Everything Fell Where They May

Labor Day Weekend –

The waves were quiet yesterday. The wind was nice and the sun was strong. Somehow, it seemed as though the beach at Point Lookout knew that the summer was officially over. Not that the beach has any sentiment or emotional attachment to the seasons. And it’s not like the beach cares whether we come or go.
No, I believe this is something for people who are of the flesh to be concerned with. Yet, I somehow feel a certain attachment to this place, the waves, the sands, the sunshine and the way sunlight glistens along the surface of the ocean.
I love this

I suppose there is a beautiful sullenness about this too. The end of summer.
I can somehow relate this to different seasonal adventures of my life. I connect this in a symbolic form and use the beach in summer as an analogy to the waves and the ebbs and flows of people who are either fair-weathered or around when all is good.
But when it gets cold or the weather turns . . .
off they go . . .
Gone!

I get it.
I used to have seasonal friends.
I used to have all kinds of friends.
I had real friends and fake ones and friends who came in and out of my life for one reason or another.
I had friends who were perhaps transient or temporary and we were really tight, until their life changed or their situations improved . . .
and just like that, or just like the winds or the tides at the beaches at Point Lookout, those friends moved on.

I have been coming to this beach for as long as I can remember.
I lived here, in a sense. I still do in many ways.

I have grown here. I have aged here.
I have died here and I have wept here and I have come here to confess my sins.
I have come to this place to improve my so-called “conscious contact,” with God as I understand him.

I have been to the beaches at Point Lookout when the sands were wealthy with bodies and all the kids, all the families, all the people, and places and things were alive and enjoying the grace of the summertime glow.
I have watched the sun go down here.
I have seen the sky change color and go from blue to a beautiful orange.
I have seen the sun come up here too.

I have looked west, like I did while I was a young boy, wishing I had the ability to understand more about the world.
I have stood at the rock piles that separate the beach from the inlet and watched the commercial fishing boats head outward towards the fishing grounds.
And, with the exception of only a few years, or maybe a handful of them; I have made sure to walk along the beach on New Year’s morning.
just like I did with The Old Man, ya know?

I use this walk on New Year’s as my own personal day of atonement. Therefore, I view this the same as the day of atonement is viewed in my childhood religion.
But I have said goodbye to my childhood things. I have especially said goodbye to organized religions because religion, politics, which seem to be the same, and other conversations like money and family insults because they all cause too many fights.
Hence, my reasoning is this; I want a better life for myself, and yes, I’d like to find God, if there is one.
And if there is such a thing, I would like to find God so that I can live to fulfill a cycle.
This way, I can come to the completion of my old and former self and then I can say goodbye to what was so that I can say hello to something new.

Ah, this place.
“She” means the world to me . . .
I have only shared this with a few people. And when I say shared this place, I mean really share this place.
I mean from the heart.
This means a visit.
This means that I stood at the shoreline and faced the ocean.
Or to give this more depth, I can come here with my love or loves in the past, which is almost as if to introduce this person in my life to my family.
I come here to introduce them to my Mother who gave me life and brought me comfort and to my Father, The Old Man, who showed me about strength and what it means to be a man.
(or not a man)

Bringing a woman here is the same as bringing home a girl for the first time. And I do not mean just mean just “any girl,” or someone random and hardly date worthy.
No.
This is like bringing someone meaningful enough to meet my family, which means this girl who holds hope for my future and therefore, her depth is obviously beyond the simple occasions where two adults are friendly or happy to limit themselves to the few occasions of intimate benefits. 

No.
I have not been to Point Lookout with anyone who I would call surface level or otherwise basic and with a minimal or plainly physical attachment.

There are so many people in this world.
Billions of them.
I am sure that I am not the only one who confesses at the beach and prays for a pardon.
I am not the only man who stands convicted at the shoreline and pleads for the waves wash me of my condition and bathe me and cleanse me of my sins
(so I can breathe . . . )

I am sure that people have places like this which are in their heart, and warm to them and close to their soul
The beach – ah!

The wind
The waves
The sound of seagulls

The orchestra of all the above and the repetition of waves folding and crashing against the sand are all part of this church; and so, this is my power.
This is my glory.
This is my choir and this is my God.

I have gone through so many stages and survived different phases of my life.
And sometimes, I shake my head because I don’t know how I’ve made it this far.
I have submitted and surrendered and fought and lost and at the end of each chapter; I have returned or retreated to this place, which is called the beach at Point Lookout.

I have found things on this beach in the off-season, like the tales of washed up driftwood, which belonged to something,and at one point, the broken piece of wood was whole and part of something.
I can relate to this.
I have been part of things and I have been broken or broken down and yes; I understand what it feels like to be separated and washed up with a meaningless value – and gone, like a paragraph in a yellowed newspaper, too old to relate to and too far behind to be valid in today’s current setting.
I have found toys that were left in the sand
Forgotten or broken and otherwise discarded.

I have felt this way.

I saw the beach seemingly offer its kindness yesterday, like a dog at the door when his family says goodbye.
Only, the dogs are unaware of time or what it means to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”
How soon is soon?
How soon is later when the last words you heard from a loved one is “I’ll talk to you later,” and so how log is that wait?

That dog’s love never vanishes. In fact, that dog acts like it has been lifetimes since you saw each other last.
I have been saying this for years.
And whether the separation has been minutes or hours, or days or weeks, months or even years, the dog greets you with more love than when you left. 

I do not compare the love from God as I understand him or my love for the beach or the way I hope the beach loves me to a dog wagging its tail and jumping for joy because I came home . . .
No.

I compare the simple purity to love in its most unconditional sense.
I do not know if people love unconditionally because everyone comes with their own conditions.
So, I don’t know if I believe in unconditional love when it comes to humans.
No . . .
I say love is living and breathing and alive and so, like anything living and breathing, love needs all the required things to breathe.
Just like us.

I said my words to The Father when I stood at the line between water and land..
I bowed my head in humility and stood with a modest, meek and unpretentious appeal –

I am sorry for my sins.
I am sorry for my arrogance,
I am sorry for my selfishness
I am sorry that I am weak.
I am sorry that I have allowed myself to fall or slip backwards.
I am sorry for my inner voice and the inherent laziness which it creates.
I am sorry for offending you.
I am sorry for taking your name and using it in vain.
I am sorry for my own pathology.
I am sorry for my dishonesties
I am sorry for my disgrace
I am sorry for being the inaudible son, too timid, crooked, and too selfish to speak up loud and be heard.
I am sorry for my doubts and my disbeliefs that lead me astray.
I am sorry that I am weaker when my faith is at its weakest.
I am sorry for all the pain I have inflicted and received.
I am sorry . . .

I am sorry that I have allowed myself to stay the way I was . . .
I was unwell, unreachable and unable to lift myself up again.
I still am
But I am here too
So, I must be improving

I am sorry for my personal criminology which are the cause of my crimes, the reasons, the results, and the societal impact which contribute to the wreckages of how I demonized and weaponized people against themselves. 
I am sorry for my traumas which are not fit to excuse my acts of narcissism and selfishness.
Truly, I am sorry.

I am here, standing before you now with true sorrow of my sins; not because I had to face the pain and no, I am not sorry because things went wrong.
No, I am sorry because I was wrong and so, I do not need to be right anymore.
I just need to be happy

In Your name I pray –

As it was in the beginning . . .
. . .is now
and will be forever

Peace be with you
(and also with you spirt)

Hey, Pop . . .
All I can say is I left my soul at the shore yesterday.
I left it there for you to see.

Watch over me, your son
Please

And don’t worry
I’ll be sure to see you on New Year’s Day 

Love always, your son

 B –