for Jennifer
I was on the beach where my father took us year after year, belly down on a towel, feeling the sand in between my fingers and toes, and the graininess of that sand stuck to parts of my body, a few grains on my scalp, a few more hiding in my eyebrows so that they could escape those barren grounds and come with me when I returned home; feeling the towel wet from my swimming trunks, the salty drops dripping from my body, feeling the towel hot from the sun; feeling the warmness of the penetrating sun on my back
[subliminal message: DON'T FORGET YOUR SUNSCREEN]
in contrast to those shivers the cold water I had just come out of provoked; feeling and hearing the breeze playing around my ears, feeling it caressing my left loin and my spine; hearing the distant sound of crashing waves invisible from where I was next to the lagoon; tasting the salt on my lips, those lips tasting my left arm, the youthful blonde hair on my arm tickling my lips; smelling algae and their iodine; my eyes semi closed so that I could see my eyelashes through which the sky blueness and the sand yellow came in into my brain as diffusely as bright. That was me being lazy--lazy yet more alive.
At that very same beach I went for a swim in the choppy North Atlantic, confident in my newly learned swimming skills even though I was still unable to float. There were other swimmers but all strangers to me. I dived and played under and over and through the waves, and when coldness finally defeated my thin layers of fat I tried to swim back to shore yet to no avail. The receding waters were dragging me back in. To the abyss--it felt that way. I shouted for help. No one seemed to have noticed. I swam again only to be defeated once more. I panicked a little--that little heart hard at work. And then. Then a true goddess, the one of Instinct, took control over me. I calmed down and waited for a favourable rush of water to swim back to the shore. And when the water receded each time, I let myself go; no resistance. After many repetitions, I felt the sand under my feet and walked the rest.
In the presence of overpowering forces, fight, flight, freeze? Or is it flow?
Fuck! What the hell do I know?
______
photo by Jorge Francisco Martins de Freitas
(Foz do Arelho, Portugal)
