Life in Ink and Footsteps

One of the best things about Long Island was the fact that, for the first time in my life, I lived close to water. Czechia is famous for its lakes and natural reserves, but we don’t have any access to the sea. And I love it; I am a Cancer girl after all. I could jump and play in it or just let the waves carry me all day, every day. Funnily, I hate lying on a beach. It’s a hard combination. The best solution would be to purchase a house on the beach. Someone has money to spare? JK. Unless you do, in which case I am serious.

Once the weather started getting nice, I spent so many of my weekends at Jones Beach. One of those days, a Saturday at the end of June, I was there with Sunshine C., and we had so much fun. The waves were massive, borderline dangerous. So all we did was stand at the shore and let the waves hit us, competing to see which one of us could stand longer before being swept away. During one of these wave attacks, I got hit so hard that the water swept me, and for a moment, I got caught in the undercurrent. While trying to get out of it, I scratched my leg on something. I scratched it so much that most of the skin on my left shin was scraped, and the wound was bleeding profusely. It hurt like a bitch, so we decided to call it a day. If I were smart, I would have stayed home the next day and rested. But I never said I was, and rereading this diary makes me feel like I might have actually been missing some brain cells. On the other hand, because I wasn’t smart, we had more experiences. Let me get into it.

Sunday came, and the weather was glorious—just made for a trip to the beach, which is exactly what we did with Sunshine C. The waves were no longer crazy like the previous day, so we just swam and enjoyed the sun. Unfortunately, there was a lot of debris in the water, and even though the current was no longer as strong, I fell a few times trying to get out of the water. And yes, I fell straight onto the leg, which was sore. But hey, I was raised in a post-communist country; a little scratch won’t get me. By late afternoon, I had to admit, the pain was starting to bother me, and there seemed to be a lot of sand and some algae in the wound, which I was sure wasn’t the best thing. So, to the car we went, and right as we were changing, we got approached by two Black men. One of them was mind-blown by C. and politely started a conversation with her. I and his friend were kind of just awkwardly standing a bit aside, waiting to see what the two main heroes were going to do or not. And while we were there, we chatted a bit, asked questions—you know how it goes. Until we realized we were having a lot of fun on our own. We kind of lost track of time and were laughing pretty hard when Sunshine called out to me to go home, that she was ready. This young man—let’s call him BeachBoyT—asked for my number, and I was happy to give it to him. Sunshine C. didn’t share my sentiment; she wasn’t interested in the boy that approached her at all. I thought that BeachBoyT was just being polite or something. I had learned my lessons about dating and meeting men in America—how cool they seemed, all sweet, and then they ditched you. But I got a message from him while still driving home, and it pleased me deeply. He was funny and interesting, working in Jersey for some tech company, originally from Nigeria. Very handsome as well.

What did not please me was my leg. I tried to wash the sand, salt, and something out of it at home, but it hurt too much, and I didn’t want to touch that open wound. It was too gross. So I just poured a bit of water on it and let it be. By day three, it got red, hot, and swollen. Around the deepest gash was a disgusting yellow pus. Yeah, infection. I was still brave and was giving it time to heal on its own until I could barely step on it the next day. That’s when the mum of the family told me I wasn’t being brave but stupid and that I needed to go to the emergency room unless, of course, I wanted to get blood poisoning and lose the leg. I have no idea if that was a real threat or if she made it up to persuade me, but she was successful. Not only that, she scared the shit out of me. So off I went to our local clinic. The doctor who took care of me was a sweet elderly man with a friendly attitude, kind of like your grandpa. He asked what was going on, and I could see he thought I was being a drama queen until I uncovered my leg. Then he just looked at me and asked how on earth I had been walking around with this for so long. I don’t know, bro, I just did. My momma didn’t raise a crybaby. Lies, all lies. I did cry there. Because the first thing that had to be done was to actually clean the wound. The best way to do it? Scrub the hell out of it. I could see he was trying to be gentle, but in all honesty, getting sand and algae out of an infected open wound with a sponge-like instrument will not be painless no matter how much you try. And so I cried. Silently, like a big girl. But crocodile tears were running down my cheeks. After the hell was done, he put some antibiotic ointment on it and gave me a prescription for more. By the way, can someone explain to me why are medicaments so expensive? I paid like 25 bucks for that! Anyway. The doctor’s orders were: If it didn’t start healing in a day or two and was still hot, I was to come back to get oral antibiotics. Thankfully, the cream helped, and there was no need to return. I still have a scar on that leg. It’s just a tiny little line now where the deepest cut was, but I’ll remember this one for a while.

The important thing to say: it didn’t stop me from going to the beach and spending most of the summer there.

And to follow the fun summer vibes –
Electric Light Orchestra – Mr. Blue Sky