Good morning from the full-size keyboard back in Massachusetts!
Earlier this month, I was in Daytona Beach, Florida, with Will for the National Gymnastics Championship. Over the past few years, his goal has been to make it to Nationals by the time he graduated from high school; he did it! In fact, his competition was May 14th at 8:00 a.m. and his graduation was at 3:30 p.m. the same day. We watched graduation on Zoom where his name was announced followed by the Latin phrase “in absentia.” Will didn’t place in the top 30 that moved on to finals, but that’s OK—he had met his goal before he even competed: to qualify for Nationals.
One of Will’s long-time gymnastics buddies and his mom flew down to watch the competition and to spend the weekend with us. It was good to reconnect after so many months apart. “Good” isn’t an adequate word. Much like “thank you” doesn’t convey all that is felt. For many years, together with a dozen or so other families, we had been on the gymnastics circuit of gyms, hard seats, and post-meet meals together. And weekends away at Hampton Inns. Where I discovered my favorite pens: lightweight and smooth rolling…
In Daytona Beach, we stayed across the street from the Ocean Center where the competition was held. This gave Will the freedom to walk over and watch hours and hours of competition. We rented a condo so that we would have our own kitchen. The first afternoon, I went grocery shopping, and it wasn’t until I was about five minutes from the condo that I realized I was in a conundrum: I had thirteen bags of groceries; we were on the 23rd floor; Will was asleep. I spotted a luggage cart in the parking garage and snagged it. It wasn’t a grocery cart: the bottom was designed to hold wide luggage not small plastic bags. I stacked items precariously and willed them to stay on the cart as I backed it down a hill in the garage, through double doors, and up the elevator to the 23rd floor. Not a thing fell off! I’d forgotten how powerful “willing” can be. This feat made me wonder: could I be a big city, skyscraper dweller, like our friends who live in New York City?
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I can’t remember when I last stayed that high up in a building. While sitting on the balcony late in the afternoon on the first day, wide flying objects from the right startled me. Thirteen pelicans glided by! In my few travels to pelican populated areas, my memory of these big-beaked fliers is of them perched on an old piling near the water. Whether that comes from real life or post cards, I don’t know, but to see them soaring by the 23rd floor… well, I felt like Will when he saw Big Ben for the first time: gleeful. As I birdwatched throughout the day, I saw the pelicans fly low to the water in the morning. Fishing? Perhaps happy hour was celebrated with higher flights at the 23rd floor, with full bellies.
The first morning, I was up in time to watch the sunrise over the ocean from the balcony. I felt a kinship with the people on the beach at 6:15 a.m. One couple had spread out a quilt to watch the show. A beach quilt. I have one in my van that my sister-in-law made for me when the boys were toddlers. A dozen people were standing perfectly still watching the eastern sky. Once the sun cleared the horizon and the orange avenue of light on the ocean dissipated, the people came out of their trances and moved on their way. I turned to see a slice of early morning light cast onto the bedroom wall; it reminded me of the sunrise in Iowa, but it wasn’t as orange as that light I wrote about three years ago.
I put my shoes on and headed down for a walk on the beach, where there was a new set of early-morning-people. I walked toward the pier down the beach from the condo. At night the restaurant mid-pier gleamed with lights. From the beach below the pier, the morning light coming through the pilings echoed light flowing into a church through a multitude of windows. A white snowy egret marched along the smooth waves, cocking its head to look for bits of food; he was oblivious to the Light. It was that kind of Light, with a capital “L.”
During the day, I walked again to the pier this time with the intent of hanging with the people fishing off the end of the pier. I found an empty spot where I could lean over and watch the lines to the left and right of me. I had a brief conversation with a young couple from Georgia; they were fishing with shrimp and octopus. “I hate live bait,” the pregnant woman said with a thick drawl. I told her that I had grown up fishing with my granddad and threading nightcrawlers onto a hook to catch bullheads. In the twenty minutes I stood on the pier, there wasn’t a single bite. While I never would have put “fishing” and “meditative” together growing up, I think that’s what a good part of fishing is. I wish I could go fishing today, but I can’t get past taking the fish off the line. Whenever I caught a fish with Granddad, I’d walk my pole over to him. Much like Grandma’s patience with grandkids at the game of Scrabble, Granddad spent most of his fishing time with grandkids taking fish of the hook and threading worms on. I remember him getting poked many times by a bullhead’s spines hidden in the dorsal (top) and pectoral (side) fins. Similar to a porcupine, bullheads pop those fins out when in danger. I prefer hobbies that do not draw blood, but I do miss fishing.
To travel often means visiting new places for new experiences. However, Daytona Beach nudged me to the past—clearing layers of dust and uncovering a menagerie of memories. It felt “good” to reconnect with them.