If the weather forecast is hot and sunny, I will be going to the beach. This summer I have been bound and determined to make the most of every possible beach day. We had a fair amount of rain as well, which made me appreciate the sunny days all the more. I have a core group of friends, all around my age and almost all without kids, who love to go to the beach as much as I do, so a few days before the weekend, depending on the weather, an email will go out with the subject "Beach Day" inviting any or all of us to go to a nearby beach. Could be Good Harbor, could be Crane; could be Saturday, could be Sunday, who knows. The anticipation is part of the fun. "Anyone interested in the beach Saturday? Thinking Good Harbor and dinner on Rocky Neck after. Meet at REI at 12:30. W/B if interested."
Like a firefighter or a pregnant Laura Petrie, I keep a beach bag packed and ready at all times. This bag contains essentials such as my beach towel, which I put right back into the bag as soon as it comes out of the laundry, and yet another bag, a Zip-loc, containing sunscreen, lip balm, allergy pills, some band aids and hand sanitizer. The bag just stays there, you know, in the bag. I keep the beach bag in my bedroom so when the beach day arrives, I can stick whatever book or magazine I'm reading, clothes, etc. right into it and GO! I also keep my beach chair and styrofoam boogie board in the car. I'm ready for any beach contingency, ready to fly out the door to Good Harbor or Crane, or even Rye or Humarock at a moment's notice.
"Beach Brain"
Despite the fact that I do read books and magazines at the beach, I have to confess that when I'm on my way there, my IQ seems to fall below a 70, and for those of you who aren't familiar with either educational testing or the term Hegna, a below-70 IQ isn't, I mean ain't, good. Here are some examples of what I affectionately call my "beach brain."
Throughout this past summer, I have been late to the carpool meeting spot 90% of the time. When I've arrived, I've had to use the ladies' room or buy iced coffee further delaying me and my posse. I've not packed mascara or a headband for going out afterward. I've forgotten snacks or my phone. I've forgotten to bring cold drinking water and have had to hope that the water I haphazardly dispensed from the tap might miraculously chill propped up against an ice pack, as my cooler sits baking in the sun. Today, I forgot both my T-shirt and my wallet! Last week, I had to turn back because I was convinced I'd left the iron on.
I have no idea why someone who is normally as organized and punctual as I am has so much trouble getting to the beach. I cannot seem to get my shit together on beach days! No wonder all those blondes in California seem so dippy. It's the overwhelming challenge of beach prep... or the sun, or the peroxide or a combination these.
They say that some people are late either due to arrogance or because they don't want to go where they're intended, but I assure you I love the beach too much to not want to arrive there on time and risk pissing off my beach peeps. I suspect that when faced with the prospect of spending an afternoon at the beach, some mechanism in my brain thinks that I'm already there, and my normally conscientious self just up and takes the day off. For example, I can sit at the beach and just sit. I can stand and look out to the horizon and not say a word for minutes on end. (For both me and the people around me, this is highly significant.) I guess that going to or being at the beach makes me a little stupid, and I have to say that I like it. No worries, no cares, no pressure. I'm thrilled to drop everything to do nothing in the sun.
"I look like the Wreck of the Hesperus"
My friend Kevin first turned me on to this phrase in college, 20+ years ago, and it still makes me laugh. Leave it to an intelligent, elegant man from New England to turn a heartbreaking Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem about a fatal shipwreck into gay slang. (When you use this phrase, btw, you can weed out the intellectuals, New Englanders - OK Cantabrigians - and I guess, Brits, based on their response to it. Most people just say, "you look like the what??" Plebes and morons, the lot of them. But for the one or two people who immediately get it, it's a fabulously smart line.) Naturally, I adopted this phrase as my own, and it's a particular favorite during beach months, when I look like a complete and total MESS.
The Wreck of the Hesperus beautifully illustrates just how bedraggled and waterlogged I look after a day at the beach. The irony, though, is that I simply don't care how bad I look. I see that water and go right in, hairstyle be damned. The sad part is that even though my hair is naturally curly, it doesn't really dry that way without assistance. It dries in a combination of waves and curls from root through shaft but straightens into harsh points at the tips. Picture Medusa with shorter snakes. In addition, because I'm in the water so much, I use sunblock intermittently, so my skin becomes overly pink. I've lost weight, so I'm constantly adjusting the top of my bathing suit because it rides up, exposing more of my white belly than I care to share. I get sand all over my legs, salt in my hair and mouth, and develop more freckles as the day wears on. The wrinkles around my eyes are more pronounced. I don't wear any makeup. And despite the fact that I look like the Captain's daughter lashed to the mast off the reef of Norman's Woe, I think I'm gorgeous. If I don't look in any mirrors and avoid cameras, I can pretend I'm a nymph all day long.
"Middle-aged women on boogie boards"
I must admit I don't understand people who don't go in the water. I don't understand girls who won't get their hair wet. I don't know how these people can resist the lure of playing in the waves or riding on a boogie board. They certainly don't know what they're missing.
In New England, 'boogie board' is a catchall term for both an actual boogie board, which one balances on vertically in the surf at water's edge and a body board, on which one lies to ride waves. When I was a kid, we body-surfed. Today, it's "in" to use the styrofoam board for a better ride. And it's really, really "in" for the parents and other assorted grown-ups to use them at the beach more than the kids.
For these reasons, Susan D. is my favorite beach buddy. Though she's almost a decade older than I am, which is hardly relevant when it comes to waves and friendship, she and I think alike when it comes to beaching it. We certainly are more adventurous when it comes to the ocean than most of my friends in their 30s. Neither Susan nor I are able sit down for ten minutes without wanting to go in the water. She is more daring than I and dives in immediately; I am about two minutes wussier. If there's been a tropical storm or hurricane off the East Coast, she and I will exchange a couple of two-sentence emails prior to Beach Day, "Can't wait for the waves this weekend!" "My board is in the car!!" I like to think that when she and I are old ladies, we'll still be like this. Even better, we'll be retired, have more beach time and we'll already be old and won't care about getting wrinkled in the sun. Sounds like heaven.
While editing this post, I've been able to spend a precious hour at my imaginary beach. The room has been warmer. My smile has been brighter. I still look like a nymph (albeit a nymph in a sweater), and I think I've even gotten a tan. Though my mind, fortunately, has not defaulted to "beach brain," I do feel much that much more relaxed, lucky to have been able to dream of the beach in August on the coldest day in January.
1 comment:
YES. I have to be on your list this summer. I, too, don't understand the non-water people.
Post a Comment