Vignette: Shore Dweller

This was inspired by nostalgia for my twenty years in Florida. Even in the Midwest I find myself within sight and sound of the river. I really *am* a shore dweller.

     I like living by the water. I've never been a beach person, really. I don't like baking on the sand. Heat simply exhausts me in an unpleasant way. Neither am I a sailor. I do well enough on boats but have no enthusiasm for them. Zipping about on fast boats seems pointless, I don't care one way or other about fishing, and as a means of transportation, there's usually a better way. 
     The thing I like is the smell and the sight of the ocean. Even a large enough lake incites in me the feelings that I enjoy. There's a "connectedness" to the shores of a large body of water that draws me to it. It is at the shore that the earth takes definition. If there were only sea, the world would be formless. If there were no sea, the earth would be a less auspicious place, and more aptly named. 
     Stand at the edge of the ocean and here is food, here is animal life in tremendous variety, here is vegetation, shade, and the confluence of climate that is most desirable. I read once that more than eighty-seven percent of the human race lives within fifteen kilometers of running water. We are shore dwellers. I am.