Quicksand

Today I fell in quicksand. It was rather exciting.

It all started when my friend Georgia Ray at the writer’s program I was in wanted to explore the Doran beach nearby to spot some jellyfish during low tide. It sounded fun and I was stuck on my writing so I decided to tag along the short car ride.

My friends and I started walking along the beach, on parts of the sandy shores that’d be submerged in the ocean most of the day. Our shoes (slowly) sunk more into the beach sand than normal, like maybe 3/4 of an inch or so. It wasn’t scary but it was noticeable. I joked that quicksand hits you when you least expect it. Georgia laughed but other ppl didn’t.

Privately I mused on the difference between “quicksand” and “slowsand” (no, it’s not just “sand”).

We came across a lone feather and then a headless osprey. Just a dead bird. Not foreshadowing or anything, just a bird who had a much worse day than I did. I wondered how he died. Poor guy.

Later, in an otherwise calm part of the beach, a friend’s foot started sinking in! Like his whole shoe was submerged before his next step!

It was rather surprising. Then I noticed the same thing happening to me!

(My friends behind us stayed back)

I started walking uphill, to the high tide mark. But I got more and more stuck! First it was a shoe’s length, then maybe to my shins, and then more to my knees. Then I fell! Oops.

(I think at this point the other friend who was sinking extricated himself and arrived on solidish ground)

After I fell I noticed that I’m not sinking any further. Hypothesis: If I spread my body’s surface area out, there’s not enough weight to sink the whole way.

So my BATNA isn’t sinking all the way into the quicksand and dying an embarrassing death, but the rather undignified alternative of crawling/rolling my way into safety.

Unfortunately, it’s also (unsurprisingly) very muddy. And I didn’t want to get ALL my clothes muddy. I still needed to get back in my friend’s car. So I decided to use my hands and legs to amble towards safety, keeping both my palms and boots flat on the mud whenever I take a step.

It worked! My hands never sunk in the mud and my boots sunk in much less than previously.

So I successfully reached the heights of the beach and safety. Nothing else was damaged other than my boots, pants, and maybe my pride.

So this is how I survived my first (and hopefully, only) quicksand encounter.

Oh, I also saved a kitten later in the evening but that’s a story for another day.

Two cute kittens resting together. I saved the one in the green sweater