Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Bali Hai
There is a soft Broadway tune lulling itself around in my head this afternoon, "Bali Hai". The airport is recording a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. I've been on Meclazine for vertigo for three days. I am reverting to my surf rat ways. For almost twenty years I lived on a tiny island between a bay and an ocean. There was only one tree on my block. Everything was paved right up to the beach. I had not grass or woods, but I had the thundering Atlantic and I've never really felt at home since I moved away. On vicious summer days I feel the pull to go back.  A beach town postcard from 1979. On a post card one beach town is much like another, but in memory each is different, each is perfect. I want to slink into the shadows of the house. I want to snooze until dusk behind light blocking shades. Then I want to rise and walk along the surf as the cooling sand and water generate a haze. I'd find a place along a dune side, hollow out a back rest, and settle into the sand to watch the moon rise over the water. July moon, larger than a city block, peach colored, and speckled with grey. I'd relax into the nightfall. I'd wait for him to come walking along the sand. He'd come ambling along with a six pack of beer in a paper sack and he'd dive down onto the sand beside me. The charter boats would buzz by on their way up to coast with deck loads of tourists looking at the city lights. When the wind would flick around to the east and the south the sounds of the rides and bars on the boardwalk would argue with the smack and hiss of the surf. We'd sit there in amiable silence 'til no one noticed us there anymore. Then we'd run into the water and dive into the waves just past the low sandbar. So used to the feel of "our beach" beneath our feet, we'd swim and dive and find each others arms in the cool deserted ocean. I'd feel my fingers again in that hair as black as night. I'd have one more chance to look into the eyes I remember being as blue as a January sky. I'd feel that electric, insane young love sizzle its way into every nerve. I'd say a name I don't have the right to say anymore. Perhaps I'd say that I was sorry for the way we were going to turn out. Maybe instead, I'd stay poised in that moment forever, looping through eternity as a ghost no one could see. Perhaps I'd join him then, in our moment by the sea, my long lost love, so many years in the grave. See how he comes back to me at the most unexpected moments? When the sun is baking the earth and I feel a dry old husk. I carry him, like a bad luck charm, a sacrosanct secret, to my grave. |
