The Ocean
The next day’s drive to the beach was beautiful. The sun hung in the air, and the lushness of the forrest turned into sand dunes and tall grasses. I kept straining my eyes to see the ocean for the first time and when I saw it sparkling in the distance for the first time, as we crested a low hill, I gave an audible gasp.
“It’s beautiful. Just like...” I trailed off, remember to leave the rest of that sentence unspoken.
“Just like what?” Alex asked me, staring it down.
“Just like...diamonds, or the way the stars fell the night of the flash.”
“Man, you really love the ocean. We’re still miles away, too.”
“Look how big it is!”
“Yup, so big. No one has ever been to the end of it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s one of those great mysteries of Hel.”
“I had no idea.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of funny. Hel is a chain of islands, I think. Really, really big ones, floating in the middle of an endless ocean.”
We drove forward, towards an ocean that sparkled like it had been woven with silver and blue thread, and I fell silent after awhile, watching it loom bigger and bigger before me.
Alex parked his car a short distance from the beach and I ran onto the sand, not even bothering to put the shoes I had taken off in the car back on.
“Ow!” I stuttered, hopping. I had no idea the sand would be hot. No one had told me and I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Careful, Autumn. The sand is hot.” Alex laughed, tossing me my shoes. I laughed and left them in the sand by the car and bolted towards the water. Instinctively I knew it would cool the bottoms of my burned feet and I wasn’t wrong.
The ocean was marvelous. I had no idea that there could be something so lovely. I waded in halfway up to my knees, and felt the toss and pull of the waves and I let them move my legs back and forth. My feet sunk in the sand under the water, and the coolness of it soothed what I had burned just a minute before. In the distance I saw tiny boats sailing, and off to my right, behind a stone break, people were bobbing and paddling, waiting for the next wave to pull them in.
“We’re heading there this afternoon, right?”
“Yep, there some people who I called that said they’d be more than happy to teach you how to surf.”
“Awesome!”
“I’m going to lose you to the ocean, I think. You’re going to become a professional beach bum.”
“Maybe!” I exclaimed, grinning.
I surfed all day with an old friend of Alex’s. Alex read books and magazines about recording quality on the beach and waved to me. When I made it to the shore on my first break he stood and cheered.
“Autumn!” He cried. “You’re a natural!”
“She is!” his friend agreed. “Seriously! Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”
I smiled at the praise they were giving me. “Yep, this is my first time!” My wet hair hung in my face in strands, the saltwater tangling them together, and I pushed it back haphazardly.
Within a half hour I had figured out how to paddle out, wait for a break, ride it in, and push myself up to standing. I didn’t have the upper body strength required to surf for long stretches of time so I’d take a break and sit on the sand with Alex, recover, and then head back out to the place the other surfers were congregating in the water. We’d watch the waves come and and if I saw them go for one I’d try to catch it too. Even if my body still had the muscle memory embedded deep in its fibers I didn’t have the technical know how to know what waves to go for and what to leave alone.
When I was completely done I went to the little shack on the beach, grabbed a shower, and changed into dry clothes. I let the sun warm me back up and dry my hair. Alex set up the tent on the beach and staked his claim with his silly flags again, this time camping close to a bunch of other surfers on the beach. Instead of building our own fire he offered to set up the fire for everyone else.
“You’d better let him do it,” I explained to them, grinning. “He’s a pro at this camping thing.”
“Yeah?” one of them said.
“Yeah, and he at least feels useful after sitting there like a lump all day.”
They laughed, “Tomorrow you’ll have to come out with us.”
“No sir, I have no interest in that!” he grinned. In no time at all he had a bonfire going, and the whole beach, it seemed, came to sit around it and watch the stars come out, one by one.
In that moment, everything was perfect. Alex’s flags fluttered with crisp sounds in the breezes that came off the ocean. The accents of all of the surfers and people on the beach in the evening mixed and mingled, food was passed around and shared, drinks were brought out of coolers, and the fire burned late into the early hours of the morning.