Sunday Scribblings: Ocean

In early childhood we'd drive to Santa Monica and I wasn't allowed to look at the sun; there was tar on my feet, sand on the sandwiches, ghetto blasters so loud. I guess I almost drowned once or twice. In those days, it is less the ocean I remember, and more the drive home, curled up in a beach towel, salt shimmering in my mermaid hair, singing along with my dad, "We'll all be drinking that free bubble-up, and eating that rainbow stew."
and Josh stepped on a washed up piece of a boat and there was blood and talk of infection, a popsicle melted and dripped down my leg, we poked at anenomies and they stuck briefly to our fingertips before closing into themselves. But that was another beach, a field trip, I think.
Venice, the body builders and freaks and again that loud music, and so many layers of people between the shops and the ocean.
And then one sunday my mom and I went to Balboa Island and there was our future, literally glimmering before us. We took the ferry to the peninsula and two years later we were living there, in Newport Beach, and I'd go to the ocean nearly every day after school. I am like a very old beach fence in that way. Shaped and defined. All those hours at the ocean, the winds and the calm all molding me into this person I am now.
And then I left the ocean and have not been back, not for any extended time. And I miss it more than I can say. Sometimes, but only when I am at the ocean, I am astounded by my longing. Especially when I'm standing up on a pier, looking down at the water. It seems almost unreal. Magical, surely.
By the way, a friend of mine told me about a girl she knows who hates the ocean. Isn't that wonderful? I mean, how can you hate the ocean? what a strange character trait. I intend to use it some day in my fiction.
for more oceanic scribblings, go here.