Think you can’t time travel? Think again. The next time you look into a photo, look hard. Here, a postcard from a beach on the south of France. There’s my mom on a blanket pointing at the sea. She has red hair like no one else in France, she sticks out. Her husband is a big Englishman with long hair and a beard, oversized khakis, plays guitar. They are the talk of the town and soon part of all the artists and fringe types, singing folk tunes late into the day, any day. It is early days for my heavy drinking and for that, the best. I chronicle my daily consumption with the diligence of a Weight Watchers plan and looking back, it’s hard to keep down. The pre-drink drinks, the post-drink drinks, the scant bread and cheese in between. I go back to the curves of that sea along the beach, shapely as a woman’s hips. To the dark, side street bars and waving aloe stalks, the persistence of salt in the maritime air. There, the stone fortress from the 15th century with slits in the floor where they just crapped right into the sea. And why wouldn’t you? The earth is young still, no one has made plastic. We make stuff out of glass and clay, reuse everything. Think you can’t time travel, look back at your graduation photos. Look into the eyes of your so-called friends and family. Look into your own eyes and the soul that naps beneath the floorboards. I’ve gone back for a time but that’s enough, time travel is hard. Time now to stake the daisies, and move on.

Categories: prose, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, travel