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August 2013

Our vacation in Maine had come to its close, and for our last night we had dinner at Gypsy Sweethearts and took in ‘Young Frankenstein’ at the Ogunquit Playhouse. While I’m not in any way a Mel Brooks fan, I found the show funny and pleasantly diverting, and the performers were excellent across the board. Of course, that’s to be expected of the legendary Playhouse, where Ms. Bette Davis herself used to tread the boards. As for the show itself, aside from some show-stopping production numbers, I was amused but not entirely impressed. Chalk it up to a failure on my part in appreciating that sort of Brooksian humor.

On our way out of town, we stopped for one final fried clam platter. The wind had moved in, and the air was cooler. The gripping heat-wave of the previous week had broken. It was the first time I felt the tentative approach of fall. The goldenrod along the roadside echoed the hint. Still, there is much summer yet to be had, and we are in no way going to rush through it so soon. The fact that we got to spend a week of it in Maine was a rare treat.

I had never been on the Marginal Way after dark. I’m not even sure it’s technically allowed, but when you reach a thirteen-year crux in your journey, when you reach a point of desperation and momentary unhappiness, you don’t tend to care about such things as danger or wisdom or police. No one was on the path that wound its way along the shore, high above the riotous sea below.

There were no lights on the Way. Only the brightness of the full moon, directly ahead of me, drawing me onward, pulling me toward something I couldn’t quite see. Like most of those telling moments of confusion, I didn’t feel the least bit frightened, not at the physical circumstances at least. In truth, it was a foolish thing to do, and in the proper mind-set I would never have walked it, but I did. And I didn’t care.

At a few turns, my mind raced, more with wonder than worry, over what might be around the bend. A thick misty fog was all around, half-falling and half-suspended in the thick air. Whatever night creatures were about, or whatever menacing forces came forth from a full moon, stayed at abeyance. I walked the way in solitude. Slowly, as usually happens, my anger dissipated, replaced by a weary sadness, and the slow, morose desolation that comes after hurting someone, and being hurt.

Venturing down to the shore, where the sounds of crashing waves overwhelmed everything, my feet skidded but somehow kept me upright – the dress shoes from dinner being a poor choice for the rugged Maine shore. I briefly contemplated going in, feeling the chill of the icy night sea, flirting with the deceptive undertow, anything to jolt some sort of change, some kind of reaction, something to head off the deadening drone of time. And then the expanse of it, the power and might of its relentlessness, the fathoms of unfathomable darkness, roiling the sand and stone, scared me off. I shuddered there at the shore, damp in the mist, stung by the sea, and it was enough. I walked back to the lights, to the quiet town that now slept, to the still and empty streets that I’d only ever seen populated with throngs of merry-making tourists and visitors. To the room and the bed where my husband slumbered. To the life I had made for myself – for us – and, always at the end, to sleep.

Some couples, when asked about the secret to their everlasting happiness, say they never go to bed on an argument. That’s ridiculous. I’ve gone to bed on many a dispute. I’ve walked out of the house and stayed in a hotel. I’ve left mid-discussion and gone to the movies. For us, a little time apart works wonders. It’s not whether or not you go to bed on an argument, but whether or not you wake up still mad; the trick is what you do in the morning. Do you let things go (as we often do) or do you continue the fight? Resolution is good, but sometimes not resolving every minute detail is a resolution in itself. A relationship should never be done. They grow and evolve like the people in them, and I wouldn’t want it to be any other way.

A pretty thing, that moon. Catching on the caps of the waves, hanging over the liquid horizon, glowing as if lit by a thousand candles – it’s a beautiful sight. But such beauty comes at a cost, the magnificence in exchange for a little happiness. You have to give something to get something. In the past, to bask in the moonlight was to invite bad luck, to change the make-up of a person, transforming their body, their mind, their blood into something different, something dangerous.

There is a reason for the term ‘lunatic’ (from ‘luna’ meaning moon), and something to the pull of that satellite that turns normally sane and reasonable couples into antagonistic adversaries. The last time we had a super moon, Andy and I ended up getting in a huge fight. The same thing happened this time around. After a pleasant dinner and an after-dinner drink, we got into it (though I will not get into it here – that’s another story for another day). It is sometimes said that every couple has the same fight, over and over again, and unless one or both of the people involved really changes, the fight will continue. Maybe that’s what was happening. After thirteen years, there were character traits and personality quirks that still hadn’t quite reconciled themselves. In some ways you learn to live with it, but sometimes you still fight back.

I stormed off into the evening. Alone. It was nearly midnight. Only the moon would guide me…

On our anniversary, as it had done those thirteen years ago, it rained for most of the day. And like July 23, 2000, it also cleared by the time evening arrived. A lovely dinner at our favorite restaurant, Five-O, came with two flutes of celebratory champagne. They were good enough to save our favorite table for us, and the meal was lush and romantic. In fact, it was almost too perfect, and had it ended right there, it would have gone down as one of the all-time best. But #13 would not prove as lucky for us, thanks perhaps in part to the number, but mostly, I’m guessing, to the moon…

Lulled by the steady crashing of the waves, called by the cries of the gulls, and cradled by the warmth of the sand, Andy and I made our way to Ogunquit Beach. Though the water was almost 70 degrees (very high for Maine, thanks to a few days of 90 degree heat), it still stung at my feet, and I would not be going in. (Andy would brave it a couple of days later.) Protected by sunscreen and a straw hat, I also brought a towel and a book, and that’s all I’ve ever needed to have a good time.

The beach never fails to enchant, and those unfortunate folks who aren’t beach people, who can’t access its magic and calm, will always be suspect in my mind.

There is beauty all around, but sometimes you have to look for it, and sometimes you have to patiently wait for it to reveal itself. When one is accustomed to the cheap thrills of online entertainment or televised madness, the shore may not initially astound. But for those of us who have retained that wonder, who still have the ability to appreciate the simple and the still, it will hold us rapt.

Little gems can be found, hidden among the mounds of seaweed, speckled with sand, adorned with the fallen feathers of sea birds.

Like some wild necklace, strands of sea plants lie in brittle, dry swirls ~ the discarded jewelry of a mythical siren ~ sadly beautiful and gorgeously tortured.

Bits of wreckage and bulbous seaweed pods, the trapped finery of a lost feather, and the mangled limbs of a multitude of tiny crabs – all get swirled together, then dropped upon the sand, left for dead beneath the unrelenting elements: a fiery sun, a sand-stinging wind, the very ocean itself.

It has a way of bending time. Like the warped, once-malleable sea life, time too gets distorted here where land meets water meets sky. It’s tricky business, meddling with such elemental forces, and there is always the possibility of ruin, but it’s a beautiful ruin.

We depart in a daze.

Does the ship see?

Are they looking back too?