"Salt as Place" by Reba Kingston

Salt is what remains, coated on my lips after hours of surfing. Sea spray and sunshine blinding me on the trudge to deeper water. Paddle, tuck, jump, turn, weightless for a few glorious seconds, and then the slip back into the sea—salt water rushing through my sinuses as I fall backwards. A free nasal rinse, brought to you by pounding Tofino surf. I stay until my skin is puffy and waterlogged, my eyes stinging, my arms heavy. Bliss.

Salt and sun also blinded me when we rode the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. The world’s largest salt flat: white stretched out to infinity. There’s a tradition among cyclists that when bikepacking across the salt flats you do it naked. We happily peeled off our crusty clothes and pedalled with the sweet wind hitting everything. Salt slush sprayed up behind my rear tire and stung my back where it hit. It felt like we were riding on some far-off star—everything white and glowing, the horizon just a trembling blur of heat waves, my reflection mirrored underneath me.

When I was young, we lived on the prairies. We would feed the calves, letting them suck on our fingers until the entirety of our hands disappeared down their little throats. We gathered round the blue salt lick in the corner and took turns solemnly trying: sticking out our tongues for a taste.

My last first kiss tasted of salt. We were naked, appropriately so, sitting at Wreck Beach below UBC. Our hair was wet and tangled from the Pacific, and this girl kissed me. I looked around for any of my profs— we were clear—and then I kissed her back.