When I was a kid and if I was particularly lucky, my family would spend Independence Day with my mother’s parents, Doris and Ray. Ray — a man whose too-short red velour shirt locked him in a perpetual “Who Wore It Better?” battle with Winnie the Pooh (although to his credit, my grandfather always wore pants) — loved fireworks. While libertine in many ways, the 1970s were not the time to casually pick up fireworks during one’s weekly trip to the grocery store; acquiring fireworks involved a drive to a neighboring and far more careless state, like Tennessee. So my grandfather would load into his gangster-looking Cadillac with a $100 bill and head south from Kentucky in his Panama hat and Ray-Ban Wayfarers, smoking a cigar and listening to what 70s radio stations called “beautiful music.” He returned with a veritable arsenal.
On July 4, he would arrange a neat row of lawn chairs and wait for dark. The bird fountain was always emptied and cleaned for the grand finale, a firework that typically cost around $30. That was real money 40 years ago, so expectations were high. It would get dark, and we would all warm up with sparklers, and the boys and men were permitted to shoot bottle rockets out of those 6 1/2 ounce Coke bottles that you cannot seem to find any more. We all lived in fear of setting Mr. Gary’s pasture on fire, for not setting it on fire was the single rule of the celebration. When the anticipation had finally reached a fever pitch, my grandfather would stroll to the bird bath and after a small speech about patriotism, light the expensive firework.
To my memory, it never worked. Ever. In particularly auspicious years, it would send up a single poof and promptly fizzle. But mostly the paper wrapping would singe, and my grandfather would repeatedly and unsuccessful light the firework, pausing each time to read the directions until they, too, were singed beyond comprehension. But I loved that he tried every single year, and I loved that my grandmother consoled us all with homemade ice cream.
Chris and I have spent Independence Day this year on Saint Simons Island. It is either our fifth or sixth year renting a little shack on the beach, and that we are here this particular week represents a calculated march to claim it. This is the Holy Grail of Beach Weeks, at least on this island, and I wheedled and cajoled and waiting-listed our way to greatness.
It has not disappointed, not one bit. There was a concert near the lighthouse with a band calling itself “Athens’ Premier Wedding Band,” a band that featured a four-horn brass section and a man with a burly voice who could sing falsetto. You have not lived until you’ve seen fun-loving septuagenarians, Miller Lites in hand, shag to “Boogie Shoes.” One of the women clutched my elbow and said, “Come to the dance floor, girl. You’re champing at the bit.” And I was. But I was also too busy admiring their years of dancing together, their lovely transitions, their seamless following. I aspire.
There has been ice cream. Seafood. Barbecue. Too much sleep. Bad TV. A neglected cell phone. Time to paint. A constant low-grade, altogether wonderful boredom. There have been walks on the beach, including one this morning to watch the sun rise, only to find a giant pig alone on the sand. (This is one of the things for which I had no preparation, and before I needed to figure out how to get past her to walk the narrow walk back to our house, her owner appeared.)
But the highlight of the week has been the fireworks. On July 3, nearby Jekyll Island shot off fireworks over the ocean, and the beachside houses emptied out to watch. Then, on the night itself, Saint Simons launched its own, and with the entire beach turned out in team colors, I saw the most beautiful fireworks I have ever seen.
I suspect that this was how my grandfather imagined his grand finale.
The beach week came at a particularly welcome time this year, for I have felt recently that I have lost my footing. In May, both children left home, mostly for good. I struggled with the empty nest, until I had to face the fact that my dog was near the end. His death brought a wake hosted by dear friends, cards, and flowers. The quiet of the house — where I could still hear the children’s voices and the jangle of Buddy’s collar — drove me out.
We first flew to visit my father in Nashville, wedged on a plane carrying so many children that it practically squirmed. An uneasy truce had been struck by the under three set and their parents; no one cried or screamed, for if someone had, it would have been a match on a powder keg. I sat across the aisle from a man who sat with his two young children, their mother in the middle seat to my right. He kept trying to pass their daughter over me to her, but she barely removed her headphones or looked up from her book, pointing to me as a body block. Chris sat next to the best baby in the world, who was cradled in the arms of his mother. She looked about 17, and she had a large, fresh, fist-shaped bruise on the side of her upper left leg. Who did that to you? I wanted to ask.
The next weekend took us to a music festival with good friends. There was a brass band from New Orleans, and if I learned one thing, it is this: More bands need tubas. If there is a second thing, it is this: Live in a walkable city, and live where you can walk. After hearing a brass band complete with a tuba player, it is particularly fun to walk, for it almost turns into a dance.
And that is what I have done recently. I have walked. My Fitbit is near exhaustion. The treads on my shoes are worn smooth. And still I walk. On one loop through the neighborhood, I found myself at a stop sign, my right thumb by my side, absently stroking the air. I realized that it was reaching for a much-loved ridge on Buddy’s snout, a little groove that led to a spot between his eyes and up his skull. I cried — surely I scared the neighbors — and I thought about the hardest walk I have ever taken.
Five years ago, when I was 45, I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail with my son, who was then 16. I had never hiked before, and after five days and 87 1/2 miles with 40 pounds on my back, I started limping badly, and I faced a choice: Continue and do permanent damage, or leave the trail. I left. As it was, it took two years for that ankle to feel normal again, and about the same amount of time for the ever-present mid-40s cloud that had encircled me during that time to lift.
Ten minutes into the hike, before I had any inkling that I would confront my physical and mental frailties in one fell swoop, I saw a makeshift graveyard to the right of the trail. There was a hand-carved marker with a date of death from the 1930s, with a wobbly and uneven inscription that said
BELOVED WIFE, ABSENT NOT GONE.
As I casually stroked the air that day on my neighborhood walk, I remembered the marker. It is how I have felt about the dog, what with my needing a beat as I open the door or come down the stairs to realize that he is not there. It describes how I feel about my currently far-flung children, especially when they need money, advice, or understanding. They are always in my thoughts, even though they are just out of my grasp and their dirty clothes no longer litter my laundry room.
With some pleasure, I have discovered the other things that have been absent, not gone. Freedom, for one. It has been a rare treat to board a plane with Chris and a duffle bag, to drive to visit friends on short notice, to head to the beach without making a host of arrangements. It has been a delight to realize that I now have time for dance lessons, reading, sewing, painting. Even though I will be 50 in a few days, I feel like my youth was one of those things that was absent, not gone, for freedom feels in many ways like youth. With a little more money and a lot more sense, I won’t blow it this time with anxiety, self-doubt, fear. If you had seen me on the beach on Independence Day, you would have seen me jumping up and down, squealing in delight. If you had seen me sitting on the porch and staring at the sea, you would have to agree that it agrees with me.
As I return soon to that quiet house with a new abundance of time, I hope to discover more things about myself that have been tucked carefully away, waiting to reemerge. Who am I now? Where have I been hiding? But first things first: My independence surely allows me to catch up on 20 years of sleep.
ALC