Home is where the water is
Awkward divisions of color cover on my body. My arms are reddish brown up to my shoulders, the fine blond hair still slightly salty from today's sail. The ever changing border where my T-shirt sleeves of various lengths reside or are rolled up is a little lighter but then fierce red where the sunscreen failed to adhere. (OK, I missed that spot. OK, I didn't put sunscreen on at all that day. Well, only to my face. Yes, I know I'm going to look like a shriveled raisin when I'm old. But I'll be old and Vitamin D-ed up and happy telling my sailing stories to whomever will listen. "Back when there were fish in the ocean..." I'll begin, my sun spotted wrinkly hands cupping a mason jar of whiskey...)
There is a clear line between the screaming pink of those now blistering shoulders and the pale skin of my upper back.
There is a circle of freckled auburn around my neck cascading down onto a constellation of varied pigment on my sternum.
My legs are tan up to my shorts line. I work on a boat so I am rarely bikini-only bound. Which brings us to the situation of my sallow torso. When the salty sweaty clothes come off it looks as though I have on one of those 1920s bathing costumes. The only time I don those tiny strips of fabric without tan botching clothes is when I am sneaking a dip into the water. Usually it is when the guests are off exploring land (sigh) or have taken the dinghy to some cove around the rocky bluff to check out a beach bar (double sigh) but sometimes my only chance is when they are smack dab in the middle of my path to the ladder overboard. They are in the cockpit with the cocktails I just served them. I try to be inconspicuous but when you are the only girl on a boat with five men, well, even those of us in our mid-30s with awkward tans and a little extra junk in the trunk (damn being in the galley and sampling everything all day!) get attention. But I manage the stares, climb down the ladder, tie my sarong to the lifelines, and ease myself into the cool clear salvation lapping at the hull of the boat. My cells rejoice with being home again. The water that covers the earth, that makes up most of our bodies. I ground myself without dirt under my feet (or 90 feet below my hovering body in this case). Weight, dirty toilets, getting older, the dinner menu, exhaustion, what's happening in San Diego, fingerprints on the varnish, the future: They don't matter right now.
I am simply floating in home.
Awkward tan lines and all.
There is a clear line between the screaming pink of those now blistering shoulders and the pale skin of my upper back.
There is a circle of freckled auburn around my neck cascading down onto a constellation of varied pigment on my sternum.
My legs are tan up to my shorts line. I work on a boat so I am rarely bikini-only bound. Which brings us to the situation of my sallow torso. When the salty sweaty clothes come off it looks as though I have on one of those 1920s bathing costumes. The only time I don those tiny strips of fabric without tan botching clothes is when I am sneaking a dip into the water. Usually it is when the guests are off exploring land (sigh) or have taken the dinghy to some cove around the rocky bluff to check out a beach bar (double sigh) but sometimes my only chance is when they are smack dab in the middle of my path to the ladder overboard. They are in the cockpit with the cocktails I just served them. I try to be inconspicuous but when you are the only girl on a boat with five men, well, even those of us in our mid-30s with awkward tans and a little extra junk in the trunk (damn being in the galley and sampling everything all day!) get attention. But I manage the stares, climb down the ladder, tie my sarong to the lifelines, and ease myself into the cool clear salvation lapping at the hull of the boat. My cells rejoice with being home again. The water that covers the earth, that makes up most of our bodies. I ground myself without dirt under my feet (or 90 feet below my hovering body in this case). Weight, dirty toilets, getting older, the dinner menu, exhaustion, what's happening in San Diego, fingerprints on the varnish, the future: They don't matter right now.
I am simply floating in home.
Awkward tan lines and all.
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