Holden Beach: Day #4

This was the girls' house for this week, "Tig na Mara".  Every morning we've been getting up and reading  and discussing passages from an unpublished book by Dennis McCallum about the church as we feel the house sway slightly.  Every morning after we finish reading we then crank up the music and have a mini dance party on the steps.  Every morning we all put our bikinis on and then take off for the beach together.  And today we were lucky enough to see SUNSHINE.  What a glorious sight after all the overcastness, one that we capitalized on.

In the afternoon, after some fun at the beach, a lot of boys and Emily Morris and I went to the second annual tennis tournament.  Last year's tennis tournament happened on the day where happy hour involved headdresses, so most bystanders were Arabian from the earlobes up.  This year, Cynthia and Emily Maxwell cheered us on from the sidelines, minus the headdresses.  They cheered me on to a magnificent 6-0 loss to Emily Morris.  We left the boys shortly afterwards, men (like mine) serving balls at speeds we could not, and did want to, compete with.  Besides, we were running late for our girls' ice cream date.  (We left around 3; we heard that the final round wasn't even over until after 8)

Claire was catching up with a friend that lives near the beach, and the rest of us went to this little ice cream place just over the bridge called "The Scoop".  While Grace was driving past one of the beach shops, she saw a sign in front that said "Welcome Xenoids", much to our delight.  After being served up by a rather disinterested young guy at "The Scoop", Emily Morris made the mistake of getting a waffle cone with a hole in the bottom, so she spent half of her time bent over a trash can as it slowly leaked away; there was a trail of ice cream drops leading from the swing to the can.  We talked about who was going with who for Date Night the following night (always on Wednesdays night every single year) and took silly pictures of each other.  Which is no competition for the pictures that were taken an hour later.

You see, today's happy hour theme is "Trashy Tuesday", and while we were eating ice cream the girls had an epiphany for how they wanted to dress up: cut up white garbage bags and make their own trashy prom dresses.  So they're rushing around the house, teasing their hair, talking in ridiculous accents, and deliberating over what their drawstring pageant sashes should say.  Then some of the boys showed up in their attire, dressed to the nines for the event.  I was feeling a little peopled-out at the time, so I took everyone's picture and wished them well, and grabbed a book for some quiet time on the beach.  Later, after Dave spent some time at 'Merica's happy hour, he described how everyone was wearing trash bags and talking in very loud hick accents.  I can only imagine.

Out on the beach, I found the sad rubble of Grace's enormous sandy turtle serving as a platform for a small child's sandcastle.  Apparently, the girls' had watched the family building it, but it was obviously too late.  What do you say? Hey, you, yeah, the 4-year-old with the pigtails, buzz off.  This is OUR sand pile.

I sat on the beach reading for a short time but was continually distracted by the beauty around me.  For a split second I regretted forgetting my iPod, but immediately realized what a stupid thought that was.  It was staggering, sitting in the middle of a panoramic picture jam-packed with creation and life and beauty.  Clouds of abstract shape littered the sky, cooling from afternoon orange to an evening purple.  The waves crept farther and farther up the shore as the sun slid farther and farther down; the air was clean with the tang of the salt.  Such big beauty reminds you that: it's all taken care of.  We frenetic little insects, we barely lift our heads from the grindstone to see that it's all taken care of.  This is part of what this trip is about - getting to pause long enough to see it, to see that you're in the world and not running it.  A world of motion and poetry and a delightful abundance of frivolity.  

I walked down the beach toward the boys house to meet Dave for a walk, the waves unrolling before my feet like a silky carpet.  He and I drove to eat a late dinner together at Hardee's, a treat that's unfound in Columbus, and to reconnect.  It's amazing how even this short of a time apart, and even not that far apart, really matters.  And by the time the night had ended, he had walked me back home while holding my hand, the stars were out and my belly was full of a strawberry shake.  And still, going to bed, I was wrapped in the feeling that it's all taken care of.