The Salt on the Skin

The air before a storm has a metallic, bruised taste, like sucking on a copper coin. It is a heavy, humid weight that presses against the back of the throat, demanding to be swallowed. I remember the feeling of sand between my toes—not the dry, shifting kind, but the wet, packed grit that clings to the arches of your feet, cold and unyielding. There is a specific shiver that travels up the spine when the wind turns, a sudden prickle of gooseflesh that tells the body the sky is about to break. We spend our lives bracing for the impact of the elements, our skin acting as a map for every gust and spray we have ever endured. We are porous creatures, soaking up the brine and the gale until we are saturated with the memory of the tide. Does the water remember us as clearly as we remember the sting of its spray?

Daz Hamadi has captured this raw, visceral tension in the image titled Sea Fairy. It feels as though the salt is still drying on the air, caught in that final, breathless second before the ocean claims the shore. Can you feel the cold spray against your own skin?