"Okay mom."
I brushed the sand off my sticky arms and legs and jumped up out of my post swim stupor, leaving my damp towel askew in the sand. My siblings, Anne, Linda and Gray were all lost in their own worlds in half-sleep states, oblivious. Everyone's hair was still wet and tangled from our salty swim.
The breeze danced around over my skin as sand continued to fall off the parts of my body I hadn't swiped. Mom was wearing the same faded one-piece bathing suit she had worn the summer before and the summer before that.
The straps fell loose around her brown shoulders and she was carrying a small plastic beach bag. I trotted beside her, my eyes squinting from the sun, riveted to the sand, sidestepping baby conch shell pods and fly-covered seaweed piles, scanning every inch of
beach.
The sky was neutral in color, and the seagulls swooped in my peripheral vision. The smell of decaying sea matter wafted in the air. We were on our quest for the most perfect shells and pieces of sea glass, heading west into the sun down our beach, not a soul in sight.
"Look Little Bits!" her pet name for me, "Over there!" I studied the sand in the direction that her finger pointed and finally saw the beautiful bottle green gem poking out of the beach debris, ran over and scooped it up.
"Thanks Mom. Ooohhh, it's beautiful!" I rubbed my fingers over the sea-smoothed edges, marveling at how much they had been worn over an unimaginable length of time.
I held it up for her to see, and even though her Venus body was back lit her smile beamed. I dropped it with pride in to her bag. We would walk about half an hour one way, and half an hour back. Just the two of us, not talking much, delighting in the prizes we would find to add to our collection. Our standards were equally high, not accepting anything the beach yielded that wasn't perfect.
It was our time alone together, and she was my goddess.
Lisa also sings beautifully. Check out her Return to Jazz Standards on CD Baby.
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