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New York streets sizzle in the heat that refuses to end. Sweat pours incessantly, and sunglasses never suffice. We packed our belongings, picked up some strawberries and a higher SPF, and took a train to the end of the city.

School is out and the beach was crowded. Young girls dance around facebook-connected cameras and boys with their pants too low. Age-old games haven't changed and the shrieks and big talk sound the same now as they did back then, only ridiculous. Lifeguards hang on their whistles, vendors comb the beach with their ice-cold Coronas and questionable smoking materials. An old lady with an ice cream cart comes late in the afternoon, rings her bell. NYPD helicopters whip up a rip tide.

I leave the sweltering heat and walk into the sea. Walk past the throngs. Dive in.

And in an instant, all that noise, all that commotion, disappear. I hear no screams, no laughter, no City, no summer vacation. Underneath the surface, all is still. In the cool waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the world is diluted into the sound of grains of sand washed against each other by the tireless force of the sea. I dive again, and again, immersing my entire soul in its silence, stretching my limbs in underwater strokes. When I was younger, I could swim so much further without coming up for air.

I arise to the madness. A lifeguard whistles, motions for me to get back to the shore. I wade through the masses; my hair a little whiter, my skin a little darker. My soul floating away happily, to the ends of the earth.