I swam in the Atlantic Ocean today for the first time. Yesterday, we dipped our feet in but today we went all in. It’s quite salty.
The water was 18°C. I know because there was a chalkboard on the boardwalk telling us so. When first you walk in, it feels colder. There were warm pockets of water that would wash by. I’m curious to know how that would happen. I would’ve thought that all of the water around the beach would be a consistent temperature. Walking in slowly only made things worse. After falling backward into the water, it felt warmer.
After sitting on the beach for a bit, we went for fish and chips and ice cream. While at the plaza, we bought souvenirs for my family. Just that much was enough to fill the day.
There’s a different approach to life and relationships out here, it seems. Folks want to talk with you, to tell you stories, to ask you questions. They pop-in on each other. I hate the pop-in. I rarely answer my phone, let alone a knock at the door. I don’t know if it’s because they have the time to but people seem to care more about each other than they do in the city.
They tell stories differently. A lot of details are provided. Names, dates, relations, places, modes of transportation, other peoples’ opinions, the works. All I’m looking to know is what happened and why is it significant. Here, too, the significance of something can be simply that it happened. There needn’t be any more to it than that.
In the city, the big smoke, the only details that matter are the ones that I need to know. What happened to who is not as important as is the reason you’re telling me what you are. We have just as many things to do as the folks out here do, but we don’t have the same amount of time. We look at peoples’ value, we assess their usefulness, and tap into the opportunities they provide. We are, like the Atlantic, quite salty for it.
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