Waves

My grandmother's house was near the top of Cape Cod. On some summer days she packed the cousins, beach towels, sand pails and shovels, soda and flip flops into her copper-colored Pontiac and drove us to the beach. We stuck our hands out the windows and pushed back at the air rushing by us, waving at the drivers heading in the other direction back towards town.

The gray days are the ones I remember best. As the afternoon wore on the sun would break through the clouds on the horizon and shatter the waves into shards of sparkling glass. Using our plastic shovels we packed tin pails with damp sand to form sandcastles. The clouds began to gather and push the rising tide towards us. Wrapped in towels we shivered and watched as the tide won back our fortresses.

I learned to body surf the rolling waves long before I learned to swim. The light filtering through the tunnel of green water was the color of Coca Cola bottle glass. Inside the wave you were carried in serene silence. When the wave broke you suddenly heard the force of the water crashing down. As the water retreated you would be scraped roughly over the rocky surface of the ocean's bed. Long strands of rubbery seaweed tried to snare your limbs but slipped away as the waves carried you forth.

There was a lesson here. Trust the waves. And keep holding your breath, longer than you would have thought you could. You do it instinctively. The ocean picks you up and carries you to the surface again, back to the sound of shrieking seagulls and the children running on the beach. As you surface your lungs fill with air again and you breathe deeply.

The water was icy cold. I would look down the beach in both directions and see that I was the only one in the water. I had found my element in the Atlantic.

Back on the beach the wind grew brisk. The long slog back to the Pontiac across the sand and towards the dunes drew the grace from my limbs and I returned back to my usual earthbound self.

The Pontiac had a translucent amber hood ornament that caught the remaining light of the day, guiding us along the road towards my grandmother's house. The sand caught in the seat of our swimsuits made us squirm restlessly on the car's seats. When we got home we used the yard's garden hose to wash off as much sand as possible.  Then we sat on my grandmother's screened-in porch and had grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate for dinner.

Later in the evening we watched giants moths batter the living room window that looked out into the forest at the back of the house. The drapery of the woods at night hid creatures that kept themselves to their own business. Only the moths sought the lamps that cast a soft glow over us while the cousins played card games like War and Go Fish. My grandmother gave me a conch shell from Florida and told me to listen to the sound of the ocean. And she was right, there it was.