I'm Adelima, and this is The Slowdown.

I grew up about an hour from the Sonoma Coast in California.

On hot summer days, if we were lucky, my parents would drive me and my brother through

Petaluma, down Old Adobe Road, and out to the Bay Highway, to Badega Bay, or Dylan

Beach, or up to Goat Rock.

Even on warm days, the water was near freezing, and still my brother and I would play for hours

on the beach, crafting sand castles or body surfing in the waves, while our parents unpacked

coolers full of peanut butter sandwiches and snacks.

One of my best memories were made at the beach.

It was one of the places my brother and I never fought.

At the beach, we were friends, co-workers and sand and saltwater.

No one could shout over the ocean anyway.

I loved how loud it was, how it made everything feel small, unimportant.

Those boats on the horizon looked like little toys being tossed around on the cold Pacific

waters.

Once I just shouted at the ocean and made up songs for it and talked to it for a whole

hour, and no one around me could seemingly hear me.

I was drowned out by the ocean, and I loved it.

It wasn't shouting back or matching my drama.

It just did it naturally.

Drama was all the ocean knew how to do.

Earlier this year, I was at a tropical beach with friends and their six-year-old boys.

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