Carolina Days

Those were glorious days at the beach in South Carolina-my sisters and I set free to play and explore, on the wide sands, to our hearts' contents.  I can remember the path to "our beach", starting as a high dune.  As you crested the hill, the dune sloped down precipitously-and we would surrender to the glee of running downhill in sand.  You'd be somewhat out of control, in this act, a scary mix of forward speed and resistive sand-plunged footfalls.  The result was that your upper body seemed to be falling forward while your feet lagged behind, mired in the fine hot sand.   At the base of this first dune, the buffeting winds quieted and the distant roar of the waves was faint, like when you hold a shell to your ear. 

 Down there in the hollow of earth's palm, at the base of the first dune, it was quiet.  Here we would laugh and fall and catch our breath, before ascending the next sandy mountaintop.  And then again, the race was on.  I would grab at my sister's bathing suit, her hair, anything to pull her back and push me to the head of the race. It was race- a race to the waves.  As we hit the beach, our legs and arms pumped like tiny locomotives across the sand, with purposeful crashes into one another to conquer the leader.  The closer we would get to the water, the harder the sand became, and it was then that you could get your footing and really pick up speed.  I can remember laughing so hard, as I ran, my mouth ajar, sucking salty air.  The laughing sucked all the wind from my lungs and made me lose the footrace, every time. 

But no matter!  We all crashed into the welcoming waves within seconds of one another, laughing so hard that we gasped desperately for our first breath, after diving like torpedos into the froth. The crashing waves threatened to topple us all, in a crystal green arch of powerful forward movement.  The retreating waves bubbled and sizzled, seemingly hissing a half-hearted apology for the rude, bold power of the last advancing wave. 

But we were undaunted.  We were beach kids, after all.  We knew that no matter how scary and huge the wave, that we must dive at her feet, surrender to her power.  We learned early that when you believed, when you took this dare, you would be rewarded.  The wave rumbled and tumbled over your head, while you slipped quietly under the rage and roar, and arose on the other side in flat, calm water- safe.  A life lesson, no doubt, learned here among the waves. 

I never liked to let my feet touch down, once in the water.  I had seen too many jellyfish-gelatinous, purplish-pink blobs, all veiny inside -filled with stinging poisons, littering the hard sands.  I had seen horseshoe crabs too, so scary-hard shelled, flattened primordial creatures, with beady eyes and long stinging tazer tails.  Oh, yes, and crabs- horrid snapping, clawed creatures that scittered sideways on spiky jointed legs.  When our dog nosed them bravely, they would rear up, and retract their black eyes, on long white stems, back into their shells.  And then, suddenly, they would advance, rapid, straight forward- and scare the hell out of the dog and us all!  We would scitter away, with high pitched squeals of fear!

So, once in the water, I would tuck my knees to my chest and pedal my legs gently.  The salty water did the rest to keep me afloat.  I'd wade out just deep enough so that my toes had no chance of scraping the bottom with its lurking monsters. Out here, the rise and fall of the impending waves was peaceful-up and down-rise and fall-up and down.  I would tip my chin up to the sun.  A hollow, breathy sound would fill my ears, like Neptune sighing.  I would extend my arms out to my sides, and float on my back, feel the gentle rise and fall.  The world would be silenced. My hair felt like cornsilk- like a mermaid's-floating all around my head-undulating ribbons.  Here suspended-I would let my jaw go slack-let the water fill my mouth.   A strange seduction, I remember, a wish to just stay here in this quiet, airless, weightless world.