The Salt on Skin

The air near the water always tastes of crushed shells and damp, cooling sand. I remember the feeling of grit between my toes, a coarse, grounding texture that reminds me I am tethered to the earth. There is a specific heat that settles into your marrow when you have spent all day under a sun that does not know how to be gentle. It is a heavy, golden exhaustion, the kind that makes your limbs feel like they are filled with warm honey. We carry the ocean in the creases of our palms long after we have walked away from the tide. It is a quiet, rhythmic pulse, a reminder that we are made of the same salt and movement as the waves. When the day finally breaks, the body remembers the cooling relief of a breeze against sun-flushed cheeks. Does the memory of the shore ever truly leave your skin, or does it simply wait for the next time you close your eyes?

Stefanie Laroussinie has captured this feeling in her beautiful image titled Children of Vanuatu. The way the light clings to the air makes me want to reach out and touch the warmth of that distant shore. Can you feel the salt air when you look at them?