Art Walk

A soft breeze blew past me, tugging on the ends of my hair as the sound of crashing waves met my ears. A smile graced my lips as my bare feet slowly sunk into the warm sand, and I tugged my bag a bit higher on my shoulders.

“Wow.” The word fell gently from my lips before I even made the conscious decision to voice my astonishment.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” My mom asked gently from my side with a soft smile on her lips.

Once our eyes met, our smiles grew bigger, and she hooked her arm through mine. Together we walked across the sand to where the waves met the shore. I didn’t care if the edge of my dress would get wet, and my mom didn’t seem to mind if her capri’s met the same fate. We walked into the ocean, the cool salt water wrapping around our ankles. I closed my eyes as an airy laugh escaped my lips, and heard my mom’s hum of content. All too soon, the water was pulling away from us. 

“I love the beach,” I told her, the smile never leaving my face as I opened my eyes. 

“Me too, kiddo. Me too.” 

My brother loved it, too, judging by his exclamations of ‘epic’. We spent the next few minutes documenting the trip- my mother went a little crazy with the pictures. Once that was out of the way, my brother and I ran around collecting sea shells, and breathing in the addicting ocean air. After finding a substantial amount of shells, we went to show our parents.

My grin fell as we walked up to them, and our dad’s sour demeanor. With a sigh, mom told us it was time to go. We placed our shells in the bag at dad’s feet, and begun our trip back to the car. My family walked ahead of me as I tried to take in as much of the ocean I could. Mom slowed down so I could catch up, and I sighed once I reached her side.

“I wish we didn’t have to leave,” I told her sadly as I glanced over my shoulder where the ocean gently kissed the shore.

“You and me both,” She said softly as we stepped back onto the wooden stairs that would lead us away from our temporary heaven.