I had one of those moments yesterday where I had to shake my head a little and see if there was anything inside that jiggled since I clearly didn’t have my full thinking cap on. It was going to be a hot day. Well, hot for here anyway about 80. Also a Sunday, on a holiday weekend, the first of the beach season. So people galore. So I immediately thought, ok no beach until at least 4:30. And then wondered, why? It was 10:30, already pleasantly warm for the beach, so I sprayed on some sunscreen, got the beach stuff together and did my short walk to the beach. Yes, peopled, even before 11 on a Sunday, but plenty of spots on the squishier sand without having to be on top of anyone else or have someone’s kid kick sand onto you as they walk by. 

And it was awesome. Warm to hot on the sand, sitting up gave me a pleasantly cooler breeze, um, wading into the surf made my legs numb (still getting used to a northern beach life), and I felt…. Warm. Alive. Happy. And realized how content I’d be to laze away hours in the sun only getting up now and again to make a cooling off jaunt to the water and back. #beachbumlife Genuinely, I think it’s a new goal of mine. 

I’d had a conversation the night before with my best friend about our gen Z kids and how THEY ARE NEVER UNPLUGGED. Noise in their earholes and/or video for their eyes ALL.THE.TIME. So I took out my earpods and just “was” on the blanket on the sand. The wind, the waves, the countless conversations around me. It all sort of flowed over me like a breeze, and occasionally I’d tune into one conversation or another.

I wanted to smack the mom who was sing-song toned telling her daughter no more snacks because you already don’t feel comfortable taking off your teeshirt. Or the dad who did NOT throw a perfect spiral with his football but who felt just fine jumping all over his young teen about why he couldn’t get his throws right. The ridiculousness of two women talking about how hard it is to pick the right time to offload their vacation homes to upgrade to better locales. But then the sweetness of the patient mom gently guiding her young daughter to figure out why, by the time she toddled all the way from the water to their plot of sand with her pail of water, the water was mostly gone. And the joy in the little girl’s tone when she covered the hole in her pail and got a full bucket of water back… that she used to dump on her brother. And a whole lotta – “this is the life” or “I love beach weekends” or “that only took us about an hour and thirty mins drive, we should do this more often – so worth it”. 

In the midst of it, I could also hear footsteps on the sand. The sound of fabric on fabric as someone turned over. The squeak of a beach chair. The flutter of a sun umbrella in the wind. The sound of seagulls as they tried to keep an eye on food that might be snatchable. And I could hear my own breathing, a sigh, the sand moving under my blanket. In the midst of the various noises, some people having pleasant times, some people having bad times, some people facilitating another’s good or bad time, I could hear myself, quiet, feeling warm, feeling lazy, feeling happy – satisfied that I went to the beach that morning. Knowing nothing could take away the moments of quiet relaxation from me.