Portion of the Sea Read Free

challenged to look ahead and ponder who it is they want to be and what sort of life they’d one day like for themselves. But people don’t give it any thought until they’re grown up and disliking their lives and then they don’t know what to do. If only they could think back to when they were around your age and remember what sorts of things they loved to do, things they were good at and things that made them happy.”
    “Interesting,” I said. “But I’ve got to go.” I started to walk.
    “It was nice meeting you, Lydia,” she called after me. “But don’t forget how much you love writing. I do think you could be a writer one day, perhaps a famous one.”
    I stopped and turned my head. “How do you know?”
    “I don’t for sure. I said ‘perhaps.’ You were the one who said you loved to write more than anything in the world.”
    “Yeah, but only in my diary.”
    “Well, we all start somewhere. You just remember that, darling. If a successful writer is what you see for yourself, then by all means, you’ll become it. I believe in you.”
    I turned fully around and walked a few steps back toward her. “You do?”
    “Yes. It was a pleasure talking with you.” She blew me a kiss in a movie star sort of way, and then turned as if, this time, she was the one ready to leave.
    “Wait,” I said. “I’ll let you read a little of my journal, if you like. You can tell me if it’s good or not.”
    She laughed. “I’m honored. Let’s go sit down.” She walked over to an enormous piece of driftwood shaped like a bench and sat down as if to perch. I followed and pulled my journal out from my bag and handed it toher, hoping I wasn’t handing my mind over to the claws of some bird of prey. But I never thought of my writing as being good or bad. I only thought of it as something I loved to do, so maybe I could use some objective feedback. I watched as she flipped randomly to the front of the book and her eyes began to skim.
    “An ever-serving, obedient and domestic wife,” she read aloud. “Thrilled and thankful for being born a woman, destined to become a wife and mother,” she continued. “A woman envied by all her neighbors for having the most meticulous kitchen floor and dinner on the table by five o’clock nearly 365 days a year.” She stopped and looked up at me. “Mature words coming from a girl your age.”
    “They’re my father’s words, not mine.”
    “Yes, I assumed that much.” She rolled her eyes.
    “They’re things he has told me about my mother. I can’t write creatively. I can only write about things that have happened or things people have said. I’m not at all good at making stuff up.”
    “Then you’re a nonfiction writer,” she said. “That’s what most journal writing is. That’s fine. Maybe you’re in the making to become a journalist.”
    “Of course not,” I said. “I’m just a girl.”
    “Yeah and Sanibel was just a sandbar once. Look at it now!” She glanced from east to west. “And Thomas Edison was just a boy. Did you know his mother schooled him at home because he drove his teacher nuts with so many questions in the classroom?”
    “No.” I laughed.
    “It’s true. What would this modern fifties world be like had he never gone on to become more than just a boy? What if he didn’t pursue his interests?
    We’d be living in a rather dark place, I think.” I thought about it a moment. “But what would Edison have done had his own mother not been there for him? His mother deserves credit,” I said. “She had a very important job. Every mother does.”
    “Yes,” she said. “I suppose you’re right.”
    “If you ask me, anyone with a mother is fortunate.”
    She handed back my diary. “True, dear, but we need to look at what we do have and not what we don’t have. You, for instance, have a desire to write. I do believe you will be a successful journalist one day, famous maybe. If that’s what you want to be.”
    She read a little more, this