Sic Semper Tyrannis

Pure, Simple, Fantastic Part III.

III.

The memories from this fortuitous day in question are hazy at best. Perhaps a more writerly way to say that would be “I remember it like it was yesterday…” In either case, sitting here in my landlocked adulthood one thing I’ll never forget from my previous life on the beach was how the man-made world seemed to gradually fade off into the naturally-made world. It wasn’t more than fifty yards or so before sandy concrete and parking meters morphed into dunes that you couldn’t see over, interspersed with non-functional staircases crafted with lonely, grayed-out boards made ancient and pitted from lifetimes of exposure to the moist, ceaseless winds originating from somewhere halfway across the world.

On the really hot days you couldn’t run out to the tide fast enough to escape the scalding sand if you were brave and went barefoot. And venturing from parking lot to waterline in shoes and socks was equally treacherous. Every step you took poured more sand through holes in your shoes until, by the time you could actually see water, it was like lifting witches’ cauldrons filled with barbells and attached to your legs.

Even though I was prepared for a most intensive, specialized shoreline assault mission with my Zip-loc bag of Joes, I regret to say that I remember none of the details of play that day. For all I know it could have been an epic, bloody battle like at the end of Red Dawn.

But isn’t that the way childhood is? I know that I know that I know that I spent oodles of time, hours upon hours posing these miniature militiamen into appropriate positions. However, I’ll be damned if I can remember any of the moments themselves.

Like I’ve hinted at earlier, time is measured in different ways when you’re a kid. I have this theory that I’m not quite ready to publish in Scientific American yet, but it goes as follows: as you get older, the basic unit of time increases. When I was really young the basic unit of time was a day. All planning stretched out no further than a day: “Today I’m going to eat my toast, watch Tom and Jerry, hide in the backyard while mom sweeps the house, have some lunch, maybe watch some Disney channel and wait for Dad to get home.” By high school I could never prognosticate further out than two days. By the time I was in college the basic unit of time had expanded out to a week. “Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have English Comp, Math for Poets, and Fundamentals of Blah, blah. Tuesday and Thursday I have my science lab with that cute Darcy girl, and this weekend I think I’ll hang out with my dorky guy friends.” Now, having reached my thirtieth birthday, the basic unit of time is about two weeks- one paycheck. I’ll bet my parents are making plans by the month. My grandparents…

I wonder what the basic unit of time is for those gray-haired, Chinese mystics who live to be, like, one hundred and forty and learn how to fly.

I digress.

I may not remember the details of how exactly my crack-team of commandoes secured the Georgia coastline that day, but that may be due to one of those moments of childhood singularity- you know, the kind that you remember a couple decades thence and write about in a short story?

At some point that day, as the sun had gotten as high in the sky as it was likely to, I placed Duke and Rock n’ Roll and Scarlett and the whole gang back in their Zip-loc so as to spend some time in the water.

One of the great things about beaches is that they are equal-opportunity bodies of water. Unlike a swimming pool, lake, or pond there are a variety of ways to enjoy yourself without having to commit to total immersion. You can dip your foot in a pool, but eventually you have to jump in.

At the beach, however, you’re allowed to just sit right at the point where the water gives up its advance on the sand and recedes back. It’s possible to sit in an inch or two of water for hours on end and come away feeling like you’ve had a pretty productive day of water sports. And people walk along beaches without shoes but dressed in regular clothes all the time. And being a conservatively timid kid I found myself plopped down at the water’s edge, fascinated with how it never seemed quite possible to dig a hole in the wet sand. Every few seconds the dying throes of a wave would creep up and erase your efforts. The feeling of the earth below you, melting between your toes is a sensation that is difficult to forget. Normally, that sensation- the wet sand, hot sea, seagulls chattering- that was enough.

But this day, this momentous occasion, it wasn’t enough to dwindle in the puddles and tide pools.

Many times in the past, I had watched my brothers wading in water up to their necks, jumping into waves, seemingly miles out (but in reality, maybe fifteen or twenty feet), they laughed and yelled with excitement as they waited for the next wave to splash into them. And I figured I could be just as daring. So, I slowly walked out further, ever so further into the sea- solid, wet sand slowly giving way to inches of water, giving way to water at my knees, giving way to…And upon each new goal set and attained, the ocean kept coming at me, ceaseless, the little white-capped piles of water ahead of me slowly becoming hills, becoming mountains, all unaware of my presence.

It was at that point when the warm water was at chest level that I lost my footing, probably surprised by an unexpected wave. And I learned fear.

It’s amazing how in one flash-of-lightning you can become fully aware of things you took for granted one millisecond before.

One instant before I was swept away that day I lived in a world where there is always a ground to place your two feet, air for your lungs to breathe, and sight without burning. But all of that went away in one frightening instant. For the first time I had recognition of fear. It’s an odd, chilling sensation when your head goes under water, feet touch nothing, you twist and arch your back, squirming to find bottom so as to make sense of the surrounding murk and the sound…Oh my God , the sound. It’s the sound of suspension, stasis, like a low hum, with eery slicing sounds as your arms flail in the water.

The vast expanse of the ocean was waiting for me that day, like some kind of patient predator- one of those that builds elaborate traps and simply bides their time until their next meal stumbles by.

But for some reason, the sea said “not yet.”

That flash of panic was followed by the knowledge that I wasn’t in that deep of water. “There’s gotta be a floor here somewhere.” I had kicked and squirmed enough, stretched and reached out far enough that my fingers eventually felt solid ground again. I could make heads and tails of my situation in space, from which it’s a fairly natural maneuver to get your head above water by leaping off the ocean floor.

That first huge gasp of air after sucking in a nose full of salty water is exhilarating. I couldn’t run up to the beach fast enough, swimsuit weighing me down, hair plastered to my head, all the while looking around to see who noticed my near drowning, to know whether I should feel embarrassed. No one seemed to notice as my world changed from an idyllic romp in the sun to a universe where fear and death were possible. No one noticed as reality expanded one thousandfold in less than a second. No one noticed. I could check off the worry of embarrassment. But was that better?

I could be dramatic and literary and say I remember that event every day of my life and thank God for blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, I go years without even thinking about it. In fact, I only am reminded of my near drowning when I come desperately close to admitting that I can’t swim, an adult of thirty-something years of age.

Thankfully the older you get the less you have to talk about these things.

posted by Mike @ 2:51 PM