Essay on Child That Always Lives Inside us
I peacefully sat on the porch, soaking up the sun, and appreciating the smell of the ocean air. Once my whole family woke up, we all rushed to get our suits on and get a good spot at the beach. The smell of hot dogs and watermelon permeated through the air as my sisters and I struggled to put our thick hair in ponytails by ourselves. We got sprayed down with sunscreen, packed up the van with beach chairs, towels, and whatever else we needed for spending the day, and we made way down to the beach. Though we were all distracted from singing our hearts out to Disney, we could not miss the smell of the salty air getting stronger meaning that we were almost there. Once we got out to the sand and found a spot that suited my mom’s taste, us kids would drop our things, grab boogie boards, and hit the water.
Throughout the hours my family spent at the beach, mine was comprised of playing in the water and occasionally going out to rinse the salt water that had managed to swallow or get in my eyes. The first activity of the day is boogie boarding, which as a child was intimidating, but I was up for the challenge and thrill. Once in a while, as I am trying to catch a wave, my board gets caught under the water being pulled back for the wave, and I am too weak to pull it up. As panic rushes over me, all I can do is hold my breath as I am dragged under the water with my board with immense force. After being dragged through the water, I took a longer break than normal to try to get the salt water out of my nose and calm down.
Once I had regained my composure, I went right back out because I assumed that it was only a one time thing. My innocence as a child lead to me getting hurt numerous amounts of time by getting dragged through the water, but I was able to learn for myself how to prevent these events from occurring through trial and error. This correlates with the romantic trait that innocence of a child is more important than the educational adult. The romantics were drawn to the nature of the child, and because at that age many children were not granted an education, they were able to learn for themselves how to best live in the world and not be warped to others opinions. Likewise, I was not taught be adults what to do in the situation I was in, but I was able to learn how the forces of nature worked by experiencing it and finding the right way for me.
After we got bored of boogie boarding, my sisters and I would play a game called “Dolphins”. We would imagine that we were dolphins and as we “grew up” we would be able to do different tricks to get passed the waves. We would imagine that we were in a whole dolphin world and we would even make dolphin sounds to better fit the part. We would often play this game after a particularly hard wipe out to allow us to see the waves a gentle instead of dangerous, and it also worked to distract us from the pain we were feeling from being dragged under water. Romanticists would often use imagination in their work to allow the person who is looking at or reading their work to escape from the harsh world. These artists and authors were able to allow minds to travel to a better place and distract them from their real life just like my Dolphin game allowed me to escape and focus on making the best dolphin noise and perfecting my tricks.
Through playing in the water or relaxing on the sand, I was able to look out onto the vast ocean to see the waves rolling over each other, birds swooping down to catch a fish, and actual dolphins poking their fins out of the water in pods. As I would relax, floating on top of the water or soaking in the sun on the sand, I would often close my eyes and just listen to the soothing noises around me. I could hear the waves crashing, the birds singing, and I would also hear the faint Bob Marley music my Nana was playing to put her in her reading zone. I realized how beautiful this small part of the Earth is and it made me realize that home was the last place I wanted to be. I was much more interested in falling asleep to the sound of crashing waves with my natural blanket of the warm sun enfolding around me. Romanticism is based on nature and its beauty and power over mankind. Romanticists often reject the idea of urban life as it is how humans built the world, and it also masks the true beauty of the world through buildings and man-made noises. Just like how I desired to stay in nature and the sun instead of going home, Romanticists valued the same natural state.
As romanticism values the beauty of nature, innocence of a child, and imagination, one way I lived this was as a little girl at the beach with my family. Throughout the beach trip, I was able to see the beauty and power of the world through play in the water and resting on the sand. By catching the little sand crabs that would poke out of the sand when a wave came to shore, seeing the dolphins poke out of the water, and seeing how the majestic birds flew, I was able to experience the joys of the real world before I was dragged back home. I was able to learn for myself how I was to safely boogie board and did not let the stubbornness of my parents keep me from going back out and trying again.
Though their knowledge that I would wipe out plenty of more times fueled their desire for me to play in the sand, I was an innocent child that just wanted to get as good as my older sister. Through my imagination, my sisters and I created a game that would allow us to escape from the world and fulfill our dreams of becoming dolphins for that moment. I still desired to stay out in nature the rest of my life instead of living in today’s reality, but I will never fail to see the beauty of nature in all things as it is a prominent aspect of my life.
