I saw his companion first, left hand hidden behind her waist and right hand jostling a gigantic Styrofoam cup of gas station soda. She was shaking it repeatedly, like when your ice is melting and you want to blend the tasteless tap water with the underlayer of sweet syrupy Coke.
But moments later I glanced again and saw that her hand continued to fling and flutter, long after the soda would have mixed with the ice dregs.
Her other hand came out from the pocket of her black and gold hippie-style sundress, and it was jiggling and joggling, too. Bending to set the drink on the sand, they played invisible air tambourines and her long gray braid flopped down, obscuring what I saw later as unmoving and rather emotionless facial features.
Her partner came into focus next. I don't know if they were married, or friends, or if she was some sort of helper, though based on what followed my best guess would be all three.
Shuffling behind a walker onto the beach, he stood shoeless and grimacing. It could have easily been the searing heat of the noontime Carolina sand beneath his crinkled toes but, more likely, it was his physical condition which led to his frowny scowl.
I somehow intuited a sense of the general unfairness of life informing his pain.
Walking was a herculean task and I found it both difficult and intriguing to watch. Other beachgoers spied him and then begin busying themselves with their cell phones or grandchildren or Fritos, depending on what was nearby, in an effort to appear distracted by their own miserable lives.
I did the same for a minute, unfolding and folding the towel in my lap.
I figured I should make Hubs aware, but he'd already shifted his weight to the balls of his feet in his beach chair, at the ready, primed to stand and assist as soon as the scowler's legs went out from under him.
Steadying himself nicely next to a tall wooden pier pile, he left his walker in the soft, deep dirt near the dunes and exhaled measurably. His companion helped him remove his shirt and motioned silently, devoted and measured in her actions; lips firmly set in a steely, pale line.
He began to move toward the water. Stopping and flashing a wobbly thumbs up to us and to whomever else made eye contact, he traded the scowl for a look of determination and like a sea turtle making its maiden crawl, trekked toward the shore. Platinum-haired and ponytailed like his lady, the map of lines upon his face showed years of outdoor exposure without benefit of sunscreen or shade.
His slow descent left all of us mesmerized. Alarming unsteadiness gave us cause for common glances and matching group-think. Those of us seated at the edges of his chancy corridor banded together wordlessly, believing we'd be up and helping within seconds.
A long amble to the shoreline, he grasped at his body, all the while the inconsistency of his gate showed his hips were bone on bone. Hampered by the hot sandy surface, he hadn't gotten to the flat part where the coolness marks relief and the waves roll over your toes.
But as he got closer, he started moving more quickly toward the water. She, with the salt shaker hands, traveled both next to and in front of him, silently using her body as a nudge for people to make room for the man.
Groups parted. He got there. We breathed the air we'd been unaware we were holding.
Onlookers next to the water popped the tops off their beverages and raised them congratulatorily in his direction. The determined look became a grin. But then, due to his frighteningly bad balance, or lack of good judgement, he fell...smack into the sea. SPLOOSH!
A rough wave day, he was pulled asunder and emerged five feet off shore, flapping and sputtering. It was a mad display of alternate dunking and emerging. He snapped his neck like a marlin on the line to flip his hair around so that he might see for a moment through rolling wild eyes before being pulled down again.
He was the helpless marionette of Poseidon, a most sadistic puppeteer.
Hubs and I looked to his companion, seated on the shore's edge, for clues. How do we respond? Was he waving or was he drowning? Resting stone faced, her eyes stayed with him while bobbed like a cork. Fishermen continued to cast giant baited hooks atop the pier, unaware of him directly below, their lines weighted with coal black sinkers shaped like arrowheads.
My fingers drummed the arms of my chair. I continued to look around at the people near me, most of whom seemed amused by the man's antics. Was he gleeful or was it panic? I couldn't tell. Was he smiling? Was he crying?
Wait...was he smiling and crying?
A huge wave spat him onto the beach and he stumble-crawled, laughing, to his mate who helped put neon colored water shoes on his puckered feet. Together, they made their way back to the walker; easily a ten minute exercise. Two women offered their assistance but were shrugged off as he made slicing motions with his stick-thin arms, thanking them in a soprano voice, flogged by sand and water, not unlike a quick huff of helium.
I told Hubs that this would make a good blog post but I was quite delayed, trying to figure out how to sum up the story. Then after spending a week with people who are struggling in their own personal and physical ways, the image of the strength and then the surrender of this man kept coming back to me.
Do I sit idle in my pain or do I go out on the crowded beach, despite the hurt and the hurdles and give the perfection-weary world of Facebook and filters something to be inspired by?
Cheers to those of you who choose to amble uncomfortably down the sand.
Cheers to those of you who hurl yourself into the ocean.
#mushroomtumbler
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