Message in a Bottle

            Portlan. Yep, like the city, minus the “D” on the end. He is one of my best friends with a killer Irish accent imitation.  We both studied abroad at the same time, and we both fell in love with writing at the same time.  He likes to write short stories and poems, and I like to write optimistic journalism articles.  Needless to say, we can sit, clear our minds, and just write. 

 There is something powerful about writing a message to a complete stranger with the possibility that your words can change their day or even their life.   We headed to La Jolla Cove and stopped by the gas station to get bottles.  I went for the Iced tea, he went for the Voss water.  It was the perfect day to be at the beach.  It was a nice hot, and the sun was glistening on the water.  We climbed up a huge rock, and gave each other distance to write.  Neither one of us had a premeditated notion of what we would write about.  So we sat, sat, sat some more, and then our pens started to move.  He asked how I would start mine and I responded clueless.  He said, “ Beck you have to start it off with: My name is Becky and this is my message in a bottle.” So that’s what I did despite its unoriginality. 

  

    I wrote what came to my mind first.  I sought to be an encouragement. An encouragement to do what he/or she needs to do, to know and understand the beauty of life and of this world.  I don’t know what Portlan wrote about. But I have no doubt that it was great.  I put my email on mine in hopes of a response and Portlan, well he went for the email, phone number, and Facebook… so stranger if you are out there reading this and you find Port’s bottle: respond, or else he will be very upset. 

            We tried to find the perfect place to drop them off in La Jolla, but there wasn’t any spot that we were particularly fond of.  We decided to drive to Ocean Beach and drop it off the pier.  We didn’t want to get in trouble for littering so we had to wait for the perfect moment.  When we noticed the bystanders weren’t looking at us, we knocked them over.  Talk about invigorating.  We just watched our message float in the big blue ocean and finally walked away. We did a fist pound and talked about how cool it would be if someone would actually respond… I guess all we can do now, is wait.