Waves of Fear

We all fear something. Although I don’t particularly like snakes—I could never have one of those slithering bottom feeders as a pet—I don’t fear them. I also don’t fear heights or spiders. What I do fear is the ocean, the sea. I’m afraid of its vastness, its unrelenting pounding, and its unpredictability. I fear it mostly because of a vague memory. I was a little boy on a Southern California beach, and a wave caught me, rolled me in its wake, and sucked me off the beach towards the water. I was no older than six and more than likely only four or five. I had been playing a game of cat and mouse: sneaking towards the water line, then sprinting up the beach before the wall of water could reach me. Then the cat caught me. I’ll never forget the way I clawed at the sand, trying to grab hold of anything, being relentlessly sucked by the vacuum of water, crying out for help, and then the water was gone, and I ran up the beach past the waterline.

I don’t remember anything else from that particular trip to California, even though I’ve been told that after the beach my family went to Disneyland, the only time I’ve been to Disneyland. All I remember was the wave, the way it peaked above me, then crashed down. Oddly enough, years later, when I was in high school and on a x-country trip to “Footlocker,” a large regional race held in Walnut, California and I had the opportunity to either go to Disneyland or the beach, I chose the beach.

I’ll always choose the beach. For the same reasons that I fear the ocean—memory aside—I also love it. I've always been drawn towards liminal spaces. The beach is the essence of liminal. The spot between land and water is the perfect place to become lost in imagination and adventure. I’ll meander the lengths of sand, combing for washed up treasure, imagining I’m an explorer from another time, possibly the first to ever set foot on these strange lands. I’ll find a stick—no a staff, and I’ll use it to crack shells and rocks and other sticks. I’ll even swim, playing in the waves. Saltwater is my favorite to swim in. I love the way the salt sticks to my arms. After it dries, I'll lick it off like a bear. I love the way the ocean smells in my hair. The way my usually fine fine hair can stand on end, thickened by the sea. But always, when I'm at the sea or near the ocean, when I smell the salt in the air, when I hear the surf cascading towards the earth that terrible memory comes back, and I know that it can happen again. I can mistime everything and be sucked out into the vast depths of water never to be seen again.

This makes what I’m about to tell you all the more terrible. Last spring I took my small family to the coast. Elise was pregnant with Lev, and June had just turned two. I told Elise I just needed to stand in the ocean, to smell the salt, to stand on the edge of the land. We stopped in the deserted beach town of Seaside, Oregon. It was March. There were stray dogs wandering the streets, some people, but mostly the town felt empty, its high-rise hotels black with vacancies. Though windy, the weather was surprisingly fair. We took hotdogs and marshmallows to roast on the beach.

June was drawn by the water. She said to me, “I want to touch it.” So I pulled out my phone and sent her towards the water. There was no danger. The water was rolling up in sheets of glass for the length of a football field. It was shallow, and the air was warm. I started recording. I wanted to catch her experience on camera.

We all know what happened next. A wave rolled in and knocked her over, rolled her like it had rolled me, and then left her breathless and afraid in the ankle deep water and sand. Inside I think I knew she’d be knocked over, but I’d sent her, anyway. Wouldn’t it be funny? She tumbled into the water, her little body rolling—itself like a wave. There was no danger. She wasn’t anywhere near being pulled out to sea. I kept filming, and it was Elise who marched into the water to comfort my crying, no, sobbing daughter. And I got it all on film.

It wasn’t until we were back in our hotel room, after a hot shower, that I remembered the feeling of my wave, the way it rolled me and sucked me and dragged me, and the way that the wave has haunted me. I thought of the way June tumbled and rolled, scared and afraid, how I’d knowingly sent her—even encouraged her—to touch the water just so I could get the whole thing on camera.

Usually, June loves watching herself in videos, but a week later, when I showed her the video from the beach, she started crying. She said, “No, no, no!”

The water was dangerous. It was a scary thing.