21 For Fun...

The sand crumbles beneath the young man's toes as he walks towards the water, gazing out towards the islands on this early Saturday morning. He says hello to the waves, as they lap up against the shore, as they have for the last twenty one years and millions more prior. He notices a particularly clear area of the wet sand, and decides to create. He digs his heel into the sand, and drags it along the shore, the sand parting for his foot as he moves. He curves around, starts another line, checks his work, goes back to clean up the rough edges. He circles the entire creation with a large oval, and stands back to admire his work. Satisfied, he goes to sit on the sandals he's left nearby, and listen to the ocean. A small boy comes bounding across the sand, being trailed by his mother, who is holding a small girl's hand. He stands before the area, and appears to be thinking very hard as he surveys the scene. "MOMMY MOMMY! There's a 21 in the dirt!" "Yes dear, please walk around it" the mother replies, glancing at the young man as she passes. Waves continue to break, and an elderly man approaches along the shore from the other direction. He's hunched over his cane, taking very small steps, as if each one is an effort. He reaches the spot where the young man is sitting, and gingerly pauses to catch his breath, resting both his arms on his cane as his gaze as well passes over the young man's creation. He looks up at the young man, and with a big grin, says "Happy Birthday." The young man chuckles and responds with a cheerful smile "Thank you Sir." As the elderly man continues on, the young but slightly older now man turns to return to his campsite, leaving his creation to be washed away with the tides. He wonders where he'll be twenty one years from now, what life will be like. If its anything like the twenty one years prior, he has a lot to look forward to.

Only a third or so of the day is gone, and its already been a great one. The camping trip was pretty awesome, got down there around noon yesterday and had a grand ol time all night long, enjoying the fire and scenery, and all the friends from the hall that also made the trip down to Carpinteria. Had a somewhat eerie experience on the way down there, was plowing down Storke doing around 40mph when I suddenly noticed a large bird that looked much like a raven flying alongside my car just outside the passenger window. The strange thing it was matching my trajectory and velocity exactly, other than the flapping of its wings, it appeared like the bird was suspended from a mobile, it was moving neither up or down, nor side to side as far as I could tell. This continued for about a hundred yards, before it peeled off and shot up into the sky out of sight. I could have been seeing things, but I could have sworn it glanced over at me as it flew, peering into my window while it flew alongside. Very strange.

Highlight of the night was during the Taboo game, as I randomly happened to glance behind me towards my car, and notices several people hunched over what appeared to be an open flame on my trunk. "What in the hell are they doing to my car?" was the exclamation that resulted, and "I'm sure they're trying to light it on fire" was the witty response from the guy next to me. I then clued in to the whole candles aspect of what was going on, and the fact that they were about to bring over the surprise cakes for both myself and the other girl who came along who shared the same birthday. Oops.

So, I'm older now, but wiser? Well, there's still time for that.