BEACH NIGHT

"Under no circumstances are we cancelling tonight."
"Okay."
"If there's a tornado, maybe, but anything else, we're still on,
all right?"
"Right. (Tornado, maybe?)"

I'm on the phone with my friend, talking about our beach night
tonight. Once a month, on the night of the full moon, we drive to
Mickler's Landing, a public beach south of Jacksonville. We bring
folding chairs, blankets when it's cold, thermoses of herbal tea and
something we've written to read aloud. We've tossed around a few
names for our group, including the Full Moon Women's Writing Circle,
the Moon Maidens and the Loonies, but nothing has really stuck. It's
the getting together that counts.

Earlier this month we had to cancel our plans because a newcomer to
our group had a previous commitment. My friend and I have
decided we're going to meet up anyway, just the two of us. "I really
need this," she says, and I realize that I do as well.

When I moved to Jacksonville from Ludington I left more than a house
behind, but it took me a while to sort out what else was missing.
Some things were obvious, like dentists and produce markets and
trails through the woods. Some things took a little longer to
identify, like where to drink coffee while writing in the morning,
the best place to sit while talking on the phone and faces you know
and who know you back.

When we arrrive at the beach we walk to a flat spot, then arrange our
chairs and take turns reading what we've written. This month's topic
is "The path not taken." My friend decided in the middle of writing
her essay that it was actually about parts of herself that she'd
failed to nurture. My piece turned out to be about learning to love
the life you've got instead of the one you wish you had.

After reading we walk up and down along the water, carrying our
sandals, looking for shells. I recently borrowed a book from the
library about decorating with sea shells and so I'm gathering
materials for a project. I don't know what I'll make, only that
I'll need lots of shells to make it with. We pick up orange, brown, blue,
striped, smooth and ridged shells and put them, whole and fragmented,
into a bucket.

Back in Michigan the only shells I've ever found are zebra mussels
and snails. When I was a teenager I would collect lucky stones, small
fossilized plant segments with a hole through the middle. I got to be
pretty good at seeing them among all the other stones on the beach.
I'd like to develop that skill down here to spot shark teeth. I tell
my friend that I won't feel like I've really settled here until I
find one for myself. I've been studying them in the stores so I can
see the shape in my mind. She says she's been here twelve years and
hasn't found a single one.

In Ludington, past First Curve, the beach is lined with dunes. On
this beach in Jacksonville as far as we can see in either direction
there are lines of mansions staring out to sea. We talk about what it
would be like to live in one. "Maybe it would be like living in a
magazine photo shoot," she says. "Too clean and perfect, like nobody
lives there." I think about my own house, evidence of life scattered
over every surface -- dishes, clothes, books, receipts, loose change,
and lately, shells.

Most of these houses seem empty, with long rows of dark windows. My
friend says she and her husband decided a long time ago it wouldn't
be worth it to live in one of them. "You'd have to evacuate for every
hurricane," she says. "And you have to replace the light fixtures all
the time because they corrode in the salt air so quickly." She adds,
"I wouldn't mind walking through one, though, just to see what it was
like."

I think that if I had a house on the water I'd never leave it. But
I've never lived on an ocean. Maybe, when the sea rose up and crashed
against the shore I wouldn't want to stick around to see what
happened next. It's not something I'm likely to experience anyway.
Shoreline property is even more expensive down here in Florida than
it is back in Michigan and, by the looks of these places, once you
have the land, you're required to build a castle on it.

My friend and I return to our chairs and then talk until nearly
midnight. We speculate about whether the lights floating slowly by on
the horizon are a barge or a cruise ship. Occasionally a helicopter
flies past, hugging the shoreline, probably from Mayport, a naval
base just north of us. We wave but they don't wave back. I tell her
about my chopstick diet and she tells me about her daughter's dream
to fly an airplane. Eventually we stop talking and just lean back in
our chairs and look at the stars. I think about how the Big Dipper I
see here is the same one I see when I'm in Ludington. When the
mosquitos come out we pack up to go home.

As I drop my friend off at her house I ask her what next month's
writing topic is. "Moments of joy," she says. Piece of cake, I think.
I'll start with tonight and go from there.

Lunches with Sue

Every Tuesday morning for the past ten years I’d get a call from my friend, Sue.

“Hello?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Got time for lunch?”
“Sure. Where do you wanna go?”
“What’s open?”
“I dunno.”
“The Brew Pub’s always open. Let’s go there.”
"All right. Say about 11:45?”
“Sounds good. See you then.”

Meeting in the middle of the day in the middle of the week was a ritual for us, a habit we’d formed long ago and found hard to break. Going to lunch together was so much a part of our lives that if we missed a Tuesday it would throw off the rest of our week and inevitably one of us would call the other to try to arrange another day.

“How about Wednesday?”
“No, that’s when I have lunch with Joyce.”
“Well, Thursday is Rotary, so that’s out.”
“What are you doing Friday?”
“Friday works. Is The Grand open?”
“We'll find out.”

Once we opted for breakfast instead right after Sue had pulled a twelve hour shift at the hospital but it was no good. Twenty minutes after we sat down her eyes drooped shut and I made her go home before she fell asleep in her diet coke.

We ate in every restaurant in town, although after a few years we couldn’t always remember where we’d eaten last.

“We ate there last week.”
“Did we? I forgot.”
Pause.
“Well, we could eat there again.”
“Okay. This time I’ll sit facing the door.”

It wasn’t the place or the food that mattered, although what we ordered was ritualized, too, at least for Sue. Chicken salad croissant at Scotty’s and quiche with a muffin at Chef John’s and ice tea no lemon everywhere. Now and again she’d go crazy and order a hamburger and I’d tease her about how daring she was.

At lunch we talked about the people closest to us. We talked about our kids, our parents and our friends, laying out their lives like place settings on the table. She asked me about my Dad and I listened to her worries about her mother. We bragged about our children’s triumphs and commiserated over our friends' incomprehensible desires to do things we’d never do in a million years.

And we laughed. Sue had a great, deep throated laugh that came straight up from her diaphragm. I was addicted to the sound of it. I saved up things to tell her over lunch that might make her laugh. I fattened my phrases and practiced stories in my head. And she always rewarded my efforts with her laughter.

She never questioned my facts or doubted my accounts of how a thing occurred, either. If I exaggerated here or there in the interest of making a point she accepted it. Sue was a loyal listener.

She was forgiving, too. I was late for lunch nine times out of ten, yet she never scolded me for it. She’d bring a book instead. When I’d finally arrive I’d find her patiently reading. Once, when a friend planned to join us, Sue called her ahead of time and advised her to bring a book, too.

I took lunches with Sue for granted until a couple of years ago when one of her daughters thanked me for being such a good friend to her Mom.

“Me?” I thought. “But I just have lunch with her. Every week. Rain, shine, sleet or off season.”

When I knew I was moving away the tenor of our lunch conversations changed a little. Each meal became a bit like the Last Supper in its significance.

“What’ll I do when you’re gone?” Sue asked and I tried to put it in perspective for her, patting her hand and telling her it wasn’t like I was leaving the country for heaven's sake and I’d be back. I was not yet aware of how much our hour and a half a week meant to her or to me. I was still backing away from Sue's gift, her friendship, her love.

The week before I moved, after ten years of sharing everything about ourselves -- our hopes, fears, dreams -- I told her I loved her. You’d think it’d be easier to say.

I figured we’d stay in touch via email or snail mail or by phone. I planned to see Sue once or twice a year when I traveled north or she traveled south. I was already cataloging new places to take Sue to lunch when she finally got down to see me. I thought we’d have our lunches, and each other, for a long time to come.

In the end, it wasn’t me who left, but Sue. Sue who stopped writing when she became too frail to sit at her computer, too weak to move a pen across the paper. Then, last week, she couldn’t form the words she needed to say over the phone. I said them for her.

“I’m coming."
"I love you."
"Goodbye.”

Sue died three days later, after a long battle with breast cancer. I didn't make it in time to see her before she died. But I know she's waiting for me somewhere, a book in her hand.