Under the Boardwalk

The Pier at Old Orchard Beach Beach, August 23 2004

Old Orchard Beach, Maine has a pier with carnival games and food stalls and fake tatoo parlours tucked on top of a rickety wooden pier. One night, CD and I walked out to the pier and back. All I could think about were the hours that I've spent over the years, alone. Watching the waves reach in from the ocean and feeling the salty wind reinflate my soul. All I could think about were the minutes I'd stolen in long ago summers with boys, kissing up in the guard towers or holding hands on the piers. All I could think about were the seconds between the jump and splash in all those first jumps of the summer into the cold Atlantic.

Under the Old Orchard Beach Pier, August 23 2004

I took CD's arm and we walked in moonlight. He was in the moment, I was somewhere else.

In a quiet realization; that I had been too long away from the ocean. I need to come back more often.