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My first encounter with the ocean was on the Jersey Shore when I was three years old and I got knocked over by a wave. The ocean certainly got my attention! It wasn't frightening, it was more exhilarating.

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, I saw something - I don't know what it was to this day. My mind couldn't relate to what it was... If I saw it and knew it was a shark, I wouldn't be as afraid, but I saw something that looked prehistoric, and I haven't been snorkeling since.

I remember as a little kid, I would always feel comfortable if the light in the crack of my parents' door was on at night. When it went off, that meant they were asleep. Then that terror and the fear of being by myself started to creep in.

My parents live near the ocean, and I've spent a lot of time walking through the water at night, being around the water.

I did some pretty crazy stuff that I never thought I would do, for the sake of a movie, like surfing in eight-foot waves in pitch-black darkness, where I can't see anything. That still haunts me, kind of, in my nightmares, but it was worth it, it was fun.

One of my earliest memories is of seeing my mother in her beach chair, reading a book under an umbrella by the water's edge while my sisters and I played beside her. Of all the life lessons she taught me, that is one of my favorites: to take time at a place I love, restore my spirit with books and the beach.

I praticed making faces in the mirror and it would drive my mother crazy. She used to scare me by saying that I was going to see the devil if I kept looking in the mirror. That fascinated me even more, of course.

As a child, I was prancing around in my mother's high heels and a ra-ra skirt, singing 'Material Girl' into my hairbrush.