Same Sand, Different Story … Michael Robles

by Michael Robles It was a random day on a random summer when we first went to Zuma Beach. I can’t tell you much about how the sand felt or how cold the water was, as my 9-year-old self was solely focused on getting to play in the waves as soon as possible. Before I decided to dash off to the never-ending vastness of the Pacific Ocean, my mom had just got done yelling at my brother for doing what I hesitated to do.

“You were supposed to put on sunscreen first,” she shouted to Justin. “Now you’re all wet.” He walked back nonchalantly after taking a head dive into the water. The waves couldn’t have been too high in the time I had finally put sunblock on. All I remember in that time was how it had felt like an eternity since I had been to the beach, and I was ready to take on Poseidon himself.

*** We finished eating at our favorite pizza place in Hollywood, but the day was still young. It was only mid-afternoon by the time we walked Hollywood Blvd, watching the street dance groups and seeing what movies were playing at the El Capitan Theater. “Two Guys from Italy,” formerly the best pizza spot, had fed us well in all its greasy, cheesy goodness, and the sun sat in the middle of the sky. My parents, younger brother, sister, and I went to Hollywood once a month for a small family outing. Since my uncle Andrew had been living with us for the past year, he tagged along, too.

After a constant back-and-forth about where to go next on the way to the car, the family finally settled on the

Creative Works… 105 Santa Monica Pier. 15-year-old me was happy, as we only went to the beach once or twice a year during the summer. It was probably March or April at the time, and I had gotten into writing a lot more, so the angsty edgy teen inside me was itching to find some sort of inspiration at the beach.

What a cliché…

*** The night sky sank the ocean into utter blackness on Newport Beach. Not even the moon illuminated the dense abyss that overtook the shore. The only thing I could really make out was a small group of white birds skimming across where the waves broke. I sat on the beach mat with my roommate, Matthew, as a flurry of classic rock hits played from his speaker. The longest, most exciting summer of my life had finally come to an end, and I had moved back into my college dorm a few days ago. It was Thursday, September 1, and it had been four days since I said goodbye to my parents, siblings, and girlfriend, as I was now two hours away for the next four months. As the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was playing quietly, I laid down on the soft, dark sand. Newport Beach always had the best sand out of the other Orange County beaches, in my opinion. It had been the first time in two years since I last touched it, and its gentle comfort sent me into a bit of a shock. “My social anxiety has been really bad,” I muttered to Matthew, letting the cool breeze fill the rest of the silence.

*** I can’t exactly recall how big the waves were that day

Creative Works… 106 on Zuma Beach. They never were really big, even in the following years. What I do remember was how many of us had been there. It was me, my siblings, parents, cousin, and aunt. I remember helping my dad set up our two canopies, coolers, and chairs, before excitedly running off to the waves with Justin and my little sister, Alexandria. I jumped in the cold water with Justin as Alexandria sat by the shore; being four years old, she wasn’t able to go as far as we did. I laughed as the waves crashed on my brother, throwing him to the sand. I sat by the shore and let the waves’ aftershocks take me in by a few feet, and spit me back out. My hair wasn’t that long, so I was able to go underwater without it getting too tangled, unlike Justin. My sister sat playing in the sand, and my muscle shirt was practically clinging onto me, now that I had gotten soaked. I remember thinking about what my friends were up to during their summer. I was in a group of about six or seven of us, and all of them played soccer. So they were probably playing or practicing for a tournament. Phones were nonexistent for third graders, so there wasn’t a quick way for me to tell them about my beach trip. All I could do was retell my memories once I saw them again in the fall. I looked back at my parents, cousin, and aunt, and saw a look of bewilderment on my mom’s face. While it is a bit fuzzy, I do remember hearing my dad yell, “Watch out,” and pointing. When I turned around, I saw a wave the size of a mountain above me, seconds away from crashing. *** The breeze on the Santa Monica coast wasn’t all too wild for it being Spring. In my past beach trips, I knew if it wasn’t in the dead center of summer, southern California

Creative Works… 107 beaches would always be slightly cold. But this time, it was tolerable. I had my favorite brown hoodie on, and the tip of the right sleeve was tearing apart at the thumb. As a sort of nervous tic, I would scratch at it, which would explain why it was so torn. The sunset was beautiful. The Neapolitan sky produced a vast mix of purple hues, pink streaks, and yellow accents from the sun’s tired eye. I pulled out my phone and took a picture on Snapchat, sending it to my friend, Veronica, with a red heart emoji. Andrew took his boots and socks off, rolled up his pants, and stood at the shore. Santa Monica’s cold waters flooded his and many other beachgoers’ toes. I didn’t dare take my shoes off. Not because I was scared of the cold, but because I was overthinking what would happen after I took them off. I’d walk to the shore, get my feet wet, then get sand stuck all over my soaked feet on the way back to my shoes. Then if we went to the pier, I’d be walking barefoot, and that would be disgusting, because so many Californians’ feet touch the floors of Santa Monica (and Californians don’t have the cleanest feet). Teenage me always thought over scenarios in this manner. By the time I had finished my nightmarish wet feet scenario, my uncle was already walking back. He picked up his shoes and walked with us, barefoot… ew… My family and I walked up to the pier. The massive array of lights completely overshadowed the darkening sky. The sun was on the horizon now, and pretty soon, the moon and its army of nightly stars would overtake its presence. Although the pier’s lights exploded my eyes in constant moving colors, my eyes set on one thing: the arcade. We all walked to the arcade, eager to spend my dad’s

Creative Works… 108 quarters. I passed by four Mortal Kombat arcade cabinets, a couple Tekken 4 cabinets, and a mix of other games, both new and old. I checked my phone. Veronica saw my snap but didn’t reply. Part of me worried, thinking of any worst-possible scenario a teenager could think of, until my uncle bumped his shoulder against mine. He walked beside me, reminiscing on how he used to come here all the time in his teenage years. “I loved Tekken, man,” he said to me. My eyes lit up. Tekken had always been my favorite fighting game series (and still is). “Me and Andre (his childhood friend) would go here all the time.” I laughed. It reminded me of myself and my brother, Justin. “We used to play Tekken for hours.” My dad took my brother to whatever game caught his eyes, while my mom and sister gravitated towards Mrs. Pac-Man. Andrew went elsewhere, and part of me thought to follow him purely off of instinct, but something caught my eye near the other side of the arcade. Amidst the skeeball machines, countless fighting games, and a couple shooters, stood one cabinet above them all. In fact, it wasn’t even a cabinet. It was a dome. A dome shaped like the Death Star from Star Wars. As I approached it, the words blared in my face: Star Wars: Battle Pod. *** Matthew was scrolling on his phone as I laid down, staring at the stars. It had been a while since I heard waves crash this peacefully. Yeah, I went to the beach about a month ago, but that was different. The beach, especially Newport Beach, felt different at one in the morning. It felt isolated, yet freeing. It felt as though I could vent to the ocean all of my worries and anxieties, and not a single soul

Creative Works… 109 would hear me besides God himself. I wish that were true. My heart was hurting a little. I missed everyone. I missed waking up and greeting my parents as I made coffee. I missed being able to go see my friends at a moment’s notice. I especially missed having my girlfriend in my arms as we laid down, watching whatever show we decided to put on. I missed being open to them all. Something else ate at me a little bit on the mental side. I was twenty years old now. Things had changed since I was a freshman in college. At that time, I was barely figuring things out. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be an author and musician, and get a job in writing or journalism before I could write books and make music full-time. But now that I was on the latter half of my degree, an overwhelming lack of responsibility overtook me. The teaching credential program drifted through my mind. I have to ask my professor about that, I thought. Then I thought about getting a job. I was supposed to transfer to the Irvine Joann Fabrics location, since I worked in the one in Palmdale before I moved, but I hadn’t heard anything back. What if I can’t get a job? I looked back at Matthew. His eyes were shut as he bobbed his head to whatever AC/DC song was playing. He sat without a care in the world, or at least it seemed like it. I wished I could feel like that. I craved to not have any more worries for the future. I craved to have the pointless worries that teenage me carried throughout high school. More than that, I wished for not having any worries at all. I wished for childhood again. To live in the moment. Then again, I wouldn’t have been where I was at without these worries or responsibilities. They were what carried me into adulthood.

Creative Works… 110 The sand was comforting. It wasn’t as rough as Santa Monica, or as rocky as Zuma Beach. I had been to both of those more times than I can count by then. I had a long four months ahead of me, but I knew it would smoothen out soon, just like the sand that pillowed my head. I looked to the oblivion of water. The birds looked like bugs, with how far they were. “Don’t worry,” Matthew said. “Your social anxiety will get better over time.”

*** The wave collapsed on me, engulfing me in nothing but saltwater. All I saw was black. I didn’t hear anything as I was submerged, tumbling beneath the waves. I couldn’t tell where I was going, or if I was even visible. I desperately tried to grab my nose to avoid breathing in water underneath my panic, but the waves continued to throw me in and out underneath the surface. It felt like Poseidon balled me up and threw me like a baseball from the depths of the ocean, sending me flying back to Zuma’s shore. Before I could get back up, the titan wave’s aftershock, which was practically as big as a normal wave, hit me. I tumbled again, reliving the cycle as I was submerged. Toppling, trying to grab my nose, only to be warped over and over. Once the sea was calm, I finally got back up. I couldn’t see a thing from the sand and hair that enveloped my eyes. I was soaked, covered in sand, coughing from how much water went through my nose and mouth. I should’ve been scared or crying, but I couldn’t help but laugh.

That was awesome, I thought. I started walking back up to my family. I couldn’t tell how bad I looked, but according to my mom, I was covered

Creative Works… 111 in sand. Saltwater invaded my throat, forcing me to cough over and over. Wet coughs spat out, off of reflex, just as how the sea engulfed and spat me out repeatedly. My mom walked over to me. “Are you okay?” she asked, holding my face with her hands. They were soft. I looked up from my sand-filled bowl of hair. I nodded as I continued to cough. I looked down at my shirt, which was now soaked and plastered with sand. It felt like the ocean’s way of tarring and feathering me for challenging it. As I stood, fully clothed in the outdoor showers by the bathroom, with my mom washing the sand out of my hair, I laughed a bit. “You thought it was fun, huh,” my mom asked, smil-

ing.

“Yeah, that was awesome,” I remember saying. She told me she saw me trying to hold my nose, falling over and over under the waves. We struggled trying to get the sand out of my hair. After twenty minutes, most of it was gone. On the walk back to our beach site, I waddled in my soaked trunks and shirt, jolting my head from side to side to get the water out of my ears. I couldn’t help but think, I can’t wait to tell the boys about this.

*** The arcade cabinet wasn’t just a cabinet: it was a pod. It was its own mini battle station, replicating that of the starfighters in the Star Wars movies. I peeked inside. It was empty. The quarters jingled in my pocket, and I checked my phone one last time. Veronica still hadn’t replied. The words “Opened ___ minutes ago” were displayed underneath her name (I don’t remember how many minutes it actually was). My heart dropped a little, but I turned my

Creative Works… 112 attention back to the game. I opened the door into the pod and walked inside. For an arcade cabinet, it was pretty spacious. To the right was a chair that was modeled after an X-Wing starfighter from the movies. To the left was a joystick with a trigger. To the right of it was another joystick with a trigger, accompanied by a few buttons. I sat down. In front of the model cockpit was a massive circular screen. It warped from the battle on Hoth, to a dogfight outside of an Empire star destroyer, to the forests of Endor. I was slightly in awe, as I hadn’t seen a Star Wars game as immersive as this one. Speakers were built on the sides for spatial audio, to make it as lifelike as possible. I pulled out four quarters from my pocket and inserted them into the game’s coin slots. As soon as the fourth quarter was injected, the classic Star Wars theme began to blare. The screen read “Mission Select,” and I debated between the four missions the game offered. I decided to start off slow, and chose the “Yavin IV” mission. The game’s audio was loud and surprisingly high quality. I moved the left stick to steer, and aimed my imaginary blasters with the right. TIE Fighters scattered across my screen, the chair swiveled in the direction I’d maneuver the joystick, and a feeling of recoil would cause it to shift with each fire of the blaster. As I plowed through the enemies on my screen, and was transported into space as part of the fictional Rebellion squadron, I was also transported back to my childhood. I thought of how I used to play pretend in different universes with my brother, and even sometimes by myself. I was taken back to the years where we would lazily color empty paper towel rolls and use them as lightsabers, pre-

Creative Works… 113 tending to be Anakin and Obi-Wan, fighting to the death. Or, once we finally got toy lightsabers, we’d make up our own characters and go on our own adventures. We did that with so many worlds: Kingdom Hearts, Pokémon, Naruto, and many more. The list was never-ending. And, for a good five minutes, I was back in that position – only this time I wasn’t the one making the sound effects. I completed the “Yavin IV” mission and only died once, so I was able to move on to the next one: Hoth. I sat for a second with my heart racing. My teenage anxieties were gone. There was no time for worrying about whether a girl would Snapchat me back while I was saving the galaxy from the cruel hands of the Empire. So, I moved on to the Hoth mission. I raced past countless TIE Fighters once again, this time having to wrap wires around the legs of giant, stomping AT-AT enemy machines, forcing them to tumble. The mission had practically breezed by, and I succeeded. I was having too much fun. Once I had emptied all of the quarters I had into the game, I was smiling. I hadn’t experienced that much fun in a while. My freshman year of high school filled my teenage mind with assignments, anxieties, and stresses (most of them emotional or social). Once I exited, I closed the door to the sacred battle pod behind me, alongside the feeling of childhood bliss. I pulled out my phone once again. To my surprise, Veronica’s name popped up. She texted me five minutes ago.

*** I didn’t recognize the song that was playing anymore. It had gone from major classic rock hits to more obscure ones. “You should play ‘Strange Brew’ by Cream,” I told

Matthew. He silently played it on his phone. The opening drum hits of Ginger Baker transitioned quickly into Eric Clapton’s guitar. The psychedelic riffs made love to my ears. I had discovered the band in high school. I told my friends to listen to them over and over. Veronica, Tino, Lucas, Manuel, Jean, all of them. Now, from them, it was just Tino and Lucas. I remembered how it felt being a teenager in high school. Even though it hadn’t been that long, per se, it felt like millennia. Everything felt like it was eons ago. Times of the past had just become a jumble of mixed memories. I could pick them out in a pile and hesitate to tell you from whence they came. Newport’s shore was a bit more silent now. The wet sand areas weren’t too far off from where we sat. The sealine began to recede. I massaged my head in an attempt to ease my headache. I didn’t eat enough. I never did anymore, especially now. I wished I could go back to the times on beaches where my worries didn’t affect my future self so much. Whether or not I held my nose during my near-drowning experience at nine years old, I doubt it would’ve affected my 20-year-old self very much, though I do still hold my nose when going underwater. The relationships I had with some people, who I would’ve trusted with my life in high school, had dissipated. Nothing was very influential from those times anymore. I didn’t have much to show from them. But I still remember the worries they carried. At age nine, it was nothing. It was just constantly living in the moment, waiting for the next adventure that life would take me on that day. At age fifteen, it was girl(s), grades, and

social anxiety. What was so different now? Now, I was two years away from being a full-blown adult (by society’s standards). I was making plans for my future; career options, where I would live, how I would get there, everything. The world was making me worry more about things five years from now than at any point in my life. As I watched the low waves wash upon the sand, scaring the skimming birds away just a few feet closer to us, I listened to the song. “Strange brew, killin’ what’s inside of you,” Jack Bruce sang. Strange indeed, Jack. Strange indeed. The beach had become a place of thought for me, in these past couple of years more than anything. In the trips I took, either with friends or family, I had a notebook with me at all times. I’d jot story ideas down, or start writing a song. I had written a poem one night on Newport Beach two years before, nearly shedding tears. Now, my notebook sat in my backpack, sandwiched between my planner and the novel The Last Planet by Andre Norton. All I had sitting with me were worries and Matthew. Then, I thought about the letter Tabitha gave me on our last date night. The words “I will be here for you in any and every way” drifted into my mind from the card she gave me. She gave me hope. My parents and friends gave me hope. I wasn’t alone with these worries. I could tell you that with this realization, my worries flooded away just as fast as the receding shore did, but they didn’t. That’s not how it works, being twenty with the overthinking habits of a 15-year-old. Instead, I sat up and looked out at the beach one more time. I just have to deal with it. I just know I’m

Creative Works… 116 not dealing with it alone. I have the best people I could ask for by my side: spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. Even though they were few compared to past years, they were more than I could ask for, and I’ll always cherish them. In fact, I take Tabitha’s letter with me to school every day. After a few minutes, Matthew and I wrapped up the beach mat, grabbed the speaker, and drove back to our apartment. I drove across Newport Boulevard with my head laid back, along with my worries and responsibilities. The next beach trip I take in a few years will have its own worries, thoughts, and responsibilities. For now, this is it.