Thank you for all of the superb submissions. This week’s winning story is below.
The next top essay will appear April 21. The submission window opens today and closes midnight, April 14. Winners take home $50 and bragging rights.
Rules:
-Essays must be travel in nature.
-Stories must be nonfiction.
-Pieces cannot exceed 500 words.
–Paste freelancers and employees are not eligible.
-Submissions must be original works and not previously published.
Please submit your essay to [email protected]. We look forward to reading about your adventures and wish you the best of luck.
***
The Adventurer She Will Become
By Nina Lohman Cilek
Mostly she would stand there. Toes digging into the sand, saltwater splashing at her thin ankles and strong legs, her brown eyes squinting towards the horizon. I watched her watch the sea. Her brother, two, with Sisyphean dedication, tirelessly carried trowel after trowel of ocean water to his distant orange bucket, and after depositing the few drops that remained he would turn and run back to the water. But she chose to stand, not all the time of course, she is five, but there were moments every day where I watched as the boundless untamed caught her attention.
In the evening as the sun was setting she would dance, arms extended like narrow wings, kicking up water onto her (inevitably) just washed body and dry clothes. Twirling, turning, wind in her hair, hair in her mouth, smiling, stopping to collect a smooth shell. Then, as if she heard her name called aloud, she would lift her gaze from the mess of shells and sand to stare, silently, single-heartedly at the ocean.
Through her I see the familiar as new. That feeling of being mesmerized by the ocean? For me, it was the Oregon coastline and I was her age visiting my grandparents. The Northwestern ocean felt cold and frightening, but at the same time wild and welcoming. It was then, and I can still feel the weight of that particular moment, that the paradox of the ocean settled into my bones.
We live in the land of corn. This is where my family creates habits out of the daily routines of school, community and play. But when we travel I see in my daughter the adventurer she will become. I am reminded of the adventure that I still am.
Driving through Wyoming, in the rearview mirror, I see her distracted from her books by the whirl of a great expanse of wind turbines. In Colorado she climbs cold, moss-covered boulders to gain a better view of the sunrise. In Minnesota she throws stones and sticks and pinecones into the lake and watches as the ripples fade. In Nebraska she lets the wind blow through her hair, billowing her t-shirt like a sail as she laughs and tries to walk into the gust.
We left the Florida coast last week and she brought the ocean home with her the only way she knew how: with a collection of shells, shark teeth and sea glass. I brought home sand in our luggage and an understanding that a few drops of saltwater still run through my veins, and now, thankfully, through hers as well.