A Bookshop at the Beach

When I was pregnant, I always had a happy feeling in the back of my mind.  I didn’t think about being pregnant nonstop, but I was always aware of it, which made it hard to go through the day without smiling at inopportune times.  Since my miscarriage, I’ve had the exact opposite:  a constant heavy, dragging feeling in the back of my mind and in the pit of my stomach.  I notice it when I first wake up in the morning; sometimes it takes me a minute to figure out why I feel that way, but I haven’t woken up without that heavy feeling in 5 weeks.  It lasts all day, so at times I’m hardly aware of it, but random things, like a line in a book or a pregnant woman walking by, make me remember why I feel so sad. 

I know I should consider myself lucky. I can still laugh with my friends, while others who have gone through a pregnancy loss can’t smile or laugh for months, the sadness mixed with rapidly changing hormones just more than their bodies can handle.  Right now, though, facing a week back at work, I don’t feel lucky.  The thought of a day full of patients right now makes that sinking feeling in my heart so loud, I can barely hear anything else.  I think I finally understand what makes someone pick up and leave everything she’s ever known, to start all over again when something tragic happens.  It feels as though if I did leave and start a new life somewhere else that I would feel better, that all my sadness would be left behind.  I know that’s not true, of course, but I can’t help fantasizing just a little bit. 

If I could, right now, leave my job that I usually love but currently dread, and start life somewhere else, I’d want it to be somewhere like Sundog Books in Seaside, Florida.  It’s a block from the beach, in the middle of lots of cute little shops and vacation homes.  Inside are tables piled high and shelves that stretch nearly to the ceiling overflowing with books.  They’re cleverly arranged in categories that go above and beyond the usual fiction, romance and sci-fi of your average bookstore, which encourages browsing as you try to find your favorite author.  Then there are all the books that are stacked on the shelves, in front of the neatly and alphabetically shelved books.  These stacks encourage browsing, inviting you to pick up a few and read the back, and frequently the books don’t make it back to the shelf, because they look way too good to ignore.  When you pause to point out a particularly favorite book of yours to your friends, one of the staff invariably joins in on the conversation, with interesting facts about the author, or a suggestion of another book you’re sure to enjoy. 

I spent 30 minutes in Sundog Books yesterday and spent almost $100 - despite the fact that I own a Kindle and rarely buy books in print anymore - and I could have easily spent another hour or two and a couple more hundred dollars if I’d had the time.  Right now, I would love more than anything to be on the staff at Sundog Books. 

I’d live in small little cottage a few blocks away, and every morning I’d get up early and walk for an hour on the beach.  After a quick swim to cool off, I’d go home to shower and then head in to the bookstore.  I can imagine the quiet of the store before it opens, as I’d walk through the aisles, straightening the shelves and choosing new books to highlight on the tables or stack on the shelves, breathing in the wonderful scent of books as I did.  In the summer, the days would pass quickly as sunburned tourists wandered in for a break from the heat, and left with a new book or two for the next day’s read by the ocean.  In the winter I’d have time to relax in a comfortable chair, catching up on my reading and enjoying talking books with the few locals and tourists that drop by.  I’d spend the evenings on the back porch with my friends, or enjoying another walk on the beach as the sunset.  Oh, I know even this life wouldn’t be perfect, I know I’d still be sad, but for right now it sounds like my idea of heaven.  

I wonder if any of you have similar fantasies of escaping your lives every now and then - if so, where would you go?  What would you do?