Anything that forces me to get off my ass and take an actual walk has to be pretty darn significant. So let me tell you why I was suddenly standing in front of my husband this afternoon telling him it was time we walked the 'hood. A few nights ago I had a dream that we lived at the beach. Not in a big ol beach house or something as unattainable as that. Just lived in a city that was at the beach. I honestly don't even know what city it was. Wherever it was I was happy. As quickly as we decide to drive all of 5 minutes to Carowinds for the day - that's how quickly we could decide to spend the afternoon on the beach.
Now before my mother gets a hold of this and starts droning on about how she "never could get you to go to the beach when we lived there" and "how many times did I want to go to the beach and you said noooooooo" - I have to admit that all of that is true. I can't remember why I didn't want to go. I probably had something terribly important to do, like watch Clash of the Titans or The Pirate Movie on HBO for the 3 millionth time. Maybe I didn't want to go because my mother did, and what's more fun than pissing off your mom? For a current answer to that question you can interview my 11 year old daughter, but I'm pretty sure it's the same now as it was then. (Answer: shrug shoulders and say "I dunno")
So now that we've reconciled with my multi-generational mother/daughter issues let's get back to my happy place. The beach. We try to take a family vacation to Myrtle Beach every summer. Every summer there is some moment when the kids are playing in the surf, I'm sitting in my beach chair, and the world goes away. Because I spent more than a few afternoons with my friends on the sandy shores of Virginia Beach as a teenager, the moments when I'm relaxing I'm not thinking 'Wow! We're at the beach!'. I'm thinking 'Wow! I'm back home!'
When I woke up after my beach dream it took a while to convince myself that I wasn't really in a beach city. My first thoughts were 'we should really head over to the beach this weekend'. Finally I realized that in order to do that we'd have to drive 5 hours and sell our plasma so we could afford a hotel for two nights. I would have to pack for three kids (and two dogs - one of which has probably seen her last family vacation because as difficult as it is to live with a 15.5 year old dog, traveling with her is nothing short of a nightmare. Kinda kills the whole relax'y vacation'y thing). I didn't really want a vacation - I wanted to go to the beach for the day. Like I used to when I was 17. (Excuse me - there's my mother again telling me that I'm turning 40 soon so I'm just having a mid-life crisis) The thing is - I'm not having a mid-life crisis. I just finally figured out that I know where I'm happy and it's the damn beach.
Why "the damn beach"? Because my chances of living at the beach ever again are remote at best. Therefore it's the damn beach. I spit on you. Ptooey. Stupid beach that I can't live at.
The point was driven home just that much harder after watching Modern Family from last week. Clare took the hottie sports car, drove up the coast, and played in the sand to get away from it all for the day. Well that just pissed me off even more because I can't even drive up a coast or get to a beach in an hour. Charlotte. Three hours west to the mountains. Five hours east to the beach. No snow in the winter. Hot and humid in the summer. The best thing I can say is we're fairly protected from random tornado outbreaks but even that has been challenged in seasons past.
The acceptance of this has been a bit oppressive lately. This afternoon while I was staring at my half-written novel, the words refusing to leave my brain, I decided even if I couldn't walk on the beach, I could walk. So we did. We walked from one end of our neighborhood to the other (don't be so impressed - we live at the front of the neighborhood so really we walked to the end and then back). During the quiet that I was supposed to be focusing on the reason why I couldn't sort out my novel problems all I could think was that I'd rather be walking on the beach. I'd rather be sitting on the beach with a pad and pencil (because laptops on the beach are just a bad idea). And I don't for a second pretend that if I just lived on the beach my ass would so be Suzanne Collins - because I don't. But there is a certain amount of brain work I'm pretty sure I could do sitting in the sand, novel aside. Like I said - it's my happy place.
After the walk around the neighborhood failed to give me what I needed it was time to run the Thursday shuttle, providing service from school to ballet & gymnastics to dinner and finally home. I had to fall back on my second happy place that, thankfully, I can do just about anywhere - loud singing in the car. The downfall is I only get about 20 minutes of uninterrupted caterwauling before three little people get in and start complaining about song choices or fighting over fishy crackers. In the end, the music sorted out my problems with the novel. My problems with where I will never live are not so easy.
There are many good points to Charlotte. Did I mention the low threat of tornadoes? The girls go to an excellent school. My 11 year old has a team of excellent doctors who help her with her personality quirks. There's an awesome house in an awesome neighborhood that I would love to live in. They have a neighborhood pool, which I think would give me some of the beach feeling I'm missing. But right now I'm stuck. I guess you could call it a rut. I can't get the words of my novel onto the computer screen and I can't stick my toes in the sand to soothe my soul. So I guess I'll keep walking the 'hood and 'singing' in my minivan.
We are so doing Nags Head this FALL 2012!
ReplyDelete