September 5, 2008

Beached (ix)


Anastasia Island sits between St. Augustine on the mainland and Atlantic Ocean. The Matanzas River lies between them. The beaches of Anastasia are long and wide and with sand bleached white and hard packed making them easily accessible by car. That’s where Amy drove after leaving the downtown.

She reclined the driver’s seat and in the darkness listened to the constant rhythm of the surf. The distance from the city and from street lights let the stars fill the black moonless sky. The surf was a lullaby and she woke only when the first hints of dawn appeared. Just before dawn the last phase before the new moon rose out of the sea, a thin, curved sliver of white light. Its waning would conclude that day, and then a new moon would grow, big and full.

Amy sat up and looked at the horizon, slowing growing lighter. She tried to guess right where the sun would rise, but it was too early and she could see the dim outline of tall clouds on the horizon. She knew she might not see the sun come out of the ocean but rather when it slipped out from behind a bank of clouds.

For a moment she felt right at home at the shore, and simultaneously felt confused and misplaced. The day before she had gone to work expecting to clear her desk for the weekend, and now, 24 hours later, she is awaking from sleeping in her car on the beach.

“How impulsive,” she said out loud. “How so very wonderfully impulsive.”

She opened the car door and dropped one bear foot to the ground. She dug her toes into the thick sand cooled overnight. She got out, rolled up her pants nearly to her knees, and walked to the edge of the water and into the water. It was cold and she thought it felt very clean.

The sky grew brighter and the last of the stars evaporated. She liked standing there on the edge of the divisions of earth and sea and sky. She was truly in all three and wholly in none. She knew it was the right place to be, the right place right then.