Day Five-Euphoria

.......some stream of consciousness......

I love a cool summer morning, the kind that promises to bring intense heat, heat waves, waves, and a cold beer at the end of it all. I get up early on these mornings, the random sporadic days I have off, and I gear up: shorts, wax, skimboard.

The 7 minute drive to Wrightsville Beach never takes longer than it does on these mornings I have to myself. It is on the way that I feel I am journeying to freedom. It is in the salt air, the blue-green waves, and the semi-deserted sand that I think there are a few moments of salty serenity.

There's no warm up, no introduction, no awkward moments of getting to know you so we can hang out for the night and pretend to be friends.

There's simple the beach and I.

The water is always cold but I LOVE IT. The salty spray reminds me of why I moved to the beach which was this exactly moment. Early mornings watching the sun come up and hearing the sea gulls crying.

I've never felt so alive.

I stand ankle deep, waiting for the exact moment to slide my board across the surface of the water, watch it slide and then chase it... jumping and hoping that the physical improbability of landing on it and not DYING actually comes together the instant my bare feet hit the wax covered board.
If all the planets line up and it happens... (my profile picture shows what happens) then the momentary euphoria is unbelievable; I am almost Jesus, walking on water, somehow at one with the sea and the problems that always way on an individual. My hair is soaked with salt water, my eyes are burning, sand covers me but for a moment, just a moment, I am ALIVE.

This is my vacation.

Drop. Run. Skim. Again. Again. Again.

The morning ends. Other beach lovers arrive.

The euphoria hangs on me like junkies hang onto their high.

......the high is never high enough.

-it is what it is-