What a Picture is Worth

I saw a picture of a dog on the beach that made me feel sentimental and impulsive and suddenly I am in the car with both kids strapped tight in the backseat cruising 126 with a backpack full of extra clothes and a picnic lunch and Lauryn Hill is serenading us as I try really hard to obey the speed limit.

And I've driven 126 west so many times that I'm on autopilot and Ken Kesey interrupts my thoughts and I remember sitting in the sun on our deck and telling Brent I was pregnant, while a tattered copy of Sometimes a Great Notion sat on my lap. I will never forget the last lines of that book and how it all spoke to me in some weird and inexplicable way and how I held back tears, though the end is mostly happy and I didn't understand why the hairs on my neck stood up and I felt like crying. And a tiny Jack grew and cells divided and I sat in the warm sun and marveled at the strangeness of this life. Later I learned that Sometimes a Great Notion was my mom's favorite book. So now the tears make sense.

I hold two small hands as we explore the beach and I see things through a different lens. We chase the waves and laugh and get soaking wet and we all start shivering but nobody seems to care.

I wipe salty faces and try to get everyone's hands at least somewhat clean before lunch. And then I stop caring about that and we eat our peanut butter and jellies on a sandy picnic table and no one complains.

When the drizzle turns to a downpour we seek refuge in Sea Lion Caves and I don't even blink when they charge us a small fortune to get in the door. Because I am feeling impulsive, and these days being impulsive maybe means spending outside of the budget on something frivolous. Like sea lions.

I stand in line with a group of teenagers behind me and I can hear them laughing and carrying on the way only teenagers can and I wonder if they see me as a middle aged lady in a raincoat. I want to turn around and ask them to share the joke, because I don't feel like a middle aged lady in a raincoat. I feel like someone who would get it.

We end up at the dock and wander among the aging ships and I wonder who owns them. Where do they sail to? Jack does not understand why we can't go aboard. I consider trespassing for a moment, and then reality comes back to whack me over the head. I'm too old and responsible to do something like that.

I am almost thirty five years old and if I live as long as my mom did, that means I have ten years left. And I know as I hold small hands and look into the eyes of those small people who call me mama that it's not enough. I try to push that thought to the dark and cobwebby parts of my mind, but it is always there.

And so I focus instead on ice cream and smile as grandmotherly types comment about the adorable and sticky mess that Sawyer becomes and I know that I made the right choice when I saw the picture of the dog on the beach.

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