Water in a Bottle

I keep two bottles of ocean water on my dresser where I see them every morning. One is from the Pacific and one from the Atlantic. And there’s a story . . . I grew up in a small town in central Nebraska and I was expected to live a quiet life in a small town, probably married to a farmer or someone who sold stuff to farmers like crop insurance or combines. I quietly wished I could see the ocean but figured I probably never would. I had small aspirations to go with my small town upbringing.

I moved to the ‘big city’ of Omaha to get away from the small town and small dreams but I still never really expected to see the ocean. My daughter went on a trip to California and brought back some Pacific Ocean water for me, in a Gatorade bottle in the days before the airlines put limits on liquids. I kept that Gatorade bottle on my dresser and thought well, at least my daughter had the chance to see the ocean. That’s something.

Then the company I worked for sent me to a meeting in San Diego. Oh, bliss! Oh, joy! My flight arrived a couple of hours before sunset. At the hotel front desk, a nice young man, amused at my excitement to see the sunset over the Pacific, gave me directions to Sunset Cliffs, the best place in San Diego to watch. I sat on a rock, watched the sunset, and cried like a baby, I was so happy. I even got some sand to put into my bottle of Pacific Ocean water.

Then a few years later, my company paid my way to a conference in Orlando. My daughter and grandson came along and on our last day in Florida, we drove to the Atlantic Ocean just so I could get a bottle of water and some sand. (It was still in the days before airline restrictions.)

Now I keep this ocean water, in nicer bottles, on my dresser to remind myself that anything is possible. I wanted to be a writer and played around with writing stories ever since I was a kid. Now I’m writing stories for real. (Cue Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (RIP) and  Cinderella.)