Get Out

Get Out
I must get out more often. It’s the first time I’ve gone downstairs to the beach in months. An implosion of the senses greets me. I manage to shuffle far enough onto the beach for a natural foot massage as abrasive as any loofah. Even as I taste the salty breeze, the waves are shushing me to silence. No need to speak while being visually arrested by the palms standing on guard in a row along the shore, as though daring the three majestic sailboats to come closer, the surfers to risk waves higher, and the speedboat to pound the swells harder. The sumptuous pink hotel is safely nestled behind their tropical greenery, reassured by the blue and yellow bobbing buoys and their more subtle protection of the lagoon’s approach to our paradise.

The gulls come within inches, hoping for food from me but settle for crumbs on the beach, rejecting over and over the soaked orange peel forlornly waiting on the edge of its salty grave. The faint smell of a dead fish punctuates the power of the sea over life and death.

There’s a cross too, man-made, on the point, assuring the outgoing yachts a safe voyage and greeting the incoming ones with a reminder to say, “Gracias Dios! We made it!”

Framing the blue blue sky, the clouds draw me to their billowing shapes which take on always the shape of my long gone little Sheltie ever calling love to me from above.

Drifting into a reverie of the soul, I am startled by the hug of my sixteen year old ahijada, (god daughter) as she passes along the shoreline with her tray of wares which she’s been peddling since she was three. She awakens me to humanity: younger children gambolling to the tune of their own laughter and wonder of wonders, a swollen bellied young pregnant woman with a surf board under her arm. It strikes me that she’s sure living on the edge. Why not? If nature can carry us into the thrill of life now without worrying about what could happen to spoil it all, we could all ride the waves to our hearts content. I am blessed to have been pushed to the other side of my window to feel, smell, taste, hear and truly see my world again.