Muddying the Waters Pt. 1

        I meticulously planned our family vacation hoping that a little rest, relaxation and saltwater might temporarily wash away my exhausting anxiety and foment some family fun. The first thing I noticed when my toes touched the burning sand was that the color of the Atlantic Ocean at the Coligny Beach shore on Hilton Head Island was indescribable, running the gamut from onion soup to azure blue. I waded further into the sea and the water changed color the deeper I went. As I stood knee deep in the eighty – eight degree ocean that matched the eighty – eight degree rays scorching my arms and shoulders, I debated plodding any further. My husband was fifteen feet ahead of me in waist deep water, walking slowly away from the shore as the waves formed white caps around him. I turned toward my husband, who had shaded his eyes with his hand while he stared at the swimmers further out to sea.
        “Do you have eyes on the boys?” he asked suddenly.
        I felt my stomach sink as a frothy wave crashed around my waist while my feet lost their grip and collapsed into a sinkhole. I began to backslide down a hidden sandbar and then scurried to steady myself. My body’s response was immediate and automatic. As I felt the claws of panic grip my heart, I stood like a frozen statue impervious to the blazing heat beating down on my head and shoulders. No, I did not have eyes on the boys. My neck and head jerked into action as I began scanning the faces and bodies of everyone frolicking in the water. My husband and I stood on less than solid ground with our heads on a swivel, silently scanning and searching the outstretched sea.
        “There they are,” he said matter of factly, pointing about twenty – five yards to our left and another thirty feet or so past where we were standing on the sandbar.
        My youngest son was crouching down in the water while my middle son somersaulted off of his shoulders. Our teenagers were splashing around and laughing with each other, oblivious to any real or imagined danger. “I’ll go bring them in and see if they want a sandwich,” my husband stated calmly. In his mind, a crisis had been averted and there was nothing more to worry about. I stood for a moment sinking in the shifting sand as I watched my husband wade out toward the boys. Then a wave knocked me backwards off my feet, warning me that it was time to swim back to shore.
        During my walk back to our spot on the beach where my mother-in-law had been holding down the fort, I began to feel as if every step in the scalding white sand was scraping off a whisper – thin layer of anxiety. By the time I was drying off with my beach towel, I felt a little foolish for imagining the worst about the boys. Some time later, I was half asleep in a beach chair under our pop- up tent. My nose was ensconced in a paperback while my toes were buried under a few inches of sand, burrowing for a cool spot. The irregular flapping of the partially – secured beach canopies around us and the smashing of the waves at the shoreline served as a soothing lullaby.
        “Have you seen the boys?” my husband asked.
        My head snapped up in response to my husband’s urgent question. He was hunched over, looking directly at me, standing in front of the opening of the tent. Beads of sweat dripped from his sunburned nose. For a split second I was flummoxed. My mind had been happily nestled in the ethereal realm while playing hopscotch between the characters of the romance novel I was reading and the vibrant yet elusive landscapes forming an otherworldly backdrop to my dream state. The critical nature of my husband’s question was a scythe to the vicissitudes of my reveries, slicing away the fantastical settings into dust while sweeping my mind out of the ether and back into strident reality. I pulled my toes out of their hole in the sand and stared back at him.
        “No. Were they supposed to check in with me?” I asked.
        I grabbed my phone to check the time. I felt the searing heat on my index finger the moment I touched the exposed screen. Three o’clock. I realized this was useless information because I had no idea how long I had been reading and napping. Apparently, my husband and mother – in – law weren’t sure how long the boys had been gone either. I felt my heart plummet like an anvil into the depths of the Mariana Trench.

Part 2 Coming Soon…