Beached

I stood with my umbrella open and pressed hard to my back by the sea breeze. Winds were up, but it wasn't raining. I don't know if I wanted it to or not. It didn't really matter. 1

Just standing and watching the waves fold in, I couldn't feel a pull toward them. I wondered why they didn't want me. I would have gone without question if they had tried to take me. But they didn't. 2

If you had looked out on the beach that night you probably would have seen me. A tiny orange umbrella looking out to sea. I still feel sad about losing it.3

Friends went with me that night. But they didn't really want to. They probably figured I walked out on the sand out of teenage angst and depression, with the wish to be alone. But that wasn't it. The last thing I wanted was to be alone. More than anything i wanted to be part of something else, to join others that had left the known world before me. 4

I've always wondered what it would be like to be something else. That night it was the sea. I wanted to be part of it. One of thousands of spirits, beings tied to one another, swaying together as a whole. I wanted to be there.5

It has been said that there are cases of people just walking into the ocean and never being seen again. It almost happened to my mother before I was born. I remember listening to her tell the story; how everything just stopped in silence, and how the voices from the ocean pulled her- called her name. She said that she felt that if she had gone, everything would be alright, she would be fine. But a man she was with yelled out at the sea that it couldn't have her, and it receded. 6

I always secretly wished that the sea would call me too, beckon me and tell me that everything would be alright. That was the reason I stood there that night and whispered my request to the ocean. They ignored me then, those beings. Pretended not to know what I was asking.7

But I know tomorrow I'll go back and ask again. And I'll wish just as hard.8