The Beach

Before I launch into this post, I think I should provide you with a little background. I absolutely love the ocean, but I am not your typical “beach person.” I can truly enjoy if for a few days, like five or six, but then I am generally done with the sand in my shorts, sun burnt skin, and crunchy hair. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I just get bored. You can only make so many sandcastles, be buried in the sand and hunt for brightly colored shells so many times before they all lose their appeal. So when my host family said that we would be spending two weeks at the beach, a small part of me cringed. What was I going to do for two weeks at the beach?

This is the commercial center closest to our house in Santi Pedri. It reminded me a lot Arizona and St. George. 

This was my thinking before my two weeks in Santi Pedri, before I’d finished two books, sorted 75% of my pictures, studied for the LSAT, had chorizo hot off the grill, eaten the most delicious gelato I’ve ever tasted, played literally dozens of games of ERS, BS, Hearts and Spoons with Alfonzo and Jaime, and discovered the delight that comes with photographing the beach in the late afternoon. Needless to say, I feel a lot better about the idea of “staying at the beach” for a fortnight on this side of our vacation.

Picture taken along our beach in normal light. 

Picture taken in late afternoon light. I love learning new things!

To tell the truth, I had a blast. We would go to the pool in the morning (because the beach was no good in the heat of midday, according to my Host Mom) eat lunch at the house, chill for a few hours and then hit the shore for about three hours in the early evening. This was different than what I was used to with my family (all beach, all day) but I think that it saved me from becoming burnt out. I actually found myself looking forward to being tossed around by the ocean and feeling the sun dry the little drops of salt water on my back. I also added the taste of salt water on my lips to my list of favorite things along with getting my feet wet and covering them with dry sand so that it looks like I have socks made out of sand.

One of the many tide pools trapped among the Oyster Rock. 

Who would have thought that you would be able to find beautiful red cliffs in the south of Spain?

Seeing this little guy made me really happy. 

But even with all of this wonderfulness going on in my life, I found myself struggling to find something interesting to write about in a blog post. I mean, nearly everyone has been to a beach at some point in their lives and there is only so much you can say about tiny rocks being constantly bombarded by large amounts of salt water. That being said, there were two topics that kept bubbling up in my mind while I took long walks along the shore. And with that, I give you the most ‘creative’ writing I have posted on this blog, granted that it is not really all that ‘creative’ as much as it is a collection of connected thoughts.

Beach People

A “beach” is defined as: an area of land sloping down to the water of a sea or lake, while the word “people” is defined as: any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively. So it logically follows that “beach people” are men, women or children who occupy an area of land that slopes down to the water. For me, what do not logically follow are the various behaviors exhibited by these… people. While some rub sunscreen all over their creamy white bodies to avoid getting even as much as a freckle, others will lather themselves up with tanning oil until they reach a point where their ethnicity is incorrectly assumed during a first encounter. Then there are some who will force their children to engage in activities that clearly do not interest them in any way, shape or form, while other parents take the trip to the beach as an opportunity to catch up on the sleep they have been missing for the past 10 years. But beyond all that, the beach seems to be one of those rare places where you get to see what humans are like when they do and do not care that anyone is watching. Kind of like the breakout confession shots on the “Real World” or the State Capitol during the last week of the Legislative Session.

For some, the beach is the only socially acceptable place to show off all that God and Gold’s Gym have given them. These are the people who have spent hours a day stretching, toning and growing their muscles so that when the time comes to remove their clothing, their peers will look on and admire the fruits their narcissistic labor. These are the types who have a particular walk, nay a demeanor about them. They walk straight backed and proud with their eyes scanning the horizon, searching for another, equally impressive specimen with whom they can evaluate their progress toward total meatheadedness. These are the true peacocks of our species. True, other humans may create their own lavishly colored tails out of social contributions, accomplishments, or money in hopes of attracting a mate, but the humans here know that the fastest way to the hearts of the opposite sex is through the perfection of one’s own body.

Then of course there are others who have completely given up on the competition that is so important to the peacocks. These folks do not strut along the shore with their tanned and oiled bodies reflecting the light of the sun into the eyes of the beach urchins. Instead, you will find them lying on their stomachs, love handles and fat rolls slopping over the tops and sides of their too-tight swimsuits as the sun turns their sallow skin a vibrant shade of red. Either that, or playing a sad, oddly competitive game of paddle ball with another similarly featured human. They are also often the ones who have the most annoying children who tend to take delight in vexing any and all who pass by their little patch of sand. These are the people who are trying their best to not care about the state of their untrimmed flesh, but fail miserably. They look on at the peacocks and think about what it would be like to me like them again, or what it would have been that way at all. But they are brought back to reality when a rogue fistful of sand, launched by one of the other urchins’ offspring, collides with the side of their head.

And last, but certainly not least, there are those who simply do not care. These are the walruses of the beach. They are loud, territorial, and willing to attack at the first sign of trouble. They look at the peacocks and the urchins with absolutely no jealousy in their eyes, or at least that is what one would assume based on their actions. These men and women seem to have hit that certain age or weight where they not only do not care to participate in the competition of the peacocks, but they mock it. With sagging, leathery skin, the old time beach people sit in their lounge chairs at the edge of the waterline, letting the cool salt water soothe their aching corns while the stay-puffed’s roll about on their too small towels trying to mold the compacted sand beneath them to conform to their unique proportions. These walruses have reached a point that wouldn’t even entice Leonardo da Vinci or Harris Ribut, and yet here they are, letting it all hang out for the world to see. Some of these were once peacocks, but have since passed their prime. The best part about the walruses though is that there are many who seem so content with their current body image, that they feel compelled to reveal what is generally deemed as unsuitable for children under the age of 13 to all of the other beach goers.

While these are not certainly all of the fine specimens you will see at the beach on a given day, they are certainly all different enough to leave one wondering what brings them all here. What is it about the beach that so entices humans? Why is it that we continue to invent ways to penetrate something that seems to only want to push us back out again? And why do the peacocks, urchins and walruses come to the same place to engage in such different activities? Maybe it has something to do with the concept of occupying a space of land that is not inherently yours, if only for a short amount of time. On the beach, a brightly colored towel and a large umbrella is usually as effective as a flag and a dedicated military at deterring an invasion. But when that is not enough, a good shouting match, peppered with a few well placed insults, will generally scare the more persistent crowders from continuing to infringe on your property rights. And yet, in a few hours these territorial claims will not mean a thing as a whole new group of peacocks, urchins and walruses will have moved in to begin the delicate dance we call social interaction all over again.

Sandcastles

For as long as I can remember, I have had a sandbox to play in. The first one was at my Grandma Lloyd’s house and was exactly what you would expect a sand box to be. Roughly 10 by 10, made of huge planks of wood and filled with millions of tiny rocks. This one in particular actually had my name painted on it in big, colorful letters letting everyone know that what ever happened to the world around it, that little box of dirt would always be mine.

When my Dad built his house in my Grandma’s front yard though, he had a cement play area constructed which consisted of two parts: a swing set with gravel that took up about 2/3 of the space and a huge sandbox in the remaining third. This new space was so different from what my brothers and I had previously experienced that we actually referred to it as the “sand pile” as opposed to the sandbox. As you might assume, the STANLEY LLOYD sandbox fell into disrepair and eventually became a glorified weed patch with the addition of the sand pile. While I grieved the loss of my name being written on such a large scale, I was more than happy to move to this new space. The cement walls were thick and ideal for hill top real estate that did not require prior work to construct.

One thing you should know about my little brothers and me is that we did not simply build sandcastles in the sand pile; that was for babies and little kids. We developed vast expanses of land for urban and suburban development, constructed dams and reservoirs, employed the use of siphons and levees, and even discovered new mining techniques that involved all-water drills. Needless to say, playing in the sand pile was serious business. I remember several times where we would have to be physically removed from our work in order to perform other meaningless tasks such as eating and sleeping.

Looking back on those times, I am still amazed at how entertained I was by sand and water. Nowadays, I need all kinds of things to keep me occupied (friends, money, electronics, etc.), and being at the beach got me to wondering about what the appeal of the sandcastle really was back when I was a kid. In a simple sense, I think it had something to do with the relative ease that comes with creating a sandcastle. You can go from having a completely flat surface to having a rough outline of the eastern bearing wall of a medieval fortress in a matter of seconds. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that no matter what you create, no matter how grand or complex, you are still bigger and therefore more powerful than it. And there is something to be said about spending hours on a project that you have worked tirelessly to complete and then being in total control of the fate of that creation. I’m willing to bet that there aren’t many adults who experience that kind sovereignty in their chosen careers, no matter how long or how hard they may have worked for it.

But all of that seemed to be a little too cerebral for a child to piece together. So after a while, I decided to relive some of my glory days from back in the sand pile. On a particularly sunny day at the end of our first week, I took a walk down the beach to an area that was relatively free of other people and I plopped down on the semi-wet sand. I cupped my hand into the familiar hoe shape it had taken many times before and I began digging the moat for my late 12^th century, concentric style fortress.

As I thrust my hands continually into the sand, water slowly lining the base of the moat, I began thinking about another element of the sandcastle that I had not previously considered. Whenever one builds a sandcastle, they are doing so with the full knowledge that before the day is over, their structure will not be standing. This can be a result of anything from a particularly large wave that takes out your preliminary defensive wall,  to small gusts of wind that slowly eat away at your central observation tower, or to a runaway volley ball that bounces over your exterior fortifications and smashes right into the stone keep.  In essence then, one only has control over the fate of their creation, so long as nothing else interferes. And in reality, there is nothing you can do to prevent this interference. The world of the beach is such an uncertain, scary, and arbitrary place that there is no way to protect your precious sandcastle from ultimate destruction.

As I continued to entertain this thought, I became more and more discouraged about how this concept may apply to everyday life. Many times, we build things in the same way we build sandcastles. We use inferior materials, simple methods, and try to gloss the whole thing over with clever designs and a few seashells knowing full well that it will not stand. So why do we do it? Why do we often invest our time and energies into things that we know will ultimately fail to give us any kind of eternal happiness? Why do we continue to delude ourselves with thoughts that this time will be different from the last, that we will be able to shelter the things we create from the chaos of the world that surrounds us? Why do we continue to make the same mistakes when we know that the outcome will be pain and suffering?

After a while, I stood up from my sandcastle and looked at my progress. The moat was coming along fine and the foundation was firmly packed, ready and waiting to have the inner elements of the castle set upon it. But as I stood there, small wave brushed up against my right foot which was only a few inches from the southern end of my preliminary defensive wall. At that moment, I decided to walk away from my unfinished creation and return to where my host family was sitting on the beach. I cannot tell you exactly why I left my castle unfinished and alone. Maybe I was frustrated to see another project fail. Maybe I was annoyed by the fact that I had not picked a better starting place, one that was out of harm’s way. Maybe I hated continuing to work on something that I knew would fall before it was complete.

Or maybe I was just tired of building sandcastles.