The Smell of His Skin

I ended my road run on the beach the morning after we arrived. Up the boardwalk stairs, I could smell it before I saw it.

I always loved that first look at the ocean after a year spent only viewing it in my memory.

I had forgotten, in that moment, that the last time I was at the beach was one of the last times I’d seen my father. And that my father was the one who’d indoctrinated me into loving the ocean and the clay-like sand between my fingers and the mystery of the world I didn’t know that brimmed below it’s surface.

Sometimes I’d mis-diagnose an ocean scent for the smell of his salty skin wrapped ..read more