at the beach

last week, my sister and i loaded the kids in the car and headed to the beach. we left on wednesday morning and came back thursday afternoon. we stayed with ed's mom, in her comfortable (yet spotless) house; aiyana peed in bed that night, something she never does at home, and i was pretty mortified...but, oh well, i guess that's what exhaustion and drinking a lot of water will do....

the weather wasn't what you'd normally associate with beach going. on wednesday, it was foggy and rained all day. it was still warm though.
so what do you do when it's a rainy day at the beach? you jump into the ocean, of course. then the rain won't matter. that's what we did, anyway, and it was kind of nice.we had the whole beach to ourselves, and the waves were big, and the kids were crazy jumping in while clinging to us with all their might. we all got drenched down to our underware, and it made no difference that we were wearing our raincoats. if it weren't for the kids and their energy, we probably would've had a miserable time in the rain; but fortunately, their enthusiasm and their capacity for having fun is so great that it swept us right along into their experience.

on wed night, my sister and i went to the beach again, and we only brought julia w us. my kids stayed home with ed's mom. something about being on the beach on a foggy evening made me feel very peaceful. i sat on the wet sand next to my sister, and just looked out to the ocean. the mist made it hard to see very far, and big waves were crashing on the shore in front of us; it looked as if they were coming out of nowhere. there was a quality of the unkown all around me, and it felt soothing and very natural.

the next morning was clear early on, but the mist returned, so that by the time we made it to the beach, the visibility was pretty low. but at least it wasn't raining. the beach was packed this time, but we found a spot for our towel, and spent a couple of hours playing in the water and in the sand. the kids were loving the waves, and were getting bold, going out farther and farther until a wave would crash over them and then they'd run back screaming.

while we were jumping in the waves, i noticed a couple standing in the water not too far from us. they were elderly, maybe in their 60's or 70's. they didn't look too healthy - both were very overweight, esp. the woman, so that they were having a hard time moving around; the man seemed to have something else going on, he was walking kind of stooped over; his teeth were very yellow. they stood in the water holding hands as the waves crashed over them. what attracted me to them was their smiles. only children smile like that.

this couple seemed to be in their own world, their faces shining with joy at the simple pleasure of being in the water. they were holding on to each other for dear life, and seemed oblivious to everything (their physical difficulties, other people, etc.), except their immediate experience. i was moved looking at them; they looked silly, maybe, but they just seemed so open and vulnerable standing there holding on to each other with those silly grins on their faces. i felt more connected to them at that moment than to anyone else around me.

when they came out of the water, still holding hands, they smiled at me and i told them that they looked really cute. what i really wanted to say is "thank you for giving me this memory", but i thoughht that would be too weird, so i settled for something more tame and lame, and a smile.

peace