Come stand reeling to the shore
I don't recognize this beach. I guess it's the Pacific but it feels like the Atlantic. It looks like Santa Barbara. The waves are crashing erratically and there are families and people crowding along the sand and the ocean. People are surfing. The waves are just right for surfing and occasionally there will be a huge monster wave that people try and tackle without success. Suddenly there is one surfer wearing a red and black wetsuit that careens over a monster wave. He has a bungie cord attached to him and there is a jetski that pulls him along. He is amazing. He skims along the top of the wave and flips in the air as the jetski yanks him along. Then he disappears and the children run for the water again.
I am in the ocean floating and bobbing and looking at the sky. There is a girl with blonde braids next to me speaking Swedish. She is calling to her boyfriend who is paddling out into the water. There are too many people on the beach and I close my eyes and feel myself go under. My hair is in the sand and the waves rush over me. I see another huge wave coming and the amazing surfer cutting up the side and I know the water is going to cover me and I do nothing to stop it. I can feel the salt and the sand and my body is dragging in the sand. But I know when the wave drags me out that the sand will wash away. So I let the water take me and float out to sea. I look back and I've gone too far. The beach is deserted now except for the man on the jetski who is sandlogged and looking for the surfer and a few scattered people picking up towels. I swim sideways towards the shore the way DDL taught me when I was little but the undertow is strong. I feel the strength in my arms as I fight against it and I feel them getting stronger as I do the crawl towards the beach.
Then I am in a home that is a swingset. There are three children with blue blue eyes and I can't figure out if they belong to me. Then I see their mother and I know who's wife she is but she doesn't look like the pictures or how I remember her.
I am in the ocean floating and bobbing and looking at the sky. There is a girl with blonde braids next to me speaking Swedish. She is calling to her boyfriend who is paddling out into the water. There are too many people on the beach and I close my eyes and feel myself go under. My hair is in the sand and the waves rush over me. I see another huge wave coming and the amazing surfer cutting up the side and I know the water is going to cover me and I do nothing to stop it. I can feel the salt and the sand and my body is dragging in the sand. But I know when the wave drags me out that the sand will wash away. So I let the water take me and float out to sea. I look back and I've gone too far. The beach is deserted now except for the man on the jetski who is sandlogged and looking for the surfer and a few scattered people picking up towels. I swim sideways towards the shore the way DDL taught me when I was little but the undertow is strong. I feel the strength in my arms as I fight against it and I feel them getting stronger as I do the crawl towards the beach.
Then I am in a home that is a swingset. There are three children with blue blue eyes and I can't figure out if they belong to me. Then I see their mother and I know who's wife she is but she doesn't look like the pictures or how I remember her.
posted by The Dancing Kids @ 6:30 PM
1 Comments:
At 5:58 PM,
Anonymous said…
I am in the back of a taxi which has been wrapped stem to stern with black duct tape. Kathleen is there, I haven't seen her since college but she is wearing this sort of fuzzy yellow sweaterish thing that I literally have to restrain myself from touching because it's so darn cute. She looks like a newly hatched chick. She puts her head on my shoulder and I realize the taxi driver is watching us out of the corner of his eye while he eats caramel popcorn. A blimp floats by overhead and someone is singing an old 40s tune, something by Cole Porter or something, in that tinny, distorted sort of way that you only hear when listening to it on an old Victrola. I am suddenly very sad, because I know I will never see K again after this moment and because I know the taxi will never get around to taking us where we need to go.
It is misting, not a full-on rain but a slow greytoned drizzle. Oddly this makes the yellow look that much more vibrant.
O
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