about resilience

The door leading from our offices into the north-end hallway always slams shut when someone passes through. After conditions in the hothouse finally wilted my ego, the latest slam shook my petals off clean. I paused and considered all the posters on the walls throughout the building. Cautions, reminders, notices, promotions. You become inured, indifferent, then unnoticing, and, finally, illiterate. Those posters distract from what really matters. The time had come to go to the beach.

A three-hour drive and the Atlantic shoves up against the continent. This late in the season, a sandy crowd of mostly mature folks who sit under beach umbrellas and sun hats do crossword puzzles. These people are literate. And none of them test the waters. They already know what I am only just learning: the ocean, reliable and unceasingly self-assured, beats you every time.