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.