An Early Memory

Every summer when I was younger, my family and I would spend a few hours in the car, driving down to the Oregon coast. I remember sitting in my seat, squirming. "How much longer? Are we there yet?" I would ask every few minutes. It seemed to take forever to get there. To keep me entertained, my mom would tell me the exit number, so I could count down how long we had left to travel. We would have competitions, who could spot the ocean first. Driving back that way, it seem incredible how soon we started looking for the water, we would barely be over the pass before we would start staring out the window, searching for blue between the trees.

As soon as we got to our hotel, I would insist on going to the beach. No matter the weather, I would insist on getting wet. As a child, I could hardly stand to look at water without splashing in it. With my sister and dad in tow, I would charge into the water. I never felt the cold, it just seemed natural to me. At first we would stay close to shore. There was always little waves that we could jump over. Our rule was the that you couldn't just walk through the wave, you had to jump over it. Jump by jump, we made our way into deeper water. Soon the water would be so deep that my dad had to hold me up. The funnest thing would be for him to hold on to me, the water was well over my head by then, and as soon as a wave came, he would lift me up so I could jump over it. After a while of splashing and getting dunked, we would wade back in to my mom who was waiting with sandy, but dry, towels. For some reason, the trip home didn't ever seem as long as the impatient trip in.