We unwrapped our package of tradition and history, threw our plush towel over our beach chairs and positioned the umbrella to shroud us in memory making splendor. My friend Linda and I grabbed some beach time and in old friend fashion played follow the dotes from one story to the next. With the same cadence and style our conversations typically go, we filled in blanks, shared updates on our tangential “so and so’s and left no beach shell uncovered. We offer friendly advice and hope our slant on things is incorporated in decisions that affect a change or two. One of those opaque and miasmic sentences, perhaps, but she’ll get it. Our only pause for air was sharing a turkey wrap, as we marveled at the glorious day we were sharing. This time we had an add on, a treat, a take away. Blended into the cacophony of the sounds of the water hitting the shore and the birds chirping above was a group of children at play. Their mothers and grandma were sitting close by.

Now that camp is over the beach was glittered with sand castles and the smell of coppertone and Bain de soleil. We glanced over to the delightfully noisy fuss of 10 year oldish cousins playing with buckets of water. In an of course moment, two of them were vying for the same bucket. We giggled, shared a grandchild story or five and went back to adding length to our nearly 30 year relationship. 

In a can’t make that one up moment, we sipped our lemonade, ate a pretzel and were startled by the kids grandma screaming “just give him the damn bucket.”

 I quickly knew I was about to magnify the bucket and weave a take away. In the children’s song about the hole in Liza and Henry’s bucket the song describes a deadlock situation. In order to fix the hole Henry would need the straw, to cut the straw he would need an axe, to sharpen the axe he would need to wet the stone, to wet the stone he would need the water in the bucket that had the hole. Phew! 

So just for today (through the red colored lense upon request when I had my cataract fixed) I say “let’s put our right foot in, take our right foot out and shake it all about. Then lets do the hokey pokey, turn ourselves around cause that’s what it’s all about.”Life can be a Beach. One day at a time!