英語雑記：海で泳いだのは何年ぶり？

先週、もうすぐ5歳になる息子と一緒に海に行きました。いつもは波打ち際を裸足で歩くくらいだったんですが、この時は、水泳用のトランクスを着てがっつり海に入ったんです。海に浮かんだのは何年ぶりでしょう・・？大人になると、ある種の人は、ある時を境にぱったりと海に入ることがなくなります。使ってる歯磨き粉のブランドが特に意識することなくちょくちょく替わっていくかのように、気づいたらもうなんとなく海に入らなくなっているんです。そういう現象って、何か名前がついていたりするんですかね？

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I can't remember when the last time I swam in the sea. For all these decades, here and there, I had walked around some beaches but only putting my foots into the shallow place. But this time, at last week, I put my body all inside the sea. Warm, salty water. Hot sun. Meandering waves. Humid breeze. Seaweeds which entangling around my foots. I felt like being an little organism embedded into a huge organic system. When the last time I felt like that?

It was my son who took me to the sea. In the scorching afternoon of temperature going up to 35 degrees Celsius, we had no good activity to do in the house with no air-conditioner. Then my son suggested "Let's get out to play". I started to think no way, but something hit my mind. Sea. it was only 15 minutes away by bicycle. So we wore the bathing suits, put towels and clothes into the bag, and left our house by bicycle carrying a swim ring on my back.

There are three beaches lined up along the long coast. We chose the most cheap one with no shops and cafes. Toilet, shower room, washing place. That's all we could see as the facility. Well, nothing matters. All we wanted is sea. At first, my four years old son didn't step into the sea, scaring wave that coming one after another. So I carried him in my arm, went toward to offshore, and put him amid the swim ring. Voila. Floating, drifting on the water surface, he was exciting, no longer being afraid. It's a shallow coast, so he could touch the sand by his foot. Every time the wave came, we jumped. He seemed really has a fun. And me too. What a feeling soaking my body into the waving sea. It almost had been forgotten. The real texture of great nature.

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遠浅の海ってほんとにいいです。特に子供がいると圧倒的な安心感があります。それにしても、どこまで行ったら深くなるんだろう？いつか確かめてみたいと思います。