Bahama Dreamin'

Yesterday, after Jimmy's fever broke, Jamey came to sit with him so that I could go to the apartment and change clothes. While Jimmy was so sick, I had hardly left the room except to go across the hall for ice, and although it was a cold and dreary Atlanta day, it felt good to get out of the hospital for a while, to be outside and get some fresh air.

It's lovely to sink into a bathtub full of hot water, to lie back and close your eyes and drift away, to a shiny blue day in the Abacos. You picture yourself on a reef at the north end of Great Guana Cay, not moving, just floating face down on the surface of the warm tropical waters; the only sounds you hear are your own slow breath through the snorkel and the rhythmic roll of the ocean.

A school of yellowtail snapper threads its way through purple coral fans that sway in the cooler currents that flow beneath you, and a sea turtle glides over an outcropping of staghorn coral. Brazen sergeant majors flaunt their black and gold stripes, dipping and darting past a shy Nassau grouper, camouflaged under a ledge. Two pairs, then three, of long waving antennae protrude from a crevice: lobsters; they're out of season, and know that they're safe for now.

Sea biscuits and sand dollars are scattered across a grassy spit, alongside conch shells and one lone spiny starfish. Large turquoise parrotfish lazily graze on the coral close by, their crunching audible under the water.

When I open my eyes, the water is cold, and and so is reality. But we'll go back. Before we know it, we'll be in the sunshine, listening to the steel drums, swimming in the Sea of Abaco again.