This Beautiful Place, I Am

I can hear that title in a Nigerian accent, as if it were something said to me that caught me unawares, and I can feel the thought forming in my head as to what it could mean. All English words, but the composition is jumbled, or is it?

I am in a beautiful place.
I am a beautiful place.
There is a place of beauty and I am part of it.

We first came here two years ago. We chose it again this summer after failing to make more complicated travel plans to Acadia National Park, Maine. We chose it because we could bring Primo, and last time Primo loved it. We chose it because it is easy, and we love it. We chose it so we could have the summer we didn't have at home. We chose to stay two weeks instead of one, and to do as little as possible.

I chose it to have the summer I have never had. The one you might read about as a Young Adult in a Young Adult novel, about a girl who goes to Cape Cod for the summer and she lives in her bathing suit night and day, even rides her bike to the store in her bathing suit. Each sunset melts into the next, and the days are pretty much all the same...beautiful and beautiful and peaceful and peaceful and easy and easy. Each day is like the next, and yet, you're a little sorry when one ends, because it means one less at the end, it means finite.

The week before we left, I worked from home a few days, and perhaps that's what caused all the crying and wailing. The week before that, I had no choice. Work was a tornado. And it was a blessing. 

I gave into grief. I decided that if it really wanted me, it could have me. I also decided that if it could do without me for an hour or two, then I would put grief in detention until I could devote all my time to it. 

I started to feel like going on a trip was the wrong thing to do. Like I shouldn't be out enjoying something when I should be grieving.

Packing was more laborious than usual. 

We arrived, and I felt a horrible pang of missing Primo overcome me. How could I be here? Without him? How could my life had changed so much?

That depression I went through in September and October...did I somehow know? I think I might have. I think I might have known that he was not long for this world.

But yes, I am struck by how different my life feels since two years ago. 

We settled in pretty quickly here. I let myself cry whenever I wanted, and it would hit me at the damnedest times...for example, when I was underwater, snorkeling, I started crying. I decided, "Okay, here it comes, I will swim underwater and stare at the ocean floor and cry through my tube," and that is what I did.

We brought Abby, my kitty. She loved it right away.  She thinks this is our new house. I wish she were in charge.

I can hear the ocean day and night. This house is right on the beach. I have never had an ocean front house. I have never awoken to a loud sound, like a generator, in the middle of the night, and realized, "Oh, it is only the ocean."

I watch the sun baptize itself nightly in the sea and not come out.

I watch the milky way rise up out of the sea and climb up the sky hour by hour. I see thousands of stars, and I see mars, which is red and prominent. I stare at the stars and I use my astronomy charts, and I cannot make sense out of this sky, which looks like chaos but is actually perfectly timed science, nature's own clock.

I stare at the water and the sky that meets the water, and I can see all around me, like a globe, I have a global view, I guess, I see 360 degrees, and I see no beginning and no end. 

And I spend a lot of my time, trying to lose all my edges so that I am not separate from this beauty that surrounds me but rather a part of it. I think of myself as a star that must cast a certain amount of light for the good of the being itself, this being that I am part of, bigger than earth...life I guess. When I feel so small, I feel so much lighter, my mind so much freer. 

And everyday I feel freer and lighter and the light comes back and I think about how I will keep my edges worn down when I must go back to the land where there are ends and beginnings and no view whatsoever.

And because I forgot the SD card to my camera, I can take only a few photos, so instead I commit this space to my memory so that I can put myself there anytime.

I see to the West the Gulf and to the east the bay, and sun sets on the gulf and it rises on the bay, and the bay itself can be ugly. Brown and sludgy and slimy with seaweed. Except when the sun is rising, then it captures the pink clouds over head, and it turns cerulean blue, and I see the egrets and eagles and tall reeds, and it is even more beautiful than the ocean.

I belong in these moments. I belong to them. These moments. They are having me. I will give into them every time. But first I must remember to keep my guard down. To keep those edges filed.

--Cape San Blas, Florida

Photo 365 2012

Don't know if I took one photo per day, but I sure took more than 365.

And they wouldn't load in chronological order.

 

 Messing with my mom's centerpiece after Christmas

 Troubadours of Divine Bliss at The Beat Lounge

 Street antics during the Super Bowl.

Wintertime hotel indoor poolside reading: WSJ and some ghetto smut.

 Judy's ride at Sun King

Shawn hitching a ride

 Doors are smarter than people

Valentine's flowers

Abby in the bag

 Found a replica of the dollhouse I had as a child at an antique shop

 Pretty windows

 Indianapolis Symphony

 Road trip with Primo and Abby

 Early spring pier on Lake Michigan

 Back in the bag

 Jello-eggs

Messing with my mom's Easter basket

Playing ball in the barn at the old farmstead

Blossoms

 Easter Eggs

 Sunset at Easter Lake Michigan

 Temple Grandin. I trespassed into this private event.

 Angela and Ellie at the studio doing voice-overs for my play

Pretty sure it's the Hotel California

Grey seal begging off the pier at Balboa Beach, Orange County

Orange County sunset

Joshua Tree rock formations

Favorite motel in the world. Twenty Nine Palms, CA, outside of Joshua Tree

Sunset art

Death Valley

Courtyard of Harmony Motel

Hot day in Death Valley

Mesquite Flats Dunes in Death Valley.

 Santa Monica Pier

Redondo Beach

 Sunset on Hermosa Beach

 Flowers from cast and crew (Jim and Kri n Hettie)

Chicago

 Chicago

Girlyman stage

Girlyman instruments

The inimitable Martine Locke at Radio Radio

The clouds part in Grand Haven

Spooky head

Big head

Orange hog

Convertible in the desert

Hotel in Dana Point

Cholla gardens, Joshua Tree

My favorite motel, poolside after a long hot day of hiking

U2 stayed here before they were mega superstars

Favorite bar/restaurant in Montecito, outside of Santa Barbara

The Angels game

Poppa beer, Momma beer, Baby beer

Fountain park with my nieces and nephews

Beautiful Grand Mere

Planning the next big trip over pizza and beer

Grand Mere

One of my many dinner parties. This one was my "Richard Burton" dinner party.

Fave tree on the bluff

Toys at work

Oldest bookstore in Chicago

Pink clouds in my backyard

Mallow Run Winery

Camping trip with Primo

Primo taking afternoon nap on camping trip.

Camp breakfast

South Haven

South Haven

Sherman's Ice Cream

Brandi Carlile concert

Horseback riding in "Narnia."

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Museum

City Market Cleveland

Cuyahoga Falls

Marilyn in Palm Springs

Road runner in Death Valley, on a golf course

Death Valley

 Melissa Ferrick post-concert interview!

 Acrobatic archer Pacer's halftime show

 A strange city called Sloss in Alabama

 Cotton fields, Deep South

 Chloride Fields Amboyn, CA

 Selma to Montgomery Freedom Trail National Park

 Tea Kettle Junction Death Valley

Jim Morrison, Venice Beach

Jellyfish on Cape San Blas

 Mojave

 Silliness at work

Kri n Hettie "Sirens: Chasing the Sun" at IndyFringe

The Jucy Mobile

Cuyahoga Falls National Park

 Sunset Cape San Blas

Full moon Cape San Blas

Shrimp boil, yellowfin tuna, hush puppies and veggies at Cape San Blas

Sunrise at Cape San Blas

Cemetery Apalachichola

Shrimp boat Apalachicola

Grave yard Apalachicola

 Sunset after rain

Bear climbing down tree in Eastpoint, FL

Horseback riding Cape San Blas

Sunrise Cape San Blas

Shelling Cape San Blas

Christmas Tree St. Joseph Peninsula State Park FL

Atlanta Fringe

 Port Saint Joseph Peninsula

 Primo and Ruby

 Found oysters in Indian Pass!

 Salinas Bay

 Winter returns

 Jukebox bowling alley

 Fun at work

 Grafitti

 Ice skating

I made cookies for Christmas

Very sad childhood for these kids!