The Future Remembers the Sea

My son is experiencing his first encounters with broad sandy beaches and waves and the salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It is clearly a deluge of sensory experiences for the 19 month-old boy. Just walking through the fine white sand could easily take us the greater part of an afternoon. He stops to inspect his toes, the hardly perceptible particles of shell, dune grass, seaweed; he hunches down, stands again, a few steps, the sensations impressed against his plump, pale feet again overwhelm him. This is not to mention the light and heat of the Florida sun in April, the moisture in the air and the wind that carries it and has been driving from the south, the gulf a mess of intersecting waves and white-caps frolicking amidst turquoise vainly trying to remain calm and undulating. Before even reaching the sea, he chases the black rebel-spiked crowns and white bodies of the teams of Royal Terns in mating season, disturbing their attempt to appear regal as they perch on the beach and squawk into the wind, forcing them to take wing and join the black masked Bonaparte's Gulls swooping on the gale. Or he pauses, and stands staring at them, lost in thought or in the timeless moments of pure thoughtless observation. Sometimes while running he falls, tripped up by the seemingly random landscape of countless footsteps in expanses of sand. I imagine his neurology like a fireworks show with trails remaining after the explosions and slowly filling the sky with a finely woven net of light, a proprioceptive melange exciting hormonal cascades the likes of which his little being has never known. Then comes the sea, the rhythmic, crashing, unpredictable dance of waves, the ebb drawing the sand from beneath his feet, nearly drawing his feet from beneath his body. The first day, he would not dare to stand in the water; he spent much of the afternoon in his mother's arms, crying when she braved the waves for a swim without him. On the second day, his bravery grew into a surprising and gallant dash directly into the breaking surf. He stood with the help of his parents with the water caressing his shins, sometimes splashing up to his waist and sending droplets onto his face, eliciting a triumphant squeal of glee as loud and joyous as I have heard his little voice sound. His thrill waxed and waned with the rising and withdrawing of each pulse the waves brought, his body shaking in the excitement. Since this primary encounter, he has been flirting with the shoreline, nonchalantly standing in the surf, earnestly digging his hands into the sand or lying down, his face coated with dusty white particles or running back and forth from the beach to the water, as we, his caretakers, struggle to simultaneously allow for his freedom and his safety in this phantasmagoria of sea and sand. We watch the sunset together, the gulls and terns, children, parents, grandparents; he chases the birds, a small silhouette bounding through the sand against a fiery backdrop of oranges, reds, pinks, colors more expansive than words can contain. The future still gathers to watch the sun descend into the horizon, and we secretly pray it will return to grace our days at the beach and our days in times less full of joy when we need to remember the light of a child in sand and sea and sun.