Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night,
Some are born to sweet delight.
...Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
In the universe,
there are things that are known,
and things that are unknown,
and in between,
there are doors.
He who kisses joy as it flies by
will live in eternity's sunrise.
Love seeketh not itself to please,
nor for itself hath any care,
but for another gives its ease,
and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
Never seek to tell thy love;
Love that never told can be.
For the gentle wind does move silently.. invisibly.
If a thing loves, it is infinite.
~ William Blake ~
For me, missing the beach is a tangible emotion. Not necessarily one that cuts like a knife or spreads butter with a spoon. I ate watermelon for breakfast. And as I stood looking out the window into the deep woods surrounding my back yard, my mind flew back to the yesteryears, when my grandparents had a house and boat on a canal off Stickney Pointe and the seed spitting contests Grandma always won. I remember going deep sea fishing with Grandpa, going north on the waterway to get bait and gas, then out the pass for miles. Learning how to scale and debone a fish. Always, what we caught tasted so good. And I always wanted to swim in the deep dark blue of the Gulf. Often I did. One time though, I was out of my clothes and ready to jump in when my dad halted me with that military tone of voice we heard when we were told NOO ( kind of a command thing ) ... of course I looked up at daddy on the bow and asked "Why" with a slight whine. And he looked at me, winked, and said "Look over the stern - the reason is coming your way" - and the biggest hammerhead shark I have ever seen winked up at me. It curved around both sides of grandpa's boat and stayed around for quite awhile. I did not swim that day. Eventually, I did learn to scuba dive - my treat in 2004/5 for many reasons. And one certification dive off Dunedin was a compass dive. And again, I had a shark visit - this time likely a black tip or tiger - it stayed in the peripheral edge of visibility and swam the full 360 degrees with me. It was invigorating and just slightly annoying. I actually wanted to get a good look at it !!!
One of my cert dives was out of Pompano Beach and we went to the "Zoo" - this was a location frequented by most every dive operator as the submerged ship was 85' long and a solid 90' deep.. It had become a wonderful artificial reef and lay partially on its side on a sandy bottom. There were mantas as big as a dining room table - one in particular that liked to be tickled by having my fingers flutter under its wings. Others would just swim around underneath us in a dance all their own, so graceful and lovely. And the fish - almost every color - schools of them. Wishing I had an underwater camera for that day. I had checked my gauges and had plenty of air. I turned to look at the stern of the ship, she was at least 3 stories tall. I could see the rudder that had led back towards where her props may have been. So Many Colors and so mesmerizing. I started to swim towards the cave like belly under the listed over stern. I was about halfway there, less than 20' to go, when all the colors shifted, and suddenly I felt someone grab my BCD !!! I turned and it was my divemaster ( he was so adorable ) ... he gave me the NO GO signal and I asked Why?, then he pointed. I looked back, and all those wonderful "So Many Colors" was swimming slowly around inside that cave and was the size of a minivan - W O W. It was HUGE. And it had a mini-me too. My divemaster smiled and pointed at the bow and so I did what I needed to do - this was a current swim. Down near the stern was not so bad, however, the ship had listed quite heavily in a hurricane, and had created somewhat of a ledge - with the port side having a much higher profile than the starboard, which is where we were. Swimming starboard towards the bow was fairly easy, until the terrain rose up and then I could feel the current. That was when I wondered why we did not do the swim first and the Zoo last ... it took 1/3 of my air just to swim against the current around the bow and back to the stern again. Of course, we also swam through a good portion of the cabins and bulkheads too. Then it was time to ascend, stop and decomp and get on board. It was a gorgeous day. I miss the ocean. I miss diving. I miss the sand between my toes and walking for miles on the beach letting the sound of the waves, the seagulls, terns and the wind wash my mind , heart and soul clean. I have been refreshed and reinvigorated by the oceans' song ever since I was a tiny child on the beaches of Okinawa, Shelter Island, Jersey shore, Atlantic Beach, the waterways off the Potomac, the Atlantic from VA all the way to the Florida Keys, the Gulf, the Oceans on every side of Okinawa when I was stationed there 21 years later, the caves in North Fla and the cold springs west of G'ville
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