Perfect

by Susan Cameron

Sheba loped along Dog Beach, focused on her mission: Find The Perfect Stick. She nosed through piles of seaweed and tangled fishing line, pulling out driftwood sticks roughly two feet long and two inches thick. When she'd assembled her collection, she picked up the first stick, checked it for balance, chewed it a little, then moved to the next. Sheba chose the winner and dropped it at my feet. Then my part of our ritual began.

I flung the driftwood over the rolling breakers and squinted into the afternoon sun. Millions of stars twinkled in the water. Sheba the Surf Dog waited for the splash, then hurled herself into the Pacific. She was doing what she loved most in the place she loved best.

I knew Sheba didn't have many days like this left. At fourteen years old, her eyes were clouded with cataracts, and her movements had slowed and stiffened. In the water, however, she had all the enthusiasm of a puppy. She turned toward the beach, looked over her right shoulder, caught a swell, and paddled in on her large paws. Shaking a gallon of seawater out of her black fur, she brought the conquered stick to me. Again I hurled it back into the sea. Again she retrieved it.

Eventually her legs tired and we retreated to our blanket. I poured a bottle of water into her blue plastic dish, grabbed another for myself, and we watched the ocean dance. I looked at Sheba. How many times over the years had we jumped in the Toyota and made the short drive to the ocean? Here we were surrounded by beauty, by the crayon colors of childhood: cerulean, azure, cobalt, aquamarine; clouds flecked with rose and lavender, Catalina Island backlit by a scarlet blaze in the distance. My happy dog even had rainbows caught in her wet black fur, glints of green and purple when the sunlight hit it just right.

Sheba leaned against me, sighed, and rested her head on my knee. I watched the tide roll in and stroked her back. I inhaled the scent of warm sand, salty breeze, and clean wet dog. My pulse slowed to the beat of the world's great blue metronome.

It occurred to me how time is different at the beach. It's not a solid thing. It can't be broken down into office-sized ten-minute increments. The ocean pulls time in, slows it down, liquefies it, and pushes it back out with the tides. Languid and leisurely it flows, and it feels like however much time you have, it's enough.

Sheba was almost dry. I stroked her gray muzzle. I massaged her arthritic legs while the incoming tide massaged the sand. Soft as a mother's kiss, it erased my footprints, her pawprints. Soon there wasn't a trace of us left, and it was time to go home.

Sheba's dead now, of course. All you can expect from a big dog is a life the length of a human childhood. The time flowed by so gently; I scarcely noticed it. Most importantly, Sheba and I didn't waste it. We spent many perfect days together, wisely, at the beach.

Susan Cameron, copyright 2002

A Forever Ocean View

In honor of my mother, Maudie Weidman, who passed away fourteen years ago this week, here’s a reprise of a piece published in Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover’s Soul. She was a salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner who told great stories, played a mean piano and always kept a supply of Snickers bars on hand. She loved a good joke, the color red and hot fudge sundaes for lunch. She was the best Little Mommy ever, and I still miss her every day.

A Forever Ocean View

My mother and I longed for an ocean view, the kind that went on forever just like the real estate ads boasted, where we could be swept up in the sea’s changing moods. Neither of us could afford a house on the ocean, but dreaming was free so we did plenty of that. Still, we hoped someday at least one of us would realize the dream and share her good fortune with the other.

In the meantime we took every opportunity to be near the water. Each Friday we had a standing date and usually managed to fit in lunch at a seaside restaurant. We ate our way up and down the coast of Southern California, seeking new ocean view spots to savor. We even joined a beach club because it had a great restaurant on the sand. We could lunch to the sound of waves licking the shore, watch the sea birds swoop and soar or track the progress of the California gray whale migrations. It was, we decided, the closest we would ever get to owning any part of an ocean view.

We would talk at our whitewater lunches, but words weren’t always necessary. Sometimes we would just watch the ocean in silence, perfectly content. Once I asked my mother about her wistful look, and she said she was imagining herself a gull flying free over the water, becoming part of the seascape. We agreed that would be a perfect way to spend time.

One Friday at the beach club her voice broke a long comfortable silence, “Next Friday I need your help choosing my niche.”

“What’s a niche?” I asked.

“It’s where they put people’s ashes at the cemetery,” she said as a wave crashed into the sand. She’d been on a mission to get her affairs in order since a recent hospitalization for congestive heart failure.

“I always thought you’d want your ashes to be spread at sea.”

“Oh, no,” she said, a hint of a giggle in her eyes. “You know I can’t swim.”

She had me laughing, breaking the somber mood that had overtaken me at the mention of cemeteries and ashes. I preferred to ignore the subject, but she was an undertaker’s daughter, practical about death. She wanted to be cremated. There would be no viewing, no funeral and no arguments. I wasn’t anxious to spend our Friday at a cemetery, but I couldn’t refuse my mother.

“Where’s the cemetery?” I asked, resigned to a gruesome day.

“Corona Del Mar,” she said. “Pacific View Memorial Park.”

Of course, I thought. She was going to have her ocean view if it was the last thing she ever did.

We met at Pacific View where the “counselor” showed us available niches. We narrowed it down to two locations in Palm Court, which resembled a giant stucco planter with marble-faced niches on all four sides and palms growing in the middle. It sat atop a hill with a panoramic view of the Pacific. That day the ocean sparkled azure blue and Catalina Island rose up from the horizon.

One niche faced the ocean, the other looked inland. But even ocean view niches are more expensive than ones looking away from the sea. My mother’s face fell when she learned this. She probably could have afforded the view niche, but it went against her practical grain. She regrouped and began to assess the virtues of the inland niche.

“Look,” she said. “It’s right on the corner. You can sit here beside the niche and see the view when you visit me. I can just peek around the corner.” She was teasing me again, easing the tension. “Why should I plunk out all that money to be on the view side?”

I could see she had made up her mind. She was buying the niche on the corner, without a view.

Eighteen months later she died. My sister and I placed her ashes in the niche and watched the attendant secure the marble plate with mortar. We held onto each other, eyes straining through gray haze to see the ocean our mother had loved to watch.

My Fridays were free, but I found myself at Pacific View often. Like my mother had instructed, I sat down facing the ocean. Sometimes I looked at the view, but mostly I closed my eyes and turned my head skyward. I’d see a kaleidoscope of red, yellow and orange swirls pulling me inside the changing design and wrapping me up. It felt warm and sustaining, like a hug. When the colors subsided, I would leave, hardly glancing at the view.

After a year I was still aching and empty, crying at odd moments. A college friend came to visit and as a lark we went to a psychic. I was stunned when she said, “Someone has recently passed on. They are worried about you and can’t be free until they know you are all right.”

Days later, at the niche, I thought about the psychic’s words. I normally took such pronouncements lightly, but I couldn’t shake this one. I sat at the niche, eyes closed as usual. I was edgy, though, and the colors faded almost as fast as they came. Hearing a bird’s call, I opened my eyes to see a gull circling above. I felt the words come before I said them, “Don’t worry, Mommy. I’ll be fine.” As if in response, the gull dipped a wing, circled once more and flew off toward the ocean. My spirits lifting with the bird, I watched until it was out of sight. And there before me was that beautiful forever ocean view my mother had bought to share with me. I sat for a long time absorbing every part of it.

Copyright 2002, Liz Zuercher

25 Things You May Not Know About Me and Probably Could Care Less About

Okay, last week was the first half of 25 things you don't know about me. This week is the last half. Another one of our writers gets to post next week...aren't you glad?

13. I actually voted for Richard Nixon. I know…many of you who know me won't believe it--I can't believe it either. I’ve been trying to live it down ever since. But I figure if Hillary could overcome being a Goldwater Girl, I can overcome this.

14. When I was young and single, I once partied a little too hardy one night so a friend dropped me at my apartment, but she left before I realized I didn’t have my apartment keys. Since it was 3 a.m., I was too embarrassed to wake the apartment manager. So, I walked around the block until I found an unlocked car and lay down in the back seat until 7 a.m. when I felt okay about asking the manager to let me in to my apartment.

15. With three college friends, I took off from Boulder, Colorado and drove to San Francisco for the weekend once. We left on a Friday night, had car trouble in Wyoming, had to be towed back to Laramie, Wyoming, got the car fixed, continued on the trip, got to San Francisco on Saturday afternoon, spent the night with a friend attending a Catholic women’s college, did San Francisco that night, then got back in the car on Sunday, and drove all the way back to Boulder. I bought four cheap art prints of the city of San Francisco that I framed and still have to this day.

16. My favorite job was as a book store clerk at a used bookstore. My favorite frequent customers were: (1) a little old lady with specs perched on her nose, her hair pulled into a little white bun on top of her head, and who looked like everyone’s lovable old grandma— but she was a retired zoologist who specialized in rats, had published research papers on rats, and came in every month or so to see if we had any new books on rats--she told me more about rats than I ever knew there was to know; (2) a couple I called Ken and Barbie—Barbie always wore a little short skirt that barely covered her fanny and they walked around the store arm in arm, Ken with his hand up her skirt, resting on her fanny and rubbing it up and down; (3) the homeless couple who lived in their car in the parking lot and came in to use the bathroom, then picked out a section in the bookstore and spent the day reading;if they were getting along, they sat in the same section; if they were fighting, she sat by the Divorce/Death and Dying section in the Psychology nook and he sat in the Guns and Hunting section; (4) the very stacked, wow-looking, airhead blond who came in one day and asked for “that book on the Oprah show”—she didn’t know the title or the author, but said it was a “big yellow book” –our single male manager, his tongue hanging out in lust, told her we only had a red book section and a blue book section, but had not yet developed our “yellow” book section, however, he happily offered to walk her around the store looking for yellow books...They spent a long time in a back room we called the “vault” because the bookstore was located in a former bank—the vault housed sets of books like old encyclopedias, Great Books series, and other sets—there were NO yellow books back there…I checked later.

17. I once thought Lawrence Welk played classical music because my grandmother loved him so much and she was a classical pianist and piano teacher.

18. I still miss Johnny Carson—Jay, Conan, and Dave just can’t compare.

19. I watch the movie, Love Actually, every Christmas and cry every time.

20. I have always secretly been in love with Tommy Lee Jones.

21. I have a crush on Chris Matthews of MSNBC. So does my sister, but I think he’d like me better.

22. I once got so mad at my 12-year-old son and his messy room where he had let, among other things, an overturned bottle of Elmer’s glue drip off his desk, down the wall, and onto the carpet that while he was at school one day, I moved all his furniture, clothes, and belongings down to the garage and put a “condemned” sign on his bedroom door. I still don’t know how I did it all by myself—just motivated and strengthened by anger I guess because I got everything—the bed, the desk, the bed table, the lamps, the clothes, the stereo, the books, etc.— downstairs to the garage except for the triple dresser and mirror. When he got home from school, he and his friends were thunderstruck at what I’d done. They laughed and laughed and helped him move it all back.

23. When I was in junior high I decided to read through the set of encyclopedias we had. I think I made it to about C before giving up. I still occasionally like to browse through an encyclopedia just for fun and, sometimes, I even read the dictionary for fun.

24. I love watching home improvement shows on HGTV. They’re so imaginative—did you know you can build a backyard gazebo over just one weekend as shown in one half-hour show. I know…I don’t believe it either. My fantasy is that Divine Design, Designer’s Challenge, or This Old House will find me and remake me one day. My major question to home improvement experts is: We can go to the moon, we can send drones by remote control to bomb places, we are the most electronically sophisticated generation ever, so with all this technological knowledge and expertise, why can’t we make a sliding patio door with rollers that actually slide effortlessly and smoothly and last for more than 6 months?

25. I love hardware stores. I love looking at all the gadgets I don’t need, will never buy, and don’t know how to use. I don’t know how to do anything, so I really admire tools and people who know how to use them. Along with my hairdresser, my handyman is my most indispensable person. I have told both of them they absolutely cannot die before I do or it will ruin my life. I sometimes think I’d like to move to another state, but I can’t stand the thought of leaving my hairdresser or my handyman. Doctors, accountants, and lawyers you can replace easily. Good hairdressers and good handymen—almost impossible.

25 Things You May Not Know About Me and Probably Could Care Less About

Just for fun, I'll post the first half of this list this week and the second half next week. Now you know all my secrets (well...maybe almost all).

1. Instead of Susan, I would have preferred to be named something exotic and sexy like Serena, Desiree, or Jezebel. However, I am grateful that my mother prevailed over my father who wanted to name me after my two grandmothers, in which case you would be addressing me as Oma Viola Valentine. One grandmother was Oma Hall Harris and the other was Viola Valentine McCoy, both lovely ladies, but thank heaven I didn’t have to answer the roll call in school as Oma Viola.

2. I once worked for the public relations/advertising agency that handled Duke Kahanamoku’s, a well-known and popular restaurant/night club in Honolulu, Hawaii and their biggest star, singer/entertainer Don Ho. The head account manager, the vice president of the firm, and I (a lowly copywriter) once had a publicity meeting in Don Ho’s Waikiki penthouse at the Hawaiian Village. At the time, he was in bed with his latest blond girl friend and we conducted the meeting sitting on his bed, sipping Mai Tais. Unfortunately, there were no cell phones with cameras back then.

3. I almost got arrested by the secret service for trespassing on President Lyndon Johnson’s ranch near Austin, Texas. On a spring break trip during my sophomore year, my friends and I, who had been staying at a sorority sister’s ranch near Austin, decided on the way back to school to stop and see LBJ’s ranch. The ranch house sits on a big hill overlooking the Perdenales River outside Austin. It was hot and dusty, and we were hot and dusty and cramped (four of us travelling in a Volkswagen), so we decided the President wouldn’t mind if we took a swim in his river to cool off. We were having a great time splashing around and never batted an eye as we watched two cars speed down the hill from the house and cross the river to our side on a secret road built just beneath the water. We waved and hollered and whooped at them as they approached. When they slammed to a stop in a cloud of dust right by us, we thought it was hilarious. Please be advised, the Secret Service does not have much of a sense of humor.

4. My genetic heritage (from the deep South) is predisposed to Hershey bars, popcorn, nachos, cokes, chocolate pie with meringue, and gravy on everything. Vegetables, with the exception of black-eyed peas and spinach (and only if they are heavily laced with bacon grease), and fruits, with the exception of strawberries (and only if they are layered on angel food cake and topped with whip cream), are not and never were part of my family’s daily nutritional plan. I never even knew what kale or chard looked like until my daughter and her husband bought a farm and grew it. I just recently found out there is a vegetable called raddichio.

5. When I was 15, I accidentally cracked a window pane in my parents’ house. It was in the bathroom off the family room, and I didn’t think anyone would notice so I didn’t say anything. They did notice and went into an uproar because they thought a burglar had tried to get in the house and had broken the window. My mom installed security locks on the back doors. She and my dad put a lock on the backyard gate and even considered getting a burglar alarm. Every night for the next week before he went to bed, my dad took a security walk around the house, checking for unguarded entry points. I never told them I was the one that cracked the window.

6. I am terrified of the common moth that flits around lights. When I was a kid, if one got in my room and I heard it flapping around the ceiling, I would go into fits of hysteria until someone, usually my parents, killed it. It didn’t matter if it was 3 a.m. in the morning, I’d wake them up to get that little bugger out of there. I’m still terrified. In fact, when I was nine months and two weeks overdue with my first child, I was sitting on the sofa when a moth flapped around the light next to me and then into my hair. Terrified, I jumped six feet off the sofa, fell over the coffee table, and rolled on the floor screaming. My water broke the next afternoon and my mother was convinced I’d still be pregnant if it weren’t for that moth.

7. I love movie theater buttered popcorn and often go to the movies just so I can get a bag of popcorn.

8. I cannot make gravy. No matter what I do, it turns out lumpy.

9. I used to bribe my sisters to rub/tickle my feet, which I find the most relaxing thing in the world to this day. I’m absolutely shameless about what I’ll do to get a foot rub.

10. I have had my thank you speech for accepting the Academy Award for best actress written for the last 40 years, though I update it annually at awards time. (I always secretly wanted to be an actress.)

11. I also would love be a detective because I’m nosy, observant (good for a writer), sneaky, like to pretend, and am a good liar.

12. In my next life, if I’m not an actress or a detective, I want to be a stand-up comedian.