My Ocean Angel Home

After I returned to the U.S. from my year abroad in France, my mother suggested that I go to a college preparatory school, which was also a boarding school, for the rest of my high school career. Though I cried to my mother to not let me go, I agreed in the end because I did not want to burden my mother any more than I felt I had. I did not have a car and would only have my mother give me a ride if she was on her way to work in the mornings, then pick me up later in the evenings unless I decided to walk home earlier. I thought about the bike in the garage, collecting dust from the months of neglect, but I’d always preferred walking.

Unlike my peers, I spent my summers mostly alone. The five-mile parameter around the neighborhood of Carlsbad, California became my sanctuary. There was not one, but many days, that I'd spend hours in the air-conditioned library, surrounded by computers and printers and books, then walked out to breathe in the air of sun. It was a solid five miles to the beach, but I had to go. My feet did not tire when they knew the sand and ocean would be the destination. 

I’d plug in my headphones as I walked and dreamed, not really paying attention to the honking horns or bikes passing me. I emerged myself in my own world. All I felt was the sun kissing my cheeks, music drumming in my ears, and the books weighing heavily in my beach bag: my friends. 

Before we moved to Southern California, I lived in Vancouver, Washington. A place that I did not care to ever go back to. But when we lived there, we would drive to the coast on the rare, warm weekends, and I’d run to the ocean as soon as my feet landed on the sand. My five younger siblings and I would splash each other with the freezing water, challenging each other to go further in to see if we could run faster than the waves. 

I was ten years old when we went too far in. The waves drew back, so I walked toward them, further and further away from my parents; my siblings followed me. I gracefully leaped on the wet sand, wondering if the waves would come back.

It wasn’t until we saw the wave. The monstrous one, the one that would surely collapse over us if we did not run fast enough. “Oh my god, run!” My mom screamed from behind. I hadn’t realized that she had followed us. Soon enough, the wave hovered over me, and I knew that I wouldn’t be fast enough. I braced myself, putting my arms above my head as the wave collapsed onto me. My body swirled in the powerful arms of the water, I reached for the surface and my head popped up just enough for me to gasp a lungful of air. The more I fought, the more the currents fought back.

I did not know how far I would end up, and if I’d be able to swim back. Would I be trapped in the ocean forever? Would my life so suddenly end like this? The salt stung my eyes and burned my throat. My lungs strained, so I let go of the oxygen left in me and stopped fighting against the water.

Before I could run out of breath again, my toes touched the bottom floor of sand. Water drained down from my head to toes, like I’d simply emerged my head in the bathtub. The waves carried me back to the shore. I was alive. The water, for whatever, had been forgiving toward me. I survived. When I looked ahead, my siblings trudged toward our spot with towels and water. They were able to run out in time. I smiled. I lifted my arms up and soaked in the sun. Though I shivered violently because the Pacific Ocean never ceased to be cold in the Northwest, something about the air warmed me up again. I could breathe. I would put on dry clothes and wrap a towel around myself, and I would be okay.

Three years later, I would not be okay. Because I’d be the only one to survive. And I could not understand why. I did not understand why the waves that should have taken me into the ocean brought me back, brought us back, only to give us three more years. But I knew this: when the ocean brought me back, I knew that I needed to be alive. No matter how close death would come for me, it would not reach me. And the ocean knew this, supported this––as if the water connected me to my present life. 

So as soon as my nose became aware of the salty wind ahead, I’d break into a run and jump into the hot sand. Nothing hugged me the way the blankets of sand at the Carlsbad beach. I drew myself toward the water, ready to cool my aching feet while the waves rolled in their rhythmic dance. After cooling my feet, I’d fish for a quiet spot to sit, somewhere between large rocks about a half-mile down the beach. I would lay out my towel on the sand and press my back against it. Golden rays of sun pierced my eyes, so I’d take out my book and hold it above my eyes to provide shade. I’d read until I needed to adjust my position––turned on my stomach, I would read for maybe another hour before putting my book down. My legs drew me toward the ocean, where the water would kiss my feet, then crash into my thighs as I walked further toward the waves. I did not care if my shorts were wet. I did not care about the salt scraping between my toes. I did not fear the ocean swallowing me whole, for I had survived and would survive. 

I was free. I was alone, but I was free. I was away from the past that burdened my shoulders nearly every day, away from the rain, clouds, and ghosts of my birthplace. At this beach, the memories of what I lost in the cold state of Washington melted away with the sun. I was no longer a sad, lost girl. I was home.