The Beach. Oh, the beach. 

You can’t be a kid and love it, not if you grew up in Florida and got sunburns or accidentally wore tennis shoes to the beach and couldn’t leave when you wanted. 

But I’m 38 now and I understand the spiritual overwhelm that you feel when your eyes break on the waves. 
When I was 23, a roommate emphasized “Oh, I love the ocean.” She said it in passing, suiting up to ride her bike to class and probably left me there thinking “I hate the ocean. What is wrong with me?” I was fresh off the boat to adulthood, I had seasonal depression in Seattle and a Bachelor of Arts in theatre with a nanny job and a theatre internship while I was reliant on the bus system for the first time in my life. What did I know of ocean? 

But I’m 38 now and I can drive to the ocean and leave when I want. I can drive to Mexico, present my passport, and keep driving until my toes hit the sand. 

I met Albana at an immigration shelter two months ago. We were both volunteering there. She was 29, and I was 37. A few weeks ago she invited me to go speed dating together in Phoenix in 107 degrees at 5pm. (We are both still on the market). Two weeks later she turned 30 and I turned 38, but we did not know we shared a birthday week. After a hot yoga class, both of us drenched and standing under the Phoenix sun clutching our mats, she invited me on her solo beach road-trip. I convinced her to go to Mexico instead of San Diego and we planned it. Puerto Peñasco (Rocky Point) is not my favorite beach in Mexico. Let me rephrase, it is my least favorite beach in Mexico. But it’s the closest. And ain’t that the way: the best dudes are not the accessible ones. The ones you go see are the ones who are available.

On our second morning there in Rocky Point, myself on summer vacation from teaching and Albana taking a week off from the OR, we went to Playa Bonita. It means pretty beach. We went early before the humid hate ate us alive. We both screened up royally with SPF 50+. I noticed that she liked laying in the warm sun, and I liked traversing the rocks and looking for treasures. 

When I was 10, my dad turned back to reach for my hand and a wave came and wiped his glasses clean off his face. He scrambled to grab them under the water but they were gone. It was a loss we didn’t want to afford on a pastor’s budget.

The ocean suffers no fools. And if you can be alongside it and remember that you, too, can be soft like the sandbar and heavy like the waves, maybe you’re learning how to win, too. Or maybe when you look at the ocean, you are baptized by the unspoken joy that you chose an unspeakable wonder like the ocean to visit. And you made it there. You packed your sunscreen and beach toys and you endured the slings and arrows of the journey without asking why. The “why” was the ocean. 

And as Albana laid out on her towel in the aggression of desert sun, I took to thinking. (The ocean is a progenitor of metaphors and I am a hungry womb for meaning). I saw the foamy, sea clouds that formed (why does the ocean seem soapy?) and I thought about how I am the Great Giant in the Sky to these tiny crabs. They can’t know that I don’t want to hurt them (but they trust that the ocean doesn’t want to? Because they choose to stay? Or what choice do they have?) And I wanted to send a message to them that I just wanted to watch, that I wouldn’t disturb them. I thought of Toy Story: “The Claaaaw.” The soapy colonies floated over them atop the surface of the water and I wondered if they looked up at the those soapy, floating wonders and called them clouds in Crab Language. The thing is, crabs live in shells and that is crazy to me because a shell is literally a Tiny Home. Scratch that, it’s more like a backpack. 

The crabs were so alive that hot morning. The view from my eyes all the way up on my giantess head looking down below revealed an unwarranted symphony of crab legs doing their darnedest to stay or leave as the waves disturbed their fighting chance. I couldn’t tell where they were going. And why? Maybe it was that they were looking for food. #relatable And so they had to leave their caves inside the rocks and crawl out and pilgrim to another cave. What do crabs eat, man? The thing is, the language barrier between American English Human and Mexican Crab is so significant that DuoLingo didn’t even touch it. Do crabs fall in love? 

I looked back at Albana. The sun is not a factor you can forget about here. I need to tell you that the sand was SO HOT and the sun was SO STRONG that retuning to my towel from the watery breeze was a calculated risk every time, and something to be avoided. I couldn’t understand the universe between us, Albana and I: her choice for the towel life and my choice for crab telepathy. But I chose the cooler option. I don’t know: weren’t we trying to escape the heat of Phoenix? 

I sideways smiled, probably not at all detectable to the crabs or an iPhone selfie, but enough for me to feel it in my soul. I sideways smiled because Albana and I both grew up in Florida. I suppose we both came back to what we knew, the chaos of the ocean, on the heels of a new birthday year. 

And I understand it now. The ocean is the opposite of forever, but it never ends. It breaks down everything it touches, even my skin and mosquito bite scar on my ankle. And it swallows your anxiety about the future or despondence about the past. It makes you stop and breathe and forget yourself. And that’s why it’s a wonder: it’s the opposite of a mirror. And I can leave when I want.