Connie's Corner

Just once...

July 12 Prompt: It's hotter than Hades in August and you're at the beach. You run out into the ocean waves, jump to get over that big one, and on the way back down, something bumps against your leg. What would you do? Would you dive under the water to see what it was? Would you yell for help? Would you swim toward shore in the same direction as the bump? Or something else?

I grew up near the beach and, not surprisingly, was a real “water rat”. When I was in the ocean, actually Delaware Bay, the word, fear, was not part of my vocabulary. Nothing was better than the smell of salt air and fishies. Strangely enough, I was never interested in playing on the shore like a lot of kids. Building sand castles or other unidentifiable sculpture never interested me. I had to be in the water…all the time.

Only once do I remember even being remotely “scared”. The waves were exceptionally calm that day…no whitecaps at all. Bathing caps (yes, most females wore bathing caps back then) dotted the water like paint spatters, all colors and sizes, bobbing up and down and sometimes disappearing in one spot and reappearing somewhere else.

Out past the breakers, it is like a world all its own. If the waves are high, it’s difficult to see anything when you are down in the trough, anticipating the next jump, looking outward toward the sea. There is no time to think about anything but getting over that next wave, feeling the power of the ebb and serge.

But this day was different, hardly any waves at all. I’m standing in neck high water, hoping for a breeze to kick up and raise some waves when I see something that looks like Kleenex floating through the water, some really close to the surface…could be a whole pack of Kleenex.

Well, not to make this blog an interminable read, after a minute or two of brain fog, I realized they were jellyfish and got the h…out of there, in a hurry, shouting to all those around me. I did not wait for one to bump me because I knew from listening to friends, that would not feel good. In all my times in the water, this was the first and only time I saw jellyfish. It must have been the calmness that drew them in. I am happy to say, they did not keep me out of the water in the future. My memories of the ocean are happy and vast.

until next time....c