The overwhelm of preparing to travel and write in Europe for a year comes in waves. When I take a pause from the practical tasks, anxiety drowns my sense of adventure and washes away my optimism that my plans will work out fine in the end.
Everywhere I look, there is uncertainty. Will my house be okay? Will I find a tenant who will respect my belongings, and pay the rent on time so I can pay my mortgage?
Will I be lonely, or bored—can a year of writing be its own reward? And who am I to think I can go gadding about without a paying job? I am in my seventh decade—surely I should be acting more responsibly by now.
If I let it, the downward spiral of self-doubt masquerading as common sense can leave me stranded, staring at the ceiling for hours. So I take it to the beach and hope to see it shrink from the ocean under a wide open sky.
A Beach for Every Season
Living in Rhode Island, the Ocean State, I have my pick of beautiful beaches. I walk the closest, the town beach most days, year-round.
I love the stormy winter days when the fleet of seagulls is grounded in the parking lot, beaks pointing resolutely out to sea while the gusting wind picks at their wing feathers.
There is a community of walkers who frequent the beach during the off-season workday. We are the retired and semi-retired, recovering heart patients and custodians of the silver-muzzled family dog. We swing little black bags of poop and nod to each other but we don’t chat.
Instead, we smile at the families of sandpipers that scurry to and fro at the water’s edge like iron filings drawn by a trickster magnet invisible beneath the sand. The quiet of walking is our respite from tides of responsibility that sweep us between concern for adult children and caring for elderly parents.
Now it’s summer and the community has changed shape as the town fills with visitors for the week of July Fourth. At 7:30 am, teenage sentries will take up position beneath rainbow parasols and block the steps to anyone not wearing the correct $10 wristband.
I am sleeping so badly that it’s easy to get here in time to slip onto the freshly groomed sand before they arrive.
The Early Starters
I leave my flip-flops by the trash cans and sink my feet into the soft, cool sand.
I pass the group of about 30 people that meets here every weekday. They wear windbreakers and sit in a circle of beach chairs that feature cup holders for their coffee mugs. It could be the Chamber of Commerce, maybe an addiction support group, or a church congregation although the books balanced on their knees don’t look like Bibles.
The air is fresh with the breezy remnants of a cold front that came through last night. It whipped up the swell, driving waves towards the shore. Surfers with year-round suntans are limbering up next to the seawall; stretching and practicing their squats. Most are seasonal workers and the road outside the still-locked parking lot is lined with their beat-up trucks. They hope to catch a few waves before a workday in the yards and homes of the summer residents.
The first surfers are already bobbing on their boards like black rubber bullets and, as the new arrivals roll themselves into their wetsuits, they look anxiously toward out to sea, hoping they haven’t missed the best of the waves.
A cheery group of open water swimmers has gathered where the waves are calmer. They look to be about my age and the sea looks inviting. I wonder if, following a different plan, I might have joined this club. Unlike the female surfers, the women here don’t wear fashion-forward suits or show signs of needing to prove their worth.
Perhaps it’s simply the wisdom of their years, but I envy how confident the group seems about its purpose and place in the world.
Meditation By the Mile
The beach is almost exactly a mile (roughly 2 km) long and my walk becomes meditative. As I hit my pace, I realize that the anxiety I am working through has something to do with my sense of belonging.
If I no longer belong inside the walls that I painted when I bought the house, and lined with pictures collected over 40 years—when I have given that space over to someone else to make it their home, where do I belong?
This thinking doesn’t quite make sense to me yet. I left home at 17 and I’ve lost count of the homes I have made and unmade since then. My sense of belonging has always been something rooted inside myself—how did it shift to something so unwieldy and external?
I pass the main entry point to the beach and recognize a few local moms intent on getting their steps in. The school kids are on summer break so there’s no need to rush them out of bed and make breakfast.
I’m a couple of years beyond all that. Both of my boys skipped college and they don’t come home for the summer with bulging bags of laundry and expectations of family dinners. My transition to empty-nester was a swift ripping off of the bandaid.
The Beach Club
I pass beneath the historic walls of the private beach club. No weddings at this time of day, and the staff haven’t yet arrived to hoist the flags and set up dining tables on the deck.
A woman, simply yet elegantly dressed, watches me from the railing. She wears a finely woven straw hat perched on top of a silky head square that’s knotted under her chin in the style of a 1950s starlet. There is a frail rigidity behind her sunglasses and I look away, jolted by old feelings of being the help who should be busy in a kitchen somewhere.
In front of the rustic cabins with their flowering windowboxes, a young mom clutches a squirrelly toddler with one hand and a paper cup of pump pot coffee in the other. I smile at my younger self in the woman who has pulled a hasty sweatshirt over her pajamas and evacuated the restless child before they woke everyone else.
On the firm sand at the water’s edge, a good-looking guy in his 30s runs by in topflight sportswear. He has an earpiece and talks loudly without losing breath or pace—a business call to Europe? I am as invisible to him as the aging Hondas he passes in his Benz on the morning commute.
As a woman I’ve reached ‘that age’ and invisible is okay with me. Especially as I try to work out this question of where I want to belong in this new phase I am planning for my life. I keep my ears stuffed with Airpods, my eyes hidden by dark lenses and the brim of my cap pulled low.
There is a badge with two blue stars on my cap, one for each of my sons on active duty in the U.S. military. A man comes towards me with an Army star on his. He nods at me and pronounces, “Good morning, Ma’am” and I’m reminded that I belong to the military mom club. That’s a different kind of invisible known only to those aching inside the sorority.
Far Horizons
The beach opens up and I reach the end of the sandy spit. I scan the sky for ospreys preparing to swoop into the waves. On the horizon, fishing boats are steaming into home port, a day of offloading and clean up ahead before the crew is cut loose for the holiday.
The tide is full and container ships navigate the channel on their way to who knows where. Before I became a chef in the luxury yacht industry, I stood on the beach at night and watched the lights of ships vanish into the darkness thinking how lonely it must be. Now I’ve experienced the camaraderie of a crew embarking on an ocean passage, I know that loneliness is the feeling of being left behind.
I turn and begin the walk back. When I reach the town end of the beach, the lifeguards are sleepily putting their safety equipment in place. They climb into their perches as the first families of the day set up camp.
I need to get on with renting my house. It’s a modest 3-bedroom in a safe, though slightly ratty neighborhood and I have a stream of inquiries from low-income families. Ten years ago, that was me searching for an affordable, child-friendly option. I want to help but I am one small, short-term solution—I can’t save everyone.
I take a breath, the air laced with a touch of salt. It’s a new day, I have time. I will tackle some tasks from my to-do list then return to the beach when the sentries leave. I’ll bring a picnic supper and watch as the children build sandcastles and gleefully watch them wash away.
For
Thanks for reading. Please forward this to someone you think might enjoy it if you feel so inclined.
Warmly,
Beth
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My Mom died at the beach. It was here favorite place on earth. She had an aneurysm. I find such great solace in knowing the ocean was the last sound she heard. Thank you for sharing.
I enjoyed this essay so much, reading in my comfy kitchen before the sun burns off the morning clouds. I walk local beaches most days, too, but on the other side of this vast country in Southern California. Despite the dividing distance, we see and hear and feel many of the same wonders. And as aging women, we share similar experiences (although I suspect I'm a good decade further in the aging journey). I'm happy I found this this morning.