Picture this...

You are 16 years old. You’re walking towards the water on a beautiful barrier island, somewhere off The East Coast. It’s almost 10 AM & the beach is deserted. The day hasn’t decided if it’s going to rain or be sunny yet & the lifeguards do not begin setting up for the day until exactly 10 AM. (& not a minute sooner...if I was being paid minimum wage to watch a bunch of slackers on the beach...I’d set up at precisely 10 AM too).

The waves are coming in fast & high tide is approaching. You step into the water & begin walking into the waves. You trail a red boogie board behind you by it’s wrist strap.

A wave hits you on your waist. You duck under the next wave & let it wash over you. You get on the board & start paddling out past the waves.

You rest your head on the board & let your legs float behind you freely in the water. It’s calm & peaceful. You just keep floating & looking out into the horizon. Through squinted eyes, the blue of the sea merges with the blue of the sky & you think you could stay out here forever.

On the shore, you can barely see the lifeguards high up in their chairs...looking out at you.

You see a figure walk up to one of the lifeguard chairs. You’d recognize that black bathing suit with the enormous white flowers on it anywhere. You wonder what your mother could possibly be talking to the lifeguard about. Why is the lifeguard jumping out of his chair? Why is he carrying one of those orange lifesaving buoys? He’s running towards the water when it hits you...he’s coming to save you.

Holy shit...if there was ever a time when you wanted to be swallowed up by the ocean...this is it. You silently curse your mother for having a healthy respect for the sea (damn her). Lifeguard Joe is halfway to you & you haven’t been swallowed up yet...so you have no choice but to scream out to Joe that you are fine. He keeps swimming out to you anyway.

He grabs the side of your board & hangs on. He’s blonde & his glorious tan makes his blue eyes seem even brighter than they already must be & you get lost in them for just a moment...& then he speaks & the spell is broken. He says something about how my mommy was worried about her little baby all the way out here in the wild sea...ok...he didn’t put it that way...exactly...but that’s kinda the way I heard it. He wanted to know if I needed any help getting back to shore.

Why I said...no...to that question is beyond me. Was it stupid pride? Did I not want to be seen being plucked from the sea by the lovely (& talented...I’m just guessing) Lifeguard Joe? Or was it the fact that I didn’t want my mother to think I had needed saving all along?

Whatever the answer to that question was...ceased to matter after I’d been paddling in the general direction of the shoreline...for what seemed like hours. My arms were burning & just when I’d get close enough to shore to think that maybe I’d get a foothold & walk the rest of the way to the beach...a giant wave would cruelly break just over my head & tumble me like a rag doll & wash me back out to sea.

As I finally pulled my body out of the sea...feeling like a limp piece of seaweed, I was in no mood to chat with either Lifeguard Joe or my mother. Both of them looked at me as I shakily walked by (with that damn wrist strap still attached to the boogie board...which I carelessly dragged in the sand).

You could just guess what each of them was thinking. Lifeguard Joe was going to tell all of his lifeguard friends about the little chick he had to save from the big, old mean Mr. Ocean (Do lifeguards speak in baby talk? I’m not sure...but for some reason...he struck me as the type who...given the right circumstance...might). The story would become more & more exaggerated...until it got to the point of him saving me, giving me mouth to mouth on the beach...& bringing me back from the dead (to tell you the truth...I could get on board with a fantasy like this).

Mom was thinking how she saved one of her ducklings from a terrible burial at sea.

I was thinking...as I limped off the beach...maybe mom was right...maybe I could have died...I had almost been content enough to have fallen asleep out there...but then again...maybe she was just over reacting...should I thank her for the fear she placed in me...that wasn’t there before?