Sleeping on a small wooden toddler bed in the same room as Dave and me, Evelyn woke in pain from the underside of her knee. Growing pains is my guess. Once at 1am and another at 3am. After Dave consoled her (he was closer), but it took a while for me to fall back asleep.
In the quiet, a distant, constant sound filled my ears, like the sound when one presses their ear to a conch shell. Or like a revolving grit in a concrete truck. Or the largest general’s army marching in the distance. The ocean’s roar, soft and low, had me thinking long and hard about how to describe it.
The sound at the cabin is different than anywhere else. At home, it’s the neighbor’s dogs barking and the bellow of a train. When we’re on vacation in Florida, the very close waves produce a rhythmic crash, crash, crash sound. But here it’s a white noise machine, a constant low hum of a night-capped old codger’s snore. It’s lovely. Knowing we’ll be selling this place in the not-too-distant future causes me to be present with it, searching for words to sear its features in my mind.
When in the Everglades, where under wooden bridges alligators lay floating on the water’s top, looking like lazy cruise ship pool-floaters, I sat amongst a cluster of people as a park ranger gave a talk at dusk. A question he posed that stuck with me was, “What’s different no matter what national park you go to?” Although the proposed answers were numerous, “soundscape” was the answer he was going for. The insects, birds, and wildlife.
I ran earlier, blocking out the soundscape with my headphones. I told Dave to come get me with the car after 45 minutes, giving me a headstart on our trip into Ocean Shores. I thought I’d get just past the bend by the wood carving place in Ocean City but without an ache in my hip or knees, I pushed much farther.
I stopped to take pictures of the quintessential PNW coastal sights of overfilled ditches, and wooden carved signs with decades of decay. I neglected to take photos of other treasures, including strewn cans of Twisted Ice Tea and broken glass. But an intact skeletal structure and well-lit lime-green moss? You bet!
I’m 10% into the book “Great Expectations”. With its constant progression and wonderful descriptions, it’s understandable why it’s a classic. For some reason, I put classics on a pedestal, as though they are meant for royalty and people like Einstein or Bill Gates. So when I picked it up and found the main character was in a cemetery and ran into a criminal I was hooked. I had the same reaction to “Don Quixote”, putting the book out of my league. How wrong I was because what a silly, treasure of a book that was.
Well, I’ve chattered enough at you. I’ll let you be on your way. I hope you have a lovely rest of your evening.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 