O is for Ocean
I grew up not far from the beach, but we didn't really go that often. Probably because we are all very pale, there were three children younger than me, and my mom's idea of relaxation is not six children on a beach. (I don't blame you, mom.) As we got older, my brothers surfed practically every morning in the summer, and a couple of times a week during the rest of the year. Once or twice, I tagged along with a friend and sat on the beach or be acted as the "quick, stand in that parking space" person, or the runner back to the NB parking meter, but I didn't really develop my love for the ocean until I was about to leave for college. Maybe it was because then I could drive, and when you're a teenager and things are going bad, you want someplace to think or you need somewhere to hang out with a crowd and be noisy, the beach is just a really good place to go.
Well, the water in the California portion of the Pacific is cold, in case you don't know, and so when you're an 88-pound 16-year-old with protruding ribs and elbows so sharp they could put an eye out, the cold ocean is not that relaxing for actual swimming purposes. But the sound? Perhaps the most dreamy thing I can think of. When we'd go to Hawaii, we'd actually swim in the warm water and go out past the sandbar to where your feet don't touch anymore. I always remember thinking that, in a way, when you're suspended in the ocean like that, you've sort of left the world behind. You can be in the ocean, look back at the land, and think, that's where everyone and everything I know is. And here I am out here, not touching any of it. (Am I weird or what.) It's amazing how far away the shore can look when you're just a hundred yards out into the swells, and I absolutely love that feeling.
Now we only live about 30 miles from the coast. Well, the beach here is completely different in so many ways (most of them bad). The water is warm, at least. Like bathtub warm, but no matter where you go, waves crashing on the beach sound the same. So when we're down there at the coast, I can close my eyes and listen and it immediately relaxes me. All I can say is, when I get to heaven, there better be an ocean. I should say IF. IF I get to heaven. Excuse my prideful presumptousness.
photo from flickr
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8 comments:
when i was getting ready to have mabel, and was practicing all of my natural birthing techniques, i would imagine myself lying in the warm sun on the sand with a nice breeze and the sound of the waves at newport. i really thought it would get me through labor. it probably would have if things had turned out differently.
sometimes i would go to the beach by myself instead of seminary and zero period. i think it freaked mom out.
That is my favorite sound too. When we lived on the beach, I opened my window almost every night and loved my little lullaby of waves. So relaxing.
And anytime I need to relax or calm down or fall asleep, I imagine myself at the beach too!
like stephanie, i often "go to the beach", and especially when getting the epidurals.
there's nothing like a hawaii beach - amen to the beach request for heaven.
Ahh. Another perfect post.
your description of how it feels to be out in the ocean is perfect. well spoken and completely true in every aspect.
I have always felt the Cold ocean water of California was some kind of cruel joke.
love the suspended in the ocean description. the ocean is so wonderful!
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