#56 LEAVING THE GULF/ (revised 7/22)

The rays of the morning gulf sun crept up to the old wooden window and passed through the blinds onto his little yellow table as they did every morning along the Texas gulf coast. He would stick to his routine; a shower and a shave. He would reach for clean socks, underwear, shirt and shorts, sweetly warmed and fresh from the dryer. He would have his usual breakfast at the cafe, glance at the newspaper, then shed his sneakers for a slow barefoot walk along the cool sand.

Today, once more in this squiggly line of his life, it was another beginning. He was restless, eager for the start. He dug out the “nursery box” and carefully examined all those things he had put away in another life; two pairs of pruners, his hand made weeding trowel, long rubber gloves, hooks and straps for the trees and shrubs, and the tattered Sunset garden book filled with his hand written notes. He reached from the shelf and grasped the brown notebook, placed it in the box, snapped it shut and set it by the door. He packed the worn hooded blue Carhart coat for the cold days, the full army issued rain parka for the wet days, and plenty of old work shorts for the Oklahoma heat.

He had tossed all night thinking about what was ahead. He was older now. The muscles just did not work as well. The knees hobbled under the weight. The shoulders ached from the thrusts. There would be awful painful days of moving and lifting when all he would have left was to lunge forward and fall to his bed. He remembered those days when he was young and wondered if he had it in him to do it again. Sometimes, in those early struggles, he would just drift away asleep in a warm bath waking hours later to cold water and another morning.

Nick decided to keep renting the shack for a while, leaving everything just how he liked it. He was sure and unsure of it all. In his youthful days of confidence, he would have burned the bridges and never looked back. Now he wanted, now he needed this shack, this house, this home. He must lean on familiarity, if it all went bad.

He hesitated as he stepped on that bus that would take him those many miles to the Tulsa bound plane. He turned and faced the gulf waters and looked once more at this life he was giving up, the sun, the mornings and the quiet.

The cold fear of uncertainty gripped him; Do I have worth? Will I have value? Will I succeed in this grand plan that I dreamed and wrote about over these so many years? Can others, the young ones, make this dream come true better than I? What will this gray hair , this weathered face and this unsteady movement mean to them as we begin the real work? Will I just be in the way?

Nick took a seat near the back facing an opened window and the ocean breeze. He wanted again to see the light in the gardener’s eyes at what he would create. He wanted their laughter, their curiosity, to bring back his gift to learn again and teach others. He wanted green garden gates.

Nick Hudson slumped down in the seat, propped his knees up and let the afternoon sun push deep into his closed eyes. He smiled. He was ready.

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail
Poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail
Hunted like a crocodile ravaged in the corn
"Come in" she said
"I'll give you shelter from the storm".

Bob Dylan

“Shelter from the storm”