dreaming of the sea

School has been really difficult for me lately. It's the season of midterms and I have a lot of them. In the next week and a half, I have three tests in ecology and evolution (which I HAVE to do well on), physics (which I also have to do well on), and family consumer science (which is more of an annoyance, really). Then I have a twelve page paper due by Wednesday, though I have to post a draft of it by Monday, a physics assignment due monday, a project that I need to complete for family consumer science, and about six elementary school novels to read by the end of spring break. So I'm a little bit on the edge of a mental breakdown. To complete this, I have also been bitchy and emotional, unconfident and second-guessing myself. I hope it's just because I am not getting enough sleep and spend most of my free time either doing homework or procrastinating doing homework, which makes me even more irate. At the end of this week and half of Hell, however, there is a light. There is...

SPRING BREAK

And just in time, because I'm about to snap. The best part about this spring break is that I'm going to California. My family owns a beach house that has been a solid part of my life ever since I was two weeks old in a small surfing town on the central coast. I've not been there since I started college, however, and it's been killing me.



I'm literally dreaming about the ocean. Every night I have vivid, sensory dreams about the beach. I can smell the piles of seaweed and the salt in the air, I can feel the grains of sand and the frigid cold of the surf, I can see the silver glint of the sun on the waves and hear the sounds of snowy plovers, gulls, and sandpipers. I feel dizzy and heartsick when I think about the ocean, and the thought of seeing it and frolicking in the waves is enough to help me push through this week and a half.



The path down to the beach. I've always thought that it's the most beautiful thing in the world. When at the end of the path, you can only see stairs descending into nothingness. When something descends into nothingness, you know that the ocean is near. Either that or some shitty grassland, but we're not going to Nebraska (that was harsh).

In the morning the air is thick with fog, but it lifts by about eleven. It's not a sunny or particularly nice beach. It's usually overcast and there are piles of seaweed buzzing with sandflies everywhere. But it's my beach and I adore it with every ounce of my heart.











I can't wait to go tidepooling and dune jumping in Montana de Oro. I'm going to take so many pictures, fall in so many puddles of water, get sopping wet and be covered in terrible rashes. It's going to be amazing.



I love going for sunset walks and then, hours later, going for midnight walks while plowing into the surf (not too far though, because that's when the Great Whites are out).







Digging through these old pictures of the beach is making me so excited for our trip. My heart is swelling. I am so drunkenly in love with the ocean.

To pass the time, however, I indulged in another thing I'm in love with.



Which is also interfering with my studies. I'm not a very responsible student this week...