Senior Momentum - Warm Summer Sand - by Zoe Tummillo - July 2018
The lure is upon us! The Ocean beckons, that Island get-away inches closer and the magic of a dreamy “Vacation” sucks us into the flow!
I used to be a pushover when it came to vacation travel! There was always tomorrow and the serious stuff could wait! Not to be maudlin, I could rationalize almost anything back then, and just catapult it intolater. The lure of Cape Cod, canoeing on the Black River in New Hampshire, following the traveling Carnivals around the New England countryside, dancing all night at local dance halls or south to Florida – any one of them was an easy coax!
It’s different now, and thankful for that! I still run as fast as I can but it’s nowhere near fast enough. While exciting, those years were also exhausting—you know what I mean! All that energy and all that knowing all the answers and being fearless and ambitious and then raising children, running my practice and the endless cycles of causes, the Women’s movement, and all the other ones, etc., etc.
Fast forward and glance back. Just as there would always be time (back then), there also would always be my recognizable United States of America —head held high, respected by Allies, yearned for and coveted by our Immigrants. We tried to acknowledge our mistakes back then and admit to most of our shortcomings—you know the ones I mean.That America was always, always striving to be better, knowing that “self-improvement” would continue to be our biggest challenge, with still so far to go.
Am I raining on my own parade? That seductive euphoria that used to lure me away seems easy to resist right now because part of me is afraid to turn my back on what is happening to our country. It is harder to get away these days, because it’s impossible to leave “it” behind. Nevertheless, plan I will. The planes still fly,—oblivious to my particular inner turmoil! “It” is everywhere, so what’s the point of fighting location? I can obsess over all of it as easily over there as I can from over here. Seizing Immigrant children out of their parents’ arms? My mind flashed to my grandmother around 1912, a young Italian wife on a stinking ship, with her 5-year-old Zoe and baby Ferdinando, heading toward the promise.
(And out of the other side of his mouth he honors a murderous dictator—in the name of America? How did we let this happen? And that’s just from the very short list.) The view from any sunny beach is clouded, not from clouds. Each breaking wave seems to beg the question: What will it take to make enough voices scream:Enough!
Not far from Vancouver Washington on the Columbia River, there’s a particular, spectacular waterfall where – if you can get close enough –you simply become part of the magnificent roar and anything on your mind is wonderfully, momentarily displaced! I could sure use a dose of Multnomah these days...to silence my anger even briefly.
Yes, it’s that Summer vacation time of year, and it’s no one’s fault that I cant help feeling—what?—citizen guilt? patriot denial? buyers’ remorse? I just can’t help hearing the sound of bewildered, crying children lying on cots like rows of cordwood, wondering where Mama and Papa are, while I plan to fly off to some enchanted place for a breather...
