Vivian’s Water Shoes

Tags

amwriting, Andre the Giant, beach, Beergaritas, Corolla Beach, creative, creative writing, fiction, north carolina, ocean, shrimp, water shoes, wild horses, writer, writer's life

It’s been a while since I shared my creative writing, so here is a very short piece to remember a bit of summer as we move into fall.  I hope you enjoy. 

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The wild horses at Corolla Beach trampled Vivian at two on a Wednesday, knocking her right out of her neon pink water shoes.

Locals and onlookers reported the horses came in a grouping of eight nearly noiselessly over a hill, perhaps spooked by a Copperhead snake slithering through the dune grasses. The source of their stampede was only speculation. Vivian never saw them coming.

photo from Writer’s Digest

After the emergency services ambulance drove away down the beach without its siren or lights pulsing, Poe found Vivian’s shoes off beyond where the crowd had gathered. He placed them on the fence in memorial.

Vivian was not a fan of the wild animals. She was the only local to insist someone round them up and fence them in. It annoyed her to find them chewing at her window screens or leaving huge piles of horse apples on her sand driveway. It seemed they liked her yard best. It was possible the horses knew her dislike for them.

After the accident, the footwear stayed on top of the wooden slats for two weeks. Then one morning they disappeared. Some uninformed and entitled mainlander probably assumed the water shoes were carelessly left behind after a day at the ocean and snatched them up. I watched the tourists’ feet for an opportunity to reveal the truth and witness the shoe stealer squirm at the realization of wearing a dead woman’s shoes. More correctly, the shoes Vivian wore while she died. Poe and I, over considerable speculation and copious amounts of canned Beergarita’s on the deck, never did determine the exact moment Vivian drew her last breath. It might have been when the horses made contact or when she tumbled to the sand.

Either way, I was not prepared to find the pink slip-ons on Uncle Greg’s feet a few days later when we arrived at his home for the weekly shrimp boil dinner.

Uncle Greg was a large behemoth of a man. Strangers shrank back when he entered a room and it was easy to confuse him with Andre the Giant. His girth was nearly equal to his height, with the skin of his abundant belly stretched to rock-like hardness. The outcropping of salt and pepper hair on top of his cranium added another three inches.

That day, along with his faded and torn Corolla Beach t-shirt and fraying cargo shorts, he brazenly wore the water shoes as if either it didn’t matter to him they were neon pink or that they came straight off the feet of his dead friend. Watching him trot around the beach house in the pink footwear was disturbing.

“How big were Vivian’s feet?” I whispered, leaning toward Poe as we sat on Adirondack chairs with our soggy paper plates precariously perched on our knees. Beers sweated on the porch floor next to us.

Poe shrugged, nibbled at a corncob and eyed the footwear. “Bigger than average it appears.”

In her later years, Vivian’s skin puffed like delectable sourdough bread tinged with a slight pink sunburn, but she was never large. Living at the beach, she refused to accept her Irish heritage would not allow her skin to brown like those of us who came from Mediterranean roots. She stayed in the sun all day in her flowery one-piece and wide-brimmed straw hat. The water shoes kept her feet from burning on the sand during her midday walk.

With a loud grunt, Uncle Greg flopped down into the chair on the other side of Poe and set one ankle on the other knee. He tapped his foot to a silent beat as he gnawed on a buttery cob of corn.

Poe and I stared at the pink shoe waving at us in its neon glory.

Uncle Greg eyed us, looked at where we were focused and frowned. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “She had the biggest feet I ever saw on a woman.”

Poe and I waited.

“She walked here every day. Had our afternoon delight.”

I choked on my shrimp while Poe simultaneously spit out the beer he just sipped.

“It wasn’t love, but she was a good friend. Sometimes at my age, that’s all one needs.” Uncle Greg popped a shrimp into his mouth and after carefully working it, spit the tail onto his plate.

We stared.

Uncle Greg shrugged as he extended his legs and eyeballed the neon pink water shoes. “I just wish Vivian’s favorite color had been blue.”

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The Three-Day Holiday Weekend

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beach, Bill of Rights, citizen, Congress, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, executive, flag, Fourth of July, history, Independence Day, judicial, legislative, United States, weekend

Like many of you, I am looking forward to the upcoming three-day weekend for extra rest and relaxation. It is also the time of year when I like to remind myself of the reasons for Independence Day, and to take a walk down history lane before heading out to the beach.

When a friend of mine studied for her U.S. citizenship test several years ago, I realized she knew more about our country’s Constitution than I did. Since then, each year at this time I remind myself of the basis that formed the country.

On July 4, the United States will celebrate its 239^th birthday.

For many U.S. citizens, the Declaration of Independence is still one of the most revered documents, while there are others who never read it.

photo from hectortv.org circa. 1980-2001

After the revolutionary war (1775-1783), it took the newly formed country until 1787 to charter what became the Constitution of the United States. The first time I saw the actual document was on a family trip to Washington, D.C. in 1980. Not yet into double digits, I did not know much about it except from discussions with my parents who told me it was important.

During the nearly two and a half centuries since its inception, there have been many ups and downs, good and bad times, and plenty of challenges to the laws of the land. Even in just the first six months of this calendar year, the U.S. is experiencing turbulence and controversy generating incredible discussions, rallies, and changes to traditions. People can have an opinion and voice it.

In drafting the Constitution, which focuses on the government of the country (legislative, executive, and judicial), opponents charged that the document would open the way to tyranny by the central government. They wanted the immunities of the individual citizens acknowledged.

It was in September of 1789 when the First Congress of the U.S. proposed to the state legislatures 12 amendments to the Constitution that met arguments most frequently advanced against it. The first two proposed amendments were not ratified, but Articles 3 to 12 were. These first 10 amendments of the Constitution are known as the original Bill of Rights.

For the full text of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights, visit the Charters of Freedom site on the U.S. Archives website http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/.

Be safe and enjoy the Holiday weekend.

Opening of the Constitution of the United States

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I Have 24 Hours Left to Live

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24 hours, beach, Charlotte's Web, college, cupcakes, harry connick jr., ice cream, journal, Last day on earth, life, life choices, music, musings, reality, Scrabble, somersault, students, writing, writing course

What would you do if you only had 24 hours remaining on this earth?

Yesterday, I posed this question to my writing students and asked them to write on it for six minutes. The catch was they had to focus their responses around their chosen topic for the semester. One student called out, “If I had 24 hours left, I wouldn’t waste it on my Topic!” Cue laughter.

This semester, my students’ writings focus on one Topic of their choosing. The Topic has to do with their “reality.” Reality is a broad concept, so we assessed and discussed what it is and what might be the reality in each individual life. After thoughtful and critical analysis, some chose topics relating to their college majors (nursing, medicine, engineering), other chose themes around religion or science, several chose sports, a few chose relationships (healthy, abuse, love) and one even picked a tangible item (a diesel truck).

I begin each of my writing classes with a free writing component, intended to give students more insight on their Topic of reality. What color represents your Topic? If your Topic were an animal, what would it be? How different is your Topic today than 25 years ago? While they responded to yesterday’s question, it gave me time to reflect on what I might do with one final day.

Since I don’t have a Topic, I had freedom to wander in my thoughts. I stayed away from the more depressing options (saying goodbyes, final hugs and all that). These were my first 10 initial ideas for my final 24 hours:

1. Reread Charlotte’s Web.
2. Dance to my favorite song list.
3. Send a tweet to Harry Connick, Jr., letting him know we could have been great together.
4. Eat ice cream and several cupcakes.
5. Turn a somersault on the grass in the backyard.
6. Drive to the beach and put my toes in the sand and water.
7. Ceremoniously burn all my “skinny” clothes I was never going to fit again into anyway.
8. Drink a really good bottle of Italian red wine.
9. Play a game of Scrabble (on the board, not my phone).
10. Add a final entry to my journal.

What would you do if you had 24 hours left to live?

Sun Rise

Tags

Atlantic, beach, fiction, me, metal detector, ocean, old man, reflection, regret, sand, sun, sunrise, trinkets, writing, writings

The single sliver of light reaching over the Atlantic blossomed into a brilliant ball of white, pink and yellow radiance. I stood on the beach, toes pressed into the hard sand, while the waves played around my feet, teasing and stroking before retreating to the quiet and mysterious depths. I felt as small as the tiniest grains of sand and yet as giant and strong as the tides while the light washed over and welcomed me into a new day. I existed for a few moments without worries, cares, joy or sorrow.

A small, elderly man slowly made his way along the beach, his khaki pants worn, faded and frayed at the cuffs, and his white short-sleeve cotton shirt untucked and flapping in the morning breeze. His feet were covered in worn hirachi sandals the color of burned wood, while his head was protected by a faded blue baseball cap, the logo long ago washed away. His posture was stooped as he held an ancient-looking metal detector, rhythmically swaying from side to side in small, even strokes. Periodically he would gently place the mechanism on the sand and slowly bend to examine something buried beneath just the surface. He would then either return the item to the sand or place it in his pocket.

As he neared me, I could see intensity in his progress of methodically sweeping the beach. I wondered at all the items he might have placed in his pocket over the years, both valuable and worthless. Coins, rings, money clips, barrettes, toys, watches, gum foil or bottle caps. He collected small pieces of anonymous lives, intentionally left behind or lost without knowledge that would be made anew in another existence. He looked up and saw me watching him. He gently smiled and tipped the brim of his cap before moving on. I raised my hand and smiled in return.

I turned back to the sunrise, now high above the horizon blessing the new day with its radiant brilliance. I took a deep breath and exhaled, contentment enveloping me. For in that solitary moment when the elderly man and I had found each other’s eyes, I tossed to him the only item I wanted to leave on the beach. As he became a distant vision along the surf, there in his pocket, alongside the trinkets and coins, was my regret sent forward with every hope of being made anew.