I am sitting at a diner in Wellfleet, Mass.

We are here on vacation this week, my wife and I and a revolving door or friends and family. It’s not the best week weather wise. Storms and periodic rains. Humid (93% today). The air is heavy and I sweat everywhere I go. Our rental does not have air conditioning and neither does the diner. Still, it is AWAY. And even though it is very different it reminds me of my childhood.

When I was a child, my parents took us to a place called White Lake, North Carolina. It was a small lake, 6 miles around, crystal clear water and white sand. The cottages and hotel were from the forties or fifties. Simple. No AC, big screened in porches. And we went the same week, every year. Second week in July.

We were not the only ones. There were half a dozen other families that came down that same week, year after year, so that our vacation became sort of a family reunion with the same people, same kids, same boats and families each week. Some of us have continued to stay in touch, even now, forty years later.

It was hot. It was sticky. There was nothing to do but sail, ski and read. I did a lot of reading.
there were about five or six cottages, and an old three story hotel. The lobby was worn out and tired, but expansive. Red and white linoleum tiles on the floor and a couple threadbare used to be oriental rugs. Overstuffed chairs and sofas. A wooden card table.

On one wall was a big bookcase, chock full of pulp fiction, mostly mysteries, from the forties and fifties. And I read from that book case constantly, year after year, rain or shine. I am still a huge fan of those old mysteries, all borne from my vacations.

And oddly, the humidity does the same thing. Beach humidity is distinctive. Thick, yes. Pervasive, yes. But what would feel oppressive in normal times, feels comfortable. If feels like a memory, Like a return to something lost. Something forgotten and suddenly remembered. I am fifteen again. Thin, young, carefree and for that week at least, innocent again.

I will tell you this. at sixty eight, I still miss my innocence. I kept it longer than most in my life. And I lost it brutally, like so many people. Only later. I can remember that feeling, of trust that all would be well.

I still think that now. It’s one of my mantras. But…. but… now I have to think about it. I have to remind myself of all I have been through that that here I am, in a good place in my life. Loved by a fair number of people, more than I deserve. And with enough, and purposeful work. When things are rough, I can think my way through it. My head knows things work out, but it needs me to work and remind myself .

In innocence, that belief was automatic. I did not need to go through my list to remind me. I just KNEW. And I miss that. Am I wrong to mourn that loss? A lot of time has passed after all. I am edging into becoming an old man. Part of me says “Get over it, old man.”

But I know grief does not work that way. It does not have a schedule or a timeline. How many of us, years after a parent has passed, are suddenly triggered and find ourselves on the brink of tears all over again. And it is OK.

What I think is that when we grieve, whatever we grieve for, it is because we have loved something or someone, and to grieve is a mark of the value we felt. And for me, that innocence has value. I don’t know what I might have been if I had kept it, but I know it would have been different.

Better? Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I am where life has led me. I have done as well as I could in whatever time I was in. That is enough. I’d love to have that feeling of innocence again, but at the same time, I am glad I had it all all, and for as long as I did. So many people I know had it ripped away from then when they were oh so young.

And so I sit, in a strange little diner in a new place, sweating as I drink my coffee. Soaked in a memory that likely would have never shown up if I were any where else. And so I write, the little boy in me singing in a childish, alto voice:

I will miss you,
this bright sun of a life I live.
I will miss you
and curse those who ripped you away from me.
I will miss you,
but I will survive,

And then, after I know I will survive,
I will remember you fondly,
I will raise a glass to you,
and learn to celebrate what was.
Even myself.

Sigh. Time to go back to the cottage. connect again to the now. And read while the rain falls. Glad to be here.

Be well, travel wisely,

Tom