Ocean Pants

This past weekend the world threw together a tossed salad bowl of delicious moments for me to taste. Any of the ingredients alone would’ve satisfied me, but together I reached pure, salty transcendence. I’m talking 100% concentrated magic to savor and swallow all at once. I recently joined my school’s Outdoors Club and went on a seaside hike. I felt as though I’d been gifted a VIP one-time only guest pass to such a beautiful day. I wondered how often I could gain admittance to this amphitheater of understated glory. 

We began in the Presidio and ended at the Golden Gate Bridge. This was as far as the official group planning had gone. But as alive and bursting college students often to do, the group wanted more. I thought we’d sucked the last sip from the day’s serving of fun. But alas, everyone else knew the secret—the true magic is in the very last drop. So we headed down to the water once more.

Of course the sea is beautiful to watch, like a 3D postcard and Van Gough swirls in action. But I watched everyone around me undergo a transformation. Everyone went from seeing to being.  One can only observe beauty so close at hand for so long without reaching out to touch it. The feeling is as innocent and grand as the act of falling in love. It is as whimsical as reaching into a painting and feeling that world accept you and fold around you. It is as surreal as realizing a dream is a reality you can touch, tangible proof of a lifetime of yearning.

It started when one of my friends in the club wandered near the water. She waded in until the water gently licked her knees; she was trusting, calm, peaceful. I couldn’t say the same of the first big wave that came. It ripped her off of her feet and she fell into the water. We all watched her as she righted herself and readjusted her deformed sports bra, the waves whipping mischievously around her ankles. I will always remember her next reaction, and those of the others around me. She burst out laughing and dived head on back into the water.

Soon more and more members joined her. I ran in hand in hand with two other friends, laughing and screaming as the waves knocked us over like dominos. We took turns helping each other float, tangoing to the siren call of the ocean, cheering others on as they charged into the depths. We danced on nature’s stage, we tasted that last sip on our tongues, we splashed in the wake of our dreams. They kept coming and coming.

As we dried off, we raced each other down the shoreline and kicked up sand. We laughed in the breathless way, the kind that shows the most awe, the deepest appreciation. By the time we left we looked like spotted lizards. The creases in our work out clothing looked like scales, our hair spiraled in hardened spikes, and sand still dotted everything. I could feel the sand in cuts on my lip, under my eyelashes like hastily applied makeup. It dotted my cheeks like freckles, and I wore it like a badge of honor. I found specks of it on my body, in my room, for days afterwards. I smiled at any sign of it.

This week a friend and I finished a big test and we ran into the ocean afterwards. I wore the same pants. I felt the same sticky thrill of a life converging around me. You cannot help but to change after running into the ocean. When you realize the last sip is really as vast and unending as the sea, you must thrust yourself into the postcard, the salad bowl, the taste as often as possible. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. I love wearing signs of a dream come true up and down my sleeves. It is amazing how much hope one can draw from a single day. The world has fed me enough for years.