THE BEACH


Caleigh sat and looked out the window, her thoughts miles away.  She was back home, in the old castle near the beach.  Listening to the waves crashing on the rocks below.  It was a wild winter morning and the tide was high.  Those were the days she loved to walk along the shore and pick up driftwood and try and dodge the huge foamy waves as they relentlessly stormed the beach.  She used to go there often in the winter on a day stormy and wild.  Walking for a while and then running, as the waves got closer.  She enjoyed those times; all alone, left to her own thoughts.  She would think her secret thoughts.  Thoughts and plans of what her life would be like when she left her father's fortress one day.

She wanted to be a pirate and sail the fierce seas.  Plundering for gold and jewels, with her long sabre flashing and cutting down anything in her path.  Her long hair was an untamed mass of curls, golden and red in the sunlight.  She was a force to be reckoned with and not many men would dare to cross her path.  Those that did, never lived to tell the tale.

They would sail to the east and take spices and silk and then on to the west, gathering treasures to store up for the lean times.  They roamed free and had adventures and conquered new worlds.  They would never go short, they would travel back south in the summer to visit their homes and families and bring them the spoils of the battle.  She could picture her mother's face as she presented her with the beautiful rich silks.



As she sat there day dreaming, she could picture it all so vividly.  The caskets of gold and silver, the jewels and spices.  She could even hear the squawking of Pablo, the belligerent parrot who was never far from the shoulder of her first mate.  And even though she could feel the spray from the waves on her face, she knew it was just a dream, borne from the yearnings of a wild child.

Thoughts such as these often made her homesick.  She would sit and examine her life, try and fathom out why it had turned out like it did.  Where had things gone wrong, where was her golden galleon on the high seas?  Why did she get homesick like she did, when she had no home?  The castle was in ruins now, her parents had died and the family had scattered.  What was there to be homesick for, where was home? 

It was a sickness within her.  A sickness in her soul for that greater meaning of home that we understand most purely when we are children, when it is a metaphor for all possible feelings of security, of safety, of what is predictable, gentle and good in life. *

**** from the book "One True Thing" by Anna Quindlen.

Cally
10/7/2001

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