It was Christmas day and he had nowhere to go and nothing to do and no one to see, so he went to Crane’s Beach and it was cold but not too cold, so he layered up and ran on the beach with new camera and saw the blank slate, the beach canvas, with reeds and seaweed and shells on the sand flat and it was what he wanted to photograph and on and on down the beach with broken sand dollars and waves and sun and sea and running, so not too cold, warming up and picture after picture it was good, to the end of the beach to the point and around far down the beach farther than he had been for years since he had run on the beach with her and he rounded the point, no one in sight and saw the island and the perfect painted photograph of farm and wood and calm inlet and rising tide with birds, sitting on sand bank closing eyes facing the sun, no thoughts, peaceful.
And then running back with more photos, one, two hours maybe even three, he was on the beach, and groups of people walking past him now and he alone and it’s Christmas day and the people with their conversations, judgements, who had opened presents earlier and had Christmas lunch and families enwrapped in familyhood and he alone, somewhere else from kids and gf, cut off free, wary of seeing someone he knows who would say ‘hi…’ piercing his bubble and him not wanting to be known, wanting to be in this place with no one seeing him, running and the sky and sea and beach and wind and images, beautiful world separate from anything Christmas like but Christmas beauty anyways in a different better way.
Running closer to the boardwalk now and the parking lot and his car, thinking good, unnoticed up wood steps walking now seeing two people on the wooden walkway, noticing them, a man with a dog and a woman and then she swerves from around the dog walker and it’s her, who he used to run on the beach with, and she blurts out ‘hi’ or something he couldn’t remember, she’s with her new boyfriend and his aloneness is exposed, that is why he went to the beach, to another world and then she’s passed him with this other guy walking to the beach, this sudden interception with no conversation, no connection, and she’s passed him, he turns and sees her perfect parka plum colored walking away, realizing it was her and they didn’t stop, just a flash of knowing and memories of what was, the intensity, the attraction and breakups, and back togethers, now gone.
