Lightning bugs, breadcrumbs and sand...

I have the fortitude of a sandcastle.

That’s what I thought today.

One crashing wave away from disaster.

This beautiful, temporary structure that’s just here for a short while.

Until death by wave, or shitty stamping kid.

We only get so many glasses of champagne—

or phone calls with Pop, or Daddy’s “Hey boy,” or the dog’s licking tongue, or the smell of Gran’s pound cake in the oven, or the extra innings Braves at Truist, or the stillness of a Sunday before work, or Momma chalking on the driveway daddy paid the road crew $50 to pave for us, or that horrible 80’s pink carpet, or waking up next to the boy, or the feel of the sun on your face, or blanket tents in the living room.

We only get so much.

A fixed number of laughs. Of heartbreaks. Of hopes. Of “fuck you’s” to an idiot driver (who ironically exist without limit).

Your life looks different when you remember that.

When you remember that you’re a summer’s eve lightning bug just one windshield away from a glowing splat, washed away by a hand that pulls a lever, and then speeds off

off and onward

off-ward to the first date

the first date with the girl, who will be the woman, who will be gone for years, but later

who will be the Mrs. Someone.

There are moments when you can pull back the curtain.

If you just pause

and breathe

and look at the night sky

or listen to the crashing waves

or watch a line of ants moving from hill to breadcrumb

or see a doe step out of the woods and into a clearing with two ankle bitters

or kiss a boy in the magic of a moment

or smell the rain

or living room dance party to Motown in the beach house on Amelia Island

in moments of tragic, majestic, wonderful, beautiful, auspicious, graceful, grieving, angry, hateful, magical, silent, fortuitous, weak, ending, beginning, understanding that—

this is your life.

Your life happening

All around you

Right now.

I have the fortitude of a sandcastle—

But I have the resilience of the sea.

Rise, crash. Rise, crash.

rise.