This was written a few years ago, but I found it tucked away, and thought I throw it up here just for fun. This one is NOT fiction. I swear, every word is true. Embarrassingly true.
© by taree Belardes 7/29/08
The plan for my day off was to take it all for myself. It had been a long time since I had promised myself this and actually done it. Not this Tuesday! I would take this day off and go to the beach. My body and mind needed sun and salt and it had been a long time coming.
At 9:30 I am struggling to get out of bed. "I am going to the beach!" I tell myself. Two hours later, finally dragging myself out of a most comfortable dream, I am juggling a container of birdseed in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, and marveling at the mild summer day, in contrast to the last two months of 3 digit temperatures.
The morning is off to a leisurely roll and I would soon be rolling right on down the highway toward beautiful Malibu... I was casually thinking this to myself as the ground began to guiver. Did I just lose my balance? Then the ground began to roll. Earthquake! As the neighbors came running out of their houses, I run towards mine. Flinging open the front door, I ran smack into Myriah, stark naked and standing in a doorway just inside the front door. Glued to her side, Topanga, our trusty family dog. All safe. I can relax, butupon turning on the t.v. I find a hefty 5.8 on the richter scale, it seems all California is abuzz. Strongest earthquake in 19 years. No injuries, little damage, a little taste of excitement on a lazy summer day.
Excitement aside, it is now, not necessarily, a great day to drive to the beach. Aftershocks and a larger quake loom ominously in the forground of the day. Tsunami? Unlikely. Falling rocks and road cave-ins in the canyons between me and the ocean? A definite possibility. I wait four hours for another quake. Not a quiver, so grabbing my beach bag I hit the road to Dead End Beach at the far end of Malibu colony. A great beach for swimming!
Arriving at 2:30 pm, I chastise myself for wasting half of my beach day but settle into the sand with a vow to make every last sunny minute count. There is a pretty good wind, and I wonder if I can get hot enough to make my entry into the water less painful. The whole point of my trip is to get into that salt water and bask in the sun, and the sun is rapidly heading for the opposite horizon. I decide it’s now or never. Vacating my beach blanket, I approach the roaring surf, and head right in.
The first thing noted is the especially heavy undertow. It’s been a while, maybe I’m just getting old and unstable, but never-the-less, I’m definitely rocky on my feet in the face of the rapidly building wall of surf. I decide that swimming too far out is out of the question, and plant myself about halfway between the shore and the breakers trying to let the salt water work it's wonders on my skin.
The waves are coming in hard. They rise up and crash just short of me with a particular violence today, and it’s difficult to keep my balance... but the temperature is welcoming, and the sun is sinking into my pores, and all is well with the world.
I’m fighting to keep my feet planted, through wave after wave, but inching a little deeper and a little deeper, as my body gets used to the chill of the water. Suddenly, thirty yards or so in front of me, a black fin breaks the surface and twinkles in the sunlight. I try to get a closer look while taking a few rapid gallops backwards as it disappears into the sea. I'm praying for dolphin, while mentally wrestling with the difference between dolphin and shark fin in my mind. Up it comes again, and suddenly an adorable porpoise face arches up over a swell, and dives deep again, up and over a few more times, now joined by others.
My eyes are glued to the sight. An "Ahhhh" escapes aloud as I follow them down the beach, watching as they come close in, frolicking in the surf- leaping, flipping their tails, diving, up and over each other in a playful romp just out of my reach.
I long to swim toward them, but they are on a journey that does not include likes of me, even though my eyes keep seeking out the black marine shapes until they fade out of sight. I’m suddenly struck by the thought that there is a whole other kingdom right in front of me that is as foreign as the moon. Creatures so rare to me as to be almost mythical. I am lost in awed thought and staring into the distance, so entranced with this idea, that I am in a state of pure delight.
Pondering this a moment longer, I begin to turn back in the other direction when a wayward wall of water hits my back with such force that it feels like a huge salty hand reached out and slapped my shoulder so hard it must have been holding a stun gun! It struck like a riding crop across my back and as I half-turned and attempted to feel for an actual welt, another wave back-slammed me so hard it knocked me flat on my face in the shallow water. Sputtering, I staggered up out of the surf and turned around bracing for another, but the water had mellowed to merely a steamroller effect and by planting my feet soundly again, I was able to hold my own for a while longer.
My attention is now completely emmersed in remaining upright in the surf when I hear yelling from the shore. There is a man standing next to my blanket, pointing to it, and making gestures as if asking if it’s mine. I can’t really hear him, over the crashing of thewaves, so just nod yes. He seems to say ok, and then just continues on his way. I ponder this a moment, but can’t make sense of it, neglecting to notice the crescent moon of seagulls surrounding my blanket on the far side, I turn my attention back to the water. When at last, I turn to face the shore once again, I notice my blanket is now covered in birds.
Poised over my beach bag is a large grey and white seagull who is working furiously to pull out the waxed-paper cup half-full of Mountain Dew that I'd nestled in there. As he dragged it into the sand, I watched as he nipped at the plastic lid until it popped off, then drank the rest of my soda. On the left side of the bag, another burly gull had located my lunch, a bag of tacos, which he tugged on until he freed them from the bag’s depths, then grasping the bad with his beak, took to the air, my tacos flapping in the wind. I watched as my entire lunch flew away in a whirlwind of seagulls. That’s when the next wave knocked me to my knees again.
Not one to give in in the face of adversity, I was determined to take advantage of every last minute this day of freedom could afford me. Four young boys came racing into the surf. “Be careful of the undertow I told them!” They didn’t seem to understand what an undertow was…. I tried to explain. Then the oldest came over and I repeated my warning. We are from Denmark, he told me. My brother doesn’t understand English very well.” I repeated my warning about the undertow. He looked at me with a quizzical look, not seeming to understand either.
I was standing braced sideways to the surf, having tried to explain in 3 or 4 different ways how the under part of the water was so strong that it could literally drag you out to sea, when another violent wave hit him in the back and knocked him flat, grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him 15 feet into the surf. As he stood up spitting and sputtering, I told him, “THAT’S an undertow!”
After another hour or so battling the turbulent waters until my ankles were starting to feel like they were ready to give in to stress fractures, while also losing another 5 layers of skin from my knees, I decided to go back to my blanket and dry off, by basking in the late afternoon sun before the drive home. Getting to my blanket, I found it was covered with bird shit.
Flipping it over, I laid down to dry off.
I’d just entered a most pleasant state of sun-drenched slumber, when the tide began to come in, suddenly coming so high up the beach it caught my feet up to the ankles, drenching the bottom of my blanket and jerking me awake. I watched as it receded, and the next few came no where near, so ignoring that little nagging niggle in my brain, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
I don’t know how much longer I lay there in deep sleep and relaxation on this near- perfect day, when suddenly a wave hit the shore, washed up the rise, past the wet-line in the sand, over my feet, over my entire blanket, my beach bag, and over my head. I am now completely and utterly awake. The water not only brought wet, but it covered me and every thing around me with about 3 gallon buckets of sand. Wet sand had washed up my shorts, up my top, into my hair, into my bag, my blanket was covered in wet sand, and now weighed about 25 lbs. Even my shoes were filled with wet sand.
I stood up and tried to shake the sand out of my clothes, knowing my drive home would now be murder. There was sand in every crevice. The wet sand would not shake off the blanket, nor dis-attatch from my skin. It clung to the insides of my thighs calves, and shoes. I made my way up the bank my legs scratching together, my blanket now weighted to feellike I was carrying a bowling ball, and my shoes... worthless bags of sand. Tossing my sandy gear into a box in the back of the van, I began my gritty drive through the canyon towards home.
On the front lawn, I turned the garden hose on myself. Sand washed out of places I didn’t know were places. The shelf bra in the top I wore now resembled two large sandbags. When the hose water hit me, I’d been fighting water for so many hours I couldn't wait any longer. Sandy and dripping, I couldn’t get inside quickly to use the facilities... I wet my pants on the front lawn. "What the hell," something in my brain seemed to say as it made up it's mind to just give up and let it rip. I then hosed myself down once again.
Finally I was ready to get myself into the house, where I went straight to the washing machine. Pulling off my wet shorts and top, I realized I still had an emory board of sand around my waist and other places. Stark naked, I darted out the back door to hose myself off again.
Finally, clean and shiny again, I am ready to face the world once more, (and the shower)- two lessons learned.
Never pass up a chance to interact with nature. But when you do have occasion to do to interact with her face to face....
Watch Your Back!
-taree Belardes 2008
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