Remember when I was in New York, and I wrote that no other place could make me that happy?
I lied through my teeth.
I always forget about how much I love beaches. Real--real beaches, not lakes or lagoons or rivers or sullen streams; rains that run in rivulets down the dirty city streets but real, real beaches. Beaches where the sun tries to defeat your will for moving, where the sand forces grace into even the most lopsided of people. Where the stores all sell that strange mix of wild and mystical, balanced and free and slightly angry and young.
The view here is not the outrageously beautiful forest of buildings I swore could make the sky bleed, but the water--everywhere and in everything, providing for the people, stretching farther than the human eye can see. The waves that are a spectrum just like the people are--angry and hostile, ready to sweep you from your feet, ready to take the air from your precious lungs, or soft and gentle on your feet, sitting like the breath of an angel. Some waves carry crabs or jellyfish. Some carry pieces of a shattered life. Others whisper their feelings in your blood like the pounding of drums in the jungle. Others still offer their hearts to you--just them. Just for now, right now, because that's all they have.
Every time the sound of a wave crashing on the shore greets you, you are hearing the end of a life and a journey. They have wound their way to you, pulled to the moon, and now must die. No matter their nature or personality, no matter how they were when living, they must end. They must crash.
Waves are so much like people it hurts me to breathe. It makes me understand, a little, what the Doctor must feel like; watching his companions die. After all, the man is nine hundred years old. For every wave I've seen or heard, he's lost a friend, a partner, a piece of his heart.....
My poor Doctor. My poor, poor Timelord.
But it's a beautiful thing to hear dying, those waves, to see and to touch. While I'm here I can let them go gracefully, let them offer their council to me, listen. I get the feeling--and when it comes to Oceans, I am always feeling, always channeling, even more than usual--that they want me to listen. People...don't.
Listen.
To waves, to other people, to desire or fact; people are always ignoring something, aren't they?
The view from our fifth-floor penthouse suite (!!!) is endless and powerful. Angry and eternal. Empires might rise an fall, rulers might be assassinated, ships might sink, metal might rust, but this ocean will be here as long as we live. As long as the waves are pulled to the moon.
Oh, my Ocean. My Ocean.
In New York City, I was happy because I could make a place there so easily. It would be easy to forge myself one because New York is filled with crevices for wyrms like me to crawl into--! People go there to disappear, to wait to figure themselves out. I was happy there, and I would be happy there for a month. It'd be a fun adventure to find a niche, and then I'd be bored. Bored, bored, bored.
I'd lose myself there. The part of myself that the water wakes is one I will not lose, will not lose, will not lose, cannot lose. I must never forget or cloud who I am for the sake of easy living or fitting in--and coming home; for all water, all oceans, are home to me, will be always--makes me realize that's what I've been doing.
I can't keep doing this. I can change myself drastically, but it simply must be in the direction of what the water wakes. How I felt when we crossed that bridge over the narrow strip of land that lead me here....
But the Ocean wiped my heart. I felt it before I saw it amidst the thick lining of trees--but I suddenly felt clear and light and free and—
Blue.
I felt..... Blue. Not Blue like sad, like the vernacular meaning Blue has, but my Blue, the real Blue, the Blue that settles into my blood; that makes the magic tremble in my wilting fingertips.
Blue. Blue. Blue.
Safe.
Safe.
God, the Sun! The Sun here! Everywhere in this state, the heat is simply barbaric!
I fucking love it.
Heat, humidity, they're my secret love-children. I close my eyes and breathe it in, it's so hot, and I love it. My skin screams in agony, but it's wearing sunscreen and thus may can it. Words like 'perfect' and 'safe' are the ones tied in bows around my savage heart, and I am at peace for it.
Oh, the children here. So soft and gentle and they smile and nudge at each other while I sing songs--everything from Little Mermaid monologues to Rose Ballads--with bows in their curled hair or a shovel in their little pudgy hands. The dear, dear things! They are so pure and wonderful that sometimes I must stop and stare at one, must crinkle my face into that secret smile one saves for the perfect moments in life.
The women here aren't bad, either. Oh, judgmental, and their conversation dull, but pretty, beautiful--they travel in packs like wolves, sneering at my thighs. Well, fuck them.
The men are flirts. They believe in their own legend, let us say, enough to approach Juliette twenty times a day. She always smiles and laughs and makes promises, but they are not true smiles, laughs, or oaths. Some of them are beautiful, with sun-rings in their long-hair and hats on their sweating-heads. They move with an easy grace from surfing or skate-boarding. Tattoos promise messages on their skin. They wear bongs around their necks in little pendants, and miraculously no one says a thing.
I can't look at them enough in-between poor Finley's text messages. How am I? Do I miss home? What's it like here? Am I making any new friends? Criminal minds is on; they've changed the controls for the third Assassin's creed game slightly and it annoys him. What am I thinking about my trip? Do I miss him? Have I decided anything about us?
I've done the right thing with him. I have, letting him have his own summer, doing the single dance awhile. For me more than him, I confess this--for Finley is absolutely sure that he will never stop loving me, that I am his perfect, wild-driven savage-moon-girl (or whatever he thinks I am, I haven't really asked)..... but I did do the right thing. I did.
I'm still so confused, because I keep stopping to think about it. I was hoping solace would offer me an answer; I plead and wrote my seals in the sand and thus far there has been silence..... but I have Faith. In the Atlantic, in my God. In myself.
God, in myself.... I'm so proud to write that and have it be true!
I'm so happy here. I'm....so..... happy. I can barely breathe from the weight of it; like I'm carrying a golden cow upon my shoulders.
I bought a rainbow armband here. It was the first thing I bought for myself--a rainbow armband. The first thing I wanted; isn't that silly? A leather bracelet for Finley with a dull bronze star--old and just a little bit wild. It feels, when I channel it, like the Finley my Finley will be someday--the one I love too much to defame him by describing it.
May my hope become his prophecy; for my Finley could be the warrior he is named to be if he could look up from his armor. He will, someday. I know.... I know he will.
For Katie I stole a box of matches; I filled a little perfume bottle with ocean-water and just the smallest bit of sediment; I'm remembering how this feels so I can channel it for her when I'm near. I'm also looking for red coral, but can't find any, which is frustrating--I might just have to go with something else I've seen, something that channels like her.
I've also been collecting shells--only the ones that want to come, naturally--from the beach. Broken, bright, dull, small, big; there's always room in Payton's purse. Only for the ones that need a new place. Some ask me to throw them back, and I do; flinging them to the dying-waves as far as can be flung by a farm-girl from Wisconsin with a little prayer for their safety.
For my mother I have gathered a great many such pieces; especially ones with holes in them. I intend to buy fishline and beads in Greenville, when we return (too soon! Too soon will we return!) from Johann's fabrics and fashion her a pendant.....
one that we Savages'd be proud to wear.
I'm looking for the children of course, but nothing's come across as quite right yet--I'm making a Disney Sketchbook for Brooke, and I think Kayrene will want something from Urban outfitters, maybe a little armband for Kamden (though I doubt highly he'd desire one with a rainbow)..... a bracelet for Taylor, I think. Something that channels nicely and strongly and simply; her senses for that aren't so good I suspect and any excuse to get her smiling and happy is a good one.
I've also been thinking about something for Sean. He hasn't been my friend very long but he is patient and kind and my heart loves him. He feels more like an uncle, an older brother, than a friend..... I admire him.
It's funny, isn't it? All this money I have, they tell me 'go buy yourself something nice', but all I can think about are the people I love so much. The people who made sure I kept myself breathing long enough to be here....
I love this beach. I love this beach. I love this beach.
What else.....
I lost my meter for a minute today and was frightened, but we found it--I'd left it in the cooler. I was very high (as high as five hundred and twelve, I'm ashamed to say) and very low (forty-seven) today. Because of the Ocean.
Fun fact: Three days after I'm at the Ocean, those three days being control-hell for my diabetes; my bloodsugar will be absolutely and totally perfect. However, it does take three days. *Sighs* We're staying four....
Grandma told me in an aside today (she and I went "shelling" at nine in the morning, which was way too late so I knew something was going to be up) that Wendy isn't who she used to be because of her illness. She used to be a strong, confident business woman; now she's addle-brained, easily offended...
Grandma wants me and her out of here. Now. She wants me to hop a plane when I come back to Greenville and go home, and stay there for eternity, period.
I told her I couldn't do that. If I complete this summer's internship at the Daily Reflector, they will offer the same internship to me next summer, for a longer duration and with actual pay. For the same thing. John's already been told--as have I--by the editors, my bosses essentially; that I am talented, patient, professional, that they are tremendously impressed....
No, I won't pass up that opportunity. Especially not after my Uncle John all but begged me to remain; because I respect that man so much it sits like a scent on my skin. He can tell, Grandma says. She's talked to him....
Oh, I worry a great deal for her meddling. Partially because it stresses her out; more because I'm expected to help her. It's an unspoken agreement we have, really; that I am the politically talented accessory to her charade of control. Always it's been me, though her dislike for some (if not all) of my habits is nothing if not impressive.
I didn't tell her that Juliette needs a sister, that Wendy needs a daughter and a comforting person, that John needs someone on his side. I don't say that.
Today I went boogey-boarding on a rainbow-covered boogey-board (Grandma asks me quite seriously if I really do like rainbows; if I know what they mean, and I feign ignorance with a wink at Juliette, who giggles; and Gram lets it go). The waves in the Atlantic aren't soft and gentle like the ones in Clearwater. I like that they're wild but they exhausted me so! My limbs are languorous with the feel of the water on my flesh even now, hours later....
There are beach-waves in my hair. The highlights I had done--balanced, as so recommended by my best friend--are soaked with sea salt and sun and summer; and I look almost beautiful. I could pass for beautiful.
My eyes are blue-gold-grey; and they flicker with green when reflected with (a) racism (in the not-good way) or (b) waves (for the simple fact is that they're green).
Sleeping on the fifth-floor balcony tonight, on a cot. The last thing I see will be waves tonight. The last thing I smell will be the scent of salty brine. The last thing I hear will be the song of waves against my earlobes......
Oh, my Ocean. My Ocean.....
Juliette and I decided that I'm going to call my mom (when we get back to Greenville) and get a tattoo. Of my moon. On my ankle. The bandages would be off in time for the wedding, she says.....
I'll call m'mom and ask. I'd love my moon......
But somehow I don't feel like a moon? But why?
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