the beach house/condo i stayed in had NO heat. not even a little bit. cold air was blowing out of the vents. i guess no one ever stays there in the winter. and even if they did, it's not normally 35 degrees in the winter in texas. i had to sleep with a hoodie on, with the hood on my head. the thermostat read 56 degrees inside when i woke up this morning. so i just packed up all my shit and left. it was too cold to really go to the beach so i only stopped by one time for a few minutes. the beach house was located in the canals just off the beach. it was about a 1/2 mile to get to the ocean. the house was really nice though. i am still very thankful i was able to stay there, even if i almost had to make a bonfire in the shower.
my view from the upstairs balcony. it's like streets made of water.
(more dead animals..sorry)
this sad little sea turtle almost got stepped on by me. i was standing on the beach and i started to walk and looked down and it was just lying there.
i had noticed a sign on the beach entrance that said to call 1-800-turtles if any sea turtles were spotted. i was thinking that was a great phone number, but i was unsure if they meant to call about dead ones. after i left i felt badly for not calling. especially since this turtle might have been tagged and could have possibly provided helpful info to someone. oopsies.
oddly specific sign for this "bump". i feel like i run over bumps like this all of the time with no warning. seemed very considerate.
i want this house. (this is not the house i stayed in). i love the pink. everything except the rock yard. fuck a rock yard.
beach birds.
the funeral was tuesday. and monday night i met up with adam and noah at a bar called "the texan" we got there at around 7:00pm and left at almost 2:00am. the jameson was $3.00 so we were pretty done-for. it was hard to be around them at times. they would go from joking and laughing to serious and sad with only moments separating the two. noah had his pad and pen at the table and was finishing up writing the eulogy for his sister. it was good to be with them again; all of us together. it felt like old times, but with slightly more grown-up versions of ourselves. it was raw at times. especially when i was driving them back to the house they were staying at. they were discussing where their nephews would live. i was staring out the window while we sat at a light in the middle of the night, and they were trying to figure out the fate of those two boys futures. it was surreal.
the funeral was the next day at 7:00pm. i waited to drive into cinton (the small town where she was killed and where the funeral was) until around 5:00pm. i wanted to give them plenty of time with their families. i wanted to make sure i stayed in the background for everything. i just wanted to be supportive. when i arrived, i met their parents. their mother took me into the chapel and introduced me to the entire room one by one. she even walked me up to the casket and introduced me to their sister, amy. i was so unbelievably uncomfortable. but i figured if she could hold it together, so would i. amy's youngest son, jacob, is six years old. during the two hours i was there before the service, he had to be carried outside at least five times. he would go from playing and laughing to screaming and crying "mommy" from down the hall. i'm not sure if it's cruel or helpful the way our minds work. you can seem normal for a minute because your mind lets everything slip away for a minute and then it all rushes back and you have to deal with it again and again...and again. hearing him call for her was haunting and it sent a chill through my body. everyone looked on with their hands over their mouths. he had to be taken out during the service as well. i think that was probably for the best. i don't know what was going on in his little mind. maybe he knew his whole life would never be the same. maybe he just wanted his mommy back. either way..
during the service a lady went up and did a rosary. i didn't even know what that was until i tapped noah's girlfriends shoulder during the second round of "hail-mary's", and asked her what was going on. they just kept saying the same thing over and over. she told me it was a rosary and noah had told her about it once. i had to google and see how many "mysteries" there were going to be, because it was making me very uncomfortable. it was very repetitive and kind of scary to me. it seemed very methodical and somewhat creepy. the large chapel room was spilling over with people and it seemed like every single person knew exactly what to do and say. it felt like a dream.
when it was over i slipped outside. adam jumped in a car with his roommates to head back home and noah was hanging around talking to his family. i feel so terrible for both of those guys and everyone in their family and amy's friends, all of them. i cannot imagine what they are feeling right now. i do know what it feels like to experience and great loss and nothing can really be done or said. it just takes time. but even time can be cruel and unforgiving. i have found that losing someone is something that changes you. things just never go back to the way they were before. if you think otherwise, you are wrong. nothing will stay the same. you are forever changed.
a city made of stars: the oils refineries in corpus. i think everyone used to think these are how clouds were made.
these birds passed over me near san antonio. i stopped the car. there were so many and there were so many small 'v' formations that it was really stunning. sometimes you have to just stop the car to watch something like this. because it's the little beautiful things that make everything worth it to me.
xo
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