Summertime Feels

I haven’t been to the beach yet. I’m not sure quite why. I think some of it is that 2020 has been like an endless stage five clinger, a flock of murderous seagulls, a wave of menstrual cramps that won’t quit, one of those storm warning beep sounds that goes on for infinity. I have always found the beach to be my happy place and I think underneath it all, I am afraid it will have lost some of it’s magic when I get there.

When I was five, the beach was sand and buckets, a place to build and create, to jump and giggle. I used to find a spot in the sand, hiding from my family and anyone else I wanted a break from. I would bury my legs and torso, looking up into the sky and just. be.

At 10 years old, I would jump with my brother, high in the waves of Reid, getting pulled underneath and thumping along the bottom, coming up with blonde curly hair that was entangled with seaweed.

When I was 16, the beach was wearing the right bikini. Looking the right way, lying back on a blanket on my elbows, drawing the right attention.

When I was 26 the beach was a complicated destination, hiding my skin with t-shirts and gym shorts. Sweating from bringing all of the sand toy bags, the swimmies and the snacks. The beach was sitting in a chair and looking at bodies that were not mine and wondering how to get there.

Last year I went to the beach and it felt different. I held my niece over the waves and watched her toes dig into the sand. I felt the icy water rush over them and then her and I, our matching footprints were gone. In an instant. I didn’t worry about my stomach looking a certain way holding her, I didn’t feel one ounce of regret leaning over, just in my bathing suit. No cover up. I stared at those muscle bound 20 somethings with my sunglasses and laughed at my son trying to DDT the greedy salt and vinegar chip stealing sea gulls. I felt the pull of the tide against my legs, willing me forward, when I was perfectly content to stay right there, rooted to the spot.

In March, I was watching the news and a bunch of spring breakers headed to Florida, to the sand and to the surf. We all judged from our computer screens, because that is another side effect of this virus. We all think we know, exactly what the best thing is to do, and now some people are headed for the sand and others are headed for the sky and some are headed for the streets to yell and stomp and shriek their distaste for the way that things have been and for the ways in which they start to change and then never do . I don’t know what the answers are really. I try to do the best that I can. But I can feel the pull of the tide, even when I’m not there. I can smell the fried dough at Pemaquid beach. I can brush off the sand from my thighs as I get into my Highlander. I can feel the unevenness of the rocks as I walk barefoot over them on Popham beach, chasing a quick eight-year-old.

I have four days lined up of teacher workshop activities. Four days in June. Four days in August. And all kinds of days in the summer to wonder what will be, and then, THEN, workshop that in my mind. The new normal, the new hallways, the new way of teaching. I thought about offering out my services for reading support this summer, I miss the back and forth so much and the flip of the pages. But then I decided, in the middle of the night, when I couldn’t sleep. That I better stick to the sand and the waves and come back in August, after I am all workshopped and give it my best go, with my best mask. I don’t know if the sand and the surf will solve all the problems, but I’ve decided it’s a good place to start, especially when you feel the push and the pull of it all. Go ahead and put down your towel and find your spot. This is a place where you can sit in one spot and offer the best parts of yourself to all of the universe. You don’t have to know all the answers yet, just pick your spot and the answers will come, layered with new understandings, like the tide.