By Nick Macksood
On the surface, they may not be the most unique of destinations, but beaches transport us to the uncomplicated lives we used to live.
I’ve just come back from the beach at Oak Bluffs. It was…beach-y? Coastal destinations have always been, for me, somewhat of a mixed bag. Somehow, I like them despite their flaws. I find them full of distractions and the most ghastly types of people. The beach is vain. Almost nobody actually enjoys the seashore for its own merit: it’s simply a means to get a tan, to see members of the opposite sex in spandex versions of their underwear. We play catch with a plastic disc and sneak beer into plastic cups. The beach brings out the worst in most of us.
Despite all this, I am drawn to the shore. I’ve always lived near one and if ever I need something to calm my nerves, the rising and falling whoosh of the tide will always be my first choice. Even more than that it’s the look of the water– frozen or fluid–stretching to infinity. And I know it’s not just me. I’ve made emergency therapeutic trips to the beach for others too.
But for someone who overthinks and overanalyzes for a living, the beach in summertime is exactly what you think it is no matter where you are. Hot, sandy, noisy. It’s tough to shape a narrative out of that which has none.
My childhood memories of the beach are few. I recall quickly sputtering out in a miserable attempt to keep up with my uncle, training for a marathon, and sitting and waiting in the sand for what seemed like days. And I remember sitting on a towel, covered head to toe in clothing, next to my brother in San Antonio. We weren’t old enough to really know what was going on around us; we were merely taken there by our parents to, I don’t know, show us what it was like. We did nothing.
If anybody appreciates the beach, it’s children. Infants sit there and ogle the endless horizon and kids who are old enough careen headfirst into the water no matter how cold it is. They aren’t there for any silly posturing. They are there to relish every second that they aren’t in school this summer. These moments are the greatest of their short-lived lives thus far. No responsibilities, no worries, no nothing. Tom Wolfe said that it’s never too late to have a good childhood. And the beach, in its oblivious, infinite tranquility might be the last place on earth where we can observe childhood.
