One July mid-morning in the recent and sadly missed season I call My Beach Summer, I jumped out of the driver’s seat of my no-GPS-but-bound-for-hedonism car, looked down at myself and exclaimed, “I’m half-naked!”
This, after realizing that all I had on was a blue bathing suit and a pair of flip-flops. And I didn’t care.
Where are your shorts?? did not even begin to describe the diatribe going on in my head from the mother-voice I hear periodically when faced with near auto collisions -
you know the one - the always-wear-clean-underthings in case you’re in a car wreck warning. I ignored her question in the land of the sand and closed the door of the secret convoy vehicle with a giggle. Half-naked was no problem during the summer that was closely akin to the most freeing time in my life. Ever.
That morning, I’d flown out of the condo with nothing more on my brain than to find an ice cream cone. The first flashing soda shoppe sign I saw had my undivided attention.
They also had an unintended peek at my joyful splash into public life as an anonymous beach bum.
Who KNEW I had a bohemian streak?
I miss that streak.
So is it any wonder today that for most of this lazy cold Christmas-bound day, I spent - like a vagabond - in bed. With a delicious book. Under a coverlet. A collection of leftover party cheese, a few salty green olives smiling up at me from a plate by my side and crackers - oh, yes,
crumbly crackers - in the gypsy boudoir with me. How much more hedonistic can one get in this lifetime?
And midday in a holy season. Tsk tsk.
Reading in the crumbs reminded me of gritty sand in the crevices of blue rayon on beaches. And blankets of warm warm sunshine with ice cream for breakfast. Since my affliction with flip-flop scandal, I think it not strange at all.
How I adore words.
So I ate them. Salt and all.
I wonder....
If I start walking now, with these sea-tested legs of mine from the summer that was truly me, maybe I can make it back to the sand dunes before Santa slides down the chimney. And if my hair is pillow-tangled and my skin is back to pale, who cares?
I know it’s strange to be contemplating shorelines in the middle of winter - seagulls don’t fly with doves of peace, now do they? - but seriously, once you’ve dipped your big toe in waters of nothingness, it’s easy to let yourself go there again.
Even it is just in the pages of a book on a Sunday fraught with landmines of chores staring from the laundry pile.
It's 30 degrees out.
I'm going for ice cream.
I could be back by sunrise you know.
*photography credit Mimi Lenox*
"Never."
