What did we do at the beach?
We boogie boarded. We got up early and watched the sun rise. We played The Game of Things in the evenings. We danced the Cotton-Eyed Joe and the Virginia Reel in the living room. We ate dinner together. We built sand castles. We drank sangria. We soaked in the hot tub. We picnicked on the beach. We collected seashells. We splashed in tidal pools. We dug big holes in the sand. We laughed a lot.
We had very special spa treatments.
A few of us paddle boarded.
{Here is Jeddy making it look easy.
Lest life pass me by, I agreed to take a turn after he did it successfully. I have always thought that paddle boarding looks hard and not that much fun. I was not proved wrong.
Note that paddle boarding may have been designed for placed lakes, not pounding Outer Banks surf. Note also that paddle boards are a lot bigger and heavier than they look. Friend and paddle board owner Michael gave me one piece of advice: "If you fall, fall on the far side of the board, not the near side, so it doesn't hit you."
Guess which way I fell.
First of all, I was afraid of the breakers, so to start I knelt and paddled as hard as I could straight out to sea. When I was sure I was well clear of them I carefully stood up and turned myself parallel to shore.
Which is when I realized I was approximately 457,628,623 yards from land.
So, to recap: Step 1, paddle past breakers. Step 2, panic when you realize you'll never see dry land again. Step 3, head straight back for shore. Which segues (see what I did there?) right into Step 4, get hopelessly caught in breakers.
You'd think, as I did, that a paddle board would work just like a large boogie board, and I could gracefully ride those breakers right onto shore, stepping delicately off on arrival.
Nope.
Turns out the large size is actually a liability, and paddle boards prefer not to gracefully glide to shore, but to flip.
The first wave I encountered catapulted me off the flipping board, and as I fell on the near side, I thought, "This is what Michael told me not to dooooo!" And I found out why as I was underwater getting completely battered by the board and wondering if I would come up for air before or after I died.
In fact, I did come up for air in time, still clutching the paddle, bucking board in sight, hat tossing on the waves near me, and sunglasses nowhere in sight. Then of course I had to pursue the board--in the pounding surf, with a paddle in one hand--so as not to lose something that wasn't mine, and grab hold of it, while not letting it kill me.
Skipping over the rest of the indignity, I did eventually make it to firma terra, with the board and the paddle, and my hat, feeling satisfied that I have now done all the paddle boarding required to live a full life.
Only the next day in the shower did I discover the injury. In my concern to regain oxygen supply, I apparently didn't even notice the board slamming into my leg just below the knee. I literally gasped out loud in the shower. It looked like a second knee, it was so swollen. The next day the swelling was just as big but halfway down my shin instead. Now, a week and a half later, the bruise is starting to fade, but it still stretches from my knee almost to my ankle. The swelling is gone and the bruise is green rather than the lovely purple of last week.
So, yeah, fall on the far side, like I didn't do. In my defense, had I been at all in control of the situation, I would've chosen Not Falling.}
The kids watched movies.
And we followed wild horses down the beach at sunset.
Who's gonna ride your wild horses?
Who's gonna drown in your blue sea?
Who's gonna taste your salt water kisses?
Who's gonna take the place of me?
Who's gonna ride your wild horses?
~U2
