The hot California sun was beating down on my skin.

The orange and yellow rays

hit the waves and made the ocean glisten.

I sink my pretty pink toes into the sand,

letting the waves crash among me.

Shells were spread all around the beach,

poking up like little rays of light.

I smell the crisp, salty ocean air surrounding me.

The thick air is like a blanket of humidity wrapping around me.

As the long summer day

winded

down,

I sat in the sand and listened,

to the seagulls squawk and the waves crash among me.

In the distance I saw people surfing the 8 foot waves,

looking carefree.

Simple

yet

beautiful.

I watch the sun

go

down

As a new day will start tomorrow.

There is no place I would rather be than on the beach.

After slowly climbing

higher

and higher

and higher,

I was finally there.

I stopped to get a drink from my half empty water bottle

and leaned against a boulder,

resting my tired, aching legs.

It was flattening out and only a few little trees

and shrubs were growing through the cracks in the rocks.

A piercing wind blows and I shiver, chilled raw to the bone.

There is a small path leading up to the top and I walk up it,

following my sister and dad.

I walk briskly over to the ledge and my heart stops.

Time freezes.

I can spot little houses off in the distance, and rolling hills.

I can see huge, green fields and big, blue lakes.

I looked down the side of the tree covered mountain

and thought that so long ago I had been

ascending up the dirt paths,

struggling to climb the rocky terrain

but ecstatic to venture on.

And then I look up.

Huge, gray clouds cover the dark gray sky,

and a raven flies overhead,

gliding gracefully through the sky.

I am a bird,

high on it’s perch,

gazing down upon the Earth far,

far

below.

My arrival to the ever-sunny

Hanauma Bay was greeted

with wide expanses of cream colored sand,

embracing gleaming,

crystal clear,

glasslike,

aquamarine water.

No, not water-

they were liquid diamonds,

converging,

constantly swaying to the ocean’s song,

waves beating down onto the shore

in unexplainable rhythms.

My first tentative steps

were mesmerizingly cool,

comforting in comparison

to the sun’s sweltering heat,

accompanied by a refreshingly

moist scent

of salty, salty water,

enveloping,

surrounding me.

I pulled the bulky snorkel mask

over my face and gracefully

slip in.

Though above the Hawaiian waters

was an enchanting sight,

below was a new world.

Scratchy sand whirled

around my feet,

encasing my tingling toes

in a musicless ballet,

fish darting away

in a constantly shifting rainbow.

Coral shimmered in sunlight,

expelling a soft glow

of pinks,

oranges,

yellows.

I found myself whirling and twirling,

prancing and dancing

to the ocean’s beat,

the ocean’s song

all while silently trailing

after the mass of shimmering

tails and fins.

After I tore myself away

from the underwater ballet,

I trudged from the shore back to my shade

under a palm tree.

I entwined myself

within a towel,

salt still clinging

to my lips,

emitting a stinging sensation.

My hair seemed to have wings

as it fluttered in the wind.

I lay down in the glow of the setting sun,

soaking in the last rays

and the entrancing view:

Daylight

dipping its head to rest

in its seabed below,

sending its last hues into a serene Hanauma Bay.

I could feel the world

keep spinning,

lurching,

going,

but I only saw this sun, this radiance, laying its head to rest.

The white goal line below me is chipped and faded.

I shift my weight, balancing on my toes.

The lush green field has never felt so tiny.

The net so small engulfs me like a tight blanket.

A crisp silence falls upon the viewers.

Only the shooter and I are existent.

The sky is blue, but my eyes are dark.

It is a war between us,

and only one can be victorious.

I rub my hands together shakily.

All eyes burn into me.

My stomach is queasy, heart beating through my chest.

“I can do this” is a broken record in my brain.

The refs whistle sounds,

breaking the dark silence.

The shooter backs up,

kicking the dirt,

charges forward,

foot in contact with the ball.

The sphere launches itself towards me,

moving in slow motion.

I lunge to the side,

my eyes, narrow,

grasping the white ball.

There is silence, and then,

cheering and hollering fills the air.

The ball is in my hands.

My teammates are grinning like Cheshire Cat.

I guess smiles are contagious,

because one forms on my flushed face.

The cold air

covered the woods

like a fresh coat of paint. The rungs on the trees were covered

in frost.

The climber before me with every rung

climbed higher

and higher towards the sky

like a ladder directly to the sun.

The trees were covered

in the cold like a christmas

tree being wrapped in lights.

The centipede twisted

and turned like a man playing twister.

My hands grasped the icy

cold

rungs

and I began climbing.

My feet pushed me upward and upward.

My body shivered

in the cold of

the woods.

I set my face in a determined look

and kept pushing. I was thinking that I couldn’t

go any farther because I was

exhausted.

I was so cold I couldn’t feel my hands

or my

feet

but I powered through.

My classmates were cheering

for me in the distance. My eyes spotted the top of the

Centipede

like a runner seeing the finish line.

As my hands clasped

on

to

the

top

I could hear my classmates cheering.

I peered down

and was shocked at the height.

I was at the top I had done it and a wave of excitement poured over me.