Memories of the beach
My fondest memories of being with my family are firmly rooted in the beach. I remember my dad swimming and goofing off; I remember my beautiful mother lounging, and I remember having endless things to do with not hardly anything. I also remember sleeping deeply after being tossed by the waves.
Tin is starting to build his memories now even though all reports say that he won’t really retain any memories until he is 4 or 5 years old. How do things like seeing an elephant for the first time, or seeing the ocean (read: Gulf of Mexico) for the first time, how do these not plant big memorable images in your mind?
These images are going to stay lodged in there somewhere because Tin already loves the beach.
May 11th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Constantin either loves the beach or walking on that footbridge. Looks like a good time was had by all! Glad to know you’re back safely.
May 11th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
A – I saw your entry on my Blackberry but couldn’t respond on it because it is not an iPhone that either everyone has got to have or not depending on where you stand on this notion. I was sitting on the porch one morning while we were on the beach before Tin was up and T had gone back to sleep and having my tea and looking at the ocean which is about a block from the house we stay in. It was a moment of pure joy and I noticed it. I’m not sure what the answer is to anything that I hold in question – I read your entry about not feeling too ambitious and wonder why either of us would be – really. I wonder if my ambition has not got me into the pickle I’m in now – trying to pay my mortgage, fearing my livelihood in this new economy, worried about how large my family is now and how to support everyone emotionally, financially, as well as just spiritually. I’ve read about a lot of people who have said to me that cancer changed their life, but you know often when I’ve been in a big moment and looked for my epiphany, it has eluded me. All I can say is try to find a moment to sit on the porch with a cup of tea and try not to evaluate whether that is a good thing or a bad thing but simply is.
May 12th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
yup! I’m working on it. I think I’m trying to work on a cohesive statement (blog?) that sums up what this cancer has done for me–not all negative believe it or not–but the most important thing I can think of is “I’m still here.” I think things may begin to refocus for me after the CT/PT scan next week, but I’ll never feel really “free” or “cancer (read disease) free again, and neither will I believe that eating right, exercising or anything I choose to do overtly, will really make a difference. Like you say, what is simply is, and what will be will be!
May 12th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Alice – I wish you could have sat here on the porch with me over the past five years and watched the people go by that I see on a daily basis – the heavy women wearing foil jumpsuits to sweat out the calories, the folks with addiction to you name it, the plain insane, and the one guy who stood out was the buff, always running, 40 year old handsome man who died of a rare form of cancer just last year. You would have never pulled him out of a crowd for anything but to be a poster boy of health. I keep trying to transcend the fear of what is to come (and when) because I keep getting reminded that we just don’t know and won’t know.