Island Escape

- It’s hot. Twenty eight degrees.The bronze tanning oil drips ever so slowly aside my nose. I adjust my position on the sand and wipe my eye. I sigh and catch my breath on the heat. Eye stinging and I determine the oil’s flow and lie on my back. I hold Last Tango above my head to block the sun. It protects my eyes and I read on. Anthony pushes on in the book. He cycles the Seven Hills of Rome. Boy it’s hot for him too. Reflecting upon his loves his life and fame he rides then stops at a sleepy village restaurant.I reflect the same but not on the fame but on my loves and my life a priest and a wife. Here I lie with naked forms all around and I cannot feel the same way about it as I use to.Beautiful women strut up and down the beach yet we all seven friends here lie nonchalantly reading or swimming.We play football and sun bathe.This Spanish Isle does let you forget. It’s doing it now! I feel the sand between each toe and I forget. I still do not believe the constant clear blue sky. My divorce now is disbelief. I can get through it by the energy here. Oh this heat drips.You sip a chilled white wine in your restaurant. I can taste it now Anthony as I read your tale. As you reflect in your biography my mind drifts to my daughters and the one-sidedness of the story they were told. How dare she. May be one day they may ask me what’s your side of it father. Or never. Wow, a naturally carved swimming pool of walled volcanic rock at Ocean’s edge. A pleasure to swim to dive and to float away those painful memories and to step ashore cleansed. Thank you to relations who now care so much and friends who give me company and help me through. I step ashore upon the hot sand. This tanning oil needs replacing and I am well aware that life is speeding away from me. I must look the best I can for the duration and oil up for a new life full of possibilities. If I could only sip that cool white wine of yours. And Anthony: He cycles away from the wining and dining to go home to his new wife. Open your box from twenty years before and see what your old wife has sent you. As for mine: In twenty years’ time she will send me no mementos. It is not in her nature. No sense history or appreciation ever evident. No free spirit there. In twenty years’ I will say Thank You Island. Thank you Anthony and all for helping me through and I promise I will return to you again in twenty years’ time. You can be my box. True reflection ( Jan 2012 ) Ian Foley.