Today is a basic striped t-shirt and shorts event – something comfortable and hassle-free so I can effectively carry a bag of beach toys, a couple of towels, and other supplies, with deep efficient pockets to hold my phone and keys. Something easy to pull off and layer on later after the water. A tiny left hand grips my right tightly as we scope out the perfect spot to set up, my left fingers hooked around the straps of my sandals and a set of smaller ones.
“Hmm,” the little right hand points to a spot marked with the least disturbance, save for a couple of shells and a feather sticking out of the sand. I smooth out the ground a little more, sweeping my foot across a broad area before throwing the larger towel into the wind and letting it settle evenly.
Beyond a brief slope, the loose sand becomes dense and compact from the tide; then black, red, brown, and white rocks peek above the sand as the tide breathes. A thin filament of salty foam brushes the crevasses between our toes before fast, cool waves playfully embrace our ankles or calves (or thighs if you’re only 3 feet tall on a good day), then pull you toward them like you’re a dear friend not seen in too long.
I take out a few of the toys – a little green turtle mold, a shovel, a rake, and a yellow bucket – for when he decides to come back and play, but for now, he’s curious about the little treasures revealed by the green seafoam.
My little one is standing on the cool dense sand, observing the way his toes don’t sink deep here like they did above the slope. He’s looking beyond with a sense of wonder and awe I can’t quite comprehend anymore.
“Big wawa!” he yells over the wind and sounds of elements colliding into something magnificent. “Woooow!” His little voice intertwining with the wind, dancing along with it, then carried up and away.
Here they were, these little moments, sharing stories, talking over each other like a band of aunties over a meal. Little rounded rocks of muted earthy tones with the occasional flash of bleached white, bits of sea shells black, grey, and beige – each one another sunny day taken for granted, all of my awkward moments that no one noticed (or remembered) except me, a kind word spoken by a stranger that meant the world at that moment, a genuine laugh at a joke someone should have been arrested for, a sudden release of pressure from the chest after realizing I was indeed going to survive this.
When I was young, this was a place where everything was carried off by the water or torn away by the wind – sometimes where the rain became a quiet absolution that numbed the sting of deep wounds, then purified the cuts so I could keep going.
It’s astounding that a trivial place can do such a thing – allow you to slip through a fine filament to a different world for a little while where time stands still just for you, but keeps going for others, and the voices of the outside world, with all its expectations, are put on hold so you have a moment just to catch your breath. To remind you that your thoughts have a safe place to live and run wild, another little stone, a pattern of pelicans flying overhead, or a distant lifeguard tower serving as totems of this sacred space.
Every moment here lives stratified just beneath the fresh grains of the present one, layered like sediment and appearing as the tide exhales and pulls away.
He’s gathering little fragments, holding them up for me to see, carrying them around for a minute, sorting them into piles, then returning them to the water. Little pieces of my own history written across it were noticed, honored, then released into the world to find peace by these little hands.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, kneel down to get the perfect angle of him looking out towards the water, snap a photo. I’ll probably only go back to look at the photo a handful of times, but this moment has etched itself on a little stone somewhere in the sand.
