Out to the Windy Beach

Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind, Down the foggy ruins of time, Far past the frozen leaves, The haunted frightened trees, Out to the windy beach, Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow. – Mr. Tambourine Man, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature for a reason. His songs are poetry set to music, transcending time and place. And, for me, many Dylan lyrics remind me of my blue-eyed son. With bootheels eager to wander and a love of music and words, he pushes my cautious nature. Perhaps that is what I want to see. But, you recognize in your children what is also in yourself, the maddening and the beautiful.

He is 18 now. He was 15 when Doug died. It is a great sorrow that their relationship can no longer evolve. Doug will not see the man he is becoming. He has lost a father and a friend. How that might change who he will become weighs on me.

I long, too, for days gone by. A newly-minted adult, his childhood lies behind him now. But I recall early mornings in rocking chairs, countless bedtime stories, an impish grin his small face could not contain, a broken heart at the end of Charlotte’s Web. My darling young one, indeed.

Maybe our memories are a little like Dylan’s smoke rings. They take us past a crazy sorrow, remind us of freer times, unbound from loss or regret. We would spend hours on a windy beach in Maine searching tide pools. Little hands discovered tiny creatures in sandy homes. Doug’s mom helped make seaweed crowns. We reveled in unspoiled joy.

I tried so hard to shield him and his sister from haunted moments we could not avoid. I cannot take away their loss, but hopefully I can soften it, with time, with love. Loss shapes us, but it does not define us. So, we dare and dance and wave our hand free, rooted in what has been, believing in what still can be.