Memoirs - The Rubber Raft
By: Yvonne
One day long ago my mother treated me to a day at the beach. She didn’t swim and as far as I recall she didn’t particularly like the beach, but for some reason, that one day she decided to humor me and take me to the beach; just the two of us. I am guessing it may have been Laguna or Newport as we were still living in Thermal, California and it was a long there and back.
I couldn’t have been more than 6 years old and I was so excited! I loved everything about the ocean: the salty scent of the ocean air, the warmth of the summer sun in counterpoint to the cool caress of the ocean breeze on my skin, the sound of the seagulls and their mournful cry as they circled overhead, the soothing repetitive sound of the waves as they crashed and receded…
What I wanted more than anything was to ride the waves on a rubber raft, the way I saw other people doing. What a thrill it would be to mount the raft, to conquer a wave while astride my raft and ride it victoriously to the shore! So I pleaded with my mother to rent a rubber raft for me. She was reluctant, but relented grudgingly and I had the sense that it cost a lot more than she wanted to spend on something so frivolous. She left it up to me to figure out how to use the raft and offered no help.
I spent the few precious hours allotted to me that day dragging the raft behind me by its rope to the precipice of the shore, watching the other children and parents frolicking happily in the waves, and wishing I could be like them; mounting the raft and riding the waves.
Again and again I approached the waves, and again and again I fled them as they rolled into shore, scrambling back towards safety. With every failed attempt, I felt a little more foolish, a little more cheated and, as the afternoon waned, I gave up hope of ever successfully mounting the raft or enjoying the thrill of being carried on the back of a thunderous wave to the shore.
Abashed, I returned the raft to my mother, and silently suffered her look of reproach that I had “wasted her money” on such a silly thing. Not once did it occur to me that my mother could have helped me, should have helped me in my childish quest for the joy of riding the waves. Nor that she should have shown me how to safely use it so I could enjoy its promise of a good time. I had been foolish and selfish to desire the rubber raft and the promise it held.
Years later, I would flirt with men the way I flirted with the waves that day, moving towards them in eager and anxious anticipation, then running away to safety whenever they got too close; never learning to entrust myself to another, how to unite as one, how to swell and crest and abandon myself tothe thrilling sensation of rolling towards shore, and then receding to the calming embrace of the ocean.
