Castles and Carousels

Maggie sat on the park bench listening to the leaves rustle as the wind blew through the tree branches.  Her hair, which had earlier been combed into a neat twist, was now in utter disarray, wind blown and messy.  It was seven o’clock, but it was the first of June and there was easily one and a half or two hours of daylight remaining in the day.

The park swings were constantly occupied, as was the slide, with children celebrating the joy that comes to children with the knowledge that school is out for the summer.

Maggie shifted her weight, brushed the hair from her face, and watched in amazement at the never-ending energy that the children were exerting.  “God,” she thought, “to be young again.”  She quickly rethought the thought and amended it to, “Be young again and know what I know now.”  A rowdy game of tag was being played with all the gusto six and seven year olds can muster up when ‘flirting with each other – little girls chasing little boys, little boys chasing little girls; oh, if life would only remain that simple.

It was Saturday morning – no work!  She stepped into a pair of navy blue shorts, hooked her bra and then pulled on a light blue short sleeved tee shirt, brushed her hair and tied it with a blue ribbon, put on her running shoes and headed out for a morning run.

She enjoyed the scenery as much as she enjoyed the sun; the magnificent Oaks draped with beards of gray Spanish moss, Magnolias with dozens of sweet white blossoms nearly as large as dinner plates, an occasional Dogwood or Oleander; they were all beautiful, accented by the narrow two lane road that curved through them all like a piece of satin ribbon following the contour of the land.

On a clear night on the balcony of a chalet in Switzerland, Charles asked Maggie to be his wife.  She trembled as love and excitement flowed through very inch of her body.  She looked up at him and he kissed her lips, at first so gently that she barely felt his lips on hers, then the passion grabbed him and he thrust his tongue into her mouth and kissed her with such force and passion that her knees went weak.

“Oh my God, yes, yes, I’ll marry you,” and she returned his kiss with equal passion.

She had a hungry ache in her soul that would not go away.  She got into her car and drove to the only place where she could feel at peace – she drove to the beach.  There was a slight chill in the air and the beach was deserted.  A few hundred yards off the end of the pier a shrimp boat was coming in dragging it’s nets.  Only a few weeks earlier the sand had been dotted with umbrellas, blankets, chairs, and people; filled with laughter, fun, and splashing – children had been chasing minnows and old folks had been picking up shells – but now it was all deserted.  Now it was just a stretch of sand, sand with the water lazily splashing up against the shore--she thought about all the mornings she had stood in this same spot and watched the distant pink of the upcoming sun, the dawn of a new day – there had been many dawns, many ‘new’ days – and each new dawn, each new day, had also been the dawn of the rest of a life.  Tomorrow would be such a day, it would be the first day of the rest of her life – and the rest of her life had to have change.