When I was little, I spent 90% of my beach time in the water. When I was in elementary school and middle school I used to write most of my short stories about something that happened to me while I was on a beach vacation. I thought I was a budding Virginia Woolf when I used phrases like, "The cool blue ocean's waves lapped at the curved side of the bright green inner-tube", but really I was just a grade schooler overusing adjectives and the synonym button in Microsoft Word.
There is a foggy memory that comes to mind as I think about these stories I wrote about going to the beach as a youngin'. We went down to the Outer Banks with my Uncle Ken's family. He and my Dad took my cousins (Tim and Melissa), brother (Matt), and I in an inner-tube out to the "deep part". I remember being terrified because I knew I wouldn't be able to touch the bottom should I fall off the tube. What my cousins and brother probably remember to be a fun time bobbing over the waves, I remember as a terrifying journey out to where you could no longer see the shore, and to where the waves crashed against the tube on all sides. It had begun to storm just as we were trying to get back into shore. My Uncle and Dad fought the strong current but were growing tired. Suddenly, my cousin Tim was pulled under. My Uncle Ken dove in after what appeared to be a shark fin, but he and my cousin never resurfaced. As I looked around for my Dad, the sinking realization that he had also drowned in the deep water hit me. Then, out of no where, a huge wave smacked the side of the tube, knocking Matt and Melissa off the tube and into the dark watery abyss below. My cousin and brother were lost to Davy Jones' locker. I was the only one left clinging to the tube for dear life until, hours later, I washed up on shore miles away from our beach site, sobbing and out of breath. I knew the proceeding weeks I would spend trying to survive the wilderness while searching for the rest of my family and coping with the loss of the others.
Seeing that my Dad, Uncle, brother, and cousins are all still alive, none of this probably happened. Like I said, my memory of the actual part where we took an inner-tube out to sea is very foggy. Like, the whole thing was probably just a dream. Yeah. Definitely a dream. But to make my point from before, that is how I wrote my short stories in 7th grade english class.
The OBX trip I just returned from was actually very peaceful and much needed. I think as you get older, the point of vacation is just to relax. When you're young, vacation is more of cram-as-much-fun-as-you-can-into-the-short-amount-of-time-that-you're-out-of-that-jail-they-call-school. But this vacation was nice. I got to see my Uncle Tom's family on the last few days we were there and that was nice because we usually only see them once or twice a year since they live in Michigan. We spent the last beach day together out bobbing the waves. My cousin, Sam, brought his beer can out with him, but just has he came out, a big wave was about to cap on us. We all looked at Sam and his open beer can and felt sorry that it was about to be filled with salt water, then dove under the wave. When we resurfaced Sam had told us, "No worries! I put my hand over top of it and went under. Whatever works, you know?" So typical of someone in my engineer-wired-brain dominated family. I love hanging out with them.
The rest of the week was filled with eating delicious crabs, paddle boarding, sun tanning (although I think I may have actually just gotten whiter- if that's possible), puzzling, snow cones, and other family fun. It was definitely much needed.
My title is something one of my Uncles once told me. It's one of my earliest memories about going to the beach so I must've been pretty young. I was digging for sand fleas and mussels in the sand in that wet area the waves reach after they crash on shore. My Uncle chuckled and told me "Don't you know never to turn your back to the ocean?" I scoffed and ignored him and continued to dig. That only lasted for 5 minutes because sure enough a larger than average wave broke a little too close to where I was digging and knocked me right off my feet. I tumbled around in the surf and washed up on shore with sand everywhere on my body.... you would be surprised all the places sand can reach. I cried and ran to mommy. I never saw that wave coming because I turned my back to the ocean.
I don't really have a good way to end this post because my mind is still in vacation mode. I'm surprised I was even able to sit down and blog. I guess I'll leave you with this: Never turn your back to the ocean.
