I spent the weekend at the beach. At the coast, really, for the beach here is nothing like the beach that I know. The beach I know is warm, and the waves roll in over your head. When I was small, I would pretend Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, and I loved most the moment when the wave curled over my head just before it broke. If you look up at that moment, the sun shines through the green water and the leading edge of white races up and over,and then down around you so you tumble in-out-up-down until the rumble settles in the shallow. I could spend hours in the water, jumping over waves and then diving under them.
I still can. In El Salvador in 2001, in Liberia in 2006, I frightened the friends who swam with me by my fearlessness in the waves. A beach should be warm, and there should be waves. I can forgive a warm beach for lack of waves (Kenya, Zanzibar, Florida), but I can hardly forgive a cold beach.
One doesn't go to the beach here to swim. Only small, shivering children swim, all blue around the edges, and people in wetsuits surf or kite-board. I watch them from the blustery shore and long to join them, to be amongst the waves as they crash, but I know myself. I hate being cold. I hate it more than almost any other sensation in the world. I would rather be in pain than cold.
I live near the wrong beach. This beach is for walking, for allowing nature its way, for putting your head down and marching into the wind, even on a sunny day. I think, as I walk, as I revel in the wind and the wild, that I am happy, but not content. Never content. There is another place, many other places, where I want to be. I want to run headlong into warm water. I want to learn to surf and to kite-board in warm water. I miss the tropics.
I still can. In El Salvador in 2001, in Liberia in 2006, I frightened the friends who swam with me by my fearlessness in the waves. A beach should be warm, and there should be waves. I can forgive a warm beach for lack of waves (Kenya, Zanzibar, Florida), but I can hardly forgive a cold beach.
One doesn't go to the beach here to swim. Only small, shivering children swim, all blue around the edges, and people in wetsuits surf or kite-board. I watch them from the blustery shore and long to join them, to be amongst the waves as they crash, but I know myself. I hate being cold. I hate it more than almost any other sensation in the world. I would rather be in pain than cold.
I live near the wrong beach. This beach is for walking, for allowing nature its way, for putting your head down and marching into the wind, even on a sunny day. I think, as I walk, as I revel in the wind and the wild, that I am happy, but not content. Never content. There is another place, many other places, where I want to be. I want to run headlong into warm water. I want to learn to surf and to kite-board in warm water. I miss the tropics.