Driftwood

Posted on June 1, 2005 in Travels - So Cal

Elkit went to the beach. I didn’t. I stayed close to home for most of the holiday weekend, keeping myself under my Spanish tile roof when I wasn’t going to the store or a support group meeting, eating ice cream by a lake when I decided to live it up a bit. A pair of text messages on Sunday evening nearly made my day. I read books by Bradbury and Sacks. And until I saw what Elkit had written, I did not think about the ocean which lies only twelve miles away.

When I go to the ocean, I go under cover. I hide my chest and my stomach, my legs and my hind end. I do not want anyone to witness the sight of my shadow-blanched skin. Not even my feet are revealed as I stroll a few feet above the surf line. I hide, I hide, I hide.

When I was younger and clothed only in a bathing suit, I looked like a piece of driftwood. Now that I am middle aged, I resemble a beached porpoise. There is no making this body beautiful and beautiful is what you are supposed to be at the beach where everyone except me eyes everyone else.

I break a rule: you are supposed to ogle the nearly nude and I don’t. I do not present my body for inspection. I will not treat another person as meat and they will not be allowed to regard me as meat. I don’t know what else to say. Later today, I might go out to Crystal Cove and take a long walk along the strand. Wrestle some bits of driftwood. Look into a hole by the shore for crabs, sculpins, and the tiny young of opal eyes. Then come back to land before someone sees me. Elkit went to the beach. I am not sure that I can or will tomorrow.