It�s a beautiful day out, if a bit windy, but it�s a south wind, so it�s keeping the temperature at about fifty-something degrees. I had the sliding glass door open for a while just to get some fresh air into the apartment. It�s been quite some time since I was able to air the apartment out since it�s been really cold for the last couple of months. The niceness isn�t supposed to last, though. The meteorologists say that over the next several days the temperature is going to drop roughly thirty degrees. As much as I like this, I actually think I would prefer the grand dig-out that is taking place back home. I yearn for snow like that. Days when I can just curl up under a blanket on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book or a movie. As cooped up as I sometimes feel, knowing that it�s too dangerous to leave the house just has something to it.

Of course, when I was a kid and there were Nor�easters, we�d go out driving in it despite driving bans, but that�s a completely different kind of storm. Some beckon you to frolic and others put you in nesting mode, the primal baking instinct kicks in and you can�t seem to change out of your most embarrassing pajamas and big, fuzzy bear foot slippers. Blizzards may whip the sea, but the stinging of those tiny snowflakes driving into your eyes like toothpicks is too much discomfort for you to feel compelled to watch for long.

Nor�easters in October cause the wind to sing the song of the siren; beckoning you to leave your house whose windows you�ve so responsibly taped and risk the branches falling from the oaks. You drive to the most turbulent beach, too turbulent for proper swimming even on the calmest, clearest days and step out, trancelike, walking towards the shoreline. Sometimes you sit, allowing the moisture collected in the sand to soak through your jeans and make the skin of your ass cold and clammy. Sometimes you take your shoes off and walk along where the waves break, flirting with the surf and letting the wind whip your hair into a salty, greasy looking mess.

Rarely, you give in to the siren�s call and strip down to your scantest garments. You jump in, careful not to let the undertow drag you out. You�ve been told a million times how to escape the riptide, but you�ve never been confronted with it and are afraid that your mind will blank out and all memory of survival will dry up like so many falling, crackling autumn leaves. You remember Dyami, who went canoeing on the island�s South side and never came back. You remember Adam, Joey, and Fred, who were caught in a freak squall in Nantucket Sound and you remember their purple speckled faces, even below the heavy mortician�s makeup. They never found Sonny or the boat and these facts haunt you. They haunt you; they are the sirens calling; denizens of the water who eventually were taken by it and kept as its own.

But you, you swim, letting the waves crash into you, taking something from the water, instead of it taking from you and you emerge, sopping, cold, refreshed, and victorious. Back in the car, barefoot, bra and underwear soaking through your clothes, leaving the outlines of what you�ve just accomplished visible to any who may see you before you get home. Home, the gravel of the driveway pricking your tender soles as you walk to the shelter that lies behind the front door.

Into the bathroom, strip, into the shower, hot water pelting, leaving spank-red trails on your back. You stand in the deluge, satisfied.

Out, towel down, pajamas, tea, blanket, book.