The ocean makes us FEEL LIKE GODDESSES

Photo cred unknown, but isn't it THE MOST FANTASTIC?

Standing in sweet solitude above the cold surf of September.  I had just emerged from its steely blue waves; a plunge spawned by equal measures of courage and curiosity.

Water barely 60 degrees, but the air hovering near 90 at 3pm.  An oddity for the first week of fall in the upper Atlantic, but a blessing nonetheless.

I prefer to be at the beach alone.  Company, while sweet and fun, gets in the way of me noticing.  And I live to notice.  I like to take in the full orchestra of senses; the tide's rhythmic thunder, the silkiness of half-wet sand that I massage into my soles, the wafts of sometimes salty sometimes sour air, the sky's dazzling cloudlessness (reminding me that there are literally no obstacles between me and the stars), and -if I find adequate stillness- the awkward marching of gulls about me, like I'm just another log of driftwood.

It's all just magical.  It's all just right.  And it makes me feel all-at-once beautiful and safe and vulnerable and victorious...like the Winged Victory of Samothrace standing poised over the sea.

Background photo by me (Nosara, Costa Rica) / Photo of Winged Victory by someone, sometime, in the Louvre / Edit by me