Peter (my bf) and I are at Heraclee beach for the weekend.
It’s a little sliver of heaven, about 11 miles south of Saint Tropez.
It’s too early in the season to swim - being breezy and 72°f -
but it’s still the beach. I’m a neophyte beach ***,
but I’m willing and eager to learn.
I’m valuable even if I’m not being productive [I self-affirm].
something poetic-ish..
The sun’s a drowsy tyrant, not yet willing to unforgivingly scorch.
The beach is like glistening sugar, the sand still cool enough to walk, rogue west winds occasionally whip it to an ankle stinging sandpaper.
Majestic umbrella pines are dancing the hula. The shrub-like understory is dominated by drought-tolerant lavenders and rosemary that dense the air with perfume which complements the mediterranean brine.
There’s laughter, off somewhere, like wind-chimes playing clear, just above the ever-roiling sound of the surf. Birds are everywhere, gulls walk around like they’re bored, cory float on air, like kites and petrels skim against the wind, centimeters above choppy waves.
The beach isn’t crowded - French kids are still in school - but a few hardy, oiled, bronzed and sculpted bodies are sprawled on the pristine sand, like offerings to the god of leisure.
Our hotel has its own private cove, with adirondack wooden lounges under yellow parasols. Pastel blue-vested wait-staffers circle, on the quarter-hour, eager to please.
“Deux (two) American Martinis, S'il te plaît! (please),” I ask, expectantly.
It’s a **** beach, but Peter got an alarmed look when I joked I might go *******. “Annick (my older sister) always goes *******,” I informed him.
“I’d like to see that,” he’d chuckled, and when I gave him a raised eyebrow, he amended, “That came out wrong.”
.
.
songs for this..
Summer of Our Love by Triangle Sun
That life by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
The kiss of Venus by Dominic Fike, Paul McCartney
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge: Neophyte: someone who’s just started learning something