Early-spring sun warms the soul, and unleashes the past

With temperatures in the 80s last week, people got an early taste of summer at Front Beach along Winthrop Shore Drive. (Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff)

It's 80 degrees and I am walking on a beach and making noise as I move.

I hear the sand being squished by my feet, and in the midst of the first really warm day in more than six months, I actually sigh several times. Warm sand - something that I take for granted in August - seems exotic and otherworldly. I look at the children running into the water, and then look at the sand, and continue my slow gait.

I feel like I am defrosting.

This is what happens to people who were born in this cold climate, I think. This is what happens when people stay in the same place where their parents and grandparents settled. This is what happens when the sky turns gray for six months each year; when the wind, rain, and chill combine to make the three months of autumn and spring a crapshoot. Yes, this is what happens when people who are pushed around by all of that weather are allowed some perspective while absorbing the heat.

I move slowly away from the pounding surf; away from the children throwing wet sand; away from the flirting high school teens. I distance myself from the chatty moms who sip spring water and smoke cigarettes and read hard-cover novels.

I am lost in thought and realize that I am not walking in a straight path. Suddenly I feel like my father, who walked the beach nearly every day for years. Like him, I walk slowly, my hands clasped behind my back, looking up, down, with my thoughts drifting between decades.

When I walk to the left, I drift to another era. I am back with my childhood friends on a nearby beach; I am getting ready to go off to college; I am working in a factory on a hot summer day. Altogether, I am fishing, playing baseball, learning to drive, writing my first story, playing in a band in a smoky club, on an airplane headed to a far-away continent; a husband, a father.

I drift to the right and I am aging, listening to close friends who have not worked in months after long, successful careers. I think of my own career and of all the stories that predict newspapers will die. I hear words of advice of close friends who struggle to beat cancer. I think of growing old and look up at the sky and pray that I'll never retire and move to Florida.

I open my eyes and look at the rising tide. I've walked about a mile and decide to turn around. On the way back, I look at everyone. A man who I see frequently sitting in downtown Lynn listening to music on oversized headphones is shirtless and walking extremely fast.

Four high school girls kick a soccer ball, smile at two guys throwing around a football, and then run into the water. I eavesdrop on conversations, hoping to hear something profound, perhaps even life-changing, but instead grasp only a few words of sentences.

"Kathy is going tomorrow night," says a girl.

"You can't do that," an elderly woman tells a young child.

"Yeah," says a man covered in green tattoos.

I know I should leave but I stay for another half-hour. I sit in the warm sand. I think of a childhood friend who still lives down the block. I dial him on the cell, and there's an echo when he answers. When I tell him to come down to the beach, he tells me he's in Saudi Arabia.

I look for my car and the seat is warm. I turn on the air conditioner and radio, and then shut both off. I roll down the windows.

Better to listen to the wind.

Steven Rosenberg is a Globe staff reporter. He can be reached at rosenberg@globe.com.