Kissed by ocean mist
Listen to my message....
Clutching my prized artist tool in my little girl hand, I’d battle the woman who tried to tug it away. She would always win and then chastise me more, saying it was “dirty”.
By stealing my artist brush, I felt I was robbed twice, and instinctively lamented with deep emotion, similar to words sung by Susan Bullock, the demented princess in the Opera, Elektra.
After feeling the sting clapped on my bare bottom delivered from her disciplining hand, I’d surrender and raise my white flag, my terrycloth beach towel. My loud cries slowly transformed into hushed sniffles, and I’d seem to hiccup and shake as my whole body was recovering from the drama of it all. Wrapped in white terrycloth, I’d stare sadly at my mother, marveling at her inability to understand the mind of a sand writer.
But how could she understand the joy of sand writing ?
Like the seagulls leaving their footprints, I wanted to leave behind my childish priceless creations, stories etched with love for hours on nature’s soft canvas. I knew God had blessed me. I was a sand writer.
The diary of a sandwriter...
Nothing much has changed since those early days. I live 5 minutes from the Sagamore Bridge and the Cape Cod ocean breeze still beckons me.
My day at the “office” is every once in a while spent on Mayflower beach in Dennis. Even in the winter, you might find me, bundled in a warm jacket, holding a pen and pad on my lap, nestled between two sand dunes that serve as my armor, protecting me from the blistering winter wind that tries to slap my cheeks and frost my nose.
I sit for hours in solitude, embracing the beauty of nature, and every once in a while stop my writing, distracted by sea gulls gliding over head. They symbolize beauty and freedom to me and I enjoy watching them coast along sea breezes. Their white feathers are vivid against the back drop of gray Cape Cod winter sky.
The fragrance of salty mist from the frothy white foamed caps alert my senses. I listen to the sound of crashing waves hit the jagged,black jetties nearby. The sound of water hitting stone, creates a soothing rhythm that perhaps subconsciously, reminds me of the calmness I must have experienced as I floated in my mother’s womb.
This serenity makes me very aware that I am not alone. I feel His presence and know he is watching me. In my heart, I rejoice knowing that he has blessed me with a special gift, a value that can’t be measured but understood by other authors, who are all sand writers in their own way.
I know God has blessed me and wants me to put this gift to good use. And I thank him with humility, like a child thanking her father, and I realize the power of words and the responsibility to write with honesty, integrity and sensitivity, the writing style of a true sand writer.
My love of words, the joy I feel when I create, and my passion for writing is what I thank Him for every day. It’s my saving grace and small personal miracle at work.
I know this because it releases my pain, when I’m sad. It comforts me when I am worried. It sends my thoughts and messages out in a glass bottle floating on calm water, waiting for readers to find.
This gift flows through my veins, awakens all my senses, and sometimes forces me to write in the dark, like Thoreau, so afraid that I’ll forget my thoughts by dawn’s light.
My fingers click quickly on my keyboard creating a form of tap dance, in times of happiness. Like Plato or Hellenistic philosophers, it helps me think deeply and make sense out of all the background static, the many distractions and worries in my everyday life.
I invite you today, to sit beside me. Feel what it is like to called to the ocean’s shore. Imagine the softness of Cape Cod white sand, as you nestle yourself between two large sand dunes . Close your eyes and listen to the rustling of sea grass. Find the message I send you in my bottle, and realize I have no agenda but to become your friend.
I’m a sand writer, a friend to entertain you, provide comfort when you’re feeling low, or make you think or feel differently about a certain subject. That is what a sand writer should always try to do, if he wants to be a master at his craft.
I hope you will reflect on the messages I send your way and somehow, even in the smallest way, I have left my footprint, by touching your heart, mind or soul.
The wish of all sand writers is to leave a sweet kiss of ocean mist on the rest of her reader’s day.
And I still ask the same question, that I had always asked my mother at the end of each beach day. As she tried to clean the salt and sand off me, I would continue to be difficult child. I’d fight to break free, as she worked hard to dip my little girl feet ,one at a time int0 a brightly colored beach pail, filled with ocean water. All the while, I’d be asking her to let me go so I could keep writing in the sand.
My question to her was:
“If seagulls leave their footprints, why can’t I?”
My mother’s answer to me:
“I suppose anything is possible. Now quit squirming before I spank you again!”
You can follow me on twitter, writingsbylu
- Sand writing along Cape Cod…
Thank you for reading!
