When I Was Young at the Ocean

When I was young at the ocean, I sat at the edge of the wooden pier and dangled my toes in the water. Like tiny rowboats my toes skimmed the
rolling waves, ever alert for sharks.

Sometimes I sat cross-legged in shorts and tee-shirt, a bamboo fishing pole stretched to catch mackerel. No one ever told me to bait the hook.

When I was young at the ocean, I cracked open mussels and periwinkles and clams, and ran my fingers across their gushy insides. I squished seaweed nodules between my forefinger and thumb, anxious for the pop and spray from the moist insides.

When I was young at the ocean, I burned my shoulders and smelled of Noxzema through the entire month of July. I drank in the aroma of hip roses, salt water, and seaweed.

At low tide I played croquet with the Queen of Hearts, flew to the moon in a hammock, and fed my dolls deviled ham sandwiches in the shade of the screened house.

As the tide came in, water lapped at the rocky shore. The skin of my feet toughened as I paced those rounded stones, my eyes searching for skippers.

When I was young, I never wished to climb the mountains, or live in the city, or camp in the forest. The ocean was enough. It still is.

Try This

• Think of a place that you love (a mountain or lake cabin, a tree house, a perch in an oak tree, a tree stand, the roof of an apartment building, the baseball dugout, the stage for a performance, a fort, a concert, a boat in the middle of the ocean, etc.) and describe all that you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and do there. What makes this place so special?

Try This

• Take an opposite stance and think of a place you dislike (a locker room, a five-hour car ride squished in the back seat with your siblings, the dentist’s chair, the principal’s office, the school cafeteria, etc.). What do you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and do there?

Try This

• Borrow Rylant’s line “When I was young in the . . .” (or “at the . . .”) and write down all that comes to mind about that place you love or that place you dislike.