School is out..summer is in..I am still dreaming..

 ..of the big blue ocean and the sandy beaches! 

I am a beach bum. Maybe because I grew up in Trivandrum. With the most beautiful beaches just a stone's throw away. The beach is where I feel my best. The only place I am fun. Where I let loose. 

As kids, we used to go to the beach pretty much every weekend. Either with family or just as a group of friends from the apartment complex who decided to take the public bus and head out to the beach. As a parent now, I am appalled that my parents were so lenient. I don't even let my kids ride their bikes in the cul-de-sac right outside my house unless I am around to supervise it all the time. And there I was, a mere 8-year-old, heading out to a beach, 30 kms away, with a bunch of 15-year-olds (my brother and his group), hopping on and off the KSRTC buses. That too, to the ocean, of all the places! And no mobile phones or any sort of communication devices until we decide to head back home after sunset. They placed so much trust in us that when we left home at 9 in the morning, we would all reach back home, unharmed and exactly as we left. They trusted not just us, but the world around us. And I am so grateful to all the almighty and Lady Luck, who favored us, and us, that every single one of those trips gave me nothing but super fond memories that I hold on to so very dearly. It could have gone wrong in so many different ways.

But maybe that's also why I am so self-dependent. I learned very young. 

And why I love the ocean and the sandy beach so much. I have my best memories there. 

Kovalam beach is my favorite. That's where we always went. I love any beach. But Kovalam has a place in my heart unlike any. The water was always warm. The sand was almost soft. The food is the best on earth. The sunset was spectacular. I have lain on the sand for hours, staring at the sky and letting the water take me back and forth. For someone who didn't know how to swim to save her life, I was quite the risk-taker back then. I have ventured in so far and so deep, without any safety harness or training. In my head, the ocean was always only about love and letting go. The dangers never occurred to me. I have danced with joy on the shores. It's the only place I have ever done a successful cartwheel! I have sunk my head deep under those salty waters and bawled my heart out. Kovalam has seen me raw and plain. (Wow! This certainly draws a lot of parallels with a previous post of mine on Guruvayoor. I need to stop being me at every favorite place of mine, or maybe these are my favorite places because I am being me!)

Kovalam was also where I decided to have the second meeting with my husband-to-be. I laid it out in plain sight for him to see. A trip to the beach, where I can be in the water like a dolphin and get to eat an entire chicken biriyani and chikku shake. Oh, and my Pistachio latte. This is all it takes to make me the happiest girl on earth!

Every time school closes for summer, (to be honest, I am not a fan! I love the school routine. It gives me sanity. Now, I am stuck with 3 months of holidays for the kids, and I have no clue how to keep them fed and entertained all the time, while still juggling my full-time work and studies. Post for another day!), my initial instinct is to take off to a warm, sunny beach. I am not a mountain person. Of course, I tolerate it. But something about the mountain's quietness gets to me. And because of my husband's wonderful (note the sarcasm!) ideology of no flying until all kids are over 5, I have two more years of dreaming. Of flying out to an actual sandy beach! But at least this year, I have managed to convince him of a 10-day road trip to Michigan. It's not the ocean, but it's the closest I can get to a sandy beach. I am okay to substitute the ocean with a lake, if I can get the sandy shores, sunny days, beautiful sunsets, and amazing food to stuff myself with. God knows I need the break! 7 people and a dog, on a 10-day road trip across Michigan, where I am the trip planner and executor. I don't even have the dates yet. God save me!

A Google photo of my beloved Kovalam beach lighthouse. It is iconic!