A bird flutters above the shore, switching from the shallow, tumbling waves to the darkened sand soaked from the tide. The black and white feathered gull adamantly searches for food: Small fish in the waves, scraps of food left out on the sand, crabs scuttling for safety amongst the various rifts of seashells. The beach is somewhat crowded; people wander and rest as they please, waiting for the sunset. Some lay on towels in the wrinkled sand, asleep. Some try to stay afloat on slippery, colorful rafts being tossed around in the water. Adults stare into the horizon while comfortably slumped in low beach chairs. Two young kids, a boy and a girl, sit in the squishy sand with their backs to the waves. They sit, smiling and anxious, as the waves build a swirling wall and rush towards them, about to break. Suddenly, the wall crashes into them, right at their backs. They throw their arms up into the breezy air and scream with excitement, shoved forward by the blast. They sit back up and continue their game. A teenage girl sits alone behind a couple resting in beach chairs.
I rest in the uncomfortably low beach chair, feeling as if the rising tide is anticipating to grab ahold of me. My brother and sister skip around in front of me in the water, playing a game that they invented called ‘Warning.’ They sit anxiously in the sand, their backs to the growing surf, screaming and smiling as the green-blue, salty wall knocks them over. My mom and step-dad rest in similar beach chairs as mine, about six feet in front of me. My step dad yells, “Warning!” every time a wave rushes towards my playful siblings. I can’t help but smile at seeing how much they are enjoying themselves. At the same instant that I smile, I feel lonely. I want to join them, but I am afraid of being ignored.

I shake the feeling away and I look down at the grainy sand, now graying with the increasing absence of sunlight. I drag my finger in the silk, carving out a smiling face. I give him sunglasses. I glance around, and I find a small, peachy-white seashell, placing it in the middle of the grinning face. A nose. His grin reflects onto my face.

My mom turns her head around to face me, a big and dark pair of sunglasses obstructing her eyes. She smiles and asks, “Having fun?”

“Yeah,” I mumble, trying to play off my loneliness as sounding relaxed.

Around me, beachgoers and vacationers are calming down from the day, exhausted from the sun. It had beaten their skin into fatigue with its glowing rays. The people take slow walks, they sit in their chairs or on their towels watching their kids splash in the surf. The sun is quickly descending, a bold, red-orange circle, almost the color of a Coke can. The sky around it is a lavender plant. It is peppered with gray clouds, highlighted by the hints of purple, like branches and flowers.
I get up and take a walk, bringing my ipod with me. There is no better feeling than wandering along the shore and admiring the sparkling ocean, listening to beautiful music. My feet sink into the wet, gray foam. As I walk, my footprints fill with the underground spring of dusty salt water. It feels like walking barefoot in squishy mud. Some people do not like the feeling, but I love it. It’s simultaneously calming and exciting. The cool wetness of the sand surrounds my toes, sending chills up my ankles. The sand makes cushions under my feet, supporting perfectly their form, like the greatest pair of shoes one could ever own, but better. The careless feeling is my favorite. It is the essence of the beach. No worries exist except the possibility of stepping on a sharp, broken seashell.
The feeling of loneliness starts to spread through me again, the temporary bliss of the nature gone. I turn around and head back to where my family is sitting. They get more distant as I get closer to them. I focus on the music playing through my headphones. The voice sings to me with the airy, far away chords, saying, “I guess it’s one of those things, you can never explain, like when an angel cries, like runaway trains…”
I sit back down with my family, waiting for the sun to say its goodbye for the day. People around us count down, trying to estimate when the glow will disappear behind the sea. “Five, four, three, two, one!” The kids shout as if it’s New Year’s Eve. Their parents smile at the beauty of the sunset. “Isn’t it pretty?” they ask to anyone around them listening. The sky is now a sunless lavender plant. The silhouettes of pelicans and gulls can be seen against the purple sky. A cool breeze ruffles my salt-dried and messy hair. My dress flutters. I wish only to wander away, get lost, and find myself.
The next morning, I wake up to the screech of seagulls outside our balcony. I get dressed, grab a plastic bag, and head out, down to the beach to find shells. I see a scarcity of people at the beach, probably because most of them still sleep up in their quiet rooms. The sun is still low, but the sky is already a vibrant turquoise and the water a glazy, pastel tint of aqua. The air smells of salt and clarity. I breathe deep and let the wind give me chills. I plod through the crystal white sand, my feet slipping around in its dry softness. The early beachgoers stand still in the clear, knee-deep water. They have looks of awe on their faces. Some even look frightened. They have their eyes locked on the rising and falling tide at their feet. I walk closer, curious. Small, frisbee-sized gray shadows float through the gentle waves. ‘What in the world?’ I think to myself.
I wander closer with trepidation, trudging slowly through the now-wet sand. The shadows flutter quickly, but I see them. I see the diamond shape of their bodies, the sharp, pointed tails whipping around behind them. A school of baby stingrays! I smile and watch them glide their way down the beach, and start my shell search.
Soon after, the sun has risen higher in the sky, the air has heated up more, and my sister has joined me on my seashell hunt. Her skinny form runs over to a large drift in the wet sand. She bends over to get a closer look and shouts excitedly to me, “Beans!”
“Huh?” I am confused and I walk over to see what she is talking about.
A giant puddle sits with hundreds of little shells covering the entire underwater surface. The sea pebbles are of every natural color, and they sit unmoving in the calm pool. My sister reaches her hand in the puddle and scoops out a handful of the mini shells and soggy, dripping sand.
“Look, they’re moving!” She giggles and puts half of the scoop of muck and creatures in my hands. The mini clams wriggle and bury themselves back into the clump of sand. I see what she means, now. They look just like beans with their oval-shaped shells and their earthy hues. They keep digging themselves deeper. They reach the palm of my hands and keep wiggling, like little worms. It tickles my skin. I let the little animals back into the water so they can dig through the wet sand to their hearts’ content.
Later that day I’m with my family again. We are sitting in the same spot as before, when we watched the sunset. The same feeling of helplessness swallows me as I try to talk to them, and am ignored again. I am asked to take a picture of them. It’s then when I realize that I realize that they’re the ideal family. They’re all related, they all have the same last names. Whereas I have a different last name and am not related to all of them. I feel like I am constantly pushed away. I feel like I don’t belong-anywhere. Again I wander away and seek out my imagination for some comfort and attention. The beach, in these moments, turns to gray. The water is suddenly cold, the dusty sand immensely uncomfortable. It loses its luster, and so does my mood.
I enjoyed my trip that summer of 2011, in Clearwater, Florida. Nature helped me escape, but I got lost in my thoughts and I drowned in stupid self-weakness. I learned that you have to make yourself happy, you cannot just wait for others to come along and do it for you, rescuing you. I also learned that family is family, no matter relations, last names, or backgrounds, and that you should always appreciate the fact that you have family.
You can’t let the waves knock you over, filling your lungs with salt water, drowning you. You have to dig your feet deep in the sand and push back at the waves. Others remain with you for support, but don’t let yourself drown in the sea of your thoughts, it will swallow you up. In the end, you help yourself stay standing strong.