Find the way

The distinction between flesh and sand on Praia Mole can be difficult to tell apart. The bodies lie lazily in the southern hemisphere sun, holding no favor between the daylight and the lustful night that lies just a few hours ahead. Making up the demographic are surfers, backpackers, stoners, gays, and some all mixed to one. In addition to the pitiful men strewn across the sand, are the ones running the show. They wear bikinis on the small side of the scale; they strut with a different sort of posture known in the normal Western world. Their hair is long, elegant, their bodies incredibly fit yet natural, skin tone dancing between dark and light, striking blends of Europe in their faces and eyes, the women of southern Brazil have a strangle hold on the human climate of the summer Santa Catarina afternoon.

Summer had come and gone, and the backpackers were on some other drunken beach. Luckily, this day was not summer, nor fall, and there were not any trim lace bikini’s revealing any unexplainably large beautiful ass.

It was the first day of winter in Florianópolis, and cold 30-knot winds whistled violently down Praia mole, creating small sand storms, and blowing the sea in to a white-capped mess. In relation to the wind the surf was small, and the sky was dark, it was early afternoon, but the sun was well hidden behind a spotted blanket of clouds blown up from the south, making the day seem much later then it really was. A low pressure weather system made it’s way up the southern shelf, bringing the cold winds from the Antarctic all the way up the Argentina coast, beyond Uruguay, and into the Southern Brazilian coastline, passing Rio Grande Do Sul, and all the way into Santa Catarina. Being the island that Floripa is exposes it to winds, high seas and lost travelers. I was the only human being on Praia Mole, no one else cared to see it’s other face, just as entrancing at that, especially for an abstract mind. I came to the beach to train, run, burn some steam, but what I found there was much more then a workout.

The emptiness alone was enough to guide me into absording meditation, the sound of the wind, the color of the sky, the rough empty sea, and the island out in the distance. On the top of the small hill just ten meters from the sand lies an abandoned building, and standing on the vacant beach bar deck, under a roof was a man with an easel, laying strokes of oil paint on a small canvas. As I walked past I noticed his sport coat, his hand spotted with different colors, his glasses, and lastly his transcendent rendition of the dark fluffy clouds, musky sand and choppy seas. “Tudo bem” I said, “Tudo bom” he answered, and I nodded and jogged down the ramp onto the sand.

I first ran with the screaming south wind, like an angel was on my back pushing me through the soft dry sand. I reached the end of the beach, where Praia Mole ends, and massive boulders separate the sand from Galheta beach further to the northwest. Up against the rocks two thick, tall black vultures with charcoal heads loomed over a carcass of what appeared to be a sort of swollen sea bird, pecking at the flesh, and glancing upwards towards two on-looking sea hawks. The hawks had a white frill coming from the top of their heads, waiting with black eyes and fierce hooked beaks, patiently looking out towards sea.   I thought it was strange that the four birds of two species were all there at once, the first time I’d seen such a rivaled prize.

I turned back south and the wind was so forceful that the distance I covered with every step was much less then the energy I put in, and I slowly treaded down the beach, being blinded at times with the gusts of sand. Mid way across I saw an animal at the shoreline, just above where the incoming tide reached. As I came closer I recognized the unmistakable plump body of a penguin. I came within a foot of the chubby quizzical little artic sea bird. He looked at me in fright and began wiggling on his belly towards the water. As he moved I was full of joy that he was alright, and I encouraged him to flap his way onward, as the pieces all fit together, and I knew what the hawks and the vultures were so exited about. The penguin seemed tired and surely lost when I approached him (or her, but for the sake of ease I will say it’s a male), and I did not know if he would make it back out with so much relentless on shore flow. I rooted him on, “go penguin, go, swim, you can make it! The hawks are coming!” He flipped and flapped and soon he was swimming. Once out in the ocean he seemed at ease again, and I watched him disappear into his Atlantic journey at sea.

Was he lost? Had the water become so cold in Argentina that he searched for warmer temperatures? Was the food scarce? Was it something WE did? Surely it was due to some sort of environmental change that caused him and his raft to migrate north. Of coarse I was led down more of a philosophical path.

Maybe the penguin didn’t really know why he was moving exactly, something within his soul led him towards the travel, drifting leagues away form his rookery in Argentina, where foreign languages of different birds where spoken and new dangers and treasures awaited. There he was lying on his belly on Praia Mole, Florianópolis, Brazil, looking out to sea, wondering where does he go now? All the while enjoying the pause and meditation like a wind blowing through an open window, of an empty upstairs bedroom. As he glided out into the water the awkward belly waddle turned into a graceful swim. The drifting waves and pulling tides brought him to ease it seemed, and there in the stillness of the chaos he was at peace. The journey continues to find home, wherever it may be.