The Fourth of July celebration at Short Sands in York Beach, Maine, was wonderful. A hot, sunny day (which has been rare in these here parts for a month), beautiful blue skies, happy people everywhere, beautiful ocean (extremely cold, but it tasted just like my childhood memories of it), a lovely vegan picnic (hummus, taboule, blue corn chips, watermellon, chocolate and peanut butter fudge (well, ok, not exactly vegan, but it is it’s own food group), a Stephanie Plum detective novel (great plots, plucky characters that I can totally see, hysterically laugh-out-loud funny), the perfect parking spot, enough change in the car to feed the meter for 6 hours.
The whole day was a great example of how beautifully and miraculously things can go if you listen to your inner guidance. My intention was to go to the beach, get a parking spot (a major challenge on the 4th of July weekend after a month of rain), stay as long as I had change for the meter, swim, have a little picnic including watermelon. Read a good and entertaining book which had nothing to do with work.
What happened when I headed to the beach was that I decided to park briefly at Short Sands so as to go get a piece of fudge, and then I would drive down to Long Sands and park there, picnic, body surf if there were good waves. But I got to Short Sands and miraculously was handed the perfect parking spot. I only had to drive around for a few minutes. You can spend all day trying to find a parking spot in York, unless you arrive early in the morning. I sauntered in around 2 in the afternoon. I knew it was a sign, but didn’t know exactly what was going on. Popped a little change in the meter, enough time to get the fudge and scurry back. As I was buying my fudge and chatting with the store owner, she mentioned that the fireworks were going to be held right there at Short Sands. I’d been planning to drive the 40 minutes down to Portsmouth, NH for their fireworks, but staying right there in York sounded even better, especially because of fond childhood memories there. I got back to my car, thought about the primo-ness of the parking spot, the fact that I hadn’t had to run anyone over to get the spot (the previous park-er just pulled out right in front of me and I just slid right in), the bath house was right there, although there were tons of people everywhere, there were actually nice open spots on the beach, there were some cute little waves that might do for body surfing, and if I could scrape enough change together in my car, I could stay through the fireworks. This is all extra-Providential and angel-assisted, because I didn’t have any cash with me at all — I’d totally forgotten to replenish in my zeal to get to the beach. So, it wasn’t like I could go to a shop and ask for change for a 20. But the change kept appearing like oil on the first Channukah, like the loaves amongst the thousands. It was a very good day. I swam a teeny little bit (the water was frigid), I ate, I read, I laughed, I enjoyed hearing children running and playing and laughing and screaming, I tanned, I relaxed, I found a perfect spot to watch the fireworks, I took pictures and videos. The fireworks came and were beautiful, the thousands of people there loved them, the 3-year-old next to me slathered himself with cotton-candy icecream, and everyone enjoyed themselves, including me.
All in all, it was a great day.