BEACH bound…
We are beach bound….which is a totally different animal than SNOWBOUND….off tomorrow on our 7th annual ‘honeymoon’…this time to Florida… My first time! …And not a minute of it will be spent inside a Disney edifice, thank you very much. We will meander along the Atlantic coast, taking in Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Cape Canaveral, Miami, a few days at Key West, and then back up the Gulf coast to Sanibel Island, Clearwater, Tampa, and St. Petersburg. (or there about….our itinerary is fluid with the exception of needing to be in Key West Tuesday)
It’s all about the BEACH. Did you know the beach may provide health benefits? Negative Ions are in abundance at the water’s edge apparently, and they make you feel better. Now that’s the kind of prescription I’m all about!
My feeling about the ocean are well described below, in a fan fiction story I wrote. My main character just had an argument with her boyfriend, and she ran down to the water’s edge. (other than the argument and the not being a big picture, philosophical, sappy person, it’s a pretty auto-biographical snippet)
The ocean has always had a calming effect on me. I don’t know exactly what it was that did it, but I loved the water. I loved the exhilaration of the beach in the deep winter, when the only other life out there with you was the birds; and I simply adored the beach in summer. I slipped back to my childhood as I hit the sand, holding my flip-flops and wiggling my toes in the hot, rough texture, feeling it ooze between my toes.
I ran as best as I could to the waters edge, and stood, with the water lapping around my ankles. I watched my feet with the same awe that I had as a child as they disappeared, wave after wave, until I couldn’t balance any longer. Oh, for childhood again, when the only problem in the world was who was going to be my best friend that week.
The roar of the ocean was stupendous. I had reached that magic part of the beach, where the sounds of civilization disappeared and all you knew was the earth, the sounds of the waves blocking out all other things. My mind emptied then, as it always did. The waves were hypnotic, and my heart began to keep pace with their ebb and flow. The sun was hot, and the water was cool. The breeze was a perfect blend of warm sunshine and moist, briny coolness.
I stood, and absorbed the power that was emanating from the pounding surf. I looked towards London, or would it be Spain? Italy? I’m not good with geography, but I looked far, at the curving horizon, broken by one looming dark orange freighter. Otherwise it was a pristine swath of blue on blue-green, with wispy clouds. All is right in the world, or it should be, when standing here, facing the hugeness of earth, the un-ending pulse. The water that caressed my foot had traveled the earth probably. And someday, in a hundred years, that very drop might reach the other side of the world, without my assistance or knowledge. Or approval. I began to walk, the sun to my back, the water dancing along trying to catch me. My flip-flops hung in my hand, my toes curled in the moist sand, and the breeze blew in my face, keeping me cool and creating that odd feeling of walking in place that occurs only on the edge of the ocean.
The feeling of being one with the world– the somewhat thoughtful, introspective Stephanie appeared when I was at the beach. I wasn’t normally a big picture person, and I wasn’t sappy or philosophical on a good day. But at the beach…. I lost track of the time, and of why I was here, alone, as I bent randomly to collect a shell, or to watch a child race against time to build a moat to hold back impending doom. I nodded to the old couples sitting under their beach umbrellas, and I skirted the teens with their surf boards, trying desperately to impress on waves that weren’t up to the task.
With the promise of oodles of photos in a few weeks, I am signing off for the time being…..take care!
