Crystal Shores

I lived a quiet life. I never jumped out of an airplane or swam with sharks in Bermuda. I lived, I loved, I died, and I was happy. So listen to me, if you will, for my tale is not one of adventure and tragedy, it is the story of plain and simple girl, from a plain and simple town, with one seemingly attainable dream.
The streets were only as wide as the brook that flowed through my back yard. We had no need of fancy buggies or automobiles. We walked and ran and skipped anywhere we needed to go. Our neighbors depended on us, as we could not live without them. We traded and bargained for everything we had need of. Some of us grew food, others raised the animals. We fit together like the weaving of fine silk.
My family looked after the animals. My favorites were the horses. I would get up every morning, even before the sun, to ride and ride. We had other animals, of course, ducks, chickens, cows, turkeys, goats, and lots of sheep. As you may have guessed, with sheep come dogs, and boy did I love my dogs.
I did not go to school until I was ten years old, and even then, when I wasn’t studying I was working. Growing up in a quiet town requires lots of work. The best chores were the ones I did with my Papa. Papa was a great man, even when I was a fully grown woman he towered over me. He was the head of our household as well as the farm. Papa and I were a great team, I would water and feed and he would muck the stalls. My best memories of the farm were helping Papa with the horses.
Now there was one boy who I was quite fond of, as a friend, you see. He was my best friend and meant the world to me, seeing as I had no siblings. He and I would work together, go to school together, and occasionally I could drag him out of bed early enough to ride with me. This boy was called Pip by everyone.
There was one day when Papa gave me the day off from chores and I sweet talked Pip’s Ma to let him off too. We went down to the brook to cool off and decided to go for an adventure. We followed the brook all the way to where it snaked its way into a mighty river.
The river’s surface sparkled with sunlight and I was in awe. I looked over at Pip and he seemed slightly less amazed. So I asked him, “Pip, why does the river sparkle like that?”
He looked at me and said the most amazing thing I had ever heard, “The river sparkles because the sand at the bottom is made of crystal.” It was simple but the way my heart felt right then was like having one thousand butterflies fly it away into the sunset. I was in a place I had never been, far, far away.
As I grew, I kept going to school and my head filled with stories and poems. I loved to read and I loved to write. I was not at all good at mathematics and the sciences were never my point of interest. I loved the way a good book could carry your spirit to a new place, any place.
But I remembered that day at the river and the way Pip looked as he told me about the crystal sands, and forever onward I had a dream to one day see the ocean to which that river led. I would one day walk upon a shore made of crystal sands.
Other than that dream, there was one aspect of life that I was lacking; Love. When I was a young child, as all young girls do, I fantasized about a handsome Prince Charming sweeping me off me feet. When we arrived at his palace the trumpets sounded and the King and Queen would come out to meet me. Me, a plain and simple girl, from a plain and simple town, now becoming a Princess.
Now, we all know that it never happens like that. I went through most of my life without a husband. I went to school, I worked, and one day something happened that shot into reality the fact that I was alone.
When I was no older than thirty my mother passed suddenly in the night. No one could tell us why, but we knew that there was no suffering on her part. No sooner than the night after my Papa met the same unforeseen end. This is when I realized that I had no one.
Of course, the farm was left in my care, and for many years I worked alone. It was only when I began to grow old that I started to hire boys from the town to help me with my work. As I sat and coached them on the right way to plow the field, or sow the seeds, I noticed a man walk by.
One phrase ran though my mind as this man walked by me; “The river sparkles because the sand at the bottom is made of crystal.” The man was Pip.
“Pip!” I called out with all the breath my old lungs could take. And he turned and his eyes met mine. They were indeed the same gleaming blues eyes that I remember on the face of a little boy, time could not wither the beauty of such eyes.
It was then, as I gazed into his eyes that I realized my love was here all along. For, you see, Pip too had never married. In this moment of recognition the most amazing thing I had ever felt happened to my heart once again. One thousand butterflies flew it away into the sunset to a place far, far away. Time stopped and the world halted.
Pip and I lived the rest of our lives together in marriage and oh so happily we lived it. I grew to know that that moment at the river was the first time I felt true love. It was not until a lifetime later that the sensation arose inside me once more.
I no longer walk the Earth’s hard soil, or sit and watch boys work on my old farm. For now I walk along crystal shores, hand in hand with my Prince Charming. And we gaze upon the waters of time looking back on our lives. We look up at the golden sun and ponder the awe of the silver moon and glass stars. And time will seem forever still, as we walk on crystal shores.

I dream of love, the perfect love.
A love that my soul knows,
My mind ponders,
And my mouth dare not speak.
Of this love I know not.
The shadow of time growing weary
On it’s course to present times.
As the future becomes the past,
So the ever distant figure
Motionlessly waits for me
At the end of time.