We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. Anais Nin
Seven has always been considered an auspicious number. There are the Seven Wonders of the World, the Seven Seas, The Seven Deadly Sins and the lesser known Seven Chakras. Genesis tells us that God created heaven and earth and rested on the seventh day. And then there is Tower 7, Zuma Beach, Malibu, California.
One has to be a local to know that each of the numbered lifeguard towers that line the famous coastline from Santa Monica to Malibu is home to its very own subculture of high school students who have claimed each of these specific strips of beach as their own.
It is considered very uncool to be seen at the 'wrong' beach, or worse...not to be seen at all. Needless to say, on one very crowded summer day in 2007, I found myself unwittingly surrounded by my blended family of seven children and a thousand of their best friends at none other than Tower 7.
I remember attempting to veto this choice of location in favor of somewhere more tranquil, but was immediately outnumbered by protests from our seven children. Between us my partner and I have a 14 year old girl, a 16 year old girl, a 17 year old girl, two 18 year old boys, a 20 year old boy and a 22 year old girl. Of course as we celebrate a birthday every few weeks or months, these ages will most likely have changed before you read this post. We are the original Brangelina...with borders. As much as I would've liked to have traded the familiarity of this beach with the Mediterranean or the Aegean, this was home. On that very crowded and irritable summer day, I wanted to be as far from seven as possible...in more ways than one.
