The summer before my junior year of high school, my mother and father decided to end their marriage. The split was eerily calm in contrast with their volatile relationship, and somehow my parents managed to end on fairly civil terms. Although predictable, a divorce still seemed impossible to me, and the change felt very sudden. I was given the news one day, and by the next my father had packed and moved into his fancy new apartment downtown. In one weekend, my whole life changed.

Sometime during the next week, my mother decided that she, my sister, and I should take a day to relax and lounge on the beach. So, we got up early one morning, packed enough sandwiches, snacks, and water bottles to last us all day, slathered on some sunscreen, and headed off to Second Beach in Newport. When we got to the beach, we hauled our three beach chairs, towels, and cooler across the sand, searching for a spot. Surprisingly, although it was a beautiful August day, the beach wasn’t overcrowded, and our search didn't take very long. My sister and I set up the chairs and my mom divvied out our sandwiches to eat before they got sandy. As I took the last bite of my lunch, my sister asked me to take a walk with her, and I agreed to. Our walk was peaceful. Interspersed among comfortable silences were fits of laughter and we would stop to study any washed up jellyfish or soft sea glass we stumbled upon.

When my sister and I returned to our chairs, I heard my name being called by a familiar voice. Glancing up, I spotted my two best friends, Ari and Christiana, looking just as surprised to see me, as I was to see them. They gestured for me to come over and I let my mom know I was going to go say “hi” to my friends. I weaved my way through the other blankets, chairs, and towels spread out on the sand and gave each of my friends a hug once I reached them. Standing with the two girls was a boy, with a smattering of freckles and strawberry blonde hair, whom I had never seen before. Christiana introduced us and I learned he was a family friend named Alex. Alex was tall with broad shoulders and if I didn't know any better I might have guessed that he and Christiana were siblings.

Christiana is six feet tall, with beach-blonde hair, and she was tanned golden brown that day from daily sun exposure as a result of her surfing. She is the type of girl who can get away with saying things like “gnarly” or “yeah man” and not get weird looks from anyone. She is straight out of a Beach Boys song, and spends as much time as she possibly can in the water. Ariana is of stark contrast, with her pale, slight frame, inky black curls, and mysterious hazel eyes. She is heart and soul a city girl, perpetually yearning for New York as though her future is anchored there. She is rich with hopes and dreams, and I sometimes wonder how so many could fit into such a petite frame.
As it turned out, my friends were on their way to “Purgatory Chasm,” a medium sized out-cropping of rock to the right of the beach. The rock formation created a small cliff, extending into the surf and rising to about 20 feet at its highest point. Kids jump off the cliffs of “Purgatory Chasm” into the ocean below. My friends invited me along to jump with them. Christiana was a seasoned veteran of the chasm. “Don’t worry,” Alex said. “I’m a trained lifeguard.” As soon as the words of invitation left their mouths, though, I could feel the familiar fear pricking my throat and squeezing my lungs. Just then, Ari stepped in. She could read me like a book, and decided then and there it was her duty to rid me of my fears… all of them. I knew that if Ari had decided, then resistance was futile. She was stubborn, and I realized that she would push me off the cliff with her own two hands to get the job done if I didn’t go voluntarily. Thus, on a hot August day at the end of the summer, I found myself standing on a rock, holding Ari’s hand and staring into the water.

We had scaled the cliff in nothing but our bathing suits, using our fingers and toes for leverage and balance. Christiana led the way, and Alex, Ari, and I followed behind. Eventually, Christiana stopped at a grey, sun-soaked slab of rock five feet up from the water. She explained to me that while she had jumped from higher before, I should take “baby steps” and start small. The three of them took turns jumping, and left me to work up my courage to follow. Waves washed the rocks below me, smoothing them flat and silky over time. But the tides had not met the stable ledge I was perched on for many years and these rocks remained jagged, the points and angles of them leaving angry red marks in my skin the longer I stood on them.

I was overwhelmed. There was so much to take in, too many risks to calculate and I couldn’t focus because the rocks were hot underneath my feet and my toes were burning. Jellyfish were swimming idly around below, probably harmless but terrifying to me. Seaweed floated on the surface. “One of those might choke me and I’ll die,” I thought. Foam collected and lapped onto the rocks. “Who knows how many parasites and bacteria live in that,” I wondered. Just as I was resigning myself to give up and climb back to the safety of the sand, something clicked inside of me, and suddenly I felt courageous and strong. So, without thinking anymore, I grabbed Ari’s hand and we jumped.
Briefly, I was flying. Nothing could touch me but the ocean air, and my heart was beating so fast it felt like it stopped. I felt strong and calm and it was all so confusing until I hit the brisk water, which consumed me and washed away any reservations, fears, and black thoughts. During those few seconds between jumping and breaking the surface of the water, I questioned my whole life and the way I had been living it. Time slowed and I felt so safe, regardless of the fact that I was hurtling towards the unknown. I didn’t worry what would happen next because the sun touched me with its warmth and the cold of the ocean stripped away my fears. Coming back to the surface I could hear my friends cheering and I splashed back to the cliff and scrambled up the slippery, algae coated rocks. My heart was pounding in my ears and all I could see, smell, feel, and even taste was the simplicity of life that I had missed my first 17 years of living.
During my short flight in the air I was taken back to childhood, and how easy it felt to live as a child does. You don’t have to worry about your parents, or your future because you are immersed in the present. You’re open to the clarity that is nature and experience it fully without question. You still believe in magic.

And this moment, jumping with my friends, was powerful magic. The kind of natural moment that you can’t predict. As Rick Bass said, “These moments cannot be set-up in advance. Magic comes when it comes” (1). I was a new girl, a simpler girl. I was alive and that was enough. “I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive,” was the mantra in my mind, and it became a new motto to live by. My eyes were opened to the way nature is alive. I could live like nature does: smooth and easy as a sea breeze, strong-willed and sturdy like rocks, as determined and forceful as the tides. Not everything in life had to be so difficult. It was possible to just live and be happy. The realization was like a plow through my mind, clearing out the gunk and creating a path to follow. I was irrevocably changed.

I needed this magic moment, this epiphany, to finally mature and live my life. It was as if my world had led up to this point. Rick Bass says, “The event seems to have somehow always been within you, waiting only to occur, predestined, miraculous, and splendidly unique, and yet, in retrospect, completely unavoidable” (2).

After clumsily making my way back up to my friends, I looked at them and grinned. Then I said, “Again.”

Works Cited:
Bass, Rick. “A Texas Childhood.” The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004. Philip Zaleski, ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.