I used to be frustrated by the inevitability of waves. I would hurl myself against them with all my strength, body slapping broad-side into the ambling hill of water, trying with all my might to make an example, set a precedent, assert my sentient dominance over the senseless redundancy of nature. It was a battle of wills and I, being blessed with Will, was the clear favorite.
Naturally, I lost every time. Each wave was followed inexorably by another, and red-chested and infuriated by the ocean’s indifference to my presence, I would gather myself for another offensive.
Tiring of this, I would alter my strategy and resign myself to building sandcastles with moats carefully situated just at the limit of the obliging tide; or constructing palaces for sojourning crabs, nomadic despots who would signal their gratitude for my hospitality with clumsy sideways curtsies. Or something like that.
I was jealous of the older boys on their jet skis, their casual indifference to the forces that stymied me, skimming the surface like sleek cars on an undulating pavement, surgically slicing its skin, as unimpressed with their medium of travel as it was with me, their artificial waves trailing them, spreading out like a slow Japanese fan, criss-crossing at odd angles to their larger, slower cousins.
* * * * *
It’s been decades since I’ve been to the ocean, I realize as I leave the hospital in the cobalt light of the pre-dawn, but my feet remember the way. With a nod to the stoic palms on Cass Street I turn left, and sand supplants cement. I can’t feel its texture through my leather soles but it gives way deferentially under my weight. I don’t break stride, even as the tiny waves make a play for my kneecaps. When the water is deep enough I squat, submerging myself to the neck.
I am weightless. I am a buoy. The ocean cycles around me and through me and I am utterly unobtrusive. It rocks me like a baby, lovingly indifferent to my will. Tonight, I will dream of its momentum.
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