"For Desire"

In December, my married PC friend Bre, still under the impression that I'd be on Tongatapu for omy post, gave me a list of over 20 Get-to-Know-You Questions. (To display her coolness, the first asked if I'd rather live in a house made of meatloaf or cat litter. Oh yeah, we're friends.) One of the questions asked about my favorite quote. Later, after I'd found the exact words, I sent her the quote via text. Ironically, it now hangs on my wall, which she now sees when she's at my house.

--I want to walk into the ocean and
feel it trying to drag me along like
I'm nothing but a broken bit of
scratched glass,
and I want to resist it.
--For Desire by Kim Addonizio

The day the sun laughingly seared my back and thighs at the beach, I solely meandered to the small reef pools that shaped themselves into coral steps leading to the palace of the almighty and powerful blowholes. I didn't wish to test the blowhole gods again since poor Kim got bulldozed by the huge wave that thrust through the coral openings. So I sat in a shallow pool, enjoying the delicious spray at my bakc when the heat was already warming down to my rib cartilage.
I like having Jamie time anywhere outside, and I liked seeing things from a new perspective. The bush looked towering but more tropical by the beach. To either side I could see the wave progression peaking through distant and close blowholes until I heard the spurt and crush of the geyser-like miracles behind me. I never glanced back. I didn't care to measure the wave size or waste my time anticipating when I should close my eyes or lock my legs to avoid a stumble.
I remained sitting on the dead-ish coral that poked my tender bum and imagined myself as a Pacific Island "Wanderer Above the Mist," Friedrich's painting that has never left my mind. Eventually, I finally felt the weight of it all. I don't know, just IT. I felt tired, my head heavy, my legs sore from the bike ride just short of 2 hours. Tired. Beaten.
I drew up my knees, propped my darkening limbs, and rested my head on my freckled, cradled forearms. I nearly slept until a wave so violent lifted me off my spiny seat and set me back down on the pin needles. I finally turned around and witnessed that beautiful dark blue, a wonderfully shadowed green island in the distance, and let myself exist among those drastic colors, that pushy, tireless movement out there.
A wanderer amidst the mist, not above it. Inside, twirled about, lifted and seated.
I slowly float-kicked my way back to shore, finding a trench between two large coral masses that my body appreciated due to the fully-immersed cooling process.
Shortly after I returned, we left. We were all getting flushed by this Pacific sun and we were drained. Hungry. Anticipating several laborious uphill climbs with our heavy bikes and tired bodies.
Yesterday, a week after our beach day, Breand suddenly said, "You know Jamie, when you walked by yourself into the water and sat down, you leaned over onto your arms and the waves just walled up around you. It was the coolest thing. And I kept thinking of the scratched glass being dragged in the ocean--that favorite quote of yours? I kept thinking how you looked like the scratched glass out there resisting all that water."
I think that's the most thoughtful thing anyone's ever said to me.