The sunsets meld in my memory, night after night in the same spot at my Fort Monroe Beach. I pack light: my ukulele, a beach chair, and heaven’s best inspiration for faith in good things. 

Sometimes, like Sunday night, God sends more than music for my company.  And Ray could play Summer Sarah better than I on his first try. 

I still hit the water during the day, but most nights, you’ll find me showing up just after six when the crowds are home eating dinner.  The colors change from evening to evening, subtle shifts, like the sunset time ebbs earlier, shades and moments you’d otherwise miss.  My skills, likewise, subtly shift with each practice session at Fort Monroe.

I’ve been playing the ukulele for about a month now.  My fingertips still hurt hours into a jam session with the ocean as my most appreciative audience, and I still don’t mind.  I downloaded song books to my tablet and learned new chords with varied tunes.  When I discovered I could pluck out the chords by ear for favorite numbers, my mood matched my surroundings, full of hope.

Sunday was one of those days where my baby-making genes kicked in full force and I became hyper aware of my desire to have a family of my own.  It was clear at church, watching a woman my age rock a newborn grandchild; the devil on my shoulder whispered, “You’ll never do that.”  I looked down the pew at my brother with his arm draped around my nephew’s shoulders; “He did it.  Why couldn’t you?”

I was, perhaps, emotionally vulnerable after a few restless nights dog-sitting a friend’s untrained puppy, and, perhaps, the sleep deprivation caused some lucid dreams.  I was visited by some kids from grade school in Syracuse, frenemies that only show up decades later in dreamland when I’m feeling inadequate.  Like the devil on my shoulder, they give voice to my deepest insecurities: “I’m not surprised you couldn’t make it work. You’ll die alone.”

At church, the voices of my childhood peers and the devil on my shoulder melded in my brain.  I wasn’t packing light.  My doubts and fears were juxtaposed against the backdrop of Pastor Mike’s sermon about how loving Jesus brings us into the Father’s love and gives us victory over the world.  While I was thinking, “How could I have gone so wrong?”, he was asking us, “Have you experienced the presence of God and all of its benefits?”  It was sobering. 

After service let out and I hugged my brother’s family goodbye, I helped a friend put together some furniture in his new apartment… without any manuals.  It’s a different kind of intelligence, from Summer Sarah, my ukulele.  It equally excited me though, to discover I have the ability to see how all the pieces of a desk set would come together into not one, but two desks, as I’d suspected.  There were a hundred pieces, and with Omari’s labor, I could make them into two, better pieces.

So by the time I landed at my beach on Sunday night, I was strumming chords and wondering why I can’t see how all my pieces come together to make something that looks like what I thought my life would look like at forty.  I took Summer Sarah for a sunset stroll up the shore, and my fingers started to play chords.

We walked, and the chords formed into progressions.  We walked, and words poured out of my lips I hadn’t planned.  By the time I turned around to make the return path, I had a couple of verses, a chorus, and a song made up of seven chords I can confidently play. 

And that’s when we met Ray (me and Summer Sarah, that is).  An older man, perhaps retired, called me over to play her for him.  He liked the sound of her nylon strings on rosewood.  I hesitated when he mentioned he played five instruments, but he beckoned me to sit on the empty chair beside him and play. 

I played Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah”, and Ray sang along.  Eventually, I handed Summer Sarah over and let him get familiar with the instrument.  It didn’t take long.  I named the strings for him, taught him a few chords, and from there, he proceeded to make beautiful, hopeful music.  My ukulele sang for him like she never has for me… yet. 

We talked between tunes, and to assure him of my platonic intentions, I mentioned that I was interested in dating younger men wanting to start a family.  Ray didn’t miss a beat in conversation or music. 

“You want a husband?”

“Yes.  And a family.  Before I’m too old.”

“You want a husband?” he repeated. 

“Yes.” I was committed now. 

“Then you need to get right with God.”

The blow struck soundly, landing right on that puppy-caused, emotionally-vulnerable, frenemy-visiting, grandma-rocking backpack I’d been lugging around all day.  The lyrics that had bubbled out of me while walking alongside the ocean made sense, quite suddenly. 

My song was a prayer.  I could hear Pastor Mike the week before saying, “You have not because you ask not in Jesus’ name.”  Ray wasn’t in his Sunday best, but in swim trunks with a hairy chest poking out from an unbuttoned shirt, he quickly became the ray of sunshine most memorable within that particular sunset, and his company felt as reverend as Pastor Mike’s.   

I played the beginning to the song I’d started writing, and Ray said he’d like to get his guitar and play together.  While he went to his car, I gathered my things and returned.  He was gone.  I asked some girls nearby if they’d seen the man I was talking to before. 

“We saw you walking and playing.  We didn’t see a man.”

The beach closes at the forecasted time for sunset.  A police patrol drives up the boardwalk broadcasting a ten-minute warning, then drives back announcing the beach is closed.  Ray wasn’t playing a duet with his guitar, but his words were still playing with me until a patrolman kindly asked me to pack up.  Lost in the prayer, I’d missed the warning entirely. 

Last night, I returned.  I finished the song.  I walked and played, up and down the beach.  I didn’t see Ray, but somehow, we were still playing together.  When I was a teenager, I got right with God through music.  I’d write songs on the piano that were never meant for anyone but an audience of One. 

I’m getting right with God with Summer Sarah. 

She’s the companion He put in my hands so that I knew how to pray, in words that welled up from the ocean alongside a F, D7, C chord progression, “for more than music for my company.” 

The collective sunsets meld together.  I pack light.  Sometimes, God sends me another companion.  The colors change.  The sun sets earlier.  I discover more of me.

And while I am so very good at making sense of how all the pieces fit together around me, I’m not a desk from IKEA.  My grade school peers might say I need a manual; if there’s one, God has it.  He’s got the big picture diagram, and I believe He’s making something better with my life each day, in the subtle ways we might otherwise miss. 

With just a few words from above, Ray quieted the storm cloud of dark voices brewing that day, restoring the peace at my Fort Monroe Beach.