spread your wings and fly, a little

With rain predicted here but not at the Jersey shore, we thought last week was a good time to pack the masks, Lysol, paper towels, plastic gloves, hand sanitizer, all our food so we wouldn’t need to risk takeout, all our emergency meds so we wouldn’t need to raid CVS, and find a cheap motel that had not yet served any other risky human this pandemic spring.

Ding, ding, ding. We found one at Cape May. No one had been there all winter. All the signs, they promised, were up -- please distance, please mask up, one at a time in the office, please -- and the pool they swore was warm, the rates were low, and they were wide open for stressed-out refugees from the city.

We staggered in.

One night was all. That would be the experiment. If we could handle one night while on high alert because of the virus, the protests, the political situation, and the fear someone we knew would see us and chat which we’ve forgotten how to do -- we could maybe add the shore to our narrow list of haunts we could sometimes stalk mid-week as the summer bears down upon us poor confused souls.

We’re all trying to figure out how big our bubbles can get.

As a kid, bubble gum was a favorite -- I still secretly chew it -- so I know how critical it is to get things just right and not let the bubble get out of control.

Bursting is not an option.

Since the usual benchmarks like having a big Memorial Day party or jumping into the local swimming pool or eating water ice before it drips all over your white tee shirt were gone -- I missed the fact chilly spring had turned into hot summer.

I packed hiking clothes. Where was I going, Nepal? As a friend said recently, “It’s so stressful to go everywhere, you forget how to go.”

I had no bathing suit to dip in the ocean, no flip flops to get onto the beach, no goggles for some pool laps. I forgot.

Then the big storm hit back home. One week later, in the same scruffy clothes, we staggered back from the beach when the power was finally restored.

Lucky timing you might say. Hey, I’ll say it with you.

So the summer has officially begun in my household, unexpectedly, despite our fear of bursting our bubble. We wore our masks, bobbed and weaved around those ready to let it all go, ate takeout and ran out of toothpaste.

And In between -- lucky, lucky, lucky.   

We turned over horseshoe crabs stuck on the beach as oystercatchers sunk their red beaks into the quivering sand

and sneaky gulls pecked our pecans while we watched the wind whip the waves

and the light glossed the slick fins of the dancing dolphins

as the ospreys spread their wings wide as the feathery clouds

and we chased ghost crabs into their tiny, tidy tunnels and the sun, the life-giving sun, put on a show of shows that can only be compared to bursting.

Wondrous.

Wondrous to whatever small level we can manage this summer. Mask at the ready. Hand sanitizer in a pocket. Arms stretched to the tips of the fingers reaching for that 6 feet expanse. The big, bursting world still there.

Now that’s the spirit.

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