A weekend at the beach

I am sitting on the balcony of a wooden cabin by the beach right now. It is 08:51 PM on Saturday; and yes, I’m spending the night here.

I hear the waves crash in the distance. A soft breeze sighs through the trees in the yard below the cabin; it is rustling my dress and caressing my cheeks with a warmth that I will not soon forget. So soothing. So glorious beautiful!

This feeling brings to my mind a quote by Khalil Gibran that I like very much: “The earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”

I am here with friends. We are seven in number. Two of my friends just went to check for something in the other quarters. The rest are having a chat inside the cabin. I, of course, am alone on the balcony. This is just how I want it to be for the next half hour.

I am sitting on a comfortable wooden chair with my feet ensconced on the table we had our lunch on hours before. I am spilling my thoughts out onto my phone.

Just in case you’re wondering why on earth I would isolate myself to be writing nonsense at such a beautiful moment when I could be having the fun I came here to have, let me just answer you by saying that, first of all, this is not nonsense and secondly, I can’t think of anything more beautiful to do right at this moment. And besides, I promised myself I would publish one article per month this year and tomorrow is already the last day of the month and I haven’t written anything yet. It’s been a wild, wild month.

We’ve engaged in a number of activities since we came. We’ve played in the water. We played soccer in the sand. There has been music and dancing. We rode on those beach bikes that have 4 wheels. I know that’s not their proper name but I can’t remember it for the life of me. Don’t ask me to look it up either, I am using a phone and it’s stressful enough to type on the phone.

We’ve just been served grilled fish and a campfire is crackling in the yard below, waiting for us.

We are going down now.

The fire is big enough and warm. Almost too warm. I have to keep a distance. We’ve brought the fish down by the campfire. There’s wine too. I don’t feel hungry right now. I don’t eat much generally and it is not helping because I’m so small and need to put on some weight.

I will pause here and eat first. And, I promise you, I will put the phone away and savor the moment. I don’t want to have you think me a nerd.

It’s been several hours since the paragraph before this one. As a matter of fact, it is 1:49 AM now on the following day.

After we ate the grilled fish and had a sip of the wine by the campfire, our coordinator/organizer gave a little speech. After that, I opted to chip in a word or two about my experience so far and was granted an audience. I rambled for a few minutes about the activities of the day and ended with a word of gratitude and appreciation for such a beautiful moment.

Circumstances have torn us all apart before and we understand that moments like this are rare and fleeting, and so we would do our best to enjoy them as best we can.

After the speeches, we played a game of “Never Have I." If you know this game, then you should already tell that some secrets were spilled. Not in a way that is harmful to anyone. Rather, in a way that made us all connect on a deeper level and air out things that have been burdensome to us for a long time.

After the game, we went to the beach sometime around 1 AM and took a walk on the beach. The waves raged even more violently, their loudness enhanced by the silence of the night. It was both frightening and exciting to be at the beach in the middle of the night. Eventually, I felt I’d had enough and so I, along with another friend of mine who shared the same feeling, came back to the cabin and I resumed writing again.

I feel some pain in my waist and my muscles are sore from the workouts I’ve done over this week. I don’t know what a massage feels like but I think I need one.

Anyway, thank you for reading my article. I think I should sleep now.

Cheers