I went to the Cayman Islands this morning, where I lay on a white sand beach with waves lapping at my feet. Frigate birds soared overhead, and as I drowsed between sleep and wakefulness, I tried to decide if I should grab my fins and paddle out to snorkel the coral reef again or just order another frosty Bahama Mama and wait for dinner at the thatched beach hut.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry about burning my skin in the Caribbean sun, because my body was still right here at home. It was only my mind that had sailed off to the islands.
My brain hit the beach because I found an old bottle of Banana Boat Deep Tanning Oil lurking on the back of a shelf in our linen closet. I wasn’t looking for it, particularly; I was just organizing some of the chaos in there. But suddenly there it was — a beach lotion I hadn’t used in years, not since the last time my wife and I flew off to Grand Cayman Island more than 10 years ago.
I popped the cap off, sprayed a bit onto my hand, and rubbed it onto my arms…
…and as the fragrant coconut and cocoa bean aromas wafted up to my nose, I was transported back to that sunny beach. A catamaran scudded past on the green sea. Gulls shrilled. Steel drums echoed in the distance, and I decided to skip the umbrella drink and grab a Stingray Beer instead.
But only for a moment. And then I was back again, standing in front of the linen closet, shaking my head in wonder with an oily bottle in my hand, astounded at how far you can travel with nothing more than your nose for a ticket.
My ears will give my heart a jolt every now and then, too. When I hear “Surf City” by the Beach Boys on some oldies station, I can slide right down the chorus into the back seat of a red-and-white 1957 Chevy rolling down North Avenue with the ragtop down. Play “The Wanderer” by Dion, and I’m standing in the basement shooting pool with Scott Colangelo. We take turns belting the lyrics into the butt end of our pool cues.
The memories bring a smile, but only for a while. Because you can never really go home again, can you?
Scott grew into his adulthood and left the basement pool table behind just as Vietnam was heating up. He went off to war and made it back home again—one of the lucky ones. At least that’s what they say about soldiers who return home.
But you can never really go home again, can you?
After the war he was a changed man, a restless man, searching for something he had lost — or maybe for something he never had. The last anybody heard of him was when he climbed into an old panel van and headed west, into the setting sun. Some said he was bound for California. If it was Surf City this restless wanderer was seeking, I hope he found it.
I haven’t seen Scott in almost 50 years, but I can still find him at the end of a song or two because our senses send us on voyages that span all time and distance.
The scent of that decade-old bottle of Deep Tanning Oil urges me to turn my toes to the south, to return to the Cayman Islands once again and lie lotion-slathered on a sun-splashed beach sipping a rum drink while serenaded by gulls — but it is doubtful that I ever will. My wife’s devastating stroke three years ago has made air travel virtually impossible for us, and in any case, a wheelchair is unwieldy on a white-sand beach.
Still, even if we can never go home again, we are rich with our memories, aren’t we?
I can count myself lucky that I once stood with best friends in a basement around the pool table, singing surfing songs into the butt of our pool cues.
My wife and I can count ourselves lucky for carefree days when we lay on the beach with the love of our life, absorbed entirely in the sun-splashed present, comfortable with the past and eager to embrace the future together, whatever it might bring.
Our memories make us rich. And at unexpected moments our senses unlock memory’s vault and carry us home again. Or at least as close to home as it is possible to come.
And because we have been there together — because it is the home from which we both came — we can pause with our eyes closed in front of the linen closet, a fragrant, oily bottle in hand, and pretend that the salt on our cheeks came from the sea.
• Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
