What a gift we received tonight!
I spent all day inside. I cleaned and organized my closet and the linen closet. Filed paper that has been piling up a few weeks. Etc. Jon left for work at 2:30 this afternoon. He'd spent the morning watching the Masters golf tournament.
Anyway, at 7:00, after supper, I pushed myself to go outside to sit a while and watch the dark come up. It had been a beautiful day, as far as I could tell from my window. The moment I stepped outside my entire being went "aaahhhhhh". It was warm and breezy. Mmmmm! I passed one man that actually smiled at me and said, "hi". You have NO idea how rare that has been lately. People don't even make eye contact let alone smile or speak.
I found an empty chair in one of the spots I like on the north side. The sea was calm and still quite a few people in it, both adults and children. Toward the south side there was a small group of people and right away I noticed two guys with guitars very quietly playing together. Only moments after I sat down, a young Asian-looking woman came out with her ipad and found a chair near mine. SHE looked at me and smiled, too.
Out on the beach was a mother and two or three teenagers. They began taking down their umbrellas and rolling up their blankets, folding up their beach chair, and packing up to leave the beach. As they left the sand and came up through the gate to the condo, a young woman came out of the gate and spread a towel out on the sand and sat down to look at the ocean. She was wearing a dark strapless dress, the kind that has elastic across the boobs to hold it up. A handsome young couple came out of the condo and went through the gate down to the lifeguard shack. He was just a good-looking guy in a ball cap and she was slender with long dark hair and a long, striped tee shirt. (Slender with long dark hair describes 90% of the young women I see down here, by the way. Have I mentioned that before?) They sat where I could see them, not around on the sea side as most people do.
The two guitar players began their concert. They began playing and singing loud enough to be heard by all of us. For over an hour they played nonstop. And GOOD songs. And the one has a really good voice, too. They played some, of course, Jimmy Buffet. Jimmy's not my fav, but I enjoyed their accoustic covers and the subject matter perfect for where we were here in South Florida. They played Otis Redding's Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay!!! They played Guns and Roses (I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride...). That is G&R, isn't it? They played some reggae. Even an arrangement of Eminem. The couple on the lifeguard shack bobbed their heads and swayed to the music. The girl on the towel turned to look at the musicians, wrapped a white scarf around her arms, then turned laid on her stomach to relax and enjoy. I glanced at the Asian girl beside me and she looked at me and we smiled at each other. I looked at her later and she was softly singing along to the songs while she worked at something on her ipad. A small group from the condo gathered around the musicians with their drinks. People walking up and down the beach would smile and look up to see where the music was coming from.
I wished Jon was with me. It was the perfect evening. Well, almost perfect. I hadn't noticed it at first, but sadly I later saw that the mother with the teenagers group, when they packed up their beach gear and left the beach, left all their litter as well. A red solo cup, lots of other paper and debris. And the trash barrel sitting there 20' away. Even that did not get me as upset as it had the other night with beer cap man. The beauty of the evening and the freely given concert made me feel too good.
I stayed outside over an hour. It was getting dark. I waited till the song they were playing ended before I got up to leave, and looked at them as I left, waved and said, "thank you!" "Goodnight" they replied.
Good night, indeed!
Everyone was smiling, relaxing and enjoying.
No comments:
Post a Comment