JUNE WRITING CHALLENGE
Enjoying the Waves in Curacao on Christmas Day With the Island Natives
All I want for Christmas is to play in the waves
Water equals waves.
There’s something magical and joyous about playing in the waves.
Christmas of 2000, my parents took the whole family, 16 of us, to Aruba for the holiday. We stayed at an amazing resort and the beach was gorgeous.
The best part was the waves.
I woke up every morning dying to get into those waves and play.
What is it about waves?
“Waves are toys from God.” — Clay Marzo
Christmas of 2002, our family went to the island of Curacao. It’s one of the three “ABC Islands” located just off the Venezuelan coast. The three islands, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao are all part of the Kingdom of Netherlands.
Once again we went to a beautiful tropical resort on the beach. But, to my dismay, the beach was fairly calm.
There were no big waves.
There was plenty to do and see but I craved those waves we had in Aruba.
No one else in my family seemed to miss the waves like me.
I told my husband all I wanted for Christmas was to find a beach with waves.
The island is not that big so it’s easy to drive around and look at the beaches. Sure enough, the beaches on the other side of the island had nice, big waves.
These were the beaches the local Curaçaoans went to.
So we headed out on Christmas Day to one of the beaches the locals used. It was fairly packed and we were the only tourists there.
My son took a picture of me in the water with the native people of Curacao and when he showed it to people he would say, “Can you guess which ones the tourist?”
The people were wonderful. I explained my desire to play in the waves and the ones that spoke English told the rest.
They went in the water with me and we all frolicked joyously in those big crazy waves.
It’s impossible to not have a blast when bobbing and bouncing around in the waves. Especially with a group of people letting themselves go and being goofy as if we were all “wave drunk”.
They weren’t mad or rude because we invaded their beach that day.
They were gracious and kind.
We are all human beings connected regardless of race, creed, or color.
We spoke the same universal language.
Smiles and Laughter.
Water has the power to bring people together.
“Waves are the practice of water. To speak of waves apart from water, or water apart from waves is a delusion.” — Suzuki Roshi
It was a very Merry Christmas that year!
Shout out to Matt Hampton for this heartfelt article on mental health.
If you enjoyed reading this story and would like to join Medium please consider signing up through my membership link below. It will help support my writing efforts on Medium at no extra cost to you. For only $5/month you will be able to read all the stories you want as well as be a writer yourself.
Copyright @ 2022 Klara Jane Holloway. All rights reserved.
