Tara Ison - Rockaway

The world blacks out and swirls, and she instinctively reminds herself not to breathe or swallow water. She feels her tumbling body intuitively unclench, uncompass itself, remember not to seek orientation. She feels her heart slowing down, her lungs pacing out the oxygen, her eyes recognizing the salt as ancestor. She feels her body relax and accept the roiling as truth. She feels herself lifted up again, the roil is sweeping her forward and her body is sailing, skimming, floating along toward shore, and she lets herself sail until she is lying victoriously safe, breathing hard and her cheek pressed against wet sand, the to-and-fro flirt of water still swirling her hair.

She remembers this. She scrambles up to her feet, remembers feeling this moment of alive and real and strong. I am here. That was the victory, she realizes. It was the emerging, the standing there on her own, panting and jelly legs and streaming salt foam, before ever looking for anyone or anything else to save her. It was her faith in the divine spark of her own life inside her little-girl belly and bones, the faith that allowed her to turn from the safe beach and race again and again back toward the chaotic, unpredictable waves. Because she will always reemerge. She will always get to her feet again, always be able to find her own way back to shore. Whatever awaits her or does not await her there. I am here, I am here.

She feels the shadows shifting, sees the sky brighten to a palette of rich pigments, coralline, ochre, aureolin, sees the gray sand around her warming to cream, the driftwood and jellyfish and shells and abandoned mess taking on definition and depth. She looks at the sea, now a rich, faceted green. Emerald, viridian, streaks of malachite. She sees all the clashing, harmonious colors of the world.

She drops to her knees, digs her hands into the sea-crisp sand. She traces a misshapen seahorse, a crooked mermaid. She scribbles them out with her fingers, levels the sand, draws them messily, imperfectly, again. She draws an entire school of joyous, unsymmetrical seahorses, a dancing gathering of clumsy mermaids. She draws a stick-figure little girl frolicking in the water, a mother and father waving from shore. She draws the swooping capital M s of flying seagulls. She draws a big childish sun sending out illuminating beams, draws the ocean’s peaking, promising waves. She scrapes a castle into being.

I AM SO GRATEFUL for the many forms of assistance I received for this manuscript — the close readings and wise editorial feedback, the supportive shoulders and endless patience during all those crazed phone calls. I’d especially like to thank Bernadette Murphy, Eloise Klein Healy, Emily Rapp, Tina Gauthier, Michelle Nordon, Askoid Melnyczuk, Cyndi Menegaz, Ellen Svaco, Mary Vincent, Rick Moody, Douglas Bauer, David Ryan, and Dylan Landis.

Boundless appreciation to my editor, Dan Smetanka, for his guidance, integrity, and impassioned faith, and to everyone at Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press. Enormous gratitude and respect to Michelle Henkin, and Mrs. Sylvia Perelson.

Please support the Rockaway Rescue Alliance and the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance, at: www.rwalliance.org.

© Michael Phillips

TARA ISON is the author of A Child out of Alcatraz , a Finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and The List . Her short fiction and essays have been in Tin House, The Kenyon Review, Nerve.com, Publishers Weekly , and numerous anthologies.