The motion of the ocean

"So how cold is the water?" my friend Brad asks.

"Just above death," I say, and I'm not kidding. Up ahead, our friend Pete has already
plunged in.

"Is this anything like the beaches in Sydney?" I ask.

"Exactly like," Pete replies. "In the winter time."

So the water is cold, but that's to be expected: this is the Atlantic, after all. What I don't
expect is how clear it is: I can see rocks, shells, even the whirling of the sand my feet stirs
up as I drift across the waves. We're throwing a Vortex around -- it looks like a Nerf
football with wings, and it makes a whistling sound like an incoming shell as it flies --
Pete refers to it as "the world's most annoying toy." The sun is on my face, I'm surrounded
by my friends, and after a few minutes of shooting pain, I'm actually used to the water.
All is right with the world.

It doesn't last, of course. By mid-afternoon, my friends are on their way back to Boston,
the Red Sox have lost, and I'm left to spend Sunday night sitting on the couch, wondering
where my life is supposed to go from here.

"Are you going to spend the rest of your life in this town?" one of my friends asked, as I
pointed out the sights to her (such as they are) on the way to the beach. I didn't think much
of the question at the time. I'm thinking a lot about it now.

Graduate school applications, freelance assignments, writing projects -- they're all means
to an end, but what end? I know I want to get out of Dodge, meet new people, take on
new and exciting adventures -- but where, and whom, and how, I have no idea.

Still, if I'm going to be stuck somewhere, I might as well be stuck on the beach, in the
sun, with the cold, clear water inviting me in. I realize, of course, that this is the plot of
"Cast Away," but Tom Hanks spent that movie talking to a volleyball, whereas I would never
sit around revealing my innermost thoughts to an imaginary person...

Uh oh.