March 23, 2011
We drove to Cardiff by the Sea—the first beach driving south from Encinitas that would allow dogs. We had taken Peaches our little Poodle, and I didn’t want to leave her in the hot truck.
As DD, BD (Husband was in Oregon) and I began to walk down the beach 22 pelicans flew in a single file over our heads. Those huge birds, their black hides and enormous beaks silhouetted against the blue sky were so close we could see the frayed edges of their wing feathers. Little ripples of goose flesh coursed down my back when their shadows touched me.
They cruised over beach sand, not over water, as I would expect. They would glide down the beach, and in a few minutes some would be back, 20, 17, 3. Sometimes they would fly in a straight line sometimes in V-formation, only their V’s were lop sided, with two or three birds on one side, the rest on the other. Twenty five flew by. I thought it would be significant somehow to see 23 as this was March 23, and DD, BD and I were there at the ocean’s edge to have a good-bye ceremony for Hawaii.
We thought perhaps we had not said our good-byes sufficiently. The day before we had received such a blow I threw myself to the floor in shock and horror for a good five minutes.
My problem? Our House in Hawaii was in escrow. The sale was supposed to close on March 29. Forty minutes before the inspection period ended the buyers pulled out—I did not know that earnest money could be returned, but during the inspection time it can. This way potential buyers can tie up a house, eliminate it from the market, spend time there, have it termite inspected at owners expense, although it was under warranty, talk to the neighbors, mull it over, and then get cold feet and pull out.
After those initial 5 minutes, I raised my carpet imprinted nose from the floor, and thought, Can I do as the black minister Johnny Coleman once said, “If you go into work and the boss says, ‘You’re fired,’ you say, ‘Okay Great Master what do you have in store for me?’”
So, we’re at the beach saying our good-byes. I write a letter and DD, BD and I write good-byes on river rocks. We thank the Big Island, and we ask Pele to release us from Hawaii.
With a felt marker I drew a lei of flowers around one rock with a “Good Bye” written inside the circle, and threw it out to sea. While in Hawaii I had wanted to throw a real flower lei into the ocean as old time vacationers used to do to see if they would ever return to the island. If the lei floated out they would not. If it floated back to shore they would. That could be rigged, of course, depending on the tides, but if those rocks ever make it to Hawaii there is no way we could rig that.
As we climbed into the truck preparing to leave a group of pelicans flew over. I counted them.
Twenty three!
P.S. March 30: A new offer on the house. We’re in escrow again.
