Longing for Ocean Breezes

 Summer has been a topic here on RRebel many times. I write this while sunning my aging body down by the “lake” in my swim suit with a cold drink and my beach music* playing on the mini Bose. 

It is a gorgeous day. Blue skies with white wiffs of clouds. A nice ocean breeze to counter the heat of the sun. (OK, I  can pretend that it’s an ocean breeze). 

It may not be Long Island Sound or Cape Cod or “Boys’ Beach” at Herring Cove but there are enough sensual stimuli in common just now to put me in a different mind-body dimension. 

The music is a major component of the sensual experience. I cannot count the times I have been stretched out naked on a towel or blanket on the sand at Moonstone Beach, Rhode Island or Boys' Beach in Provincetown, or more modestly attired at a beach in Connecticut or Maine, drifting in and out of some gentle stage of sleep while Sergio Mendes or Soul Flutes did their magic. (And maybe a little Al Jarreau and Astrud Gilberto and El DeBarge)

Those were my most peaceful and transcendent hours. Absolutely no cares or needs or desires. 

While I am not naked on the beach right now, I am feeling the feelings of the memories and it is a kind of bittersweet ecstasy because the pleasure is mixed with tears. 

Am I grieving for lost moments or fading memories or sensing the limits of the future? If I could choose how to leave this world I think it might be while lying on a blanket on the beach in late afternoon after a perfect summer day with a gentle breeze blowing and my beach music playing. I hope the only person there is Leon who is asleep on the blanket next to me.

 

  

  

*Back before digital, my "Beach Music" was on a homemade cassette tape recorded from vinyl on my (not high-end) integrated stereo system. I had a very compact Toshiba cassette player that was smaller than the cassettes and had a removable radio insert (that I hardly ever used).