Sugar Sand

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Added: Tue. Nov 09, 2010 6:57pm
Posted in: Living

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I found a bit of the Gulf Shore at the bottom of my bedroom closet today. 

Thanksgiving dinner for about a dozen at my house is looming, and so I've got a little less than two and a half weeks to straighten the place up and pull this off.  This was the first day I'd dropped Lucky the pup off at "doggie day-care" for a few hours of uninterrupted housework. He's so enthusiastic about staying right in the middle of whatever I'm doing it's the proverbial "one step up, two steps back."

Naturally, instead of starting with the kitchen or the dining room or the living room, I set to work excavating the lower reaches of my bedroom closets.  Trust me, there's a theory at work here.  Tucked behind the picnic cooler and water jug and a half dozen pairs of high-heeled boots and assorted other shoes, I came across a couple of plastic bags which held the remnants of my spring break visit to Gulf Shores, Alabama a couple of years ago with my friend Kristin. 

Frustrated and buried by a deep, cold winter, we'd met in Peoria, Illinois and driven to the coast for two days in the sun.  Sitting by the water, I was entranced by the pristine white "sugar sand," and scooped up a few handfuls to bring home with me.  I was pretty organized about it, and made a half dozen souvenirs--glass jars half-full of sand, with a few shells from the shore sprinkled on top, topped with glass lids and chiffon ribbons the color of sea foam wrapped around the necks.  There was one for each of my children, one for my guy, and one for myself.  Mine sits right in front of me at my desk at work, reminding me of our joyous, reckless mad dash for warmth and sunshine.  A piece of the Gulf of Mexico right there in Wisconsin.

I took the bowl of sand outside and sat on the patio, running my fingers through it over and over like I had when I was sitting by the shore.  The late fall twilight was approaching, and the temperatures were dropping.  The sky was a chilly dark blue, with a sliver of bright moon looking like a paper cutout in the dark.  Before I lost all the light, I took the bowl of sand and sprinkled handfuls of it like a benediction throughout my flower garden, now brown and withered by our early frosts. 

I guess now I can finally use that mixing bowl again--I'd wondered where it had gone!!  And for the "rest of the story" about two middle-aged gals sprinting south, turn to "Thelma and Louise on Spring Break"

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