Running in the soft sand of the mouth of the Back River the shore is littered with dead Horseshoe Crabs and Cannonball Jellyfish. The banks of the shore are steep here so when the tides go out it leaves them behind. In the sand are the tracks of the desperate attempts of the Horseshoe Crabs to claw themselves back into the water. Some become disoriented and go in circles. Others make a straighter dash to the ocean and live to see another day.
It is a sad sight.
What makes it sadder is that Horseshoe Crabs only come ashore to mate.
Looking for love literally kills them.
The theme from M*A*S*H pops into head and plays over and over as I run through the sands of dead love.
Through the early morning fog I see, visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me, I realize and I can see …
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
It’s the punk rock version that plays … lyrics relentlessly spit out over crashing drums, fiery guitars and a haunting piano melody. It’s the opposite of the sweet version on the reruns of the show.
It reeks of the pain that envelopes dying things.
“The game of life is hard to fake …” the band changes the lyric and I realize it for the first time. And I note how true it is. We stay in places we don’t like. Our relationships are unfulfilling. We go through motions we hate. We remain in rotten relationships for the kids. We sleepwalk through life with little joy, less laughter and precious little love.
We … settle.
Yesterday a friend of mine up and quit her job. She doesn’t have another one but she hated the one that she had so she quit. What makes this even more shocking is that she’s going through a divorce. Talk about guts! I can’t help but admire that! Throwing caution to the wind is one thing … kicking it in the ass is another!
Through the early morning fog I see, visions of the things to be …
Growing up is not the absence of dreaming. Ah, but having the guts to chase your dreams …well… that is a rare thing.
I turn at the of the mouth of the ocean and there is no more dead love here. The shore has a gradual slope. The beach is clean aside from the occasional dead Jellyfish who don’t have a mind to make up anyway and let life take them … whereevs.
I keep thinking about the crabs and the two kinds of tracks that they left in the sand. Most ran in circles never making up their minds to … live.
Some realized though that there is only this one life. They had experienced love on the shore but it wasn’t what they needed so I imagine they said to themselves, “To hell with this! There’s better out there. I’m living to love another day!”
So they did.
The rest gave their lives away and litter the shore.
