Summer has approached with little warning, and so I find myself with months upon months to do nothing, like blank page after blank page in a book. Yesterday I went to the beach with Carrie. It's curious how much I disliked the ocean just months ago, how I hated the sea life lurking in the threads of waving seaweed and beneath the sand, and couldn't stand being hot and feeling the salt become sticky and dry on my body until my skin tightened and you could brush my face and a fine white dust would come off. But now I find its wildness comforting and its nature beautiful. I like hunting for shells in low tide, when giraffe fish glide under the shallow, lapping waves and crabs climb out of the sand and clap their claws. I like how the water is different colors the farther away it reaches the horizon or the shore, how it changes from blue to green to emerald and, when the sun is gold in the late afternoon, tinged with violet. I like how the withered trees bend and the dunes roll away into untended brush, and I like how the wind blows just enough to ruffle the feathers of sea birds. Once we went out far along the shore and a flock of large brown birds with orange feet, white faces, and curious aqua eyes stopped together on a sandbar to sun themselves. I got so close to one I could have reached out and touched it, but they merely blinked, rose into the air lazily, and floated back down into the ocean a little ways ahead. They were funny to see, because when they walked their webbed feet smacked wetly on the sand. I like it when the day is gray and rain clouds hang just threatening enough to block the sun, and the sea is misty and downtown in the distance is shrouded. We found a large conch shell once, orange and pink and with white markings, but it had a live conch inside so we had to eventually throw it back. The same day we found a smaller one, but inside that was a hermit crab, its little eyes poking out of the shell opening. I like the cry of the gull and floating on the tops of the waves and having them wash over my face and I have to splutter and wipe my eyes, but most of all I like looking out and seeing nothing but water, blue and moving and welcoming, somehow.
I like how for centuries people before us have swam in the sea and caught the fish and felt the sun beating down and turning skin brown and hair light, and I like dunking my head beneath the water and feeling the thrill of the unknown.