We’ve been in Canoa Quebrada for a couple weeks now, in Ceara, along the famous northeast coast of Brazil. This is my fourth time here and Fabio and I plan to build a house here eventually, but meanwhile, while we wait for the appropriate government agency to give us permission to begin construction, we come here and spend time with family and friends, trying to imagine a life here someday.

There is much talk of having a baby. I guess that’s logical considering our age and marital status. I still struggle with the language, so I seem to move about in a haze and let those around me figure things out. Other than talking about propagating with simple sentence structure, I like to spend my time here on the beach, especially at low tide. It’s one place where I know we speak the same language, and over the last few years I’ve made a habit of going there to escape conversation, to dance around a bit, and to try to find some reasonable strategy for life to take back to the playing field.

On the beach, you are clearly a part of infinity. The carefully organized world that usually wraps around you pops like a balloon, and a less delicate truth is exposed.  There is just internal and external with skin in between. Of course divisions can be useful - sky/ocean, dry/wet, up/down, but they are only ever one perspective, a relative shell.   The beach seems to know that well.

The beach at low tide is God’s ballroom, flat and endless.  There are no walls or windows, just a densely packed, sandy dance floor, its watery curtain drawn back, a breezy hand extended in your direction.

I like to walk along the water with my eyes closed, a good way to practice what I have learned about walking.  As long as I can stay interested, I tell myself, this is good practice.  This is making good use of my time here.  I pay attention to my breath, my pelvis, the rotation in my joints.  Higher up on the shore, the beach slants a tiny bit in the direction of the water, so I try to sense with my body when this flattens out, the difference between falling downhill versus uphill, versus across the damp transverse plane of my dance floor.

I walk towards the water, circle around and walk back up, advance and retreat. I start anticipating the moment when the water and my feet will meet.  There is a mutual coming together and searching.  I generously give the tide this intention, flirtatious and engaging. I start out cautious, only up to my ankles, but each encounter is more comfortable, draws me in deeper. I bring my attention back to my walking and try to sense the undulation pass through my mid spine.

I walk along the edge of where the water had come before, longer than I expect this time in my state of voluntary blindness.  The ocean hides from me, and I seek her with my toes.  She splashes me unexpectedly and I run away with a smile.  I look to see if anyone is watching me.  There is no one for miles.

After a while my feet adjust to the easy coolness of the shallow water wrapping around my steps, the ocean’s kiddie pool.  Though their tug on my ankles is light, the little baby waves sweep the sand out from under me and I lose my balance sometimes, tipsy and loose.  I am a giant!  I splash the water around a bit, and get back to my dancing, recalling exercises I have done in class, trying to stay in my skin, the same color as the sand, against all this blue and green.

I try a little sequence, first on the dry sand, then on the muddy ground, then in the little puddles that have collected here and there, comparing.  There is a slight evolution with each variation.  When I go further into the tide, the waves further blur my movement like a game of telephone. I try to repeat it again but the water slithers away embarrassed leaving me standing on two little rising islands under my feet.

If the beach is my ballroom, I guess the ocean is to be my partner, alive and active in this dance.   How can I resist her push and pull?  Here I thought I was entertaining her with my arm swings and my little leaps.

Soon my knees are more or less under water and I am getting the rug pulled out from under me.  I can feel that she wants to try a new game, so I let her spin me around a bit, not like a capable leader but like a washing machine.   How is this productive, I ask myself? I return triumphantly to my feet and try to think of an exercise I can do here.  How can I use this chaos to my advantage, developmentally?  I’m in too deep now for anything resembling a C-Star.

The waves begin to reveal a slightly more mischievous character, testing my resolve.  I guess I deserve a little pummeling.  It feels so personal.  Sometimes I look, sometimes I don’t.  Sometimes I jump over, sometimes I dive under.  When she pulls it’s gentle, but firm.  And sometimes when I’m looking away, she likes to smack me from behind to make sure I’m paying attention.  "What?!"

If I time it right, we really fly together.  She’s offering me rides and then wrestling me to the ground.  You don’t get one without the other.  It is clear she’ll win so I am willing to play her game for now.  Nothing more.  There is nothing regular in her rhythm, but it is constant, and connected to something very big.  Vertical is now only one of many options inside a kaleidoscope of vectors.  Up and down seem less urgent, though they keep falling back into place, the sky back where he belongs.

Finally, I let her have her way with me, surrendering to her conspiracy with the sun and the moon to teach me something real. I am in need of a responsible grown up, a teacher.  The ocean is older than anyone I know, so I guess I can trust her. Of course it’s not complete surrender.  I want to understand, but it has to be on my terms.  I want so badly for something to make sense, to arrive at a truth that I can take back to the house with me like a sea shell.  But I can’t think of anything, so I stay there, rolling around in the waves.  It feels good.  The water feels even warmer now. I can stay here if I keep listening.  Then it’s not so foreign.

A few days ago we had some visitors at the house we’re renting.  Erick and Joyce, my new best eight year old friends, introduced me to the thrill of hunting sea stars out of the sand with my feet.  Erick waved one around so I’d come take a closer look and then cracked it open like a fortune cookie, revealing to me the little bony star hidden in its core.  I asked if this part was still alive, easily regressing to an eight year old myself.  He assured me that it was actually the baby sea star inside its mama’s belly, and that if I put it back it would grow a brand new body around itself.  I believed him and we gently placed it back in the sand.