Portals
We still have one functioning viewing portal to the outside world. It's in my study.
I hadn't really thought about it in a while, but I feel the same way.
It's not the beach for me, exactly--more the atmosphere of the sea. I grew up next to Corpus Christi, which is on the southern Gulf Coast.
This coast is not like the fabulous West Coast, where every step seems to multiply your energy. The West Cost, to me, is both wonderful and overwhelming, extraordinarily sweeping and dramatic.
The Gulf Coast isn't nearly as nice, but it has a calming effect on me.
There's nothing dramatic about the Gulf Coast. It's the low-rent version of a coastline. In many places, it's not even beautiful.
A coastline that isn't beautiful. Imagine that.
I grew up only a few miles from the bay--in crow flying terms, two miles, maybe three. I can't remember if I could smell the water from our house, but that slight tinge of salt is unmistakable--it smells like nothing else, and you can't forget it.
At the edge of our very small town, the road sloped steeply downward about thirty feet, and then the road ran right alongside the water. There was no beach there, just a small bit of sand that led into scrubby bushes. The water wasn't a stunning shade of blue, either. It was green, and it got murky and muddy as soon as the wind began to blow.
The mosquitoes were incredible, too.
Still, though, there were days, days when the wind was light and I could smell the water and hear the waves slowly washing into shore.
It gets inside you somehow, the sea.
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