BEGINNINGS : The Beach

BEGINNINGS : The Beach

Sent: 7/5/2001 1:57 PM

So I was off to the beach today. I really didn’t think I wanted to go until Leonardo convinced me that the beach would be a lot of fun. Then he enticed me with – you’ll get the chance to swim.

I never knew I could get bad at swimming. Summers as a child in Arkansas were consistently spent on the lake Norfolk, a short four hour drive from my hometown of Arkansas.

Those four hours felt like an eternity driving to the lake. My sister and I would have our faces pressed up against the window paying omage to the souls of the little creatures who sat on the side of the road, roadkill, the grown-ups called it. Some would even laugh about eating it and the many different menus one could try varying from state to state. Here, in our state, Tara and I would offer up little winged prayers for the deer, raccoons, possums, and the occasional, much to our further dismay, dog we would see lying on the side of the road.

The cabin would seem to never meet on the long journey to its door, but once we arrived we felt like we had never left. Almost like a dry heat that sweeps in after a thunderstorm, those four hours just evaporated like they were only mere seconds from our home in Blytheville to the cabin at Lake Norfolk.

And Lake Norfolk was the place I really swam. Off the edge of the boat I would plunge into its arms. Off the edge of the bank. Off the ledge of the cliffs which rose high around the body of water, its gates Nature sat to protect the lake’s beauty and magnificence from those who would wish it ill-will. Norfolk’s arms cradled my body, lifted me, tossed me, laughed bubbles around me. Norfolk provided me with adventures and daring feats and serenity and a calming peace. The swim always seemed to allow a freedom that at that time I hadn’t had. The water held me and told me to just be myself. Just be myself.

As we walked toward the water today, years later, I could smell the fragrance of hesitation about re-entering her arms. The tide was growing, and the Atlantic didn’t seem as loving or as giving as Norfolk had been. Atlantic looked excited, full of life, happy, not concerned with what was in her or their agenda. She looked wild and crazy. She nipped at my feet. The cool water flowed over my foot and sand erupted between my toes.

I thought, perhaps I’m too old to go back to that place I was at Norfolk. Perhaps I’ve gained too much experience and the magic of then will be nothing more than a fairy tale that my little immature mind at the time had conjured. And will I be really disappointed if I walk out into the sea and don’t feel that magic that I know I felt before? It was real at some point. Really real.

I looked up. The water was rolling in. The white wake, saturated with delicate bubbles, tickled my feet seductively. I think I smiled as I thought, I really, REALLY want to feel that magic again. Sprinting towards the water, I grabbed a breath and then plunged into the next wave. Suddenly she was there – not Norlfolk, not Atlantic, - water, swimming in magical water. The freeness came more quickly than I expected. It is as if it had been waiting on the sidelines patiently, just for this moment. It jumped in, I felt alive. I felt free. I felt magic.

Then I started breathing shortly. My muscles began to tire. My heart began to pound. Now this was unexpected. What was going on? Why was my body not responding? Am I that out of shape? I swam back towards the shore and released myself from water's loving arms. Standing on the beach, magic beading and rolling down my back and then dripping from my bathing suit, I made a note to self: Start working out immediately. More endurance needed.