Rain, rain, go away. I know we’re all sick of hearing about the record-breaking storm that drowned Los Angeles over the past week, but the showers did remind me of what I take for granted as a resident of sunny Southern California. 

Being cooped up inside for the last week has put into perspective how vital outdoor activity is to my mental well-being. My usually peaceful walk to campus became a perilous journey through puddles and over potholes, and that sacred time spent in every step was squandered with wind gusts that damaged my first umbrella beyond repair.

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My pre-college self would be disappointed in the speed at which my body forgets where I was raised. The San Francisco Bay Area is notorious for its fog — which is colloquially named Karl — but the dark skies never seemed to get to me as much as they do in L.A.. Growing up in a small and rural town left us kids with nothing else to do but spend time outdoors, no matter how cold and foggy the days were.

The part of my childhood that I miss the most lies just west of USC’s campus. It’s a place I would go to every single day of my summers between the ages of 8 and 18. A place that we’d run through the neighborhood and across the highway to get to just in time for the sunset — the destination for a quick surf check in the afternoon when we’d take the long way home. 

The ocean reminds me of where I’m from, in both a physical and emotional sense. More than intangible feelings, though, the ocean reminds me of one of the most important pieces of my life’s puzzle: my dad. 

Growing up by the ocean meant that it seeped into every aspect of my childhood. The table and chairs in the backyard were permanently tarnished from the salty air. In the summertime, my bedsheets would be sandy until September. My wetsuit would only leave its drying location draped over the fence if I knew it would rain through the night. 

Before the world woke up on Saturdays, my dad would be walking down to the beach to make sure the waves would be worth it. If I woke up and his board was missing from the garage, I knew it would be a good day. For him, surfing is like a four-leaf clover. When the sun was out and the conditions were just right, my dad would have the best day ever; and because of his infectious joy, I would, too. 

My mom and I would walk down to the beach, sometimes with our coffee cups in hand on particularly cold mornings, and watch my dad in his element. The sand was the sidelines, the dried up seaweed acting as the pom-poms, and my mom and I’s voices attempting to be the band. 

My dad is a happy guy — famously so among my friends who have been lucky enough to meet him — but after a surf session, that sense of joy is even more boundless. For my dad, surfing isn’t about winning awards or riding the biggest wave. What I didn’t realize until recently, though, was that calling these outings “surf sessions” changes the purpose of the activity. They become a form of meditation, a kind of therapy he can only find in freezing salt water. 

Growing up by the ocean solidified a deeper appreciation for the outdoors within me. But when I’m at school in L.A., my moments spent outside are constrained to benches on campus and laps in a chlorinated pool. This doesn’t cut it for my mental health’s high threshold. 

To me, the ocean is a therapy session — one I don’t schedule often enough. The ocean is the closest we can feel to what the world was before humanity got here. There’s a vastness that you feel bobbing up and down that is unable to be replicated. It’s that feeling of looking up at the stars and finally grasping our insignificance. 

As the days get longer and the skies get warmer, I urge you to incorporate time outside into your regular routine. A quick dunk in the ocean has erased more of my life’s problems than any long-winded journal entry ever could. 

My dad taught me how to be lucky. He is my four-leaf clover, the person I know will cheer me on from the sidelines, like I try to whenever he gets in the water. The ocean is our therapist, one I hope we can visit together when I get back home in May.