Beachy Keen

 The more things change, the more they stay the same. Our trip was shorter and earlier this year (and, thankfully did not include sheltering in place), but this still describes my beachy feelings.

I am the most unlikely beach candidate. I hate heat, I don't swim, and I burn to a veritable crisp. To go onto the beach, I put on comfy shorts and a tee shirt, a hat and sunscreen, then park myself under an umbrella for the duration of my stay on the sand.

And yet the week we spend at the beach each summer is my favorite week of the year. It's right up there with Christmas and my birthday which, not coincidentally, involve some of the same people. Last year, despite COVID, we booked two weeks in the community where we've stayed since my daughter was small. It was essentially sheltering in (a different) place and getting takeout from (different) restaurants. My husband made his early morning visits to the beach while my daughter and I slept. He was at loose ends a bit for some of our trip but my daughter and I happily chilled out at the condo doing whatever we happened to feel like doing, insulated from COVID and the rest of the world in general, with the exception of one of her friends joined us for part of the trip. 

It was wonderful.

While my husband's favorite spot is the beach, mine is (as long-time readers already know) the screened-in porch at the condo. This post, in fact, comes to you directly from that spot. The sun has set, the ceiling fan is whirring overhead and the crickets and bullfrogs are, for now, competing with the sounds of traffic whooshing by. In an hour or so, the bullfrogs and crickets will dominate and I will still be out here, reading, writing or engaging in other quiet pursuits for most of the rest of the evening.

Two of my novels were born at the beach and one, which has been digging in its heels and throwing a temper tantrum for months now, has finally agreed to play nice now that we're meeting on the screen porch. I'm hoping the momentum generated here will carry into our return, freeing me to finally start putting words on the page led, once again, by the nose by the characters who are really the ones in charge. 

I've heard people say that the beach is their happy place and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. I feel a sense of calm here that is unique to this place and, while I've considered analyzing it, I fear that logic would break the spell and ruin the magic. Besides, I don't need to know why I feel the way I do. I just need to know that I do.

Though I try to keep schoolwork away from the beach (unless we're down here while a semester is in session), I feel no such compunction when it comes to my writing. I have a notebook dedicated to "beach pages," along with a stack of notebooks dedicated variously to a reading journal and individual projects in various stages of completion. When I instituted "beach pages" a few summers ago, this was my rationale:

What better place is there for me to let my mind go free and to simply empty thoughts onto the page? Faced with seemingly endless stretches of sand and sea, why shouldn't I let my mind do likewise, moving beyond the boundaries of topics and chapters and deadlines?

While that's by no means the only reason we come to the beach, it is a part of the trip I look forward to. Even on days (like today) when beach pages turn out to be more work than I expected, it seems that something always shakes loose with writing or promotion or something new and creative. As my mind whirs along with the fan overhead, I am grateful, once again, for an opportunity to recharge physically, emotionally, and creatively.