Forward: I spend a week every summer vacationing in beautiful Kennebunkport, Maine at a beach house the family of a very close friend of mine owns. Recently I was asked to write about an experince in nature from my childhood. An age cap was set at around twelve years old, a few years after I started going on this trip. I chose to write about those experiences because they are some of the most prominent and happy childhood memories I have in nature. Enjoy! - Stu
The cool sand under my feet was a pleasant sensation to experience. The pristine beach that had surrounded me with is soft, clean sand was surreal. My ears had listened to to the constant pounding of the breaking waves, punctuated by the occasional cry of a gull. That day, however, was not a day for swimming; it was a day for quiet meditation, with a pleasant sea breeze swarming around me. The sun was not over head, darting through intermittent cloud cover. I closed my eyes and listened to the world around me, trying to picture what was happening as I heard each sound. I could imaging a gull soaring past, low over the crashing waves as it traveled in the gentle currents of the wind. I could hear the wind whispering past my ear and through the dune grass, and I could see it in my mind, flowing in a slow undulation, much the same as the waves before they came in to shore.
When I opened my eyes, I found in much amazement, that nature was much as it seemed. I could see the cool, clear, and blue water receding before another wave came rolling in. The platinum blonde sand was a smooth and even surface above the water line. Further up, past the point the tide could reach, the sand was pockmarked, loose, and bright, reflecting the sun's rays. The divots caused by feet and the footprints of the gulls would be highlighted by shadow, cast from the differing elevation from the sand around them. I followed one set of piping plover footprints down the beach where I came to a natural river. The oncoming waves crashed into a large rock, right in the middle of the gaping mouth, where the ocean ended and the river began. The rising tide caused water to swell up and the rock to slowly sink below the surface. The walk back to my point of origin put the setting, burning orange disk in the sky behind me, casting my shadow in front of me, insinuating that I was somehow a hundred feet tall. In the light of such a perfect day at the beach, I sure felt it.
