LIFE IS GREAT. Specially if you consider the alternative. (Paraphrasing Maurice Chevalier) The sun was setting in Daytona Beach, where I had grown up as the only Latin curiosity when it was still a small town. Body surfing had been my passion, and now, over fifty years later, I relived my youth, playing with the dolphins (I would dive at them when a wave raised them to visibility) among my beloved waves. The whole ocean was mine. The beach was deserted. No swimmers, no life guards, no tourists. There was no one to witness my play. It was pure ecstasy to splash in the water, feeling the spray on my body and face; listening to the roar of the waves after so many years. In all the many times I had played in the surf, I had never been pulled out to sea by a serious undertow. I noted with surprise that now, an unexpected current was carrying me further and further out to sea. The objects on the shore shrank alarmingly fast. I seemed to be near the middle of the current. Swimming sideways to get out of it was not an option. It was carrying me out a lot faster than I could swim. Drowning way out in the ocean by myself with no witness appeared to be the probable outcome. The only hope I could envision was for a giant wave to emerge and carry me back to shore. The answer to my wish or prayer materialized. A great wave was forming, and I saw there was one, and only one chance of making it back alive. My mind and body concentrated the memory of my surfing youth unto the present situation into one all out do or die effort to take this miraculous wave. I positioned myself perfectly at its breaking point and paddled mightily to avoid failure. The water picked me up and started to propel me forward. No frills this time, no arms alongside the body, shoulders and head held above the water like a masthead, as the boy had loved to do. This time my only interest was in making it back to shore. As soon as I felt the wave start to carry me I thrust my arms forward and lowered my face into the most efficient wave taking position I knew, nothing fancy, just TAKE THE WAVE! The wave broke and I was riding in front of it. It was the longest body surf of my life. I lowered my head into the water and kept it there, stretching to imitate a surfboard, occasionally gasping for air. The wave carried me right over the sand bar to its very end on the beach, where my long nose made a furrow in the wet sand and I felt my body gently and slowly settling into the soft, yet firm, sand. Only after becoming stationary did I raise my face to see the world into which I was being reborn. I stood and planted my feet into the sand, becoming aware of the Four Aristotelian Elements. My toes wriggled into the sand like roots, into the EARTH Element . The final moments of a receding wave ran sand over my feet, so as to feel like mud, a mixture of earth and water. A friendly, shiny, bubbly little wave lapped joyously at my ankles. This was pure WATER, making itself known by pulling at my feet and ankles. AIR, piloted by a soft evening breeze, caressed the rest of my wet, tingling body surface. The sun’s last rays bathed all of me with golden FIRE, and the hope of Spirituality, stimulating every atom in my body. I felt a literal rebirth. Every cell proclaimed its gratitude, happiness, and a wonderful appreciation for the marvelous gift of life, vibrating through me back to God or the Universe, for having granted me a new stack of blank pages to fill with LIFE.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 20:19:09 +0000
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