It was beautiful-I think- I have only been there once. I am always landlocked, key swallowed, or lost- I am not sure which- but never to return. Either way, the first time I went, it was beautiful; it seemed beautiful. After arriving to the dark room my family and I would stay in that night, where the walls were painted a burnt orange-probably meant to be comforting but were not, really-we set our stuff down on our beds. I sprinted out of the room, ran down the stairs, and across the quiet San Francisco street out front. My feet were expertly trying to avoid the red and purple succulent-like flowers blooming from the sand.

“Running is much easier without shoes on” I pant to no one in particular, as I keep running up the sandy hill. When I cleared the hill and slide down the other side, I was expecting a great scene. I thought there would be bright blue water with glistening white spray jumping off the top of the waves. I was expecting a clear sky with only the sun shining down on me. I was sadly mistaken. After I slowed down from a run to a stroll, I walked barefoot across the small pellets of sand that covered the ocean’s shells like a blanket covers a small, quiet child. My family, not quite caught up yet, looked down from the top of the hill, blindly watching the new scene unfold. “I thought it was supposed to be beautiful,” I said to myself, but the ocean was not beautiful. My eyes refused to adjust to the picture everyone else so ignorantly imagines when looking at the waves and the horizon behind it. The beach was not a comforting blanket or a beautiful picture. I turn back around and look at the sky above me; it was grossly unattractive- clammy, dark, and distinctly out of place. It was a grey steel curtain dominating my sky. “My sky,” I thought. My sky is the blank canvas brushed blue with large white gaps expertly painted with the blinding light of the sun. “My sky is beautiful,” I whisper, “but I have been punished today.” These bolted sheets of metal block my light and leave me to float away into a depression only the water can reflect. The water is my oblivion- black and deep, drowning me deeper and deeper into it. Deeper and deeper into it I go, and I realize, the water is not worthy of my admiration either. The water is a mirror as hideous as its reflection, bent and scratched to unrecognition. My train of thought only seems to make things worse. I take a deep breath with my eyes closed, and slowly, I reopen them. Walking up to the shore, I wonder what it would feel like to stick my foot into the water. Would it grab me and draw me in? Or would it experience my touch and push me away with its epic force? I want to find out the answer but the water pains me. Its spray sprinkles me like acid rain, burning my skin before it cools me down. It almost lures me in, but before I can stick my foot into the icy water, I am nauseated. The bitter odor washes me out of my trance as it infiltrates my nose without my permission. It is so powerful and pungent I can almost taste the salt forming in my mouth; I can feel it drain the liquid from me until I can no longer swallow. I step away until I can no longer smell the powerful perfume of the water. Standing in my rolled up leggings and a t-shirt, I can feel a slight breeze flow around me; it pushes the wave back and carries the smell that I am trying to escape. The wind acts as a guiding hand, comforting and cool, pushing my head towards the left until I can fully see a horizon. All I see is black. All I feel is black, and cold, and black. Still looking out into the ocean, there is no way to tell where the ocean ends and the sky begins- it swallows my light whole. Unable to breathe, I realize, no one knows what is out there. It must be all of life’s secrets, I think; that is the force drawing me in. Somehow, the waves that pull the secrets into the ominous depths are still reaching for my feet. I look down at the sand, and I can clearly see my footprints neatly pressed into the broken-rainbow sand. I know where I stand, I can see it clear as day, but once I walk away it will be gone. Once I walk away, I will be erased, but I will be okay. I drift off to the edge of the beach, furthest from the criminal waves- the ones that stole my identity the second I stepped away. The ones that robbed me of my sky, my white light, only to stretch the beams across the water and shatter them to pieces. I can hear the pieces shatter against the ragged floor of the ocean- the waves are relentless. The soft crunch of the shells and sand as I walk down the beach can only be heard when the water recedes into the darkness.

My family is looking down at me from the top of the sandhill, oblivious to the ugly scene before them. It truly was ugly, but that is what made it awesome and beautiful; so often in nature, the sun has to color the sky pink and purple; the clouds must form to amuse the children lying on the dyed-green grass. This is not natural beauty. “No,” I think, only a sheet of water so clear and dark, a breeze and mist too cool, a mysterious and dark horizon, or an endless amount of sand, vast and broken, can perfectly mirror my emotions and continue to inspire me. “That,” I think, “ is true natural beauty.”