This account was written at least twelve years ago. I can’t remember. I felt old then. I had no idea then what old really feels like.
I walked along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay today, in the rain. It was only a light rain when I got to the path over the dunes. Stopping to roll up my trousers I couldn’t help but say, “I grow old, I grow old.” Who could resist?
When I crested the dune and saw the bay, I stopped for a while to enjoy the view of whitecaps on the waves. The colliers were closer to the shore than I have ever seen them, and I wished for a camera. There was no one on the beach as far as I could see to the west and to the east. I left my sandals beside the same log I always use, and headed down to the water. The bay is normally placid and the waves roll in at long intervals. Today, the waves came in faster and closer than the ripples on a pond. I waded in up to my knees to feel the warmth of the bay and the push and pull of the waves. Along the shore line, just beyond the wet sand marking the farthest reach of the water, were thousands of shells, shell fragments, pieces of sand-polished glass, bright colored tile fragments, round bits of beach coal, and small fragments of brick, broken and smoothed by salt water and sand. I filled my pockets with small treasures as I walked west toward the Lynnhaven inlet.
The clouds were moving quickly and stayed very low. One cloud, just over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, seemed to reach down with a finger now and then, coming closer to the water each time. Before the cloud could touch, it was blown ashore and disappeared from view, somewhere on the east bank of the Lynnhaven River. When the cloud was out of sight, I turned to look at the colliers and could not see them. They were hidden behind a blue-gray wall. The wind shifted, coming in straight from the north, and I could see the wall moving, and the bow lights of the colliers flickered behind it. I knew the wall was heavy rain, but I was almost halfway through my walk, only a quarter mile from the Lynnhaven Inlet, and I kept going.
I saw a red hulled fishing boat bouncing in the waves as it headed in from the bay toward the safety of the inlet. The captain ignored the no wake zone and kept his motors running at speed until he was very close to the bridge over the inlet.
When I turned to make my return trip, the rain from the north came harder and the wind picked up. The raindrops stung at first, like the needle prick a doctor may give you to say “Do you feel that? How about here?” After a few minutes, I was accustomed to the force of the rain, and completely drenched. I looked out to see the colliers, once again clear and close. Appearing like a ghost ship, enormous, and closer to shore than the others, was a cargo vessel that wasn’t there before the wall of rain blew in. It had four masts, and rode high in the water, moving unperturbed by the rough water of the bay. It seemed to be coming closer to shore as it made its way west, back into another bank of clouds and rain.
As I walked beneath the ruins of the Lynnhaven fishing pier, a single crow flew under the pier heading in a direction opposite mine, like a stunt pilot flying his plane under a bridge. Behind him was a lone pelican moving slowly above the pier, fighting the wind.
The wind and rain increased in force the closer I came to my starting point. If the wind grew stronger, or if a wave came in closer and with more force, I could not have remained standing, or kept walking, and, at that moment, acutely aware of my physical limitations, I felt old.
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