Ed pulled into the empty parking lot across the road from Omena Beach. He grabbed his towel, guitar and bottle of water, and scanned the little park that was in between the road and the beach itself, surprised that there was no there at all. It was a fantastic summer day in late August and the sun saturated the sky and the rippling bay with evanescent light. An empty beach was something not exactly rare in Leelanau County, especially, if you were like Ed, and had a nose for exploring and an inclination to deliberately deviate off course; you might be surprised at what you will find. But Omena Beach was only about 150 feet long, surrounded on both side by “private beaches,” attached to summer homes by folks from Chicago or New York. Situated between the busy town of Suttons Bay and the not-so busy town of Northport, the spot was popular for Indian families and all kinds of families, locals, and tourists, so Ed appreciated fully the chance to dwell on the beach solo. He could always connect with a sense of timelessness on the beach better when there were no homo sapiens about. The steady rhythm of the gentle waves, the warm sand beneath his feet and scooped in his hands to fall through fingers like minutes on a clock that no one is watching.
He crossed the road and dropped his towel and his guitar and stood there feeling the hot sun on his skin. Down the beach to the west was the Knot Bar, a corporate joint adjacent to a wine tasting room. Ed remembered the days of the Omena Bar, the owner operated, derelict, drunk bar with a good jukebox that he used to frequent when he first moved up to Northern Michigan. The bar had a deck that offered an amazing view of the natural harbor called Omena Bay. It often happens that remote, beautiful, largely agricultural areas become havens for those with disposable income who mostly live in large polluted cities. Add on the fact that agriculture is largely produced from 100,000 acre farms in the U.S. and overseas, the economy of these rural areas suffers and needs a boost from somewhere. Bring on the richies who build homes, eat at the restaurants, shop at the shops, buy groceries from the market, and get drunk in the bars. In Leelanau County, especially over the last 30 years, this influx of outsiders had increased dramatically and altered the economy, and to a small extent, the culture and atmosphere of an area that had been unpopulated until 1860. Before that it was a summer haven for Indians, then after being settled by the Europeans it became farmland.
Ed walked to the waters edge and stood in it up to his knees. He reached down and splashed water on his face and stretched his arms above his head.
“Sweet.” He said, sat on his towel and soaked it all in. He laughed thinking of what old George had said repeatedly about the county, having been there for 50 years, and seen most of these changes.
“You know Ed,” the old poet-woodcutter said, “This county used to be farmers and workers. Now it’s turned into a fucking Boutique.” He meant it, and he was right. Although Ed fully appreciated the sparsely populated county that he had been visiting since he was a child and was now his home. Some aspects of the place and people irked him. Almost the entire coastline was “Private.” The Lexus, the Range Rover, The Rolls Royce speed around the county driven by overly made-up and medicated septuagenarians and large bellied, red nosed business men with their cigars and boats and vapid personalities. But without them this area, with the decline of agriculture (although the cherries that sustained the area are still going strong and more recently wine grapes and hops were thriving), would have retreated into a real backwater, the kind of backwater that attracted an artist and maniac like George back in the 60’s and the kind of place it was to Ed even with all the blow-hards.
Ed pulled out the guitar and played a little riff. His fingers were beginning to have souls of their own, sliding up and down the neck without effort, and the time, the pauses, the rhythms seemed to emerge on their own. Ed had been playing for 5 years, mostly alone. Music is a source of all things good and there are not many things that deserve that statement. It only took a few minutes for the dark rosewood on the guitar to heat up, and Ed could feel that smooch from the sun layering his skin. He put the guitar back in its gig bag, got up and went in the water.
The cool, invigorating fresh waters of lake Michigan, clear as the Caribbean, and calm, with little foot tall waves the remainder of the currents from the big lake that curled around Omena Point and took their time slowing down as they made their way to shore. Ed went under and entered aquatic world, his whole body moving in concert, limbs, muscles and tendons, from his fingers spreading out to his feet now flippers propelling him forward. He swam around for 20 minutes, heading out to where the clear water ended and that twilight blue appeared as the steep shelf dropped off maybe 30 feet. That summer Ed had discovered what he called his inner otter, having hit the beach at least once a day for 60 days straight. He set a personal record without trying; he had four visits to the beach in a 24 hour period, just the week before. Ed was proud of this, as he was proud of maintaining his health, playing guitar, writing, doing things that were salubrious and good as the relentless whisper of memento mori was carried on every breeze and evident in every breath.
He emerged from the water becoming terrestrial again and noticed a woman sitting on the bench of the little park that was situated between the beach and the road. Ed heard the sound of her voice, and immediately knew, not just because she was alone, but evident in the tone and timbre of her voice, that she was on a cell phone.
“Oy Fucking Vey,” he said, grabbing his towel and drying his face. He threw it in the sand and walked down the narrow beach towards The Knot, trying to forget she was there, trying to forget the feelings he couldn’t help but get when he heard people yapping away loudly on cell phones.
He skipped a few rocks and walked back and spread his towel out and sat down. He touched the gig bag and it was hot. Not too good for the guitar, he thought, but it was his old one, beat up and banged around as a good first guitar should be. He knew the heat wouldn’t warp it too bad, or at least he hoped it wouldn’t. The woman was still talking. On the long curve of the beach with the slightest zephyr cooling the blazing heat from the sun, her voice carried and seemed to fill the space with an echo. “Rude, damn rude.” Ed said, knowing he was overly hyped about this cell phone epidemic. Or was he? He was a 70’s kid. He remembered the one phone in the house on the kitchen wall with the curly chord. He remembered the first cord-less and the first answering machine. He remembered the days before cell phones. Those days when people talked to each otherm made friends or simply sat on the beach and read a book or soaked in the scene. Ed didn’t get a cell phone himself until just a few years before and now people were using devices they called “smart phones,” Ed didn’t see the wisdom in it. Having a computer at your ear, in your pocket, every second of every day, whether in the deep woods or on your lazy boy? Sure it may be convenient for traveling or business, but man, a car is a great invention and you have people that drive 100 feet from here to there. It always struck him as freaky and weird, like a sci-fi movie scene, when he would drive to Traverse City, or anywhere really, and see 75% of the people with a phone to their ear or eyes and thumbs stuck to a device. It was just weird, odd and unsettling. In a world where humans are already so distracted, so out of the moment, so indifferent to anything except where they have to be, what they have to buy, and everybody else be damned, this kind of ubiquitous, self absorbing device just made people, Ed thought, into assholes. Their loss and his inconvenience.
Like this lady. This woman he did not know. Was she a local, or a tourist? Did it matter? No. Her voice, her laugh, her absolute ignorance of the fact her conversation was now saturating the primal beach along with the sun and its endless heat and light. Who am I to judge her? Ed thought. It’s a free country, as they say, although he already knew it was only really free for some, while most of us pay the price and pay it dearly and daily. But she can do what she wants, he thought, it’s not my beach. He couldn’t ignore it though, because he knew it only took a sliver of a thought, a coin-width’s of awareness, a spider’s web of consideration to lower her voice a bit. She laughed loudly and leaned back on the bench, lost; truly in her own world, while Ed, and the placidity of an empty beach, were forced right into it.
He looked out at the glittering water, hearing her voice. He tried to lose his mind in the clouds of dreams that slowly coalesced and slid across the cerulean blue, but he heard her voice. He closed his eyes and did some Ugai breaths to calm his nerves, center his mind, and simply be. He heard her say, “You have got to be kidding me!” He had an idea. It was sort of crazy but sort of crazy isn’t too bad and sometimes it’s necessary. He stood up, looked up and down the beach, then back at the woman who was now hunched over chattering loudly, her elbows on her knees. “Fuck it,” Ed said, and untied the rope on his suit and it fell to the sand below.
He walked up the beach and stood 15 feet in front of the woman who did not yet see him. He stood there with the hot sun so good on his body, so warm, so welcoming, his skin taut from the lake water drying by its heat. He watched her and waited. Nearly a minute passed and Ed felt excited and nervous as he scanned the road for cars, but no one was around. Then, in mid sentence, “I can not believe that she let him….” the woman looks up, stops speaking and stared at him with her mouth open. “Oh, I'm sorry,” Ed said, “am I disturbing you?” 
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