I was cold. The Pacific water temperature in March is in
the mid-fifties; the surrounding water was constantly
pulling heat from my body. It was like being wrapped up
in a warm blanket on a snowy day and then having someone
pull the blanket off. To overcome the heat loss, I had
to swim at a rate fast enough to create heat, but still
my skin always felt cold; it was as cold as the water. I
could feel the cold working its way deep into my
muscles.
An offshore breeze carried the warm sweet smells of
smoky bacon and fried eggs, buttery pancakes, and the
rich acidic aroma of brewing coffee across the water. I
had been swimming for more than an hour and my stomach
was grumbling loudly. All I had to do was reach the
north jetty, turn around, and swim the last half mile
back to the pier and then I'd be finished with my
workout.
I I was starting to relax, stretching out my arms, feeling
my hands and arms pulling the thick water, feeling the
rotation of my shoulders and core, and the light kick of
my feet. My body was slipping through the water like
silk sliding across ultrasmooth skin. My breaths were
long and easy, and I felt good: I was back into my pace,
moving with the flow of all creation. Everything was in
sync, the currents flowing around me, the song of the
ocean, the breeze—except everything below was strangely
still.
All the fish had disappeared.
Lifting my head, I looked to my right and then to my
left. I couldn't see anything. I put my face back down,
and stared into the water through clear goggles. It was
like looking into a well at midnight. I couldn't see
anything, but I knew something was there.
The water began shaking harder than before and I was
being churned up and down as if I was swimming through a
giant washing machine. The water shifted, and I was
riding on the top of a massive bubble. It was moving
directly up from below, putting out a high-energy
vibration. I felt like there was a spaceship moving
right below me. I had never felt anything this big in
the water before.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with...
From the first page, I was drawn in by the lyrical writing of the author and mesmerized as the narrator, eight year old Raami, remembered the years...
read more
Trite but true, all good things must come to an end. I so wanted to keep reading the wonderful prose, the settings that let one think they are part...
read more
A magical book, an enchanted house, a cast of characters who previously lived there but remain on the walls in photographs to be talked to whenever...
read more
Kenn Nesbitt is new Children's Poet Laureate(Jun 12 2013) Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position...
Full Story
