A Breath of Ocean

I was sixteen and the beach was my backyard-- or had been when I was a child. The waves where choppy and rolling, in sets of three, that didn't look that intimidating at the time. My twin and I swam out like we always did, trying to get past the waves, to calmer water we could tread; but the Atlantic-lick along the center of the peninsula wasn't having it.

The further we swam the faster the waves seemed to roll in, the larger they seemed to get. Twin turned back before I did; too stubborn and determined NOT to be beaten back to the beach by the ocean's osculations, so I kept swimming.

CRASH. A wave would hit me in the face and push me back in a tumble through water deep enough I could no longer touch the bottom. Just as soon as I righted myself to the surface to suck down a breath and throw my arms out, with cupped hands, to try to press forward-- CRASH, another wave would roll me back and under once more.

Clinging to my determination, I leveled myself again in time to gasp for air and stare-a-blink at the impending crash of a bubble-clawed wall of water to counter my stroke forward. I'd already lost, but had yet to realize it until that third wave plunged me into a rip-current, snatched by the under-toe.

It wasn't the first time I had the thought, "I'm going to drown" but it was the first time the water itself was holding me down.

Trying to swim to the surface felt a lot like the time I'd dove (head first) off a fifty-foot cliff-- when I was nine, but this time it wasn't the deep, I wasn't fighting distance, I was fighting the rumbling roll of the ocean which kept biting down on my ascent.

I didn't make it all the way to the surface, before my lungs felt like they were caving in on themselves, and my veins throbbed like they too were shriveling from the lack of oxygen. I had to take a breath. I stopped fighting the water, and started fighting myself-- I fought the impulse to inhale, until I could feel the next crash of bubbling water rage past the surface to massage my face...

I took a breath of ocean. The salty-foamed water I sucked into my lungs stung, but must have had just enough oxygen to keep me from drowning. I had a chance!

Exhausted, I once again tried to swim, but this time toward the shore, following the roll of water as it hit me, letting it take me where it was going. Unknowing of my twin, walking the beach searching for my head to pop up enough for her to see where I was, walking further and further as the current carried me down the beach.

Just when I thought I couldn't swim anymore, was almost ready to give into the ocean which saw fit to teach me a lesson-- the hard way, when another wave tumbled be into the sand. I had earth on my side and that was all it took to give me the strength to try to stand against the crashing walls of water and take a real breath.

I coughed and crawled my way to shore from there, beaten back by the mighty Atlantic. I crept up the shoreline until I could no longer feel the waves splashing my feet, until it was just a peaceful sway of lapping water to wet the beach front. There I sat. Turned back to face the seemingly angry ocean, huffing to catch my breath.

I shook my head. Not out of regret, but a sense of triumph and evolution. The ocean gave me perspective. It was so beautiful, yet so dangerous. The crash of waves could kill you, or save you-- it all depended on whether or not you fought against it.

I may not have said it out loud, but I knew I would swim the Atlantic again, with a new found respect and appreciation.

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