I used to go to the sea in the mornings.

I used to go to the sea in the mornings. The early mornings, when the breakfast cooks were rubbing their tired eyes on the 50 foot journey into their open-air kitchen. When it was still tender and almost dark. I would try to walk quietly past Chateau Maho, The Fish Bowl, The Roach Motel, The Barefoot Mansion. Through the red tile kitchen and down the main boardwalk, barely able to see Whistling Cay under a struggling moon. It would nearly be sunrise by the time I got to the goat trail, so I could see the roots of soft-shade tamarind trees and those rocks I had met with knees and toes (and one time, a shoulder) in less graceful moments. It was late fall, and I had to wave my hands in front of my face to fend off the hurricane mosquitoes, fatter and somehow quicker than those creatures we knew in the spring. I could feel the night air, heavy and falling on my shoulders, as I stripped away my morning clothes from my bathing suit and stepped toe at a time into the clear water.

Aqua jogging, we called it. A totally ridiculous name for a totally therapeutic act. I preferred to run on the hill valley roads, but my knees had become pavement-sore and I needed the drunken sand to soften the impact of a quickening foot and elevating heartbeat. With the water to my chest, I would run. From one end of the still beach to the other, back and forth. There was a stingray I had named Big Bird, the biggest I have ever seen, who would shadow me more than I necessarily wanted. He came most mornings, maybe hoping for whatever sea feast I was kicking up with my rough heels as I ran. Back and forth, back and forth. Happy to wake up with the island. To get some time together and feel that St. John, Big Bird, Whistling Cay and I were closer than anyone had been to anything ever.