august 17th
i woke up this morning to a knocking on my bedroom door. groggy and sleepy-eyed i lifted myself out of bed and let my fingers fall on the latch. the white washed door slowly creaked open to reveal a man dressed in all yellow. he was tall and skinny, with high stockings and a yellow top hat, he took me by the arm, held onto my elbow tight and i was whisked away. the next thing i knew i was thrown to the ground with a thump and opened my eyes to find myself on the shores of the light house beach i have known since i was born. the sand had shifted, a shorter point and a wider beach, but the waves rolled in just the same. the man was there and he hurried me up the dunes to the beach club where i work. there were lots of people there, i felt a bit out of place in my polka dotted pajamas, but the people didn’t even seem to notice me. i looked down to the courts and saw four people on each one, dressed in their whites. coming closer to the terrace i saw the women there with their red lipstick and the younger ones with their hair all done up and their shirts all short and lose. back a few decades and the only thing that had changed were the people. the walked around, laughing and socializing, grabbing cups of water from the snack bar, and riding in on their bikes. the pros discussed lessons and tournaments and children strolled in for lunch. the man in the yellow lead me to the back of the club and pointed to the pictures on the wall, the pictures of all the presidents, half empty. in the main room the wood floors had the same dark feeling they always do although the people walking by with their wooden rackets seemed a bit out of place. as they hurried to find the manager and find their children they swept by me with a breeze. the strange yellow dressed man led me outside and took me by the hand, i braced myself for the same whisking back to my bedroom, but instead he took my hand to his lips and kissed it. with a flourish he was gone and i stood there alone, barefoot looking out onto the tennis courts. its all the same. nothing’s ever going to change here, i thought. then i realized that lots was going to change. i was going to change. every year i would get older with my generation of children, and as we work the club and play the tennis clinics and then the adult clinics, we will become the ones who define what this is. in short, it’ll be what i make of it. the way in which i choose to spend my time and make or cherish my friends will shape my future and my summers. cause chatham isn’t changing. it’s got everything going for it right now. so why make alterations? the people i’ve got, the ones i know right now, who i grew up with in pee-wee tennis and day camp are the ones i’ll be sitting with at thursday night dinners while our children play downstairs together, and i’m very sure that it’ll all come way too soon.
