainbows in the diamond strewn grass.  Coat weather slowly evolved to jacket weather and finally to shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

Casper and Jelly Belly, freed from the confines of the farmhouse, took a constitutional hike, fanning out across the tufted fields before returning to the yard to wallow in the crisp air and upon the moderating lawn.  The sun caught the brilliance of their black cat hair which, delightfully, reflected as pure silver.  B-Man, 'Stache, White Kitty, and Cali Cat wandered cautiously from the stalls of the nearly two hundred year old barn, finding their own patch of sunshine in which to preen and groom the morning away.  Momma Kitty remained staunchly solitary, patroling the edge of the woods, with careful posture and watchful eye for whichever one of her rivals might decide to swoop upon her unannounced and most certainly unwelcome.

I have a friend who jokingly claims that I have a cat ranch.  It often occurs to me that he might be correct.

With great effort and no small amount of back strain, I moved the headstones of Benji, Gidget, and Little One closer to Shirley's gravesite.  It was just one more small repair job sitting around waiting to be done since the April tornado.  Their graves remain in the backyard of Mom's former house, unbeknownst to the new occupants.  No harm, no foul.  I certainly couldn't move their graves, but I could at least preserve the headstones, and, at least to my way of thinking, their memories.  Kelsie's ashes are with Mom, just as she requested...just about every week for two years prior to her death.  If you were one of Margie's dogs, you never got treated "like a dog."

For many, Thanksgiving is being with families or missing the families they want to be with.  Maybe both.  For me, Thanksgiving is remembering the old days...the days when my parents were younger than I now am and my grandparents were...well...not much older than my current age.  And there are new generations creating their own versions of the old days.  I'm just not.  Though I think of my parents often, it's on the holidays that I think about them the most.  And missing them becomes most acute.

I inherited my Mom's love for animals.  Heck, let's be honest.  I inherited her fanaticism for animals.  Take Misty, for example.  She was part of an odd threesome that Mom discovered one day on the way to the farm.  There was an old abandoned school house that squatted several yards off the dirt road, becoming a makeshift haven for three odd fellows:  a dog, a cat, and a rooster.  Those three were the best of friends, you never saw one without seeing them all, and, as did every animal that came into contact with my mother, they took to her.  It probably helped that she stopped every day to feed them.  The three amigos preferred to take their meals together, so my mother would open a can of cat food, a can of dog food, and spread a handful of chicken feed, each and every day, rain or shine, sleet, snow, or sun, and provide them with a comforting audience while they chowed down.  There were no days off, no holidays, no every other Sunday.  Each day, they listened for Mom's Jeep and were lined up and ready to dine before the dust settled under her tires.  Unfortunately, mankind intervened, and some not so nice fellows shot the cat and the rooster, but the dog managed to escape.  Mom found the cat and rooster and gave them a proper burial.  Misty got to go home in the Jeep.

Kelsie was found on a sub-freezing January day at the end of the long driveway that winds to the farmhouse.  She lay beneath a dead sibling.  Kelsie was also assumed dead but when Mom placed the tiny pup in the palm of her hand, she noticed just the slightest of movement.  Wrapping the little ice cube of a puppy in her sweater, she hurried her back to the farmhouse and performed a famous Margie Miracle.  Kelsie grew to weigh sixty pounds and lived another ten years.

Our four-legged friends have similar stories.  Casper and Jelly Belly were on death row at the Animal Shelter, hours away from the dreaded walk.  B-Man, 'Stache, White Kitty, and Cali Cat were holed up under the porch of a building on busy Highway 64 probably only days away from death by speeding car.  Or hungry coyote.  Or callous human.  And some of you already know that we caught some beings, questionably human, tossing Momma Kitty and three kittens out into the woods from the trunk of a car.

There was not even the mew of a cat at the farm this morning.  Other than two loud shots from across the river, likely fired at some unsuspecting deer, the only sounds I can easily recall are the raspy rattle of the breeze through brittle leaves and the thumps and bumps of an industrious woodpecker, searching for some tasty morsel just beneath the outer layer of bark of an ancient, rotting elm.  This was a morning in which the whole landscape seemed to be anointed with the Balm of Gilead.  Not one shred of the hate and anger and rage that is running rampant in other parts of the country and world wormed its way into the late autumn peacefulness of this part of rural Tennessee.

And I was thankful for that.

I was also thankful for my ancestors who decided to settle among acres of woods and pastures along the Elk River and worked and managed those acres through hard times and times of plenty.  I was thankful for a mother who had a sweet, angelic connection with nature and animals and a father who tolerated, and even at times, shared it.  I am thankful for grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and the Thanksgiving feasts of the past.  I am thankful for tradition because, in frequently troubled times like these, tradition is a tangible and accessible branch jutting from an otherwise steep and stony precipice.  The saving grace, if you will.

I'm even thankful for that perservering woodpecker whose percussion lent excellent accompaniment to the leaf stirring breezes as well as sweet accentuation to the light, heavenly silence of this wonderful Thanksgiving Eve.

And I thank God for allowing me to not only experience a wonderful, soul-enriching morning, but to have the good sense to realize how blessed I am for the experience.   And for comprehending how rare and sacred these simple pleasures are.

I wish something just as rare and sacred for all of you.

Through a glass darkly...

Personal spiritual leanings aside, you can't help but be taken by the beauty of Saint Paul's writings.  Like a two-year-old to a cat's tail, I've always been drawn to one line in particular:  "For now we see through a glass, darkly:  now I know in part: but then I shall know even as also I am known."

Words have always held me captive, much like the early bubble lights on my first Christmas trees or, as in this very moment, the constant ebb and flow of waves against the unyielding beach.  I like the way you can weave words together like a hippie bracelet, picking and choosing from a pile of mismatched baubles, eventually tying the lovely chaos into a splendid whole.  An absolute potpourri of stones, gems, and what-nots that becomes an instant treasure.  When I come across a group of words woven into a delightful sentence or group of sentences, especially with an odd button or stone as the centerpiece, I get a little giddy.

I have to face it.  I'm irretrievably obsessed with with the "glass, darkly" part.  I'm even intrigued by the comma.  I'm not certain it appears in all translations, but it does in mine.  And I like it there and don't anyone dare take it away.  Because that just adds to the sweet mystery that lingers just on the palatable edge of discovery.  Those seven words create a universe for me - something that can't be sufficiently explored in a lifetime.  In a human lifetime, anyway.

And I wonder, as enlightened as Paul was (that fall on the road to Damascus was much longer than the distance from his horse's back to the ground), I wonder if he divinely knew that he was just scarcely nicking the surface of what I consider a bonafide example of God's sense of irony and maybe the keystone of His sense of humor:  science.

Stay with me here.

Let's consider the most obvious opposite of dark.   Light.  And let's agree that everything in the great beyond that can be seen today (and that's a bunch, thank you Edwin Hubble) still comprises only 4% of the universe.  Only 4%!  And let's concede that the scientists among us likely know about as much about space, outward and inward, as Paul did about Christianity as he stumbled toward Damascus.  So 96% of what we consider "the universe" is dark.  Dark.  Dark energy, dark matter...unseen, and to be frank, doggedly incomprehensible.

Which kicks us back to Paul for just a second when he says in his second letter to the Corinthians (good thing those folks in Corinth were so recalcitrant or we'd have had only one letter): "We live by faith, not by sight."

Whew...Paul!  If you only knew what you didn't know!

Now, to better appreciate God's sense of irony,  let's consider that He created electromagnetic radiation, aka light, but then He equipped us with eyes that can "see" less than a millionth of one percent of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Visible light.  Now, that needs to soak in a minute.  Less than a millionth of one percent.  What goes unseen, quite frankly, is incomprehensible but is known to exist.

And I should leave this alone, but I can't:  Paul was blinded by what?  The light!  Now am I crazy (don't answer that) or is all of this starting to feel related?  Here's the man who thought he knew it all, he gets knocked flat to the ground, blind as a bat, by a light, and then goes on some time later to write the pure poetry of I Corinthians.  Which includes the revelation that, compared to faith, sight isn't all that relevant anyway.

You know...we do.  See though a glass.  Darkly.

And that gives me immense comfort.

I have people close to me and people who have been passing acquaintances and people I've only heard about or read about who have either shared the commonality of death or who are sharing the commonality of serious physical, mental and/or emotional struggle.  They have been no strangers to dark places.  We will all walk that valley one day.  And I'd like to think that what we have waiting for us on the other side is at least 96% of the wonder and beauty of this strange and mysterious existence as well as that 99.99999999+% of light that we cannot see.  I simply don't believe God made it not to have us experience it.

Is the glass we see darkly through simply our eyes...those poor limited orbs that seem to fail a little more each year?   Are our eyes such primitive tools - and even after all these centuries of devising ways to "see" more, after all the inventions to see billions of miles into space or billions of atoms inwardly - will we always be able to see only darkly?

Or is the dark glass an expression of our earthly existence - the side of the glass we live on?  The side that can be maddeningly opaque.

There are estimated to be 17 billion Earth-sized planets in our galaxy.  And though we will never get scientists to absolutely agree on everything, it's thought that there are between 100 and 200 billion galaxies in our known universe.  Look, God doesn't mess around...when He creates, He creates.

And, maybe, just maybe, that's where the answers are to all the frustrating questions we ask over and over.  Like: why do bad things happen to good people?  Or why does pain and suffering exist?  Or what's the purpose of all of this?  You know...I'm sure those answers are tucked away somewhere in that 99.99999999+%.  Somewhere between here and Damascus.  Somewhere in this vast universe that likely, from what we can comprehend, sits on the head of a pin.  In the meantime, I'll let my faith begin where my sight ends.  Yeah, that sounds like a plan.  Because, when it comes down to it, that's all I know to do.

Horizons

I look out this morning to find a horizon drawn by God's straight-edge.  Put a level on it and the bubble would be right square in the middle...I'd bet on it.  Ocean horizons are defined and dependable.  They are predictable.  They are set and unchangeable.

No they're not.

It's estimated that a six foot tall person with his feet firmly planted in the sand will be able to see out to sea for three miles, and then the earth will rudely curve itself out of the picture.  Should he climb the lifeguard tower, the horizon moves out to around five miles.  From the patio of a Gulf front condo-say on the 10th floor-the ocean's horizon gets really gnarly, somewhere close to twelve miles out.

Where, pray tell, is this all going?  Well, we'll just keep poking at it and see what pops out.

Let's start with Robert Browning, a 19th century English poet, married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a bit of a fox if I may say so.  And it was from inspiration of that foxy lady, I suppose, that spawned the lines:  "Grow old along with me!  The best is yet to be."  From another work, he gives us: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"

As I sit here immersed in the white noise of the waves, fifty yards from the slow boil of the tide in the Gulf of Mexico, perched some forty feet above the beach, my horizon teases me from a distance of eight miles.  When, last evening, I stood at ocean's edge, I was limited to a panorama of three miles.  (And, by the way, if you wondered why you had to suffer through the scribblings of Pythagoras in high school geometry, you can't get to these numbers without his theorem.)

But let's keep going.  In order to gain that extra five miles to the brink of the horizon, I had to do work.  I had to experience some level of accomplishment.  And that accomplishment came a some sacrifice.  In the most basic sense, I had to drag luggage and food and every Apple device ever created up a couple of flights of stairs and stow all of it in the condo.  I distinctly remember sweating.  Profusely.  Shouldn't be a big deal but when Bobby Browning invited us to grow old with him, I'm not sure that he was doing a ton of step climbing.  At a secondary level, I had to work for many years and do the correct things around planning for the future so that one day I would be able to meet the financial obligations of a week on the Gulf coast.  Not exactly up to the standard of challenges faced by Warren Buffet, but something beyond a Christmas savings account at the local bank.  Regardless, let's be honest...we're still at the most basic level of meeting obligations and being even remotely diligent.

I could stair-step us right along at this point, but I think I'll just get to it.  Our horizon is nothing more than our reach.  And no matter who we are, we do have the ability to reach as far as we possibly can.  Sometimes we choose to reach...I mean really stretch it out there...and sometimes we simply decide to go for only that which is within arm's length.  It's our choice.  That simple.

So the question is:  is there really a discernible difference between seeing three miles of emerald green and agate blue versus eight miles?  I mean, the sea is the sea, isn't it?

Well, my answer is yes.  The sea is the sea.  And, yes.  There is a difference.  You can continue to climb after your legs buckle, you can choose to reach higher and longer, you can fight harder, and you can maintain a death grip on every foot...every inch...that you attain.  Because that extended horizon means a few more precious seconds of that delicious sunset - that melting ice cream sundae overflowing with cherry and strawberry sky and whipped cream clouds.  It's being able to see that magnificent ship steaming eastwardly six miles from shore, the ship that's not even a figment of your imagination when you limit yourself to three miles of horizon.  You have another zillion gallons of emerald sea for your eyes to relish before it meets that bank of clouds along God's razor-fine straight-edge.  It's the opportunity for another drop of satisfaction, another small bite of life...one more verse of your favorite song.

In the end, when you find yourself blessed to have lived a life that has recognized the value of conscious, dedicated effort, that is a gift in itself.  The bonus is having that prolonged reach being rewarded by an extraordinary grasp that we pray we will find a way to be worthy of.

I watch two seagulls breakfasting in the foam of the ebbing tide.  The breeze has picked up, ruffling the feathers of a persnickety blue heron.  The casual dining partners skitter back and forth devouring random treats.   Their horizon, according to Pythagoras, is less than a mile.  Poor birds.  Much less then a mile.  But, after a while, when they take wing with full stomachs and wet, sticky feet, they climb the currents of the sea breeze with amazing ease.  Higher and higher they go, until they are two indistinct dots against the blazing blue sky.  And I think, my God...they have the power to create an endless horizon - no limits, no ending!  And I believe it is just that, my friends, that Robert Browning was referring to when he said that the best is yet to be.  And, yes, yes, yes.  That is what a heaven's for.

It's cloud illusions I recall...

So...who would have guessed?  iCloud isn't secure.  Really?  It's a cloud, folks.  Shouldn't that tell us something right away?  There are no real walls, no solid steel doors with multiple locks.  No twenty-four hour security cameras monitored by multiple shifts of armed guards.

It's just a friendly little "cloud" loaded with tetrabyte upon tetrabyte of information, ready to hail down on you at any given moment.  Ready to experience a cloudburst.  And all the thunder and lightning that go with it.

But there is hope.  A bit complicated and hard to follow, however.  Sort of a mysterious, difficult-to-access solution.  But here it is, revealed for the first time by your humble blogger:  Don't upload anything that you wouldn't want downloaded.  Don't upload anything that might cause you discomfort, concern, or embarrassment in the future.  Try to keep your itchy little finger off the buttons.

Especially photos, and, sticking with that genre - especially, especially selfies.  Photos taken in mirrors.  Photos taken by your current significant other.  With extra caution if their status is about to change from "current" to "past."  And, yes, dear reader, photos that show you in all the glamour and glory of your most recently acquired birthday suit.

Folks, your private parts are only private if you choose to keep them that way.  So Jennifer, Kim, Ariana, Kirsten - all of you famous, fine-bodied beauties - stop taking multiple pictures of yourself half dressed or not dressed.  And if snapping semi-nude or nude selfies is an uncontrollable, incurable addiction, then stop uploading them.  Stop storing them in the cloud.  Any cloud.  Or get over the fact that everyone on this globe has now had all the mystery removed.

And if anybody else... you...or you...or you...is so inclined to flash your flesh, then understand that iCloud, that fluffy little storage warehouse in the sky, can suddenly turn into the number one distributor of iCandy.

It's sort of upload at your own risk.  And, if nothing else, remember Sir Isaac Newton's age-old maxim:  "What goes up, must come down."  And, odd, isn't it, the folk tale connected to this quote insists that he was sitting under a tree when he came up with that little core of wisdom.  That little seed of smarts.  That stem of understanding.

Yep, you got it.  The tree he was lounging under:  none other than an Apple tree.

Ain't life great!

Robin, Lauren, and the ocean

I suppose there are people who don't like the ocean.  I don't recall meeting one.  I've heard people prefer a mountain vacation over a beach vacation.  I've heard people say that they can't go deep sea fishing because they get seasick.  I've heard people say that they don't like the feel of salt water drying on their skin.  But not liking the ocean...can't say that I've heard that claimed.

As we wind down our latest trip to the Gulf, I'm struck with the sense that time has been suspended. When nearly every waking moment and all sleeping moments are filled with the surf rhythmically and methodically slapping the shore, I suspect hypnosis occurs.  I like the sound.  It's original.  It becomes so common after a while that I only notice it when I don't hear it.  When we are away having a meal or cruising the aisles of the Walmart SuperCenter a few miles away.  Normal everyday sounds become...well...normal.  I'm thinking that after a few days, one might just come to depend upon that sound (along with the shrieks of gulls and sunburned toddlers).  A audible addiction.

I told a friend this week that I believe that the sound of the surf is so appealing because it mimics the sound of the womb.  That I was certain that as our hearing developed, every time our mother shifted in her chair or walked to the kitchen for a sweet or salty snack, we would hear the sound of rolling water...the lullaby of the surf.  She said she's pretty certain that it's much more of a "gloop, gloop, gloop," sound.  I thanked her for that image and for virtually destroying years of romantic notions about my nine months in the womb.

But, in a way, time is suspended at the beach.  Things happen, we see snippets of news.  We read headlines.  But the ocean whispers for us to not fixate on those things. Stay chilled.  Relax.  Relax.  Relax.  Listen to my voice.

So, when we return to our home tomorrow, we can re-contemplate what has occurred while we luxuriated under the spell of the Gulf of Mexico.  We can re-examine the death of Robin Williams and properly grieve the passing of a shooting star, a true comet of talent, moving so fast and burning so brightly.  And having such a wide path that, for years to come, we'll still have wonderful Robin Williams sparks showering around us, keeping us amazed and amused.

We can think about the passing of the beautiful Lauren Bacall, a woman who defined sexy for me before I knew what sexy was.  And fully clothed at that.  How she shared the screen with THE motion picture icon and held her own.  Heck, she didn't just hold her own.  She stole the whole darn movie in that one scene.  "You do know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."  It still makes me feel light-headed.  She does too.

I haven't seen the news today.  I don't know if there was the death of a third celebrity, as the old superstition goes.  I hope not.  But if there was, I believe that that voice, as well as the voices of Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall, was not silenced, but rather became a part of the hum and murmur of the surf.  Just another set of voices, personalized frequencies, to add to millions of other voices from the near and distant past to contribute to one of the most pleasing sounds in the world.  I believe that their drops of essence become a part of an ocean of essence.  The tangy scent of salt on the breeze, the marching swells of turquoise and emerald waters, the slow and easy birth of the sun every morning, and, several hours later,  the western sky becoming a strawberry sundae mess as gentle evening reaches out to draw us near.

Another kind of evening drew Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall near this week.  And I pray that they have encountered another womb, another hypnotic drumming of life, another world in which to give and receive laughter and tears.  Laughter strikingly similar to the shrieks of gulls and sunburned toddlers.  Tears akin to the taste of the ocean on the tongue.  Newly released droplets in the shimmering ocean spray.  Newly released meteors showering across the night sky.   Newly released souls gently rising and falling on an eternal sea held afloat by the hand of God.