The Beach - Days 3 and 4

Bee Gees Song of the Day: Melody Fair

Who is the girl with the crying face, looking at millions of signs?
She knows that life is a running race.
Her face shouldn't show any lines.

Slept in on day three; until 7am. Looking back on my notes it seemed like an extraordinarily boring day. I walked Buddy, helped with breakfast, no doubt made a bit more progress on the dreadfully Winkie political “Wicked”. I believe I did go in the water and was wrestled mercilessly by my son. I executed the “Jewel of the Nile” move and the boy did not harass me again.

I also made note in my journal that there was sand everywhere. In places sand had no business being.

The notable quote of the day came from one of the college kids. They had stocked up fully on beer and one of the youths had obviously made a significant dent in the case by 5pm. A little louder than usual, a little more emboldened by the alcohol. As resident mother to these young adults, I felt it was my duty to see the young man rest up a bit before continuing on his path toward total physical and mental annihilation. I brought him upstairs and required that he lay down for a period of time; before we started more games. He complained that my edict was unfair. I tried to explain that we should all try to pace ourselves.

“I have been pacing myself. I’ve been pacing myself ALL DAY.”

An engaging political discussion followed dinner, heated at times, but full of fascinating thoughts and insights. I enjoyed that very much. Games followed. Much fun was had by all.

Apparently, my time near the Atlantic had made me occasionally reflective. I had been a great letter writer in my youth, but I now live in an age where I can type faster than I can think and thoughts can be set to paper and erased just as immediately. And so day four of my journal found me lamenting the art of the handwritten letter. I noted that today, everything was an email, or an instant message. All abbreviated thoughts on an electronic canvas.

I might expand on that. I might wax poetic on our collective loss in the art writing. How we have compressed our thoughts into, “oic. Lv u 2 brb” I might. But I won’t.

Day four was a bad beach day for me. I started out wanting to fly a kite and twisted my ankle. (Anyone who knows me knows that my ankles sprain themselves with malice aforethought while I’m in my sleep, so this was not a shocker). Because I felt like throwing up, I decided to walk it off by going into the waves. The gods of the ocean were having their way with me that day because I then smashed my thumb on a boogie board and jammed it. My children laughed at me. As I eventually attempted to get out of the water, Neptune toyed with me still more by knocking me off my feet. My right ankle hurt and my left thumb throbbed, making it hard for me to get up. Adam, the little bastard, never one to let opportunity pass, noted that I was in a weakened state, reached over to help and knocked me in again, forcing more f*cking sand into places that wept over the indignity. No doubt to punish me over yesterday’s slick “Jewel of the Nile” move I executed with accuracy.

I gathered my things about me and limped away.

Lunch with the kids; it was their last day at the beach and their intended departure time was 8pm. I took them out to dinner to “The Lucky Fisherman”; a very good seafood buffet on the island. When I came back, I found that someone had locked the door to the beach house and my keys were inside. Nothing I could do there, so I helped the kids clean up their cabin “Down Under”. They enjoyed one last walk on the beach, and then they took off, right on schedule. I choked back some emotion, Meg and I walked out on the dock and talked a while. We then proceeded to go back to the locked beach house and broke in by methods better left between us. We got in. All was well.

I took out my notepad and started writing about the day. I offered up a few brief prayers that the kids would make it back without incident.

And I fell asleep.