My wife and I were sitting on the third-story porch of a condo overlooking the beach in Garden City. The pier was only a few hundred yards south of us, and the crowded sandy strand beneath us was beginning to thin in the early evening. It was a peaceful moment, with the rhythmic soothing sound of the surf drowning out any extraneous noise. There was the occasional muffled thumping of the bass drum coming from the bar at the end of the pier, but even that somehow fit in with the relaxed mood we were sharing.
Then I had a thought.
“Barbara, there’s a story here,” I told her.
“Where?” she asked, hardly moving, and certainly not very excited.
“Down there on the beach,” I answered, waving my hand and painting a broad stroke up and down the strand.
Looking at the people below us, I had begun to think about the sun worshippers, with their inevitable skin cancers. Their burns and tans would quickly fade, but it would only be a matter of time before their dangerous neoplasms would begin to appear. I could certainly write about that. And there were the smokers. Sitting in the sand, wistfully studying the horizon, being buffeted by the cooling sea breeze, and all the while puffing on their Marlboro’s. How many cancer cells were being birthed just while I was watching? And just down the beach, a young father was holding his child by her tiny hands, twirling her round and round just above the foaming surf. A nurse-maid’s elbow just waiting to happen. This was going to be good stuff.
I told Barbara about my idea, and for a moment she just sat there. Then without looking at me, she said, “Is that what you see? Look again.”
Surprised by her lack of enthusiasm, I stared at her.
“What?” I fumbled.
“Your glass is half empty,” was all she said, never taking her eyes off the Atlantic.
Wait a minute! I thought this was good stuff. I waited for Barbara to say something more, but she remained silent, leaving me to figure this one out. Once again, I looked down at the beach and the remaining stragglers. OK, if my glass was “half full,” what would I be seeing?
It took a few moments before I was able to clear my mind of impending diseases and unavoidable injuries, but then, when I was finally able to do so, I began to notice something.
First, there was a two-year old boy, splashing in the surf under the watchful eye of his dad. His world was fresh and new and exciting. And fun. He was carefree, with his life, like the ocean, stretching out before him. He didn’t know it, but this world held many more moments of freshness and excitement and, if he learns to take the time, fun.
As I continued to watch the young boy, two more people appeared in my view. It was a man and woman, both easily in their eighties, and both walking slowly and with great care. They were holding hands. Every few steps, they would pause, and one of them would pick up an interesting sea shell. More often than not, they would toss it gently back down. But once, the man carefully studied the shell in his hand, showed it to his wife, and then tucked it into his shorts’ pocket. He said something to her and she nodded, putting her arm around his waist. For a few minutes, they just stood there, holding each other, and watching the little boy playing in the water. Then they turned down the beach and were soon gone.
Suddenly a black bird swooped onto our balcony and landed on the rail, just a few feet from where I sat. With precise and jerking movements of his head, he surveyed his surroundings and then looked straight at me. He didn’t flinch, but just studied me. What was he thinking? Or was he thinking? He wasn’t worried about much, just finding something to eat, and later, a place to spend the night. That was all. What was that passage? The birds of the air don’t sow or reap, and yet they are taken care of? I wondered if he knew how good he had it. I began to wonder if we knew how…
I must have moved just a little, for at that instant he flew away and was quickly out of sight.
Barbara had been right. It had been in front of me all along. The problem had been my point of view. There would be other times to consider sun damage and skin cancer and orthopedic problems. At that moment, on that porch with my bride, looking at that ocean, I knew my glass was more than half full, and I liked the feeling.
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