BEADS

When we got back from the beach one day and I started to clean up, I found something I hadn't found on my body for awhile. Beads. Around my neck.

Remember all the kid times that we wore beads of ground in dirt and sweat, dried with the day's activities? Dark brown or even black beads making a necklace or half a necklace around our young necks.

And I had some. Which meant I had had an enjoyable day. We never contracted or created beads without having had a good time.

Even if we had mowed four yards or so. Even if we had worked hard cleaning a garage, for instance. But mostly yard work. We might have been dead tired to the world. Too tired for neighborhood night games. But there was a good feeling, a satisfying feeling of work done. An accomplishment. The feeling that though we might have disliked the task, we like the feeling of work well done. Of making beads.

Not anything like that for my most recent beads. No dark brown badge of workmanship. My slaving was in the sun and water. Maybe wiping away sweat that had accumulated under my ample chin. Maybe smearing some beach grit.

But my beads weren't smeared, come to think of it. They were uniform in size, texture, and shape. It was fun to sprout them again.