Sun on my skin

I love the warmth of sun on my skin on a cool day. Like the feeling of getting into a car that’s been sitting in the sun, and you’re kind of chilly when you’re outside but you open the door and climb into a cocoon of gold warmth. That’s how I love the sun on my skin too. It feels golden, and it makes me feel golden and healthy.

I fell asleep thinking of lying in the sun on a warm boat deck, my cheek pressed against white fiberglass as the boat cut through water, the sound of the sea slapping the hull, the ocean the color of sapphires, the sun warm and bright, me smiling with white teeth.

Then I thought of lying on the trampoline on the catamaran in Kauai, watching the Pacific Ocean stream beneath us, my eyes trying to penetrate its blue depth. My body swayed up and down, gently, with the movement of the boat over waves.

I worry about my skin for sailing. I don’t know how I would deal with the sun. I want to be in the light, but melanoma is strong in my family, and I’ve got the skin for it. When I daydream about sailing, the light is strong, the sea is blue, the boat is white, and we are brown. It is a vital scene, a healthy, alive scene. Not a melanoma scene.

After several years of multiple biopsies each time I visited the dermatologist, and after my free facelift, I’m happy to report that I’ve had no biopsies the past two visits. Was a childhood spent on boats and beaches worth the slicing in later years? Was it worth the future risk? I’d have to say yes.

For the month of April, I will be publishing a 10-minute free write each day, initiated by a prompt from my prompt box. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.