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AVAILABLE: Wednesday, July 22nd
It is the first Christmas since the passing of Gem’s mother, and his husband Gregg decides they need a new tradition. He whisks Gem away to Driftwood Beach, a hauntingly beautiful location to spend the holidays.
They walk the beach, playing a game where they tell each other what the various pieces of driftwood look like to them. A dragon, a dolphin, a woman standing in the ocean waving goodbye.
During this trip, Gem is finally able to let go of his mother and focus on the future ahead with his husband, realizing it’s never too late to begin new traditions.
My first glimpse of Driftwood Beach took my breath away.
Literally.
I had heard that expression all my life – “the sunset took my breath way,” or “the sight of Marilyn in that dress was breathtaking” -- but always took it for metaphor and hyperbole. At nearly sixty years old, this was the first time I’d ever actually been robbed of my breath.
“Spectacular, huh?” Gregg said next to me, taking my hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.
I finally released my held breath. “Spectacular doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m not sure there is a word to describe it other than breathtaking.”
“Told you.”
Gregg started walking from the path and onto the compact sands of the beach, while I hung back for a moment, still taking it all in. I had heard my husband’s descriptions of the place, had even seen a few photographs online, but none of that had prepared me for the experience of actually standing here, in the midst of such otherworldly beauty.
Of course, I had been to beaches before. Myrtle Beach a few times, Daytona Beach in Florida once in my teens, and then Pawley’s Island with Gregg a couple of years ago. However, while those places had been nice if overcrowded, they were still part of the mundane Earth. Driftwood Beach seemed something from another world.
Dark trees grew up right out of the sand, a surreal Dali spectacle as if a beach and a forest had been spliced together in some freak sci-fi accident. The Fly but with more exquisite results.
And yet it wasn’t only the sand the trees grew out of, but also the water. Several yards ahead, waves crashed around gnarled trunks and twisted roots. Not all the trees were standing. Twice as many had fallen over onto the sand, half-submerged, rising up like humpback whales.
It was without question the most stunning sight I had ever seen, and it made me feel slightly outside my own body, watching events unfold as if on a screen. A movie where I was both actor and audience.
Gregg had stopped in front of a large tree, roots spooling out like snakes, the stark branches raised as if in supplication to some alien god. He was a tall man, but the tree eclipsed him to the point that he looked little more than a Lilliputian. He smiled at me, and in that smile, I felt the connection that bonded the two of us so completely, making it feel like we were in a bubble that separated us from the rest of the world.
Of course, that was easy today. I looked to the left and right, the expanse of the beach. The deserted beach. “We’ve got the place completely to ourselves.”
Gregg opened his arms as if presenting the beach to me as a gift. “Merry Christmas!”
That, of course, was the reason we had the place to ourselves. Not a lot of people traveled to the beach in the winter, and even less on Christmas day. Most would be at home, families gathered around sparkling trees, exchanging gifts and familial affection.
I realized most Christmases weren’t that Rockwellian in nature. Family gatherings tended to hold at least a certain amount of bitterness and animosity and awkwardness. I had been through it myself. The Christmas my Grandmother Lisa gave me a card which contained twenty dollars and a list of anti-gay Bible verses; I threw away the list and kept the cash. The Thanksgiving my cousin announced she was pregnant by a guy she didn’t really remember because she met him at a drunk party. The Easter my father and Uncle Ernie got into a fistfight, resulting in a trip to the ER so one could get stitches and the other a cast.
I knew all this, but I still found myself with rose-colored glasses welded to my face as I looked back on Christmases past. I realized it was because this was the first Christmas since my mother died this past September. That was why Gregg had brought me here. To get my mind off the glaring hole in the holiday, the empty place at the table.
And as far as distractions went, this was a hell of a good one.
