"Live in the sunshine.  Swim the sea.  Drink the wild air."~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The night before the trip I got a call from the airline.  The generic female voice said in a robotic tone, "We're sorry for the inconvenience, but your flight has been cancelled.  We have scheduled you for the next day."

I'd made travel plans months ago--a reunion with my three sisters. I felt disappointed to lose twenty-four hours with them.  The trip was only four days long anyway.  The airline gave no explanation.  Just cancelled.  I waited for an hour to talk to a service representative.  There were no other flights out.  I began to form a coil inside my chest and felt the clinch of anxiety.  I didn't like having my plans collapse. 

Yet I had an unplanned day before me.  I didn't have to go into the office.  I was already packed.  That coiled place around my heart began to unfurl, and I made a decision to head for the beach.

Folly Beach is just down the road from my house.  When you drive into the small community, a sign reads: "Welcome to Folly Beach, the Edge of America."  The sign denotes that you are on the farthest section of coast land in the state before you fall off the edge into the ocean.

I often go to Folly Beach when I'm feeling on the edge--when I'm about to tumble over into negativity or self-pity or generalized anxiety about  life.  The ocean has its way with me--almost like a stand-in psychiatrist.  When I look out and see that horizontal sapphire stripe, I'm on the couch, so to speak.

And that day when I felt my bare feet touch the hard-packed sand, the chilly surf wash over my ankles, I felt some healing begin. Praise to God for the beauty of the sea, the song of the waves, the taste of salt and the ceiling of blue stacked white with clouds filled my lips.  I walked and walked there on that border of shore and let peace and oxygen and the cry of the gulls penetrate my spirit.  Prayer glided off my tongue.  I felt happy and stayed until I got my fill.

As I headed back toward the car, my body soaked and cool, I inhaled an amalgamation of suntan lotion, salt and sun. (Does the sun have a fragrance?  It must.)  A gaggle of bikini-clad teenage girls stood knee-deep in the blue-green swells.  I admired their lithe bodies, white teeth gleaming from tanned faces.  One of the girls pulled a T-shirt over her bathing suit.  It read:  "A Day To Remember." She lifted her braids decorated with green and pink beads from the collar of the shirt.  She tilted her head back, and the melodic laughter ringing from her young throat blended with the sound of surf, the ocean blue, bluer, bluest.