When she's ready to speak

The sea has its own language and if you know how to listen the trees give hints of when she's ready to speak.

I don't want to write today, that's the only reason I am.  This is discipline, what Beth and Amy have helped me learn with repeated reminders: No effort is wasted.  I woke up yesterday from a nap in the afternoon and could hear the tree-talk, the way the palm fronds were enlivening the air.  This is different from hearing them move in the wind.   It was raining, then it wasn't, then it was, then no.  There was a cloud-line of grey and gold light. There was dance on the air.  I got up, sad, unsure, didn't even comb my hair.  Just got my shoes and purse then drove to the beach.

I took pictures from PCH, thought of Aunt Lori.  Talked to Mandy in the spirit way.  Took off my flip-flops with my toes and walked down the stairs in to the sand.  And then there was stillness, and ocean-speak.  I just sat a long time and listened, the way the ocean noise is sometimes just like breath.

On Monday before my cousin Erin left to fly back to Maryland we took our annual dip in the sea to cleanse us of the winter funk. This is the first time it happened in the Pacific.  There will be more. After we got out, a pod of dolphins flipped and played in the ocean straight out in front of where we were.  Dolphins, who play just to play.  We laid there a long while, sang This Little Light of Mine, let the memories of her visit saturate.  We had burgers at a burger shack and then I drove her to LAX to say goodbye.  

There is nothing easy about this, it keeps saying in my head now, days later.  She reminded me of a memory in 1997, on the day our grandmother died.  Erin was about to be 12.  I was 20.  We were driving. I was driving--her, our four other girl cousins in my car--the oldest was 13, and Total Eclipse of the Heart came on and I explained that that's what happened.  Our hearts went dark just for a minute when Gram left, but now every time we hear that song it would be her saying hi and bringing her light.  I cried, fat funny tears sitting in the diner on Sunday, when she reminded me of that.  We both did.

It's amazing how family will always keep us tethered to who we truly are.  It's amazing how easy this is, and also how hard.