It doesn't feel like it, but it is...wonderful old Christmas eve. On this day 700 years ago, mummers would go from house to house dancing and singing and spreading cheer...why can't I be a mummer?
But today has been good. I awoke to the sun over the sea, turning the black depths to a golden peach, the grey sillohouettes of birds hunched against the cold like roman statues in some strange mystic garden. I finally got up after observing the varying shades and colors of the beauty for a few hours, took a shower, had some breakfast, then bundled up to take a walk on the beach.
Always, the first sight leaves me breathless. Rain was on its way, so to the north, bleak violet clouds gathered, contrasting like stained glass against the sea, of deepest teal and green. It was beautifully clear, and breathed and sighed upon the creamy white shores of endless sand. Farther up the beach where the buildings and shops lined the waters, the sand had gone an antique orangey-brown color from where the building materials had been drug up. Soon this beach would probably be all that color, and the buildings would only grow taller, crowding out this natural beauty.
I put my arms about my middle as I walked through the sand. With the wind winding its bitter fingers around my jaw line and cheeks, I imagined to myself that it was snow that softly crunched under my feet. It was almost real, save for the cry of the wild birds in the distance, the lovely briney scent on the breeze, and the murmured roar of the waves. I thought of past christmases, where we really did go sledding, and sat by the fire singing old, old hymns. But then I came back to the present. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw that the rain was moving our way. But it did not matter. I had seen thunderstorms' rain on the beach, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Dangerously beautiful even. I did not mind the water so much anyway.
My sister and mother turned back and my father and I went on. We were the only ones out there, nothing between us and the sky and horizon. Just the sand piper's that cheerfully darted between the sea's foamed fingers upon the shore, their tiny black legs constantly carrying them to and fro. Under my sand-caked sneakers as I walked, bright jewels gleamed. Bright fragments of sea shells that I sometimes bent to retrieve, keeping a friend in mind to eventually send it to. The grey ones were my favorite - the charcol, almost bluish grey with mahogany stripes, like an english boy's uniform.
My father and I walked on in silence, no need to talk, just to hunch against the wind and the light rain beginning. I pulled my knit cap down around my ears, my curls sticking out every which way. I couldn't control them, make them behave, so I left it.
It was a gorgeous sort of loneliness, without being really lonely.
We began to joke quietly, throwing out lines and scenes from movies. He pointed out different shells and told different stories, and I in turn offered my own. We came upon a piece of a child's airplane toy.
"Now this," he said, "is landing gearus specialus, very rare to this part of the country - "
"dwarf gearus specialus, obviously," I put in. We laughed. We did the same to a pair of sunglasses that had washed up too, pretending like it was some great archaelogical find. The sprinkling rain abated and left the white sand bespeckeled and pock-marked. I loved it all. This was wild, untamed. I watched as a tiny orange leaf, not bigger than my thumb was whisked toward the water, and a wave shot up, catching it, pulling it under, no different than a human hand. Yes, wild indeed.
I got within three feet of a sea-gull as he stood in the sand, pink feet mottled with purple from the cold. His black-striped wings jutted out from his body as he tried to find a good current of wind. I took another step closer and the eye with which he regarded me, I noted, was strangely dim. The bird cocked his head, and with his other eye, saw me and in a burst of feathers, took flight. He must have been blind to not notice me so close. I laughed, and the wind snatched it away.
We decided to head back, so turning around, I began looking for shells again. Some were still whole, after being thrown about in those relentless waters, and cast upon the shore. But most were shattered. There were all different sizes. I saw two fish vertebrae, creamy yellow and beautiful. I had a sudden urge to paint them, immortalize them. I walked on, and saw the pieces of trash here and there...the sunglasses, a piece of blue tarp, our landing gearus specialus...and winced and smiled at the same time. I walked along my own tracks in the sand that I had made not hardly 10 minutes ago.
I saw a mollusk shell, and was careful to pick it up and inspect it, due to its sharp edges. It was nearly paper-thin, but had a natural strenght to it. This particular piece was as long as my palm. On one side, it was a dim, murky purplish. But on the other, curled side, silvery irredescent lavenders, jades, and saphires shone forth. I had decreed as a child that this is what angels wore. Or perhaps what mermaids used to pin their hair with. I gently put it back in the sand, where it rightfully belonged. If placed on the shore just the right way, no one would bother to pick it up and see the beauty; no one would know the hidden treasure inside. I debated for a moment, and left it silver side up.
Then with a last, longing glance at the sea, I turned my back against it and the wind, and went home.
