The most amazing thing you’ve ever seen.

What is it? Is it a painting? Was it in a dream? Maybe it’s one of the seven wonders of the world, or maybe it’s something dull and unimportant, that just happened to jump out at you.

When I was seven, I saw the Grand Canyon, and as someone who was transplanted from a completely different climate, it was intense. And at the time, it was probably one of the most incredible things I’ve seen. (Although the faucets at JFK were a close second, that’s a story for another day.)

Less than a year after I saw the Grand Canyon, I saw the first large body of water in my life. It was the Pacific Ocean. I had seen pictures of seas and oceans, probably even drawn ones. But in reality, the seas can’t be described that way, mostly because they are and feel bigger than anything else in the world. They are endless (but they’re not.) They feel infinite. So the most amazing thing I have ever seen is the Pacific Ocean, at eight years old, in Southern California (where I would later come back to live.)

I’m okay with the idea that I might live farther from the ocean. It’s more of the concept that is comforting to me, and the fact that I know I will always return to this great unseeable, incomprehensible, water that i can never own, never grasp, and never understand. I want to live all over the world, but I’d like to die at sea. The waves will be here long after I’m gone, but the world will change.

Noemi