The Sweet Scent of the Ocean

And how I adore it. The reason that I love the scent of the ocean is because it reminds me of so many colorful memories that awaken my senses to a myriad of visions. One of the distinct visions I tend to return to quite often is when my family was living in Australia. It is quite easy to return to the way we spoke down there and especially to a time when I was walking freely and was clearly hit on by several nice looking gents and their mates. I was asked by one of them if they could take my picture and to say that I was flattered is an understatement, so the story goes...My father found out that this fellow took many pictures of me and he turned three shades of red through his tan. In fact, the Australian sun is quite strong and through this intense sun we all had fabulously dark skin. This led more to my father's incorrect perception of what was going on because I had such a striking tan. My father was new to Australia as well and was feeling the need to "bond" with his daughter but had no idea of how to do such bonding. The timing of this unfortunate event was after my father and I had gone for a long walk in the sand. It was so beautiful there, the sand was sparkling gold strewn across the landscape. Perhaps the timing was such that my dad just misunderstood the importance to me of being an up and coming or curious teenager who was really sowing my oats in a new place with lots of attention. My father was getting irritated at the interest that was being paid to me and wanted to reel me in. To do so was to put the reigns on me and he enlisted my mother to support him. Both my parents were in a startled position, kind of like the deer in the headlights, because to them this was how Marilyn Monroe got started. To me, it was positively ridiculous. They threw out a mile's worth of wonderful pictures because of their fear of me ending up like Marilyn Monroe. Ha! :) What a compliment that was! I wish that they would have just let sleeping dogs lie and let me be flattered. Oh well. I lived to tell the story such as it is.

My other thoughts about the ocean are that it is such a wonderfully peaceful place to be, where I can open up my mind and let the sensual relaxation caress my body. It thereby leaves a kiss of the lasting sunshine and I feel blessed to be able to wear the sun's striking color on my skin.