On the lighter side of the Nonahood, this is a column about the humorous realities of life in Central Florida. We must choose to laugh and sweat rather than cry and sweat.
A searing pain throbs in the back of my eyeballs, only outdone by the burning running up and down my arms, neck and shoulders. Ah, the beach, a place of comfort and relaxation.
When I was young, my family planned on getting out in the morning. But by the time we’d pulled wet, cold, and sandy bathing suits over our protesting skin, assembled boogie boards, beach balls, towels, snorkels, goggles, plastic sandcastle toys, umbrellas, chairs, and stow-away lizards, my dad would announce, “Who wants to lotion my back?”
My father is the type who can stand in front of a canvas, and all you’ll see is a shimmer when he moves. So, Dad takes lotion seriously.
Dad stood in front of the mirror, waiting with lotion bottle in hand.
“Umm, I think I’m not feeling so well, Dad.”
Now, I question this extended pre-beach ritual. Even as I sit typing, on vacation, my relatives have been prepping for the beach since pre-dawn. Looking at the clock, it’s nearing 1 p.m. Looking out the window, I see the beach about 75 yards away.
Maybe nobody truly wants to go. Of course, no true family member, other than Aunt Mildred, would admit this, but it’s plausible.
Here’s a list of what may await my prepping relatives: skin scorched and welted, sandstorms, sand-blindness, swooping attack birds, weed spikes, tar and shells embedded in feet, rolled ankles, stubbed toes, jellyfish, stingrays, mouthfuls of saltwater. Phew. It continues: amazingly timed waves and strategically placed rocks that make you look like that idiot who’s never entered a body of water, never enough shade because Aunt Mildred has a skin condition, heat exhaustion, hallucinations, and incessant whining from all progeny – “Make a sandcastle. Give snack! Need go potty.”
“Number one or number two?”
Number two. Of course, it’s the beach.
As a child, my dad would take us snorkeling. We’d see barracuda and lots of little, bright-colored fish. Every year, there were more barracuda and fewer colored fish.
The barracuda would just stare at us and roll their eyes at our stupidity. Why they didn’t go for Dad with skin brighter than most fishing lures, I’ll never know. They could tear us apart faster than a hamster thrown into an Amazonian piranha melee. Obviously, they were still full from finishing off Nemo and friends.
When I was in college, I remember my brother coming into shore and peeling off his goggles, eyes the size of saucers. He’d swam with a school of fish and seen the barracudas feed. I cannot here relate what he said; it’s too scary, but there were a lot of hand motions, jumping up and down, and facial contortions as he made squishy noises with his mouth. After describing it, my brother looked a little green, wobbled toward the family, found Dad’s hand, and curled up in the shade of Aunt Mildred.
Although I missed being scarred for life like my brother, I’ve had my own brushes with terror. visiting Jetty Park, I swam out along the, um, jetty. As I swam, I noted the fish were getting bigger. Part of me thought, “Oh, goody, maybe I’ll see a shark.” The other part of me ran off across the top of the water like a very sensible schoolgirl. When I reached the end of the jetty, fish did get big. I even saw a fish with a massive frown and what looked like a huge saw-blade running down his back. Apparently, it was a Goliath grouper.
Then I saw it. Yes, a shark! And phew, it was a sand shark. They feed on sand, right? I dove down to take a closer look. Then I surfaced to clear my snorkel as fast as possible. I wasn’t scared, I just had images of it following and ripping off my leg scrolling across my goggles. In that millisecond, I heard a voice.
“Hello.”
I nearly doggy-paddled out of my skin. Being a rather intelligent person, I quickly surmised that underwater creatures rarely talk. So I checked the heavens for God, and then I slowly turned so as not to attract an attack from below. Then I saw her, a prim little lifeguard perched atop her surfboard.
At 42 years old, it wasn’t a barracuda insinuating I was dumb, but a 20-something girl saying it with, “You probably don’t want to swim around here.”
“Why not?”
“There are a lot of sharks out here.”
“I know, I just saw one, it’s awesome. Are you just saying this because you’re a millennial and are immune to the awesomeness of things?” [I didn’t really say the last sentence. I just thought it.]
“Like, I’m sorry, but with the boats and all, you shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“Hmm. Is there a rule or sign saying I can’t snorkel out here?”
“No. No one ever has.”
Hearing this, a surge of pride welled up in me that I was the first bold adventurer to brave these waters, but then cold current of reason flowed into my tiny brain informing me that there is a logical premise for, “No. No one ever has.”
So, as I stand here now on the beach, actually I’m inside, watching my more sensible relatives put a puzzle together, while all the whiny, toddling, and barely-contained rage that is parenting young children suffer the beach.
As I listen to the whir of the AC fan, the dishwasher, my father-in-law humming to himself as he clicks a puzzle piece into place, I wonder, is the beach a place we go just to get away from? Do we go there to realize that life isn’t so bad anywhere else? If we didn’t visit the beach, would we visit a Walmart parking lot and turn off our AC, or go in our backyards without mosquito spray, or simply leave work around five because we prefer the traffic, or, say, go to more weddings?
Yes, I believe we think of the beach as a place of comfort and relaxation, firstly because we’ve all listened to too many Yani songs and meditative wave CDs and, secondly, because the actual beach is torture. After torture, if one sits in a cool room, munching on a microwaved hot dog and playing Boggle or watching I Love Lucy, one might get their sentiments a little topsy-turvy.
If not, just remember, the beach is still there for you to find out for yourself, and now that my kids are all grown up, 11 and 13, and strong enough to swim out of riptides (or at least it’s on them if they don’t put in the effort), I can leisurely limp-walk across the gravel asphalt to the beach and find out for myself. Well, I’m off.
Philip writes for Cru, a nonprofit organization located on Moss Park Road, close enough to the 7-Eleven off of Narcoossee to justify ditching work for a Slurpee. While he thinks he’s funny, he wisely never verbalizes his musings to his two ever-increasingly hostile pre-teens. His brain doesn’t seem to do the heavy lifting in the writing process – his sweaty fingers do. So, if you laugh, snort, chortle or guffaw, they deserve the credit … both of them.
