Wednesday, June 23, 2010

It is count down to the beach. Clothes are out....please remember that all you wear is your bathing suit and you don't need 3 pairs of jeans!!!! Have you ever walked into a place and felt in your soul that you have been there before, and I am not talking last year's vacation. That in some juju way this is home? that is how I feel when I walk up for the first moment I get on the sand and look at the Atlantic ocean. My brain stops thinking, My heart calms, my lungs open and I say to God, thanks for welcoming me home. I know what my heaven will be.

The beach started for me when I was 3- that was 40 years ago and it continues on Friday. Meeting my cousins the Clifton family at Summer Song house in Long Beach has moved to South Carolina. The easy drawl of the people suck me in immediatey. Early morning shelling and the grand search for sand dollars, elaborate sand castles, sea urchins, shark boiling....peeyew! Lobster man and net man, chewing tobacco, fishing poles, popsicles and peanut butter sandwiches with sand...........guitar music on the porch. Talent show, Rinso Blue, God dammit Dotsy, the pier and all the tricks and gadgets we would find. The memories go on and on..... and somewhere deep in my former lives I continue to add to them. My beach badge of honor is not how tan or how many shells I can collect.............it is how long can I keep the sand in my purse after I am back in Kansas-