Apr 14, 2004 00:01
I remember I used to live by the ocean.
We would take trips to the sea and I would gather shells and look for cigarette butts and perfectly round stones to show my father. We packed sandwiches and trusted our blanket neighbors with our wallets, we took walks where I would try to fit my feet into my father's footprints before they dissapeared by the water, before they became effemeral memories of the sand. Like those pin boxes that you stick your face into and try to make it perfect but remember that its all repeatable, it will be the same the next time you look at it. Anna and I would look at the dead jellyfish and poke them with our toes we would pop the seaweed and she used to swim with me. My mother lost her sunglasses in the water and she had to drive home by me repeating a string of stop sign yeild sign red light green light theres a car behind you. I went with a buggy board out very far so far that the shore repeated itself, you could stand out there so it looked like you were walking on the water, and I was nervous because I was with a strange man and the shore was very far away and I felt small.
The water is rough, choppy, the seasalt gets in your nose and makes your snot salty, you are dared to open your eyes and it burns but it is beautiful regardless. This is not florida ocean where it is like swimming in a salty lake.
My father got stuck in the undertoe and he can't swim. I was scared and couldn't get out of the water to save him, to get my mother for help.
The lifeguard came in and grabbed him under his armpits.
I haven't gone in the ocean, the real rough ocean, since.
It all lost its magic.
I used to swim in pools once we moved, but I hate that now, its too manufactured, too perfect, to clean, too sterilized, too guarded, too obvious. You scrape your foot on the bumpy white edges when there should be no edges, there should only be soft sand and fish. I love to look up from underneath and watch the light, I would block all the sound out and all the people. I could float forever just thinking and looking up. People that go to pools didn't go there for the same reason I did, they went there to be in shape, to do laps, to have competitions with the others in the same lane to see who could get around the slow chick first to snag her spot in line.
I was never competative.
I went to an elementary school right beside the ocean, i used to watch the surfers in class and hear the ocean sounds in the summer. We took trips to the boardwalk, and once, my best friends and I snuck out to go dip our feet in the water. I could watch the sunset everyday since we got out of school at 5:30, and later on, at 6:30.
I miss it terribly.
But it wouldn't be the same.
These past weeks have been hard. I have been stuck inside memories and trying to push aside certain things that I haven't confronted yet because I'm not sure if I want to do it, i'm not sure if I'm ready for it.
I feel so...given up on, forgotten, unimportant, and stupid.