|
Saturday, July 16, 2005
The Seaside
“It bucked him up like a week at the seaside…” At the seaside. We’ve been here, for two weeks, three to go. How bucked up am I? Well, quite a bit. Now I can get to the top of the island and back along the beach, pushing a stroller complete with baby and assorted beach toys, and I can do it without feeling as though I may not live to make the return trip. I just trot along briskly and think about colors of the sky/water/beach/sun/umbrellas, and beach chairs and bathing suits and don’t need to monitor my nearness to expiration date. So I’m in better condition overall. How about the down side? That has to do with sunburn. I turned out to be allergic to the really effective kind…my face rose up in blisters which at the same time hurt, itched and burned. Part of a bottle of caladryl later, the blisters have dried into hideous scabs, making me look like a person with a ghastly disease. Also, the boo-boos I sustained the day that I was smacked down and tumbled across the bottom of the ocean, those don’t want to heal. I’m burned to a crisp, scabby, my hair is wild and crazy…a sight likely to frighten the weak and timid.
On the other hand, I feel cheerier than when I came. Ugly or not, I’m chirpy and rested. This has something to do with the way the ocean is. Why do all kinds of people come here year after year, super rich to normal people who have saved and scrimped for the chance to be at the ocean, why do they make the annual pilgrimage to the beach? Maybe it has to do with the fact that the ocean is an overwhelming, unconquerable force of nature. Cuts you down to size, sitting on the beach staring out at an endless expanse of something entirely beyond human control. However rich and powerful you may be, that ocean is not going to answer the phone, take a memo, respond to billing, feel sorry or give in. Everyone gets put into his or her place in the overall scheme of things while looking at the ocean. Only a maniac would be angry with the ocean…the ocean just is. It doesn’t either care or not care. Makes you feel like a child at home. The rules are the rules. Period. You don’t try to dominate; you accept. Comforting from one point of view, oddly like going home to Mom and Dad for a while. Which may account for the fact that grown men with important responsibilities will come to the beach and after a few days fly kites, help to build sand castles, chase Frisbees, body surf, boogie board, wear silly bathing suits, play alongside their children. Next to a gigantic ocean, they, too, feel like children, little, allowed to be carefree kids for a while.
View Latest Entries
|
