Beach-bound

Maggie says:

My need for a vacation is so pent-up that I keep refreshing the ocean temperature page over at weather.com. All morning the water in Outer Banks has been holding strong at a perfect 73. I’m not sure what I’m waiting for: a sudden surprise cold front, a tropical-water surge? Actually I think it’s more about watching a live reading of an ocean I’m about to be swimming in: I can get wave reports, the current tides, even a surfing outlook. I’m being an ocean voyeur, inching closer to it through my spying.

But here’s why: I couldn’t possibly be more restless in the desert these days. This morning on KUNM was an example of why. In a story on drought and fire danger, they reviewed all the trail closures in the area and what a crisis our hot, dry weather is creating. If I can’t be swimming, I want to at least be hiking. And I can’t do either.

The symptoms: My hair feels like it's going to dry up and all fall out if it doesn't get some humidity soon. The inside of my nose is primed for a nosebleed at any second, it’s so dry and allergy-irritated. My skin is just crying out for moisture of any kind. My beach-bum body needs to be immersed in water immediately; it’s desperate for it.

And then there’s the really important stuff: I want to be surrounded by the longtime girlfriends I adore and the family I miss like crazy. I want to eat barbecue and fish every day and drink gin and tonics by the dozen. I want to wake up with the morning sun streaming through the windows, take my achy-from-so-much-swimming body out of bed, note how many more freckles I have that morning than the one before, and drink my morning coffee on a deck that overlooks an ocean so sparkly and bright I can't help but smile at it. I want to breathe in the sea air and feel like myself again. I want to smell like sunscreen and salt. I want to be a fish.

It starts tomorrow.

First, a family birthday party where my best girls from college will be joining me from Boston, where they've been happily cheering at Fenway Park, walking through Back Bay, and battling snowstorms without me since I took up and moved to New Mexico. On Sunday, we set off for the Outer Banks with my high school best friend joining us. Then: a week of nothingness... That is, nothing but reading, tanning, drinking, talking, laughing, swimming, sunning...

Okay, you get the picture.

Really, I can't take the desert another second. I need to be in my natural element now. Sand, salt, sun: I'm coming!

PS: These photos are from last year's Outer Banks trip. I'll be posting new ones over on Flickr throughout the week, if anyone wants to see that 73-degree ocean. :-)