Wave on Wave

The battle of wave on sand is quite possibly the earliest sound uttered from this creaking old planet millions of years before human ears ever caught onto the song. Imagine that first moment, that first second, when prehistoric man discovered the rhythmic beating of water on land, first felt the salt air in his face, tasted a warm coastal day in his mouth. Imagine the moment - one unspoiled by thousands of dried-marrow, emotionally-flaccid essays on the subject - when man first felt attachment to the sea, first heard the drone of the ocean calling him to stay.

I have a friend, an anthropologist, who says that many early civilizations were afraid of the sea. Though several found bounty in its waters and learned to survive in the environment we now call prime resort location, others feared the ocean, feared the wide, endless horizon. These people moved inland, preferring the fresh water rivers for sustenance, secure in its set boundaries and permanent flow.

Still, there were those who braved the waves and the flash thunderstorms that afternoons bring to the beachfront, warm rains that seem to cool off the red-hot July days only to bring the humidity to intolerable levels later in the evening, creating an aura in which one needs gills to breathe. As Jimmy Buffett said, "Salty air ain't thin / It can stick right to your skin / And make you feel fine."

I would do just about anything to wheel my truck around that last curve and see the salty inland bay of Destin, FL through my windshield, to roll down my window and revel in the sudden thrust of salt air and fish, inhale deeply, and know I'm right where I need to be.

I want to be there.

I want to go back down and lie beside the sea there.

With a tin cup for chalice,

Fill it up with good red wine,

And I'll be chewing on a honeysuckle vine.