Life’s a Beach
Where land meets water, magic happens
Here on the Gulf Coast there is no intersection more important than that unique place where sea, sky and land come together and give birth to a beach. Embedded in our evolutionary awareness, it is the place where sea creatures first became land dwellers. Revisited in human culture as a generous, renewable supermarket for food and tools, it became a favored vantage point for observing the forces of nature and connecting with the powers revealed there.
The aviation age began when the Wright brothers harnessed the primordial forces of the seaside; taking advantage of the four elements—water, earth, wind and fire—Orville and Wilbur achieved a powered flight of almost 900 feet. And think of the scope of all the spaceage journeys that began with a leap from the Florida shores of Cape Canaveral.
Back on earth, most islanders go to the beach for a variety of more modest purposes: flying a kite, throwing a Frisbee, spiking a volleyball, tracking birds, spotting dolphins, shelling, fishing, exercising, sifting sand and shaping it into sturdy forts or crenellated castles or eye
catching sculptures. Sooner or later, however, the activity almost everybody chooses to do is stop, look and listen. Mindful folks practice meditation; alert observers are moved to marvel; grateful hearts are relieved just to take it all in (a posture reflecting the insightful message of a poster a friend once shared with me: “Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits!”). As wonderful as life by the water can be, islanders are quick to remind beachgoers that there can be drawbacks to lingering on the beach. For one thing, when there is no wind there can be swarms of “no-see-ums,” those annoying microscopic sand fleas. (A word to the wise: Many people are convinced that Avon's Skin So Soft bath oil prevents the little beasties from landing on your skin.) Another drawback: the Florida sun can be scathing. In Jim Toomey’s cartoon strip “Sherman’s Lagoon” the sea creatures are chatting about how so many of their neighbors can change color to blend in with the surroundings. Then, turning their gaze to the sands where humans (called “beach apes” by the cartoon critters) were gathered, it was noted that when they changed color after a couple of hours the only thing they blended with were tomatoes and fire trucks. This is why the native gumbolimbo tree, which grows bark that is red and peeling, is nicknamed “the tourist tree.” (Be sure to slather on the sunscreen.) For whatever period of time you invest in beach living, be sure to spend some of it just listening. Close your eyes and use your ears to hear. E.B. White put it this way: “The sound of the sea is the most time-effacing sound there is. The centuries reroll in a cloud and the earth becomes green again when you listen, with eyes shut, to the sea …”
There is a rapture on the lonely shore …, I love not man the less, but nature more. For whatever period of time you invest in beach living, be sure to spend some of it just listening. —Lord Byron (in “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”)