the beach

I know I said I’d write next about the Word…but today I’m feeling frumpy, and I’m thinking about the beach, so I’m going to write about the beach instead.

I can’t remember the first time we went to the beach. I was young…but I was instantly hooked. A note here – when I say beach, I think somewhere along the Florida coast on the Gulf of Mexico. Not a shivery cold beach in North Carolina or California – beautiful, but not what I have in mind. White sand is a must. Warm, with a constant balmy breeze. The water isn’t cold, but it’s not hot either. And the waves…never…stop…

For me, there is something so restorative about a trip to the beach. Correct that, a vacation to the beach.

One of my bosses, in a life that feels so foreign, before children, had categories for these things:
trip: going somewhere like Disneyworld. super fun, but super exhausting.
visit: going to see people. potential for fun is high but so is the potential for misery. vacation: going somewhere like the beach, and watching seagulls bash their heads against the water. rest is a must. no exhaustion or misery involved.

So, a vacation at the beach. For me, it’s reading fiction under a beach umbrella with a festive drink on one side and my toes buried in the sand. It’s a house, on the beach, with a weathered boardwalk you cross as quickly as possible to get to the super-hot white sand, so you can get to the water and cool off your toes. It’s sand everywhere, but that’s OK, because it’s supposed to be. It’s good food, it’s family. It’s sleeping like you never sleep at home, because the waves are constant, and comforting, and you’re drained from being outside all day. It’s little people looking like sugared donuts because they’re covered with sand all the time. It’s sitting in the sand at night and listening to the waves.

The last trip we took, in 2009, gave me a new appreciation for nighttime at the beach. I was in the first trimester of a pregnancy, and on our 3^rd day there, I started spotting. And it didn’t stop. So I was heartsick with worry, and sleep wasn’t happening. But we were on a beach where sea-turtles build their nests, so there were strict policies about NO LIGHTS outside of houses, or on the beaches at night (apparently it confuses the baby turtles, because they head for the light of the moon to find the water). So the stars….the STARS…were a thing of wonder and beauty. They started right where the water ended, and they were magnificent. So when I wasn’t sleeping, because I felt horrible and didn’t want to wake the whole house up by going outside, I would pull the mini-blinds, and just stare. And I would think to myself, over and over and over again, “The One who made them knows me. He knows what’s happening. And He loves me.” And I’d cry, and eventually fall asleep. The day before we left the beach we went to an awful ER and found out that I was indeed having a miscarriage. I will always think of those moments with the stars, with Him, when I think of that baby.

My heart yearns for the beach. But life being what it is, we don’t get there often enough. Budgets are restrictively tight, and there’s not always wiggle room for a week at the beach. But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming – this is a pic, from that week in 2009, that always greets me from my computer screen.

Don’tcha wanna go??