Waves at the Ocean

One comes in, stretches as high as it can reach along the sand, and then recedes in the thinnest rippling layer to meet the next waves, two foamy waves coming at angles from the sea, colliding so that there is a crash and two perpendicular waves too small to be capped with white go rolling away, and then another wave comes in bigger and faster and eats up the first set. Looking past this action you see the bigger waves, the parents of those making it to shore, crashing and breaking, rolling high and folding over themselves.

On the sand if you stand, the ground erodes beneath your feet. When you dig in the sand, the water held between the grains pools into your hole. Some places when you tap your foot the whole layer of sand goes up and down not like a footprint, but one whole sheet. It doesn’t hurt to run across shells because the sand accepts them into its heart just like it cushions your feet when you walk. Only the deeper, dryer sand higher up grabs at your feet and makes running a slippery, energetic action. You can try to jump over little waves as they come in, but you’ll be dryer to just stand and let the ever-varying water level lap around your legs. Deeper in as the waves come, you jump or dive or run. The waves push and pull and all you want to do is surrender, to have some way of floating on the waves so that you can go where they will.

No one ever described to me what the ocean feels like. It was more variety than power, but I was only on shore, and south where the waters are tame and ride up on beaches. In the north where they meet stone coasts, or in the middle of the ocean in a storm I think they would be different.

I tried to wash shells in the waves, but not only did water rush in and then quickly retreat, but sand also was pushed in by the water, simultaneously dropping the water level and raising the floor, so that when I dropped some shells, they were lost for good.

I screamed every time a big wave came and I jumped. There wasn’t fear, but delight and energy. The salt water and wind made my skin and hair happy. Life on the beach was almost perfect. A few hours felt like all day. We went two days. I was so glad.

To God be all glory.