My Trip to the Beach

I went to the beach Friday. All alone. I had to. I needed salt water and sand in the worst way. You see, I'm a Pisces (the sign of the Fish) and truly if ever anyone survives by water, it is I. I have no idea how I have survived so long living so far away from an actual body of water. In Texas and Florida it was ok. Even in Virginia it was bareable. But New York was hell. I mostly remember it as 4 years of deep, dark depression... in more than one way (but that's for another blog).

I made excellent time getting there, which is very odd. I go to Raleigh a fair amount. It always takes longer to get there than to get home. I call it the Theory of Going Downhill. Don't ask me why, but there are just some routes that take longer one way than the other. HEY - I DON'T MAKE UP THE RULES HERE, I JUST ABIDE BY THEM. ;p

Anyway. As I get closer and closer to the Causeway I start stretching my neck to see if I can see the blue; just catch a glimpse of the water. And then, there it is. It happens on each trip - every time. Everytime I see that blue water for the first time it literally takes my breath away. I have to stop and breathe again. The blueness? The smell? Something about it overwhelms my senses and my body can't handle it. My body stops its normal functioning and has to restart. It's like being home again. Back to where I belong. I wonder if it will still be there like I left it that last time; will it still be as blue, as beautiful, as fresh, as cold, as salty, as welcoming?

This time I went to Wrightsville Beach - the closest beach to Greensboro. Three and a half hours - give or take. Mostly give. Beach trips to the Outer Banks are not known for being quick to drive; well, let's face it. No beach trip is. Unless you do what I often did when I used to travel to be with the family on the Outer Banks when we used to go in the summers... I travelled at night. It was SO much easier - no traffic! But again, I digress.

I had everything planned out: 2 Gatorades, chips, turkey sandwich, Mounds mini-bars in my mini cooler, towels in one bag, kite and umbrella in separate bags, and then my tarp, books, sunscreen, brush, money, etc, in my backpack. I could carry it all with no problem. I later learned that two women (whom I met leaving the beach) saw me unloading my car with my stuff earlier in the day noted at the time how "well prepared and packed" I was. They stopped me and told me when we left the beach together! LOL It made me feel good. If only they could see my apartment during it's re-feng-shui period right now... they'd never believe I was the same girl!

I took the place of some people I passed on my way in that were leaving for the day (weirdos!). The wind was blowing pretty strong. It took me awhile to get everything set up. It must have been during that time that my back got burned. I always forget that while you're doing all that stuff your back is getting all that sun. BOY, did I feel it last night, and I'm feeling it today as well. My front looks like it wasn't even at the beach with me! What's that about??? WTF? Now I'm going to have to go out of my way up at my brother's house to get the front tanned. Oh well... The life of a sun goddess.

The last thing to go up was the kite. I LOVE my kite. It has fish and coral on it. And (don't be alarmed) it's got a lot of purple on it, too. I don't think it was 50 feet up and that wind was blowing like a bitch. I connected it to the D-ring on my kite weight (yes, I have a thing you dig a hole for and fill with wet sand and it secures your flying kite - if you're lucky - all day long if you want it to. Is that the coolest thing or what???) and it was blowing all over the place. I had to reel it in a bit, but there it stayed for all to see. It was awesome.

Something stung me my first time in. Not too bad, must have just been some floating stingers. Can't even feel it today. The waves were wonderful. It was cold. I kept my bikini on during the whole time in the water (hey - that's notable. It doesn't always stay on through some of those waves). I just wanted to go further and further out. The neat thing about North Carolina is that there is usually a sand bank for quite a ways out so if you can get through the breaking waves you can get to a place that is relatively peaceful and just stand and play in the water. But don't do this at sunrise or sunset. That's when the large animals (read as Sharks) are eating. And yes, they come in that close.

I left that place around 5:45 or so. I went to buy a new beach chair because all of mine had died heroic deaths in the line of duty. I found a cool one and headed back out to watch the sunset on a little stretch of beach further out on Wrightsville Beach. It was an "official" public beach with an outdoor shower and bathroooms. :) I only took the chair and my back pack this time, and I only wrote a little this time, unlike earlier in the afternoon when I had gotten quite a bit of writing in. I had been wanting to do some journaling and writing and thought the beach was a good place to start that. It was.

By this time the tide was coming in and I shifted my gaze from the waves to the incredible anvil cloud to the left. When I turned around to see the sunset itself (that is the big drawback on an East Coast beach: you can't really watch the sunset over the ocean. A little thing called Geography gets in the way) I noticed an even bigger anvil cloud behind me. I watch a seagull try to get the better of some poor little live piece of seafood it had caught. Galant try but the seagull won, eventually.

I thought about life, what has been going on in mine, what will be, what won't be, why, and what I can do about it. And when I finally realized that the sky was a gorgeous shade of purple I had the awful feeling of knowing that it was nearly time for me to turn around and go home. I began to cry. I always cry when I leave the ocean or the beach. ALWAYS. I began to wonder: Why, if you cry such bitter, real, sad tears do you ever leave the beach at all? Why would you do that to yourself over and over again? When lovers cry when they leave each other they frequently decide to fix it and get married or live together or something. At least they frequently decide to live in the same city. Why have I not done this? I did give it a cursory look one time, but decided money would not allow it. I haven't revisited the topic recently.

I'm tired of leaving the one place that means so much to me that I cry when I'm not around it. It makes no logical (or emotional) sense - not if I have the power and the money to change it... which I guess is the big question. There was a house for sale on the end of Augusta (street? drive?) where I parked at the first beach. It was a fixer-upper, you could tell. But it was precious. Yellow, with a porch, right on the beach, but it wasn't on stilts. That's why it would be a fixer-upper. Ha! Get it? UPPER? LOL Oh, if I had the money. This would be the time to buy, too. Did I mention Pisces are dreamers, too? :) But I can do more than dream. I can attract it into my life. So - here I go.