Sunday, August 26, 2007

Happy Hour

Diffuse light and heat filled the atmosphere. August haze obscured the horizon. A 16-knot Southeasterly stirred the silty Chesapeake. Bay Tree Beach, isolated row of homes at a marsh margin, was as close as I could come to this humid breath from the Atlantic. I rigged my windsurf on a damp lawn aside a hurricane-prone house. (I'd befriended the owners the previous summer, and now they let me launch from their private beach.) Eager to escape the mosquitoes and flies in the lee of the house, I carried my equipment into the water, and with a sigh, sank up to my neck.

All I felt was wet. Everything else was neutral; the color, the temperature of the air and water, even my own mood. It was five fifteen on a Friday; happy hour, and I was alone, losing my senses in liquid. The reverie lasted a few moments, then, dutiful to my wind obsession, I lifted the sail and was pulled onto my board.

I windsurfed for a long time, carving in and amongst the soft swells, and now and then trailing a lazy hand in the tepid blood of the bay.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

yo! send me an email: lcopeland@csustan.edu

Carolyne said...

wow! you make this scary event so inviting. It would take ages for me to reach your level. Well, hang loose for all of us mere humans :)