10 Tips for Keeping Your Man
You know what they say: idle hands are the devil’s workshop. So, when it’s flat in the Gulf and I can’t get to the other Coast, wicked things are bound to happen.
Symbolism
I’m sitting, knees to chest, in the sand at Turtle Beach. Everything is monochrome. Sky, ocean, beach; muted. The ocean heaves in slow motion and I watch the guys catching waves, also in slow motion. I paddled out and felt weak. I felt watched. Like I didn’t belong. The ocean herself displaced me. Spit me out. I have no fight in me today.
No Pressure
I walk out on the pier. The sun cuts shadows into the cement in a way that seems to slow everything down. My eyes have to adjust to make out the guys in the water. It’s windy; I have to tie my hair back.
Debby Does Katrina
I meet Alexis in the Lido parking lot for the second day in a row. We drive. Tropical Storm Debby is churning up the ocean and pissing rain on everything. We get out to look at The Street and the ocean is a stranger, the seascape so heaving and unfamiliar I get a weird sense of vertigo as we stand in the rain on the beach.
