#872 The Feeling of Scrunching Sand in your Feet

My family fell in love with a small island off the coast of BC the summer I turned two.  Being charmed by the long, soft sand beaches and preserved natural beauty we ended up being there for barely a week before my dad started looking for a house to call home.  All of my fondest summer memories were made in the meadows of tall dry grass, under huge old trees begging to be climbed, on the hidden cliffs below our property and of course the white sand beaches surrounding the outer edges of the island.  This is my happy place.  It sounds cheesy but there’s no other way of putting it.  The feeling of sand moving freely underfoot with every step taken has been one of my favourite feelings of bliss since before I can remember.  There really isn’t a favourite memory that comes to mind when I think of walking on sand.  It’s completely impossible because each time I step off the narrow blackberry boarded path to the beach it’s different from any other day, and every day it’s amazing in it’s own way.  To me, always changing is one of nature’s most beautiful abilities.  Not dramatic changes but the little ones that can only be found if you really know what to look for.  Like the water is trying to tame the mass of sand and logs, cleaning and moving everything with its waves while we sleep.  Sometimes the waves turn the sand cold and hard, making footprints that last only a few seconds before the salty moister in the sand take them over.  Feeling heavy when scrunching underfoot and numbing the very tips of my toes but sticking to anything and everything it can.  Other days will bring warm, soft, white sand that just makes me want to curl up on it and take in every bit of sunshine being reflected off each grain of perfect sand.  The sand breaking in with every step taken, perfect footprint being left behind as I make my way down the long waterfront.  A million different experiences from the same spot, the only difference being the day or month or even year.  This is what comes to mind when I think of the feeling of scrunching sand in your feet. 

Late Nights

Tears were in our eyes and my abs felt like they had just been through the workout of a lifetime.  It was 3am and everything either of us said seemed like the most hilarious thing in the entire world, and trying to stop laughing just made up giggle harder.  It was all I could do to not fall off the hard, cold, light blue plastic of the swing I was sitting on.  It was hard to believe that only a couple hours ago my friend and I were sitting at her home eating pizza and having an incredibly deep talk about life.  Neither of us could think about sleeping, too full of energy to even sit down.  Scared we were going to wake up her dad, we decided to go walk around outside for a bit.  It was a good thing this all was happening just when the weather was warming up from winter, the cool night air refreshing on our numb pink faces. Soon as we got outside the conversation lightened up, going from a depressing conversation about something I can’t even remember, to laughing about how ridiculously weird we both were.  I’d been up for almost 20 hours straight and was beyond the point of tired, the feeling of being light and dreamy was settling on me just making everything even more hilarious.  After walking around for about half an hour we found the most perfect park with brilliant tall swings.  We ended up sitting there for almost two, long and amusing hours before having to go home because neither of us could even keep our eyes open from exhaustion.  For over two hours we talked about absolutely nothing and still somehow had one of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever has, all because that nothingness was filled with an overtired joy that had more laughing than words.

My favourite camp memory started out as a regular house party.  Well, at least it was supposed to be.  It was rounding the end of the year and everyone was starting to get anxious about exams and summer.   My best friend and I came up with an idea of throwing a bit of a year-end celebration.  It quickly went from a house party to a field party then finally a camping trip just outside of the city.  The idea sounded incredibly fun at first, but that excited anticipation started to quickly fade with time.  Stress was at an all time high for everyone so no one seemed very committed to going.  Being me, I took this pretty personally, I felt like it wasn’t going to be very fun and everyone was going to be too busy to go.  I had this feeling of self-doubt about organizing the whole thing up until the last day of school.   Suddenly everyone was talking about going, talking about how fun it was going to be and asking about when to go up later that day.  In the end about 15 of us piled into cars with coolers full of food plus trunks full of tents and drove to a camp ground called lac des arcs.  It was a beautiful, warm sunny day and everything suddenly seemed so, right.  The girls sat sunbathing and talking while the guys went to set everything up (they insisted).  More and more people started to show up as the day went on, setting up a kind of tent village around a couple fire-pits.  Everyone was smiling, laughing and enjoying themselves as they did their own thing, from throwing around a football to having way too much fun trying to make a fire with a couple matches and bug spray.  When the sun finally set and everyone was there, we all sat around one of the fire-pits in the middle of our make shift homes.  There ended up being 30+ people that night, everyone sitting around the fire talking, laughing, roasting marshmallows or hotdogs.  There was country music playing out the back of someone’s truck, a few of us even singing along, the smell of bug spray and campfire in the air and everything else just right. Time somehow stopped that night, it was like no one was worried about anything that was happening back home, no one was starting drama or getting mad about something.  Everything just seemed to fit, like the fire, marshmallows, conversation, music, people and everything else were just pieces of a huge of puzzle. That was my favourite camping memory.