Duneland

Left-of-center-people fascinate me. I had the beach all to myself on a gorgeous hot & sunny afternoon, just me and my novel. And then I noticed a man walking toward me, most likley one of the "joggers" I usually saw on the beach, I thought. He was an attractive older man in his early 60's an he stopped to say hello. And then he just kept on talking. Thirty minutes later I knew this man's entire life story. And he revealed to me that he was pentecostal. He spoke to me about god and his visions and how a non-believer became a believer. I politely listened and when he was gone, I went back to my novel.

But this guy, Vince, he came back and found me on the beach the next day as well. He asked me if I had any "insights" during the night. I laughed and told him nothing except a deep desire for Lake Michigan. My dear reader, I drove around Beverly Shores like I usually do, dreaming about living there, when I saw a for sale sign pointing down an empty beach road. I decided to follow it (the proverbial pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow) and there was a house...it was perfect. Built in 1929, one of the original that Frederick Bartlett built when he designed the town of Beverly Shores. It had the original spanish tiled roof, that ochre colored brick that just says "duneland" and an acre of land, quietly settled...I got out of the car and took one of the brochures that listed all of its amenities. I must have stared at that house for a half an hour. And then I started crying. Have you ever wanted something that badly and you knew there was such a slim chance of getting it...even now my eyes are brimming because I can't help thinking that I simply belonged with that house, that original structure of the town that takes up so much space in my heart. This amazing landscape that I swear no one else cares about like I do, and it feels so very far away. I went home and told my parents about it. They paid very little attention to me and my "silly whims," as they put it. And I felt it...another loss of that life I had simply imagined or dreamed up somewhere along the road. Am I a believer? I went back to the question...and simply found that I had another of my own to ask. What exactly is it that I am supposed to believe in?