THE SUNDOWN DIP by Corrie White

With a ripe undergraduate diploma in her hands, Corrie White is embarking upon her career as a budding writer with an enthusiasm for the natural world and a running list of potential pursuits. Currently, she blooms where she was planted, in her hometown of Gold Hill, North Carolina, but she waits for the call of adventure to wisk her where she has never been. She has dreams of clog dancing, writing novels, and exploring the sublime Iceland.

 

I lick the salt from my lips and toss my tangled hair, wet from the sea. I plop on the towel I laid flat, flex my sandy feet, and dig my fingers into the course earth, a pleasure that comes natural for a fidget.

I am alone today, and like most days spent alone, I engage and fine-tune the range of my senses. Books fill my bag, but I'll leave them there; sand will surely crawl into pages I haven't yet read. Before me today rolls an ocean, the playful mystery, and the recent thief of my bikini top.

My first instinct, of course, was to escape from public view and dive into the ravenous wave that forced me into helpless submission. Somewhere inside its gulp, my nylon suit swam into a tangle and left me bare.

I am a lady far from the beaches of France and even further from having a French physique, but in this moment I took ownership and said farewell to the covering of my breasts.

Forcing my hands by my side, I looked ahead and scrounged all the courage I could muster into a half graceful walk. Heads surely yanked my direction. Giggles sounded from the peripheries, but this was my day alone, and no longer was it in vain, for the audience had taken a sudden interest.

Winds carry the scent that brings me back each year. Faded pictures of my toddler legs toting pails of water for the sandcastle mote linger behind my resting eyes. Mommy would dip me down, swoop me up, and make me soar like a swan over the sinking kingdom. I'd cackle and ask her to do it again.

I look deep into the horizon where sail boats blur and remember pouring Mommy's ashes off the pier back home. The haze was too thick that day to see where they drifted.

The heat is rolling away, and the sky glorifies color. I promise myself I have never seen a pink so arresting, a purple so aroused. I shiver at the chill of sundown and remember my exposed chest. Skin, so untainted, shines through the dimming sun, and I rise to take another dip.