Half past beach o'clock.

When it's time for me to have some beach time, my body can tell.

And recently, I've been feeling something unsettled in me. Today, I finally named it. It's time. It's been time, beach o'clock, for a while now. I have been needing to touch a body of water, taste the salt. And I just identified this need today, while I was writing to Caleb.

Then, I realized something else. It's Rosh Hashanah tonight. The Jewish New Year. No one said "Shana Tova"; no one said anything until I got an "e-card" from my family from Turkey and Israel.

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"On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, after the afternoon services, Jews visit a body of water or pond, containing live fish*, to symbolically "cast away" their sins into the river.

*The fish's dependence on water symbolizes the Jews dependence on G-d, as a fish's eyes never close, G-d's watchful eyes never cease."

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I am a cultural Jew. I don't practice every custom, only the ones I grew up with in Turkey. And we didn't grow up visiting a body of water on Rosh Hashanah. But somehow, my body knows its religion, it seems.

Maybe I'm making this up. I can't explain it. Science can't explain it either, but there IS something there:

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"An average adult body is 50 to 65 percent water -- that's roughly 45 quarts.

Water content differs throughout the body. Blood is made up of 83 percent water, bones are 22 percent water, and muscle is 75 percent water."

***

Either way, I find this epiphany about my/my body's need to be by the water beautiful.

Sunday. Beach.

I'll bring in the new year right.