The water is turning gun metal gray as the front porch door is shoved by the wind and is screeching on its hinges The water sprays my face. I lick my lips, and taste the salt. I can smell the rain and see a squall forming off shore. I batten the door and settle into my old two seat glider, (also from the sixties). I love sitting here listening with my eyes closed to the symphony of waves, wind, and thunder rolling like a timpani drum.
I know when the electrical dance begins by the sudden brightness invading my closed eye lids. When I open my eyes lightening in all of it’s patterns and torque reflects off the sea presenting pulsing colors that spark turning the water and sky into a myriads of blues, purples, yellows. There is something so stunning about a vast body of water as it collides together with the night sky.
When my journey brought me here to live on this island on this Gulf of water I was very young. I wanted to live in Florida a while and enjoy a Jimmy Buffet and Ernest Hemingway kind of life and love of the sea.. I wanted to study nursing and perhaps write my poetry (not that it qualified as literature) or a short story. When fall and winter came it was the best. I was accepted by the locals and learned the history of this little (unknown at the time) town and the people who grew up here.
I carry grace and forgiveness from there to here forty nine years later. The storms are the strength …glassy clear water is the peace…