My Castle in the Sea

When I was in high school and I had a very good friend, Peggy.  We would go down to the beach in Edmonds, WA after dark and sit and watch the ferry and the boats.  Sometimes we would be down there pretty late at night.  We would just sit and talk.  We mostly about boys.  We talked about our future.  We wondered what our future held for us.  Where it would take us.  The future was just far enough out of reach that we just couldn't get a handle on it.  It seemed that we could get glimpses of it and yet.....we just couldn't see it and we were left with the reality of being teenage girls that had no clue.

Just off the beach was an old Pier that was broken down in the water.  At night, a few of the pilings could be barely seen in the dark.  There were lights from the other side of the water that you could see through the old pilings.    It made it look like there was a castle lit up out in the water.   We symbolized it to be our future.   Our future is out there waiting for us but we could only get glimpses of it....and the reality of it was we could imagine it but could really never see it.  It was just ordinary stuff around us. But really...that is what life is.  It may seem ordinary....but we have to make it magical.

I wrote this poem (below) about our castle.  I memorized it and would recite it as we sat down at the beach in the dark.  I don't normally share my poetry but recently Peggy and I have reconnected.  I was really thinking about this old poem I wrote and what it meant to us.  We didn't know what the future would hold, or where it would take us, or who would be in it.  It's pretty amazing how things turn out.  Who would have ever thought that life would take me here.  The outskirts of Tucson is like another planet from where I was raised.  But yet.....I love it here.  Our life really is what we make of it....and how we take it.   We have had some pretty sad moments in life.   Some huge disappointments.  Things don't always turn out like you envision them.....and yet...it can still be ok and we can still make it magical.

My Castle in the Sea

 

I look out on my castle in the sea,

With hopes and dreams of what I can be.

I wonder what it has in hold,

Could it be Godly wonders….or could it be gold?

 

I stand on shore…its late at night,

And glimpse the torches burning bright,

The draw bridge is standing tall and erect,

It will open for none…but the elect.

 

But dawn will break under the mystic sky,

And leave none of the castle for you or I,

Now ruined pilings thrust up from the sea,

The lonely, anguished castle is set free,

 

Donna

Sept 24, 1987