Life Changes but Memories Remain

A cold, rainy January day is a perfect time to plan a beach trip.  Bright sunny days, white sand, blue green waves, flip flops and shorts.  Who doesn’t love the beach?  

There are some exceptions.  Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I visited some friends who lived in Ft Lauderdale and was shocked that the word ‘beach’ was not on their agenda for today nor any other day.  They had not been there in a year. Their idea of how to spend a beautiful day was to sit inside in the air conditioning with the curtains drawn watching Regis Filbun (I did say dinosaurs).  And granted, it was about ten million degrees outside, but THE BEACH was a mile away.  I mean, THE BEACH.

For my spoiled rotten, beach avoiding friends, any discussion of beaches was met with two excuses: weather and sand.  The weather was too hot (ok, yeah it is), too cold (dang, I got sweatshirts) and it might rain (it always rains at the beach for at least ten minutes, then it stops).  The sand was too hard, too soft, and too crowded with tourists (count me as one more, K?).

They insisted on sitting through some more Regis and I learned there are other downsides to beach life. Appliances rust faster (think washing machines, refrigerator, air conditioner every couple of years). Outdoor furniture deteriorates quickly too and outdoor ceiling fans rust and warp from the salt air and humidity. Boo hoo. Still not feeling sad for them.

And hurricane season relentlessly threatens to blow their house (and them) away.  For six months our Floridian BFFs switch between Regis and the Weather Channel and pray Jim Cantore isn’t spotted in their airport.  At best, outdoor chairs are squirrelled away and sheets of plywood are spraypainted “Go Away Jim” and nailed over the windows.  They head to Publix for a hurricane cake (with “Go Away Jim” in icing), the ABC liquor story for rum and then they start making fun of neighbors who evacuated.  (Even though hurricanes cause a heck of a lot of damage to property and people, pride and familiarity can keep some residents from joining the bazillion tourists, transplants and a handful of natives on the ant crawl up I-95 and I-75 North).  Skyrocketing insurance premiums, if you can find insurance at all, is another Debbie Downer to living in beach paradise.  OK, I feel a teensy bit sorry for them. Kind of.

But I’m a tourist who doesn’t have to reason with the hurricane season and I love the beach.  I do not, though, go past my ankles into the ocean.  I have seen pictures of alligators in the ocean (hey, it’s on the Internet so it must be true). Plus sharks.  Plus jellyfish.  Plus Man O’ Wars.  Plus nibbling little fish.  Plus cold spots in the water.  Plus warm spots in the water.  Especially when other people are nearby.  Yuck.

My new husband and I just got back from Fernandina Beach in Florida for New Year’s Eve weekend.  Mark was just getting over Covid so I did a lot of beach walking alone.  It’s winter and my favorite time to be at the beach.  Cold enough to wear sweatshirts and leggings, warm enough to wear shorts (sometimes) and entertaining to watch folks from Ohio and Michigan swim in the freezing cold ocean.  They are likely safe from alligators and sharks because no one but Northerners are in that water.  Southern born sharks are down in Lauderdale with all the New Yorkers, and alligators are snoozing on a rock in the sun in a lagoon waiting on a small dog to wander by.    

The unofficial Polar Bear Club was out New Year’s Day, and the Yankee swimmers had company from a pack of twenty somethings screaming and running in and out of the water.  I stayed nice and warm covered from a beach chair, with my hoodie tied up tightly around my head. 

Back in the day, I jumped in the ocean in wintertime too.  My nephew dared me, and he and I ran in together, screaming our lungs out.  We both ran out equally as fast. I imagine there was an old lady or two on the beach all covered up and marveling at us for bravery or stupidity and likely a little of both.  

I was now the old lady on the beach.  The beach was not very crowded but there were hundreds of footprints in the sand.  Runner’s shoes made chevron patterns in long rows near the shoreline near bike tire tracks, dogs pawprints zig zagged with random holes dug to find crabs and children’s bare footprints circled around a lopsided sandcastle.  So many memories for so many people.  

When I was a little girl, my parents would take my brother and I to Daytona Beach every year for a week in June.  The sand was blazing hot where it was fluffy and white and cool near the water where it was flat and brown.  My brother would dig a long trench to our sandcastle so water could get in the moat.  I decorated it with seashells while he made turrets out of wet sand molded by beach pails.  We made busy little footprints everywhere and I cried when the tide came up and washed it away.  

When I was about 14, I took a friend with me and we decided to walk the beach looking for boys.  We wasted half the day putting on makeup, fixing our hair, and trying on bikinis and cover ups.  As soon as we stepped on the beach, the hair frizzed in the humidity and makeup melted in the heat, but we thought we were beautiful!  We strutted long strides, holding our flat teenaged bellies in and imagined everyone thought we were models.  

We met some boys while walking and for some reason decided to pretend to be from England.  I am quite sure our accents would have been hysterically funny if not insulting to a real British citizen, but the boys were either naïve or kind enough to go along.  My friend and I were relieved when my Mom came walking up, as neither of us could remember what city in England we were from.  Mama wasn’t amused.  That walk back up the beach was pretty quiet.

In my 20’s I would run on the beach in the morning.  By then the location changed from the Atlantic to the Gulf where the sand was softer and but I figured it was a better workout.  I didn’t win any records for speed but I made deep, determined footprints.  So much energy back then!

I biked on the flat Atlantic beaches in my 30’s. When my back and knees rebelled in my 40’s a bike at the beach seemed like a good idea downwind but not so much upwind. Most of my tire prints in the sand were straight starting out and squiggly going back with footprints beside them.  

Walking is what I do now and I sometimes take Ibuprofen beforehand.  I look for flat, hard, good walking sand.  It’s good to walk the beach and smell the salty air, watch the sand crabs and talk to seagulls.  It’s a perfect place to talk with God and thank Him for beautiful memories.

Now in my 60’s I walk the beach with my new husband of 1 year and a few months.  Two set of footprints, close together.  Still making memories.