The Ocean

     You see it as you climb the first set of dunes--a horizon of bluish gray, a belt against the sky stretching as far as your eye can see ahead, to the left, and to the right. Boundless. At first, you're hesitant. How long has it been since you swam in the ocean? Two years at least. Probably more. And at least a year since you've even set foot on a beach, hot, fine sand filling the gaps between your toes. You walk towards the shore, throw down your towel and with it your shorts and tank top, leaving only your bathing suit. It's just you and the ocean now.
     You run for it, the fine sand turning into wet and compact pavement that turns again soft once your feet hit the water. The warm waves break against your shins, but you are not to be deterred. The water grows higher, slapping againt your waist, then your shoulders, until you're hit smack in the face. Your eyes sting, but strangely, you don't care. The pungent salt in your mouth is acceptable if from the ocean. Still, you keep moving, you can no longer run, but wade on tip toe, until you're up to your neck in mysterious, alluring water. If you jump just in time, the waves no longer knock you down. Sometimes, you can even tame them, ride them. After every breaking wave comes the hiss of a bitter, weeping mermaid, now turned to sea foam. The bubbles fizz around you as if you're caught in a can of warm soda. Still, you wade out even farther.
     Before long, you wade past the breaking point, and with each roll of the ocean bob aimlessly up and down. Soon, you no longer grasp the sandy floor with your toes--you are floating, and it may be as close to flying as you will ever be. The water sucks you out to its endless horizon after every wave, and you wonder, What's really out there, beyond that horizon? Of course, you know there is England and Europe and Africa not but a few thousand miles away. You wish you didn't know that. You wish that there was some other fantastic world that you could sail to, maybe at the end of or our own, and onto another.
     It is quiet. After a long morning of incessent chatter and trivial conversations, surrounded by unfamiliar people, you are alone at last. Now only the rolling water whispers sweet things with your ears, plays with your damp hair, kisses your cheeks. You are tempted to keep floating out to see, to find that mysterious world beyond as the ocean beckons you softly.
     But alas, as you look back to the shore you are waved back by your hosts, who don't understand this bond you have made. And at the end of the day you drive home, back to dry land where you came from. Still the bond is there, and with it, a longing to return.