I lay, eyes closed, on my fish-patterned towel. The warm wind rushing past echoes the sounds of the waves pounding against the shore...A faint cry, “Mommy, mommy!”, prompts me to break away from my pensive moment and look up. My ears tune in further, my eyes skim the shoreline. After a moment of lazed searching, I locate the owner of the distressed voice -- a young boy in hawaii-themed swim trunks, not far to my left. With his back facing the ocean, his widened eyes scan the throng of nameless people that crowd the beach, frantically searching for a towel, an umbrella… any inkling of familiarity amongst an overwhelming sea of anonymity.
In my mind I wait with this boy as he stands distraught on the sand. After several gripping seconds, the boy’s mother calls out to him. I breathe a silent sigh of relief as his round, youthful face relaxes and an innocent smile spreads across his lips. He runs to his mother, who sits a little ways down the shore. A few moments later, he is wrapped in a towel, curled up in his mother’s arms. He stays that way for a long time.
In life, we let ourselves be carried away by the current, allowing ourselves to drift further and further from the known into the infinite expanse of the unknown. Sometimes, when we exit the frenzy of crashing waves and the seemingly endless stretch of dark, green water, we can find ourselves frantically desiring familiarity in this world can be so big and strange.
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