Today I left the TA center and drove to Myrtle Beach along long, flat, straight roads. I am squatting next to an empty lot where a building was taken down after the hurricane. I was told the sand had been pushed up off the beach past where I’m parked. It’s fairly deserted and I’m staying dark, but just in case ... I have a Cracker Barrel three miles away if I need it.
I spent the whole afternoon walking and then just sitting by the water line. My knees preferred sitting, but the camp chair would slowly sink into the wet sand. I went back to the skoolie to eat and nap and then was back out. Now that the sun has set, I can’t see much of the water, but I can hear the tide coming in as waves break on the sand. That sound caressing me day and night changes my body rhythms. And I keep remembering the end of a poem by ee cummings: “may came home with a smooth round stone / as small as a world and as large as alone. / For whatever we lose(life a your or a me)/ it’s always ourselves we find in the sea”
Last night I went to dinner with a friend I once worked with who moved back to South Carolina years ago. We went to “our” restaurant and talked for hours, trying to catch up on everything. She gave me a beautiful stained glass triple goddess that will hang in my back window, and a sign indicating tarot readings. I gave her the case full of two-tone potion bottles no one wanted, along with some little bottles of mermaid tears.
Monday night I stayed at a big, beautiful boat launch. I have another lined up for tomorrow night if all goes well.