Plan Bs
Sometimes in the off-season, Josh and I like to go to the beach, park facing the water, and read. The sun warms the car through the windshield, and we don’t usually need our coats.
I’ve watched the beach dwindle down over the last 43 years (I was 8 the first time I went to this particular beach, and it looks very different from how it looked when I was a kid), and lose various structures to the ocean.
When the twins were little, the parking lot was huge. It now has space for about 4 rows of cars. Two rows face the ocean. The other two rows face the flat waters of the bay. The beach has sustained a lot of damage over the years from various storms, and the ocean and bay are closing over the small strip of land. A few years from now, there will not be a parking lot unless they do continual, expensive maintenance. The less expensive option is to move the beach. Or, more accurately, to move to a new part of the beach and start with a new lot.
When we went last weekend, I realized that it may be the final time we get to see the beach as the kids saw it growing up. We decided to come back over winter break so they could say goodbye to this version.
I’m sure we’ll grow accustomed to the new beach quickly. We’ll grumble for a bit about how we can’t park facing the water (the lot will be farther from the shoreline). And how it’s different, and different is bad. But over time, we’ll forget things about the old beach and come to love the new beach. I know this.
I know this because on this trip, we couldn’t face the ocean. They built the dunes too high, and it was impossible to see over them. Our choices were to look at a big pile of sand or turn the car around and face the flat bay. We had never faced the flat bay before — it’s a salt marsh that barely moves. But this time, we faced the bay so we could see water. And within a few minutes, I loved it as much as the ocean. It was quiet. It was calm. It had interesting birds diving into the bay to grab crabs. The reeds moved in the heavy winds. We read our books. We ate junk food. We talked about random things.
And all was well.
2 comments
Why do I spend so much time missing things that used to be, knowing there was nothing I could do to save them?
We have a beach we go to all year round to park, eat lunch (japanese or maybe a subway), watch the beach in all different weathers, from storms to sunny summer days. We sit and chat, and watch the people walking on it or the kids playing or building things, and sometimes take a walk along it if it isn’t too windy. I understand having a favourite beach.