here's an essay i wrote for a nature writing class. yep, they do exist. nope, i didn't realize that's what it was when i registered for it.

A shock of cold runs over your toes. It’s never as warm as you remember it being yesterday. The morning stretches its arms past the blue distance and into your eyes. You squint through wet lashes and hear the old man on the boardwalk with his tin guitar beating out Cat Stevens. You hear the shrieking laughter of sons and daughters as they lovingly torment the sleeping people of America. You smell funnel cake and Banana Boat SPF 30. The taste in your mouth is a strange dance between salt water and long forgotten ice cream cones. The Ferris wheel has finally started up as a line of humanity inches towards it. Soon they’ll be skirting along the sky in a perfect circle. But all of this is somewhere over your left shoulder. You can’t focus on the peripheral when the view in front of you is so absurdly shocking. It’s a constant struggle to remind yourself that you’re looking at the real thing. The waves are steeper than they look on the post card. The birds waltz around you, flirting with the sand castles. At your feet, you peer through layers of water to the muddy bottom. The sand swallows your ankles. As you glance up to meet the horizon, the wind tosses your hair with reckless abandon. It’ll be a pain to comb it later on, but for now it’s further evidence of paradise. The sun above is echoed in the waves below, and you wish you hadn’t forgotten the Ray Bans on the kitchen table. The air that envelops you is a warm, sticky reminder of why you trudged down to the water’s edge in the first place.

It’s warmer today than it has been in awhile. You know it’ll bring more people. They’ll fill the sand with their perfect umbrellas and fringed Mexican blankets. They’ll leave footprints and cigarette butts behind them. They’ll mold the dust of the earth into castles and moats with tiny plastic shovels and red buckets. The ocean isn’t their home, so they’ll make the most of their time here. They’ll exhaust every bit of happiness to be had, complete with goggles and boardwalk fries, until their jobs or their sunburns remind them of a time before the beach. Then they’ll pack up their white Honda Civics with beach towels and coolers half full of warm root beer, and drive back to dentist appointments and soccer practice.

You know you’ll leave here one day too. Soon, the summer will be over. Life will resume, and the beach will be a post card again. The tan will fade. The boogie board will be shuffled to the back of the closet. You’ll leave with no regrets. If you didn’t have to leave, would you appreciate it as much? Maybe that’s why you’re here on Earth. You’re here to realize the glory of God’s presence. The world is God’s finger painting, and you are an innocent bystander. You feel a sharp reminder of His presence on the sand. Tiny shells play a peek-a-boo game with the waves. Every time they pass over, a thousand more appear. They’re photographs of life beneath the water. God is so tangible in this place that His life overflows into places you can’t even peer into. You can only see the corner of the painting. But you’re grateful. You’re thankful to a God who can pour a thousand tiny pieces of sand onto the earth and create a memory as vast as this one. You’re thankful that every drop of water that clings to your arm is a gift from the Father of Lights. You bow your head and say amen.