Thursday, November 10, 2005
She Shells Shesells by the Sheeshore
Still suffering from "writer's blank", which, today has metamorphosed into "writer's blah", I did a little surfing through the 'net trying, most desperately, to find something--anything--to jump start the old engine. I found a lot of websites about writing prompts, which, when added together, tend to confuse rather than "enmuse". (I was not enmused.) I did, however, find one site that helps to "trigger the memory" for those who are doing life-story writing. I liked the first trigger, but I couldn't think of anything specific. When I clicked on the second trigger, I could actually remember many times that I'd "gone to the beach" (as is mentioned in the prompt), so I took myself down that long-forgotten, overgrown, aged road, back to the first time I remember going to the beach, and this is what I found:
Seashells. I found seashells. I must not have been more than four years old, but the beach and the Pacific Ocean fascinated me. I guess, in retrospect, I don't remember a lot of the water itself, but more of the sand, where many special treasures lay hidden, waiting to be discovered. My mother's brother, Uncle Charles, had a lovely house not far from the beach at Dana Point, California, and we had gone to visit him one day, leaving our Montclair stress back in Montclair. I don't remember the actual ride over, but I do remember remembering that it was a long trip--something about traffic and the freeways, and how it "didn't used to take this long". From there, I only remember bits and pieces of people, objects and places, colors blending together with photographs I've seen since that time, and the often wandering fascination I have for the song "California Dreamin'", which somehow seems to fit into the puzzle, tied to the sunset over the beach, but I'm not sure exactly how. I can sense the emotion I felt from that day still, and, I suppose, it is the reason why I yet love to walk on a beach and collect the few shells and rocks that catch my eye. When I was four, however, it wasn't the beauty of the shell that caught my eye. I was fascinated by the sizes and shapes of the shells. The most unbroken shells were like finding buried treasure and I thought myself very "lucky" every time I chanced upon a new, "big one". At one point, I believe, I even found a quarter, a large sum which a four year old girl back in 1972ish would have proclaimed "wealth". I had a little white paper grocery sack, probably from some department store where my mother had shopped, where I placed my abundant gleanings--and my quarter--and I held onto this bag with all of my will. My brother was gathering his own, but was not as enthusiastic as I was, opting, rather, to build sandcastles and "explore" independently of the family, as always. Still, I trusted no one, and wouldn't even let my Dad carry my sack o' goodies.
I don't remember much after that except that I'd accidentally left my bag at Uncle Charles' house which left me with a feeling of great emptiness, as any lost article might to a child. The intention to retrieve it when next we visited the family was promised, but, unfortunately, all was lost when the house burned shortly thereafter. What tragedy!
It wasn't long after that, that my mother scolded me for playing in the toilet. I was pretending to be back at the beach, and was putting shells in the toilet bowl, flushing them out to sea.
