"Live in the sunshine.  Swim the sea.  Drink the wild air."~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The night before the trip I got a call from the airline.  The generic female voice said in a robotic tone, "We're sorry for the inconvenience, but your flight has been cancelled.  We have scheduled you for the next day."

I'd made travel plans months ago--a reunion with my three sisters. I felt disappointed to lose twenty-four hours with them.  The trip was only four days long anyway.  The airline gave no explanation.  Just cancelled.  I waited for an hour to talk to a service representative.  There were no other flights out.  I began to form a coil inside my chest and felt the clinch of anxiety.  I didn't like having my plans collapse. 

Yet I had an unplanned day before me.  I didn't have to go into the office.  I was already packed.  That coiled place around my heart began to unfurl, and I made a decision to head for the beach.

The little town sits nestled just outside of Charleston, and has been called some derogatory names--"redneck" the most prominent and negative.  Yet through now more than five years, I've kept this town tied to me--just a slender thread. 

I'd moved to the southern suburb with my first husband, built a new house and hoped for a happy life.  But that plan did not last and instead of making a dream life, we got divorced, and the big new house got sold.  But eventually I did buy a humble blue-sided house in a quiet neighborhood.  The blue was not really that attractive.  Think Maybelline eye shadow or the blue of those country colors so popular in the eighties.  But I painted the door a darker shade of blue to create contrast and placed colorful wreaths on the door that I changed in and out with the four seasons  I could afford the mortgage.  I decorated the inside to my taste.  I went to work every day in downtown Charleston.  I visited the lovely, small-town library every week.  I kept the yard neat and tidy.  I found a new hair dresser.  I got a dog. 

The other night in a dream I held a photograph of myself.  I looked at the picture very intently as I was embracing a sea turtle.  I smiled widely and wore a red flannel pullover.  I was not in the least upset that I held there close to my side a giant turtle.  I could feel the ridges of its shell through my shirt.  Its legs and arms were outside the shell.  I noted the brown diamond-shaped spots on its head--the black onyx eyes.  I didn't think "she" (intuited this sea creature was female) was too heavy or cumbersome.  I wanted to hold onto her.

I read a good book this week.  The novel has an unusual title, and I'm always attracted to intriguing titles--The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood.  The book tells the story of a woman, Vivien, who lives in San Francisco in 1919 and does not know if the man she loves died in the terrifying 1906 earthquake. She feels the shattering loss and withstands the sickening constancy of not knowing what happened to him.  To assuage some of her own grief, Vivien begins to write obituaries for the hundreds of people who lost their loved ones in the quake.  Only her style of writing about the deceased is unique.   She ascertains that people come to her and first give all the details--where their loved one was born, names of siblings, information about their education and what they did for a living.  After the individual summarizes the deceased's life milestones Vivien pronouces, "Let me make you some tea and toast."  And when the sricken person sits down to eat the buttered toast and sip the tea, Vivien says, "Tell me about your loved one."  Viven finds that this is where she uncovers the real heart of the obituary, because the story is not just about the details, but about a life.

It all began at Target.  In homewares.  Giovanni stood there by the rows of cutting boards and boxed stainless steel cutlery.  He wore his striped shirt and green corduroy vest.  (He loves vests).  It was an ordinary Saturday.  I walked up to him with the red Target cart and said, "I think we better go over to the Tide aisle.  We need laundry soap."  "Wait," he said, and steered the shopping cart over to the framed pictures.  I was a little puzzled.  Giovanni is not fond of looking at framed art.  He really doesn't like pictures on our walls.  He much prefers a smooth surface.  But I followed him.  He pointed to a black and white photograph of the Eiffel Tower.  "Would you like to go there?" he asked.  "What do you mean?" I queried back.  "Do you want to go to Paris?"