From last year...

I just stood on the beach for an hour and watched lines of pelicans skim the heavy waves like they were parting cream from milk. It was incredibly mesmerizing. They were so slow, and perfectly synchronized. The leader would begin to dip, and just before he disappeared behind a white tipped wave the last in line would gracefully follow. Then back up out of the trough, each pelican a rollercoaster cart rolling behind the first.
It almost made me cry out of sheer jealousy. I wanted to know what they were feeling so badly, and imagination can only take us so far. I tried to imagine the chaos of the wind skimming the waves, the sudden wells of silence within the trough of each wave, following the heavy body in front of me with perfectly instinctive rhythm, the sunlight warm on my back and glittering off the water, obscuring my view of the food below till the last possible second, the sudden shocking cold against my tongue, the blind hope that this time something slippery and wriggling would be in my mouth.
It was lovely to imagine, but in the end I was left standing in the cold water, slowly sinking into the soft sand and completely incapable of feeling even a tenth of what they were experiencing. I sometimes think that all the fantasy novels I read as a kid haven't done me any favors. Wishing so hard for magic to be real can't be healthy.