From my earliest days, I knew the taste of the salt in the water and the strength of the waves pulling me out and pushing me towards shore.  I am intimately familiar with the weight of sand in my bathing suit and sun on my skin. My eyes and mouth and hair seemed to stay full of salt in those days, from the hours spent I spent splash, splash, splashing.   In the hot and humid south of my youth we sought constant relief in the sparkling, crisp cool of the waves.

My high school years are full of beach memories, too.  When we first moved to Emerald Isle, NC, I was fifteen years old and didn’t know a soul.  I spent countless barefoot hours walking among these dunes, finding my way, finding myself.  I watched the waves and knew instantly that my place in the world was a small one, one of millions, and I thought about how I might spend my one little life.  I met people and joined the fun of teens in the sun.  I rubbed on baby oil or Coppertone and slid into a bikini.  I wondered how to meet the cute surfer by the pier.  And all of those other things we feel in high school–nervous, self-conscious, unsure–I felt them, there in the sand and the salt and the sun.

I found refuge there, too.  When the unsure part grew too unsure, the waves calmed me and the vastness of the water, way out to the horizon, assured me that I’d find my footing.  When my heart was broken, into so many pieces I didn’t think I could put it back together, I drowned my own salty tears in the waves, body surfing until I was too tired to feel anymore.  When the drama and the rumors and the general life we live for those few years was too much, I found my quiet peace shuffling through the hot sand.

But I moved north after high school and so did my parents.  I visited once or twice in the early years, and found that progress had changed my little island.  Residents no longer have to drive over to the mainland for groceries or movies or conveniences.  Stores had popped up everywhere, much to my chagrin.  In my day (I know, right, am I 80?), on-island we could buy surf equipment but not much else and I liked it that way.  My dunes have been built on and the population seems to have quadrupled!  Ah, progress.

But the last time I visited my old haunts was close to 20 years ago.  I’m headed down at the end of this week to revisit those days and wonder what memories I’ll find.  Twenty years is a long time and I haven’t had the luxury of re-telling the stories all these years to keep them fresh.  I can’t wait to remember what I’ve forgotten.

photo credits: General Wesc (pier), General Wesc (dunes)