Day at the (flooded) beach

There’s nothing like a mug of hot apple cider after a long day in March. A long 68-degree day in March. It was amazing! I got up at eight this morning, ate some of dad’s icky oatmeal (he must have put less than a teaspoon of brown sugar in) eating only clumps of banana and trying to force the rest down, before getting on the computer in search of a publishing house or magazine to get an informational interview at. I tried calling North Shore and Merrimack Valley, both local magazines, but getting hold of an actual person over-the-phone is impossible. I found the North Shore one, but the editor was in a meeting, and a guy at the front desk told me to e-mail or call, so later I called and left a message. I never got a return call. Maybe tomorrow, I hope.

I spent a few hours over my friend Sara’s house with she and her boyfriend. Her half-goldie black dog (90 lbs), Harry jumped all over us until we decided to go to Salisbury beach. We walked down the beach and found Harry-sized piles of black seaweed and half-buried lobster traps in the sand. Intermingled cans and bottles, gloves, boots and other single-paired shoes were trapped in the weeds. A dead fish, its mouth partially open to reveal sharp tiny teeth, made me stumble as I almost stepped on it barefoot. Sara scanned among the debris and sands for sea glass while I searched for anything interesting; a whole clamshell, some driftwood; more dead fish.

And then I started searching for images with the sight of my camera: a still standing on its own in a circle of weeds, right next to a black rubber boot and bleached yellow tennis shoe. Sara pointed to the long cement garage that has forever drawn the curiosity of my step sister and me into its depths: a five by five portion of its ceiling had been blown clear off. “From the waves,” Sara said. Further along the building I found a calling I was unable to resist: the door was gone. The wood that had been nailed over the entrance for my entire life, had been either destroyed or kicked out, and this was my chance to finally explore it.

Sand on the ground, a light film on everything; a dusty beer bottle on a shelf beside a dusty wooden chair; light blaring down from the no-longer-existent ceiling; the ceiling caved in a bunch of splintered beams; two half-open doors beside a refrigerator with its door thrown wide; closer to the entrance, a small room with double-holed cement blocks jumbled on the floor; in focus a rusty sewing machine on its side, Sara and Adam standing together on the beach out the door in the background.