I took my last good swim of the year a month ago now, down in Pocomo. I didn’t think it would be my last swim at the time—you never do. I had been kayaking out in Polpis before the winds were forecasted to howl for days, and the water looked so inviting. After all the pleasure boats have been hauled out of the harbor, the water is always clear.
The beach was almost empty. I thought back to the end of the summer, sometime in August, a friend’s birthday beach party. This side of Pocomo was packed with revelers, a big gas grill and a table of food. The whole place smelled like grilled hotdogs. Friend’s children roasted marshmallows around their own small bonfire, their faces lit up by the glow. It hardly seems possible that we are old enough now to know people with children. Not just babies, but kids, who run headlong into ocean, roast marshmallows, and, sometimes, talk back to us.
Walking up to the beach that night, I thought the event had to be for another group of people. I was surprised that I knew this many people on the island.
So, with those memories of not so long-ago summer nights, I slipped into the water. It was cold, of course it was cold, anybody who says any different is lying. But that is part of the point, to go in and prove to yourself that you can do it.
I knew the wind was coming. It isn’t the cold, and it isn’t even the dark that can really get you down in winter out here, it is the wind. It whistles through the powerlines; it drones incessantly. To put it bluntly: it drives me absolutely crazy.
But in recent weeks, two friends—one younger than me, one quite a bit older—have both said to me that they love a windy day and declare that the wind makes them feel more alive. They relish the wind, they don’t mind the sound, they don’t care that the boats don’t run for days. They are contented, knowing that they don’t have any place to go.
Hmm. What do they know that I don’t?
When I got out of the water, Marlee was there with a few out-of-town friends here visiting for the weekend. Chowder, her little rescue dog, zipped up and down the beach, undaunted by the changing seasons. We stood around talking—me dripping wet and trying not to shiver—the people visiting from the mainland were planning to leave the next day. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the boats weren’t going to run all weekend. It was so still and perfect that evening. They wouldn’t have believed me anyway. Besides, if the wind means getting to spend a few more days with friends, maybe it isn’t that bad.
Before I left, I looked out at the surface of the water. Little ripples were just beginning to form.
