November Morning in Ghana
I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as if I had wings.
Cape Coast, 2010
The fishermen here begin early. Before the sun even thinks of rising, they’re out there—bare silhouettes hauling in nets like it’s nothing. It’s Tuesday, the day they’re not supposed to fish, but a few boats dot the horizon anyway, gently bobbing in the Atlantic like they didn’t get the memo.
I sit alone on the beach west of Cape Coast, watching this quiet churn of labor and life. The sand is coarse, almost gravelly, but clean—surprisingly clean. Here and there, the ocean leaves behind its evidence: seaweed ribbons, a cracked bottle cap, a lone flip-flop with no mate. Still, it’s not detritus in the apocalyptic, plastic-choked way I’m used to. It feels like the sea simply dropped a few things in a hurry.
Tiny transparent crabs flit across the sand, scurrying sideways with the kind of anxious energy I usually reserve for boarding flights and replying to emails. They start slow—then dart like they’ve remembered something urgent. I relate.
Several boys from the village splash in the surf, laughing, body-slamming waves like old friends. It’s the first time I’ve seen Ghanaians swimming in the ocean, and it’s oddly comforting. Last night, the five of us plunged into that same water at dusk, the sea warm and briny and honest after a long, hot day. My muscles had sighed with gratitude.
Today will be another marathon. We’re all exhausted. Angie is weary from the heat, the schedule, the relentless demand of movement. Truthfully, so am I. Especially the heat—it clings to me like a damp argument I can’t win.
Adrian, poor soul, is sleeping in the most public room in the house, somehow surviving. I’d have staged a quiet mutiny by now, slipped away under cover of darkness. But we push on. Two more days and the week might just be survivable.
And then there’s Maxwell.
He appears beside me with no warning, wearing nothing but a Speedo and a grin that could part clouds.
“Good morning!” he bellows, arms flung wide like a Broadway sunrise. “Today is marvelous! Can you believe this? No, no, no—this day is not to be missed. We will sap every last drop from it, and you can write it all in your little book!”
He plants his feet in the sand, chest to the sun, a living monument to unselfconscious joy.
And for a moment, I’m jealous—not of his Speedo (which is brave, but not envy-inducing), but of the way he lives so unapologetically. I want that. To laugh aloud, sing to the sea, run straight into the waves like I belong there.
But I’m feeling small this morning. Timid. Tucked into myself like a letter never sent.
A distant bleating cuts through the air.
Sheep?
I turn to see a shepherd leading a flock—forty or so wooly bodies—right through the middle of the resort compound. They part around lounge chairs and confused tourists like they own the place. Which, in a way, they do.
Back home, someone would be shouting from a patio, “Hey! Keep your sheep off my lawn!”
But here, sheep go where sheep go. The land belongs to the living, not the fences.
This place—it is unvarnished reality, the western world stripped away. Which is somehow calming. There is no guessing at what you are getting. Just an honest life. Challenging no doubt, but in a way that casts off the clutter of life back home.
I decide Maxwell is right. Life's too short to live timidly. And the surf's too inviting, the call too
irresistible to bother with swimwear.
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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