To escape the Pennsylvania heat, we found ourselves in Florida. The heat is far worse there, but the water is nicer than the Jersey shore. When you step outside the heat practically constricts your lungs making it hard to breathe. Your sunglasses fog up. The salty gulf waters sting your eyes. But for some reason, the change of scenery puts you at ease.
The beach. A place where we all feel so exposed. Not much is left hidden from everyone around us as we bare more of our skin to more people than we would in our daily lives. But the irony of it all is that the beach itself doesn’t hide much from us either. When you look out into the ocean you see storm clouds roll in before they’re even over your head. You see the rain falling from miles away before you ever feel a drop. You see what the ocean holds as it washes up at your feet. You watch the sun attempt to hide behind clouds as it fades off into the distance. I find comfort in that reciprocation of exposure.
Sitting on the beach at sunset triggers introspection for me if you can tell. I’m not much of a meditator, as much as I would like to be, but sitting in the sand at 8:30 at night feels like a meditation. It's hard to be elsewhere with a constant breeze in your face and the sun reflecting colors off of the clouds.
The house we were staying in is practically a tree house, built next to a large Banyan tree that invades any and all space it can. As my family stood in the little pool underneath it, we searched for information about Banyan trees out of curiosity.
It turns out that Banyan trees grow downwards. They become so expansive because their branches form new roots that grow down to the ground, instead of their roots coming from the ground up. Something about it felt so familiar to me. In a way, I always feel like I’m growing down, or rather growing in a way that is opposite to everyone else around me.
While everyone I see is excelling, moving, and growing, all forward nonetheless, I feel as if I am huddling, looking inward, looking backwards, getting to know– probably too much– about myself. I have always felt, for as long as I can remember, that I was on a different route to the same destination as everyone else.
So when I sat underneath that Banyan tree looking up at its roots growing down at me, I felt assured. I may be growing down, but my roots are still there.