“The cure for anything is salt water – tears, sweat, or the sea.”
-Isak Dinesen
Spending time at the shore did feel like a cure, and we would have liked to stay. Back in land-locked Denver, we have tears and sweat at our disposal. I have to believe that fresh water will cure us just as well; the inundation of late afternoon thunder storms, the rushing creeks and rivers, even the left-over mud puddles, open for one last splash.
I set my computer screen with a Hokusai wave painting and we pore over our shells that still carry Atlantic sand. Is this attraction to big water just the yearning for something different? At the shore we still fought and fussed, grew weary of the wind and the sand that infiltrated our lunch. Wherever we go, we’ll be tethered by our bodies and brains, but when I dive under a wave some knot inside begins to loosen. I see that in the kids too – the sand and the salt and the sky bring something new to the surface. Their shoulders are more relaxed, their faces calm, hands and feet more sure.