I love the ocean. With its strong waves that push and pull and push and pull and go on for eternity. The way it breathes, the way it is alive. The ocean is calming and ever-changing, with a quick temper and the voice of your mother when she comforts you.
Its relentlessness inspires me. No matter the odds, it crashes over every obstacle in its way.
Sometimes I beg my father to take me to the ocean.
Dad, I haven’t seen it in so long, Dad, don’t you need a reminder that you’re not the only one in the world, Dad, I want to see if there are any tide pools, and he agrees and takes me.
On days when the tide is high I cannot walk the shore. Instead I stare at the water, pushing and pulling blue and gray and green until they swirl together and separate again. On days when the tide is low I run up and down the beach no matter the season, no matter the amount of people or birds, and pick up anything interesting I see.
My dad likes to tell me a story of when I was a baby and he took me to a side street by the ocean in the middle of a hurricane and held me up. A hurricane. I know you may think it is dangerous—and you’d be right—but he tells me that I giggled like my chest was filling with bubbles and swung my feet in the wind.
That I smiled the entire ride home.