Seasons

Image by Jörg Peter from Pixabay

Moira sat in the sand, brooding, like the roiling thunderclouds in the distance.  The soothing splash of waves breaching the shore didn’t ease her mood.  All those job applications without a reply, and today, the train-wreck interview.  She knew it was going to be disastrous from the get-go.  The twenty-something woman interviewer with her forced smile as she looked down her nose, through the latest fashion Prada glasses.  Moira talked about her twenty years of corporate experience, but after 10 minutes of pretence, Moira suggested they not waste each other’s time and walked out.

Seagulls squawked nearby, mimicking Moira’s angry thoughts.  A sudden wind whipped her hair and sand lashed her face.  Salt burned in her throat.  A tear slid down her cheek.  She felt bereft inside, cold, trapped inside her own personal winter.  Angrily, she wiped the tear away.  She’d never been a person to do self-pity.  How things changed with time.

“Watch out!”

Instinctually, Moira ducked, and a ball whizzed overhead.  To her left, a young girl stood next to a portable wicket, cricket bat in hand, her father the presumed bowler.  The wee thing looked about eight.  It warmed Moira’s heart.

“I’ll get your ball!” she said.  Moira threw it back with gusto.

“Thanks.  Good throw,” the father said.

Moira nodded.  Course it was, she thought.  I wasn’t the Australian women’s cricket captain for nothing.  Moira felt a rush of pride, then the wave of failure crashed back down.  But what is success when you can’t use the experience? Her sporting achievements meant little in her current life.

She found a quieter spot further down the beach and sat, closing her eyes.  Waves lapped in a calming meditative rhythm.  Behind her eyelids, all she could see was the interviewer’s face.  With a start, Moira realised the woman looked like her ex-husband’s new wife.  New layers of bitterness built on the first.  All she’d sacrificed for him, and he’d left, without any warning or discussion.  She’d given up her cricketing career to raise their kids, then worked when they were older.  For what? Red-hot anger raged.

A seagull squawked, right next to her, pulling her out of her reverie.  Moira opened her eyes.  A seagull sat beside her.   

“Johnathan Livingston, I presume?” she said.  The seagull flew away.  Moira remembered the book; she had read it years ago.  It hadn’t impressed her at the time, but funny how the seagull’s message came to mind.  Moira didn’t have to accept things as they were.  She had a choice.

Moira’s gaze drifted to the father and daughter.  She was strong.  Fit.  She had been a captain for Australia.  Just because she’d been corporate, it didn’t mean she had to stay there.  In the morning she’d call the local cricket clubs.  Maybe they needed a coach.

The looming clouds had drifted out to sea, the sky was light and blue.  It wasn’t that cold, today.

Besides, it would soon be summer.  And with the cricket, more her season.