Beach

I remember being on the beach several years ago, watching a group of kids on a field trip pulling up their pants' legs and darting into the surf. They screamed, they laughed, and you could tell they didn't live near the ocean. This was a real treat for them.

I was sitting in a beach chair, reading a book, and one of the young girls was standing near me. After staring at the huge expanse of water for a while, she turned and asked, "Do you live here?"

"Yes, I do."

"You come to the beach every day, don't you?"

"Um, no, but I try to come when I'm not working." I felt that my answer was disappointing to her.

"If I lived here, I'd come to the beach every day."

One of the many reasons I wanted to move to Savannah four years ago was to live near a beach. But I admit, when it's so close and convenient, sometimes you put off going. I often say I'd like to go to the beach on a given weekend, but get busy doing laundry or cleaning house and just never get around to packing my beach bag, loading up the chairs, and heading for Tybee.

That was nearly the case this weekend. I wanted to go to the beach, but slept in pretty late and had lots of housework to do. But Lee and I decided to go anyway. We got suited up, and as I was putting the dog in her yard, it started to rain. The rain only lasted a few minutes, though, so when the sun peeked back out we decided to take a chance and head out.

We were rewarded. We got the BEST parking place. The beach wasn't crowded (tropical storms looming), and you could see by the pock-marked sand that it had just rained. The sky was a conflicted jumble of bright blue with wispy cirrus clouds right next to areas of steely gray with rain clouds. The ocean was wild, too, with white caps dotting the suface as far out as I could see. It started to rain once, then just as quickly the rain ended, and the sun grew stronger. All around us were gray clouds, but right above us the sky was a radiant blue.

Lee and I left the beach a couple hours later, glad we'd spent some time there. We should do that more often, because there's just something wonderful about a book, a chair, and the beach.