Photos from the Coast

Remember drives out to the coast? We would cruise down highway 34 and the sun shone on us, the wind blew in our hair. We drove in her light blue Ford pickup, and we went down that road like we were shot out of a pistol, like there were no cops and it was all downhill. We rolled the windows down and pretended like the ripping wind didn't make us cold. Now that was a summer! I built her a house on the beach out of driftwood, just big enough for us to lie down in with our legs sticking out.

The coast is always colder than you expect. We stopped at a gas station, we bought the local newspaper and a cigarette lighter, we found our little house again and built a fire. We sat there and watched the waves roll in and out, watched the gulls anticipate the wind, watched the stars speckle the sky after the sunset had burned it down. We talked about the nothings young lovers talk about, and didn't even bring sweatshirts. I was in love with her. She had smiles in her eyes and the wind caught her thick black hair.

I married her, and we went to the coast again. This is the one I have pictures of, me in a white t-shirt and rolled up Dockers, her in a gauzy white dress. We are playing baseball with a Made in China set we bought for $2.99 at the Shop-N-Save, the sun is high, the sea and sky are flawless and blue. The rest of that trip comes back to me in little pops: a trip to the historic downtown, Fort Clatsop, antiquing, a quarrel in our lace-bedecked room at the Bed and Breakfast. I look back at my pettiness and think, maybe all those other bits were us just playing at Being Married Now, still those kids from before playing house, trying to be more than we needed to be. The photographs we keep become the memories we keep. For me, the true and lasting center of that trip is she and me mugging for the camera in the sand, one of me like I'm about to field the ball, this one of her with her toe pointed and her arms bent in mid-windup, preparing to deliver a vicious curve.

Now it's many years and many kids later. Now we bring sweatshirts. We went last in January, a van full of us and our luggage for one night over. Rubber boots and jackets for everyone under six, hotel reservations, everything. The coast became smaller, just the little stretch of bay shore between the hotel and our favorite seafood restaurant. Even that small distance was a slog, issuing constant reminders to our progeny to Come Back Here and Stay Where I Can See You. They are willful and exuberant, and don't realize how fragile their small bodies are against the terrible, indifferent power of the sea. They are fascinated by their footprints disappearing in the shimmering surf, by tide-pools, jetties, writing in the sand, digging to find water, by seashells.

On the way to the restaurant, the three-year-old, middle child, successfully falls into the bay, soaking himself, sputtering. My wife picks him up, comforts him, scolds him, laughs at his verbal instant replay. "Yes, you DID fall in the ocean." She looks at me, and there are smiles in her eyes, and the wind catches her thick black hair.