House of the Rising Tide

 

Dreams are squirrely little things these days. I can't get them to sit still long enough to get a snapshot. 

Last night I was dreaming that I was in a house on the beach. Like, right on the beach, built up on a pier-like structure. As would be imagined when living so close to such a volatile body of water as the ocean, life was a constant struggle to protect one's carved out niche of real estate from the ever encroaching tide. Anything left on the beach at night was bound to be washed away in the morning.

There was a jetty out in front of the house that acted as a breakwater for the largest waves, though it did nothing to keep the tides from going where they would. The jetty was a good place to fish from, and I found myself coveting a spot out on the rocks that looked like a superior place from which to throw a crab pot. 

Getting to it was another story. I spent a good deal of the dream eyeing a poorly fashioned wooden plank bridge that the more acrobatic members of the household would merrily skip over to reach the rocks. It was basically a couple of floating 2x4s, very narrow and rather unstable as far as walking on them went. One had to be either a very good tightrope walker, or be able to simply sprint across fast enough to avoid getting wobbly.

I contemplated which technique would work for me, and neither seemed viable. I had an armful of gear which I really wanted to keep from going in the drink. It wasn't deep enough to worry too much, but I really wanted to avoid tumbling into the murky water. Staying dry was kind of a priority, though I desperately wanted across.

Meanwhile, up on the terrace of the house, the guy who owned the place was sitting under a makeshift awning that I'd constructed. It afforded modest protection from the sun and wind, but it wasn't the most elegant addition to the house. I could tell by looking at the guy's demeanor as he sat surveying the horizon, that he was grudgingly tolerating its awkward aesthetic.

"Better than getting scorched by the sun or battered by the wind," I yelled up from the beach to the sour-mugged man.

His grimacing countenance told me what he thought of my sunshade/windscreen. He taunted me for my lack of confidence in traversing the tiny harbor on the rickety bridge:

"We've all had to go that way. We all have the same risk of winding up in the water. It's the risk you have to take if you want to get out on the rocks. What are you, Queen Elizabeth?"

Maybe I was, I thought, but I sure didn't want to find out the hard way how deep the water was or which of my possessions might float. Plus, there was an eerie, uneasiness about that green slimy water that seemed to conceal all sorts of hidden dangers just below its seemingly placid surface.

That's the gist of it. I never made it out onto the rocks. Too scared of alligators, or jellyfish or rusted underwater wreckage to hazard the crossing, I waited on the beach for a more favorable moment, perhaps when the tide was lower.