Rising Tides: a Brush with Danger

Okay, I apologize in advance for the length of this blog. I sort of got carried away. Skip to the end if you want the cliff-notes version.

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At fourteen years old, I wouldn’t have called myself the most well-thought out person on the planet (that title was, at the time, reserved people much older and therefore much wiser than me). Before the Incident Which Has Not Yet Been Brought Up, I took it for granted that I was immortal until I grew old and, theoretically, died (no one had proven to me, yet, that old people died simply because they were old; I believed it was a conspiracy). This is not to say that I was completely stupid, just that I didn’t agree with agreeing with everything that was agreed-upon by the majority simply for the sake of being agreeable.

Okay, fine—I was disagreeable. But what fourteen-year-old isn’t at some point? (Don’t answer that—I don’t want to have to re-establish a viewpoint on young teenagers just yet). So, my brother Hanzony (thirteen at the time, and not much better as far as judgment went) and I had gotten us into plenty of interesting situations throughout our adolescent years. This Incident in Particular was one we rarely talk about, simply because we knew that if our guardians had known about it, our roaming-privileges would have been revoked indefinitely. Or so we thought, which explains why none of our family members really know what happened that evening on the coast of Central California.

The stupidity began well before we reached the coastline; being jostled by more than just the pot-holed road-less-travelled-by did wonders for our claustrophobia, which caused the beginnings of mutinous thought to poison my attitude. After a jerky stop, we peeled our shirt-backs off of the hot, leather seats of the Jeep, and jumped down onto the hard-packed, grousey sand. I glanced conspiringly at my brother, and saw the same mutinous gleam in Hanzony’s dark eyes.

Looking out across the [insert poetic adjective] ocean, I said, “Hey, Dad,” sure to keep my voice as tired and neutral-sounding as possible.

“Yeah, Bubby,” he acknowledged distractedly; he was unloading the fishing gear.

“Mind if Ni-Ni and I go exploring for a bit? Gotta stretch the legs.”

Dad tried to think of a reason to say ‘no’—I could tell—and when he couldn’t justify to himself that saying ‘no’ for the sake of saying ‘no’ (because it isn’t good character-building to hear ‘yes’ all the time, even if it is deserved) would be applicable here, he asked,

“You don’t wanna fish?”

I just shook my head at him, and flashed a sad, apologetic look. (Okay, what? I was sorry that I didn’t want to fish with him! I had a conscience, I knew he had been looking forward to this little outing, and planned on giving me some sort of coming-of-age talk for some time now; I could see the beginnings of his lecture-face peeking out from behind his careful mask of contemplation.)

“Besides,” I said, “You know I’ll just complain the whole time about being cold.” It was true; I was a notoriously cold person. Stick me in 75 degree weather with a cold glass of iced-tea in my hand, and I I’d be shivering and looking for a sweater.

“All right,” his head nodded like I’m sure he heard some kind of classic rock beat in his head. He looked like he wanted to say something else. He seemed a bit sad, which only afforded a small dosage of guilt from me. However, he didn’t say anything else, and I looked to Hanzony, and we started off wordlessly toward the edge of the beach.

We discovered that it was a small cliff—a small cliff with amazing potential for hidden treasures, extending endlessly southward to our left.

It was glorious.

There were ledges and nooks and niches that sparkled and shimmered in the sunlight, dipping into the tumultuous waters stoically, and unmoving.

It made us underestimate the power of the waves, which had the force of the entire Pacific behind every crash. This was not our first mistake—our first mistake was dipping our legs over the edge once we were out of sight of our dusty-ball-cap-wearing father—but it was definitely our biggest mistake.

Our goal was to reach the scraggly tree we spied down the beach a ways, leaning out over the ocean as if looking for something it dropped. We figured it was a large and recognizable enough landmark to stop us from going too far. What we didn’t know was that, in real life, the tree was much larger than we gauged, and therefore much further away than we guessed. But once we set our goal, either of us would be damned before we’d give up. It became a test of nerve.

What I find interesting, in regards to myself is that I’m afraid of moving very, very quickly, but heights don’t faze me. I guess it never occurs to me how quickly I’d travel when falling from a great height—which is more or less exactly what happened. It wasn’t a great height, but it was ten or fifteen feet further than I wanted to be at that moment, and I was lucky that I slid most of the way before being deposited onto the back of a large, round, smooth rock. Through the adrenaline, I couldn’t feel the scrapes on my feet, or the throbbing in my ankle that indicated a severe and painful twist.

I had been wearing flip-flops up to this point, which now I wobbled over bare-footed to retrieve the only one that survived the fall with me. The other one, I’m sure, had kamikaze-d into the foaming water that surrounded my rock, because it definitely wasn’t anywhere in sight.

It was amazing how much louder the ocean waves sounded when I was—literally—right on top of it. I looked up at the muffled, echoed voice of my brother, and waved a hand, a maniacal grin on my face. I don’t think he knew what I was smiling about—and for that matter; neither did I.

It became plain that there wasn’t going to be an easy way back up the cliff for me, especially after watching Hanzony’s puzzled face slowly morph into the concerned glower that happened only when he was divinely frustrated with himself. Which was pretty often, so I’d come to know that look very well.

It wasn’t a good look.

And that’s about the time I felt a crash of ocean spray lick the bottoms of my feet, and I realized that the tide was, indeed, coming in.

I’d like to tell you that I held it together, and calmly found away to recue myself from a cold, wet, gagging death. But I wasn’t very calm at this point. Especially since I had lost sight of my brother, and felt as though God and all his creatures had abandoned me to sink to my watery grave. (It’s moments like those that really make me regret my over-active imagination).

I whirled about helplessly, looking for a ledge to hoist myself onto, or another rock to jump to—not that that would do me any good, since the tide would surely swallow up all the rocks level with me. I was barely aware of the pitiful, scared noises that were jumping out of my throat whenever the water crashed higher around me. The ledge to my left was jutting out over the water, and was quickly shrinking away from me, though I hardly thought being over there would be better than my being over here, since the ocean wasn’t about to discriminate in my favor. But I had to do something, right? So, without debating with myself to harshly about it, I launched myself over the briny blue, and landed square in the center of my target.

Great!

. . . Oh, great! I still wasn’t any closer to the top and my salvation, because there weren’t any handholds over here, either—just a bare, smooth, gently sloping and glistening rock face that dwarfed me in size and significance.

I swore. Loudly and angrily, just to make myself clear.

Another gust of spray warned me uselessly of the oncoming crash that nearly knocked me off my feet. If I hadn’t flung myself against the rock-face, I’m sure that would have been the last of me.

As if I wasn’t already feeling it, my panic rose considerably, and I don’t know what I would have done if Hanzony’s voice hadn’t permeated the resounding waves.

“BUB!” Came the shout from the heavens, and I flung my sopping hair out of my face to search desperately for its source.

“Ah! I. . . AH!” I said. Sure, they weren’t words, but they conveyed my meaning perfectly.

“I’m coming down!”

“WHAT!?”

“I’m coming down!” he repeated doggedly. 

“OH, You BETTER not!” I warned, my voice sounding alien with near-hysterics, and not sinister like I was aiming for. “Are you stupid!?”

“Only as stupid as you!” He cried, and I thought I would burst with anger. But before I could stop him, I heard a dull 'smack!' against the rock I had just catapulted myself from.

“What are you doing!?” I wanted to know, but he didn’t say anything. As the next wave had me up against the wall again, I felt his cold, wet hand on my shoulder in a death-grip.

“This way!” He proclaimed, and I realized that he didn’t have a heroic death wish—he had a plan! His dark, stubby finger pointed toward my salvation.

Another ledge--with a larger chasm than the last I'd jumped.

And when I say larger, I mean larger. The gap was nearly as tall as I was. Which was pretty tall, even at fourteen. 

Oh, goody.

All I had to do was jump one more ledge, he'd said.

Yeah. 'All I had to,' he said, as if it were easy, as if I was in the habit of jumping extreme distances. The nerve! 

Apparently—though I thought of this later, at the moment I was busy being incredulous—Hanzony had scouted along the top of the cliff for the best possible rout I could take. As he was doing this, he decided that he couldn’t shout the directions to me because it would take too long, and it would double my chances of survival if he were to, instead, show me. 

And he did. He jumped. No careening, no slipping (granted, he was wearing shoes). He turned, and held a hand out to me, as though the hand would make the distance not so distant. I looked down at the frothy expanse, numb and scared and scolding myself for not wearing shoes (or a freaking sweater! Oh, was I cold!). 

Well, if he could do it—I’d be damned if I couldn't!

One more wave that nearly pulled my legs clear out from under me was all the motivation I needed to finally launch my cold, wet butt across another glittering, stomach-churning death-pit. My foot barely touched the ledge, and if it weren't for Hanzony's beckoning hand, well. . . you get the idea. 

From there, my memory clouds, and I don’t recall how we climbed up onto the cliff. I know it was dangerous, slippery, and risky, but definitely not as dangerous, slippery and risky as staying put would have been.

When we cleared the top, and I pulled my breathless, battered body over the edge and to safety, I found myself staring up at a large, crooked tree. That was the first time that evening that I realized how dark it actually had gotten; several stars had winked into existence since I had tumbled to my thwarted-doom.

Well, I guess we did reach our goal. When we finally returned to the Jeep, numb from cold, and breathless from our hobble-hike (well, MY hobble hike; since the adrenaline had left me with a tremendous pain in my ankle, and I had a bloody, sandal-less foot to attend to, the way back was definitely not fun) Hanzony looked at me with eyes that warned against announcing our exploits. I nodded my head in agreement, and when Dad asked in a not-so-well-disguised Frantic Voice 'just where we’d gone off to’, Hanzony deftly answered,

“Oh, you know—around.”

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CLIFF NOTES VERSION: So, essentially, my little brother and I pranced around like the pre-teens we were, climbed along the edge of a treacherous, beachside cliff, and were nearly swallowed by the rising tide. Luckily a stream of fortuitous events brought us safely back to where my little brother, Eli was fishing with my father. We told no one of our mishaps--we weren't that stupid. Do you think we'd risk punishment? I don't know about you, but I certainly didn't want--and Hanzony agreed with me--my dad to turn into a Nazi and revoke my exploratory privilages. That just wouldn't have been cool.