What You Can't See - Melody Cryns

“Where does the sun go after it slips into the sea?” my son Stevie asked when he was only around six years old.

“Well, ummm…it’s actually still there. It’s just that the earth is moving and the sun is moving, so then we just can’t see it anymore.” I attempted to sound as wise as possible but had no idea if I succeeded. I remember Stevie had looked at me and then out at the ocean and squinted his eyes as if that would help him see something that might or might not be there.

“But why?” three-year-old Jeremy asked, as he jumped up and down on one foot. “Why Mommy, why?!”

That was the stock question that Jeremy always asked – why?

“It’s just the way it is.” I smiled. How could I explain exactly why the earth moved and the sun moved around the earth in a way that my three young kids would understand? Melissa hadn’t said anything. She just looked out at the ocean at Nye Beach and contemplated the issue.

“Why did the sun go away, Mommy, why, why?” Jeremy ran up and down the sidewalk chasing sea gulls, his blonde curls bobbing with the early evening breeze.

“It’s just that the earth moves and the sun moves, so now they can see the sun in China.”

“China?” Stevie said. “China, where’s China?”

I sighed. “China is on the other side of the world. When we can’t see the sun, they can.”

“Wow, the other side of the world?”

“Yes,” I said, looking out at the different shades of deep oranges that burst across the darkened sky, just as it always did when the sun set on a clear day.

The other side of the world, I remember thinking, looking out into the Pacific Ocean. That’s where we had been for several years – in Germany on the other side of the world, and now here I was. I never in a million years thought I’d be standing there at Nye Beach looking out at the ocean with my three kids, and that I’d actually live in Newport, Oregon, this beautiful small town on the ocean that my mother had fallen in love with back in 1976. I could see why – there was a charm to the town, especially when all the tourists left in late summer and it was just the people of the town – the population had gone up from 3,000 to about 8,000. I remember how I couldn’t believe my mother wanted to move to the “boonies” when she already lived in San Francisco, the best city in the world. I secretly still thought San Francisco was the best city in the world, even though Newport was charming. And some day, no matter how many years it took, some day I’d return home…

But I didn’t have to say it – it was deep within me, that secret desire. And I couldn’t explain it any better than I could explain why the sun slipped into the ocean and why the people in China could see the sun when we couldn’t. I looked down at my kids and smiled… some day, some day when you’re a lot older, we will be standing at ocean beach in San Francisco.