Melissa Goodnight

It was 90 degrees on Tybee Island today and I sat alone on the beach and read Joan Didion. I watched a pod of dolphins and I tracked a baby Sanderling who lost her momma, then found her momma, then the two of them flew into the sky much higher than I thought they could manage.  

I considered a roasted crab shell and several headless fishes.

I walked the pier where men wrestled with snaggled fishing line and swapped bait and stories. I listened to the waves run over the aeration holes and imagined the sound of shattered glass and contemplated bubble porosity. Ting, ting, ting. I walked from the 7^th Street Boardwalk to the 15 ½ Street Boardwalk and back.

I drank a strawberry margarita.

At some point I realized that this is the first time in my 43 years to be at the beach alone and how could this be? I thought it must be because I spent my first 30 years in the middle of the Midwest and it isn’t so easy to get to here from there and no one goes it alone.

I watched a toddler throw sand into the air. It rained down on him and his mother rushed over and he cried. I thought of my son on a grand adventure of his own and I know he’s happy and healthy and he knows now that it isn’t safe to throw sand into the air.

After several hours I walked back to my rental car, the Jeep my husband picked out for me because he thought I might like to take the top off and drive to the beach from our hotel in Savannah and I took the top off and I drove back to our hotel in Savannah.

And in that drive I thought of all the versions of myself that have come before this one. All the burdens and questions. All they lacked and all they learned. Then I realized out of all those versions, I like this one the most. The one who goes to the beach by herself and takes the top off and considers things. I thought about how wonderful it might be to find the answers to my big questions but then no. Because some questions are more worthwhile to consider than to answer.