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go deep, not wide.

[marketing slogan]

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Santa Barbara. Broad, fat eucalyptus leaves, strange jungle flowers in bright colors and angular shapes, girls rollerblading in long lazy sweeps by the beach. My taxi driver nods along to Tejano music and turns around to tell me about his two children, his daughter in college, his son just graduating high school today. The second I drop off my bags in my hotel room, I turn around and start walking towards the water, past people who smell like fresh laundry and snap photos of the drum circles on the beach.

Here's what it is about the ocean, why I had to come back even just for a few days. When I work my feet deep into the sand, when I feel the cool air move around my ankles, while I watch the waves fall, I am placed. It's not like being in the wilderness, the forest or the desert, or in a city, or on a road. When I am on on this strip of land, for one of the only times in my life I know exactly which line I stand on. This is one of the places where the whole world stops and turns into something else entirely. Whatever mystery this is, it's well marked.

Days ago I'd asked him, What would you do if you knew you could not fail? He replied, That question isn't good enough. What would you still do if you knew you would fail? I can't stop thinking about this today, my heels on solid ground, my toes in the sea.

What I know is that when I stand here, up against the water on this hurtling planet, I can run my finger along the edge of a map, stop, and say, Here I am. On this line separating the brown from the blue. Where all the wild things begin.