Thinking of Beaches

What is it about beaches that attract people?  They're messy.  Bits of sand cling to you even if all you do is look at it from the scenic overlook.  The water is sticky with salt.  There's weirdo seaweed, and if you are unlucky, there are those plastic bags that sting you when you aren't looking.  Then there's the hidden pieces of glass protruding from the sand waiting to cut your foot.Ugly reminders of last night's illegal beer bust on the beach.  Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello fueled my early teen beach fantasies with their beach blanket movies.   Reality is in the hot sun, the dead fish, half eaten crabs, and dead plastic bags AKA jellyfish all stink.

Even so, I could hardly wait to rent this house overlooking the beach at the Seal Rocks in Oregon.  I relish the slog down the path, the sliding struggle through the loose, powdery, shifting sand to the hard packed water's edge to begin combing.  Beaches are the world's biggest garage sale.  You never know what you are going to find.  True, some of it is icky and stinky, but every prize needs to be won to have value.

Joey Lucas, Margie McIntyre, and Rick Graves at Galveston

 Beach combing and collecting started the very first time I saw the ocean:  Puerto Penasco, Mexico, December of 1971.  I have those shells today; and I can still visualize my 21 year old self so excited and thrilled at the goodies free for the finding.  I have shells from Galveston as a result of our first out of college jobs in Houston.   Galveston was a quick weekend get-away.  One of my favorite shells comes from those beaches; found with a dear friend as we walked along the beach during one of those weekends.  While I love the beach, my dearest friend thought beaches were as close as one could get to heaven.  She was known to take her china and crystal to the beach and serve a semi-formal dinner to friends on blankets on the sand.  While we teased her without mercy for doing this, secretly we were so pleased to be included in her beach dinner parties.

Drake and Jan, age 24

In 1974, we went to Acapulco, and Drake parasailed at that beach.  At age 26, our first cruise vacation included a visit to the Cayman Islands, and I saw my first turquoise waters.  I still have the conch shell I haggled for on a rickety dock.  My clothes from that trip smelled from my shells when I opened my suitcase back home.  1983 we went to Puerto Vallarta and stayed in a villa on the beach with our closest friends.  That was the first time I saw four foot waves and glimpsed the real power of the Pacific Ocean.   

The shells of Sanibel

Even our miracle child happened at the beach.  Drake and I waited a long time to make up our minds about having children.  I don't know any other couple married 15 years before their first child.  Our mothers had given up on us.  In 1984 I was down two strikes - two miscarriages, and the ob/gyn was not encouraging.  While trying to come to terms with a probable childless life, we decided to emotionally risk one more try for a baby.  We took a Christmas vacation and drove from New Orleans to Sanibel Island.   Sanibel is a beach lovers paradise.  There were seashells the size of my hand laying everywhere on the beach.  What a delight!  I spent days strolling the beach doing the Sanibel Stoop, and nights conceiving our precious Sarah Lynn.  I've always thought the sounds of the ocean provided the charm needed for a full-term pregnancy.  The large shells from that visit are brown and white speckled.

If the first trip to Sanibel was a welcoming of a new life beginning, then my second trip to that island was farewell to a life ending.  The island was the last roommate trip for me, Patti and Margie.  Patti and I spent that trip both laughing with Margie, while privately crying over Margie's all so obvious upcoming death.  My shells from that trip are delicate flowers, pieces of art that are a permanent memorial in my house to Margery Lynn and her love of the beach.     

Sarah's first beach were the white sugar sands of Alabama.  She was only about 14 months old, and starting to walk when she discovered the softness of the sand and the tickling ocean.  Twenty five years later, SL and her Dad are still enjoying the ocean; this time on a boat in Hawaii getting ready to jump in for a snorkeling adventure.  We've done family beach vacations down through the years from the day at the Antigua beach in the Caribbean, to the driftwood beach on the Northwest Coast, to the beaches on the islands of Nova Scotia and PEI.

I'm eager to see what memories and memorabilia this Seal Rock beach will attach to us.  These beaches are different.  Full of tidal pools and rocks rather than smooth sand covered with shells.  There are rumors of agates for the picking on some of these beaches.  There are birds and animals to watch.  On view from our living room, Drake checks the seals everyday that lay on the rocks exposed by low tide, and I am constantly watching the gulls, cormorants, terns, and pelicans that live here.   There are already little bits and pieces of shells and rocks being carried back in my pockets from our strolls on this beach.  

Here's the pictures....https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2012OregonCoastAndSealRock?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGYjJek9smMcg