Prompt Entry 3

I grew up fat. Not baby-fat, middle-school-extra-10-pounds fat. Fat. Morbidly obese fat. For real.

Savannah, Georgia is 10 minutes from the ocean. A certified aqua-phile, I am spending my only day off at the beach. Jaimie and I scamper through sand so hot it's threatening to become glass below our feet. The mid-morning sun is climbing to the east. The sky is cerulean and cloudless. The Atlantic drums the shore. A few other die-hards are on the beach, but at 93 degrees and climbing, it's too hot for most people. Not us. We throw our towels into the wind, wrestle them to the ground and lay down.

I'm stiff. Knowledge of my bare limbs, my stomach swarthed in skin-tight fabric overshadows my consciousness of the fact no one is looking at me. I do not relax my body. The sun pulsates.


In college I started eating well and exercising. By my junior year I had lost 65 pounds and began seeing my first boyfriend. He cared deeply for me. I loved the fact that he seemed to think I was beautiful, that he held and kissed me sincerely.
"Just relax!" He feigned exasperation, kissing me as we embraced.
"What do you mean?"
"You're always so tense," he stroked my back and hair, "I just want you to be comfortable."


The tide is coming in. Jaimie and I have returned to our towels after spending a half-hour in the salty sea. This time of year, it is impossible to lay on the beach for more than an hour. At that point, heat stroke becomes a risk. I snuggle into my towel, salty and wet. Seagulls caw above me, hoping Jaimie and I have packed snacks for them to scavenge. The gulls flap away; they must have spotted something interesting down the shore. Their absence is the silence of a snooze alarm and the crashing waves, the hollow of deep sleep. I breathe in. Exhale. I breathe more deeply, consciously mimicking the waves.

Our bodies pulsate as waves. On the shore of the ocean, our internal rhythm has found a harmony part in the ever-crashing sea. As internal and external begin to coalesce, our consciousness seeps out of our bodies into the sand, pulsates into the sky. We become soft and heavy and relax fully, completely. We lose anxiety, fear. We simply are.


"This is my favorite part," I barely hear him, I'm so far away. He holds me tighter. "When you fall asleep and finally relax."