Stung

Knee deep in the La Jolla Pacific, I feel a gentle slice on top of the second toe on my left foot. So gentle in fact that I’m surprised to see blood. Hunh. Wading out to get a better look, a half inch cut bleeds copiously. Foot above heart to slow the flow, I rest it on a boulder and it starts to sting. Ray? I’ve stepped on them, but never been stung. I look around. I’m north of the Scripps pier, away from humans.

I need to get my saline on, so I enter the sea again and lie down in the shallows. The wound starts to bleed, lazily. Out of water the pain increases, so I breathe and limp, limp and breathe, south toward civilization, ocean licking my toes. I pass a lifeguard stand, but the sand is deep. I want to keep the injury clean, and it hurts too much to yell. Onward then, another quarter mile.

The private lockable shower is free, so I strip and rinse, keeping the jets away from directly hitting the cut. Cold. Knives. Pressure. Breathe. After changing into dry clothes, I sit on a stone bench right outside. The thought of walking any more is unbearable. The pain is not diminishing, oh no, but intensifying. Tears track down my cheeks. Help. I need help.

Folks come and go from the bathhouse, but none make eye contact, and I’m unable to raise my voice above a whisper. It takes all my energy to breathe. Help. Please help. Long minutes pass.

A maintenance truck pulls up to the curb, lights flashing, and the driver steps out and walks toward me. Sees me. When he angles closer, I force out, “I think I’ve been stung by a ray.” Misnomer. Bludgeoned, more like. “Please get the lifeguard.”

He immediately hops back in the truck and drives to the tower. An eternity later he returns and tells me they’re on their way. “You’ll be okay,” he assures me, telling me he’s been stung too. “The pain,” he says. Yes. It’s amazing. “It only gets worse.” Wonderful.

“How long?” I ask, not even trying to hide my weeping.

“An hour,” he says.

Sweet Jesus.

The lifeguard arrives, Jesse, and holds my hand to his truck, parked nearby. He too has been stung, on the hand. “Hot water,” he says, “as hot as you can stand.”

At the tower, another lifeguard fills a bucket by a wooden bench. I sit and put my throbbing foot in. And the pain seeps away. Now I weep with relief, and the guards nod. Jimmy the bucket-filler has been stung three times.

It takes awhile. When the water cools, the pain returns, so I dump the bucket and use a special hose to refill it, again and again. My other foot joins in occasionally, enjoying the warmth. We’ve been on the road awhile and it’s been mostly cold showers and a very cold sea.

Now I understand addiction in a whole new way. Pain is mind-altering, narrowing your focus until you cannot think of anything else. So many tolerate incredible pain, and you just want it to go away. Relief feels like a benediction.

The fallout from my mother’s transition was excruciating, my entire family sliced away. I am still limping, my foot slightly swollen. But the pain is diminishing, and my focus is widening. What is that on the horizon? Joy.