August 8 2017, in the Hills of New Hampshire
The sun was behind my back, writing in the kitchen as I often do. The sun pouring in on this early august afternoon. I had recently returned from a week of mayhem with the in -law clan. A week on the Coast of South Carolina.
“A Butterfly Engulfed by the Sea”
3:00 PM , Edisto Beach, SC
The day dawned to clear skies. Most semblance of humidity gone. Just bright sun and bluebird sky. Cicadas reveling continuously. The day is crisp, but I am not. My sleep was never truly procured last night.
It was a struggle for cognition, basic linear thought. 40 oz of strong black coffee helped. A half dozen eggs, many pieces of bacon, and three pieces of toast did the rest.
Breakfast was a family affair. Kathy’s brother Sean making much of, or Christ all of the food for all I know. He told me, I’m certain, but of course forgot before he stopped talking.
The house was already full. In a slow swing, not quite up to full steam. Morning children- hair still mussed from the nights sleep, eyes still groggy. Parents looking not quite ready for full steam yet…
I walked across the street, and into beach access 2. The day was growing hotter by the minute, well into the 80’s now. Of course, though we just had breakfast, it was 1 PM already.
I chose my spot between two large groups with multiple chairs, coolers, and easy ups. The Easy Up… the American-Bedouin tent. I set my chair in place and waited for the rest to arrive.
It took a while for me to realize that these two groups of people I’d gotten between were Kath’s extended family. Yes, I was sitting between family of 25 plus years and didn’t know it. Hey, it’s a big family.
Moving on…
The surf was violent and wild. Unpredictable. A churning, moving wall of mixed water and sand. A slurry. Yes, a slurry… like really loose concrete. Lots of sand and small stone, and shell. Like being sandblasted while enduring waterboarding.
Watched many a strong man get taken down a notch by that surf today, spouting and spitting sea water. I myself -a swimmer with Steve Zissou reflexes, a real walrus in the waves- got engulfed thoroughly, sea water racing in to fill my sinuses, mouth, and windpipe. My friends who know me well say I swim with a precision and intensity somewhere between Michel Phelps and a house cat just thrown into a tub full of water.
But mainly I sat watching the ocean. Drinking 20 oz waters alternated with Newburyport Brewing’s Green Head IPA. Damn fine beach beer.
I watched the kids play, and bash each other with water guns. They threw sand in fits of unbridled emotion. Tears and drool. They moved on. They sat together beneath the hot South Carolina sun. Cousins, siblings, and latchers on, they all come for Stickley season here on Edisto. Me, I’m a latcher on…by marriage.
I watched a butterfly today.
One lone black and purple butterfly. We’ll call him Chauncey.
Chauncey was flying into a stiff breeze. Wind actually, damn near gale force at times. The wind was what had been whipping the Atlantic into a frenzy. Some kind of Bahamian tempest I’m presuming. One never does know what goes on, out there, far into the Atlantic. After all, what if it’s not true, what they tell us…Christ a whole conspiracy, keep the Bahamian weather from us, keep us unaware. Crooks.
Chauncey flew north. Perhaps blown to Edisto on the large thunderheads that rolled through the other day, whisked in from the deep South. From the deltas and fields that gave birth to the Blues. And to the civil rights movement.
Damn little butterfly was giving his all. Flying into the wind and all. And inches, only inches above the tumult of the Atlantic.
In one quick blast, Chauncey was gone.
He seemed to float easily through so many other waves. Flying between the drops the way Miles Davis played between the rhythm and the structure of a song.
The wave that got him though was a big one.
A butterfly engulfed by the sea.
I knew how it felt. I was too, engulfed by the sea. Though I reemerged, saltier, but fine. Chauncey went to the black bottom of the brine!
We all know that feeling. Especially in these weird, weird days of Donnie and the Henchmen. The feeling of being pulled down. Slipping deeper, the sensation of tension, stress as the first salt water penetrates the sinus, as the first taste of salt comes, one foot unsteady, falling backwards into the wave.
Yes it’s weird times no matter which side of the tide you’re on. And we all know it. Without doubt.
I just hope we… you, I, the whole country… doesn’t fly too close, too low, when the wave breaks.
And when the wave breaks, I just hope -we are not the doomed – we are not a butterfly engulfed by the sea.
William J Mullen
Edisto Beach, South Carolina July 31 2017
William J Mullen 