Salt Water

The first time I ever saw one was at Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West. Behind the open air mansion, under Palm Trees and Tropical foliage, is a massive swimming pool built by his wife Pauline.  Rumor has it when the great writer saw it he dug a penny out of his pocket and threw it at her saying, “There you’ve taken my last penny.”

The coin is plastered into the pool now and is part of the spills given to crowds of tourists.

It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.

It’s a great story!

And as I learned in Seminary, “Never, ever let the truth stand in the way of a good story.”

The thing about Hemingway’s pool though is it’s filled with salt water. Crystal clear, it looks just like the chemically clean pools that I grew up using.

On Tybee Island I assumed that salt ocean water was sometimes green but mostly brown. Not so in Key West or most of the rest of the world.

When my friend Carlos visited Tybee from his home in St. Martin, I took him to the beach and he exclaimed, “Mike! Who shit in your ocean?”

I explained the marshes and the influence of the mud. “It does color the water but it fills Tybee waters with nutrients that ensure our fish and shrimp are well fed. It’s why our seafood tastes so good.”

“That may be true,” he said in his French Caribbean lilt, “but it still looks like somebody shit there.”

                                                                                                             

“Well, I’ll take Tybee shrimp over St. Martin lobster any day!”

I love salt water. It swims through my veins. It sticks to my skin. It falls from my eyes when my heart fills or breaks. It soothes my feet when they are sore. It seasons most every pot I put on the stove. It brings me luck when I throw a pinch over my shoulder.

It was in sheer delight yesterday when I cannon balled the girls in the pool on the ship we are on. It’s a salt water pool.

The massive boat is a tiny dot in the vast salty ocean we are sailing through. I see no land, not a single island, only the majesty of the deep blue sea. I’m reminded that regardless of what I accomplished, or failed to, the world is bigger than I am.