I’m sitting on the balcony of the five-story condo
that I’ve been coming to year after year since I was small.
My Netbook is the only source of light besides the
faint luminance of the overhanging bar chandelier
in the back of the kitchen.
The waves sound soft.
The air is comforting.
Today I was sitting on the beach thinking.
All your life you see photos,
movie clips,
paintings
and drawings of beaches.
By the time you can talk,
you already have a pretty accurate image in your head
of what the beach is like,
even if you’ve never actually visited.
But, it’s not until you physically place yourself in the middle
of everything you’ve imagined,
that you truly know what the beach is.
Until you feel the cool breeze across your skin,
to dry the beads of sweat on your chest
after sitting under the hot sun for hours.
Until the faint smell of saltwater dances under your nose
as your toes sink deeper into the sand with each rushing wave.
Oh, the waves
…they seem harmless,
but truthfully they’re roaring beasts
that can either be entertaining or deadly.
They look as if they come out of the sky.
Sometimes the color of the clouds and the blue-ish tint of the sea is quite similar.
Traveling, full force from the horizon they roll.
They’re a pattern of small mountains that race towards land.
Then, the moment they feel the soft sand beneath them,
where all the other mountains end,
they crash.
The stronger force underneath pulls them back
into the dark sea,
only to shed their top layer of skin
that flattens out into an array of creases,
resembling thousands of fingers
wiggling like they’re about to tickle a small child.
Spilling out onto dry land,
the tiny fingers shrink into small bubbles
that desperately try and get as far away as possible,
from the treacherous dark water.
And the sound.
It’s almost indescribable.
First it starts low,
like a wild animal trapped in a forest as
a poacher walks up slowly to it’s young.
It means no harm,
but could easily warn off predators.
Then it turns into a softer, sweeter whisper.
Like the rumbling noise your first family car made
just before it started.
Or, the hush-hush noises your mother would make
as she rocked you to sleep as a baby.
The after effect is of a low-pitched, sizzling sound.
Like the sound of your father cooking
scrambled eggs on a Sunday morning.
It’s nothing less than perfect.
It is, the ocean.
Your creation is beautiful.
How can a person,
even a writer and a photographer
capture such beauty?
I could sit and write or photograph all day
and still not capture the true feeling
of being on the coast.
And to think,
just over the horizon,
lies other land.
Other life.
Water is what keeps us so far away from everything else.
Finally time to myself.
To sit and bask in your beauty.
Thank you God, for this wonderful creation.
Thank you for this vacation.
To visit, to laugh, to think
and to have a reason to miss home.
To not take anything or anyone for granted.
Please, give me a beautiful sunrise in the morning.
And I will celebrate it’s life and yours through photos.
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