A girl in a sparkling pink bathing suit stands on the beach. She’s maybe four years old. Her hair is sun streaked and curls loosely at her neck. Her belly sticks out, reminding us that she wasn’t a toddler that long ago. She stands there, stick straight—except for her belly– with her hands at her side. She’s perfectly still. She looks like she’s trying to tuck all of herself behind a tree in a game of hide and seek, except there isn’t a tree anywhere on the beach and no children are around either. I watch her. In front of her, waves crash and a boogie boarder rides into the shallow water. A father pulls a boy on a board into the white water and helps him ride a wave into the sand.
To the little girl’s left an older woman gathers bits of trash– other people’s garbage– and slowly walks the handful of empty chip bags and soda cans to a public garbage can.
Behind the little girl, higher up on the beach, I suspect is her mother. A woman sits under an umbrella half-reading a book and half-watching the little girl.
Between the little girl and the father with the boy on the board, is a teenage boy. The lanky teenager takes a stick and draws in the wet sand. He writes letters and I wonder is he writing his own name or the name of someone he admires?
To the little girl’s right, twenty to thirty seagulls stand on the sand.
The waves roll into the beach. The father pulls the boy out and then pushes the boy to catches a breaking wave. The older woman bends to pick up a broken, plastic yellow shovel. She starts to move towards a garbage can. The teenage boy continues to draw on the sand.
The little girl stands still, arms at her sides. Then she points her right toes, extends it from her body and takes one, careful, deliberate step and stops. She pulls herself up straight, stands tall and still again. Everything about her is frozen but very much alive. She points her right toes again and takes one more step and then freezes again. It’s almost as if she’s pulled all of her breath into her chest and she’s trying hard to not exhale.
And then, in an instant, she runs, screams, flaps her arms–up and down, up and down. She runs straight at the flock of sea gulls. One takes flight and then another and another.
The little girl begins to yell, louder and louder. “Fly! Fly! Fly!” The entire flock takes flight and circles above her.
The mother stops reading. The father and the boy on the board watch. The teenager writing in the sand looks up. The woman on her way to the garbage turns to look.
There on the beach in a sparkling pink swim suit is a little girl, laughing, dancing in circles waving her arms in the air and yelling, “Fly! Fly! Fly!”
In that moment, all of our hearts did.