Beaches

I grew up spending most weekends on an 18 mile stretch of white sand beach. My father went on a fishing trip with some buddies and came home and told my mom that he had purchased a 'home site' on the beach in Mexico, near a small town called "Puerto Penasco" - Rocky Point. He took her there - with her two teenagers (my older sister K. and my older brother C.) and her two babies (me and my sister P.) and showed her the 'site' - basically a sand lot with the vague beginnings of a cement foundation. She camped there pretty much every weekend with her 4 kids - while my dad and the families who lived there year-round helped him build a 'cabin'. Two rooms, plus a bathroom. One of the rooms was a screened in porch, basically. Running water but not drinkable water. No electricity. We used a propane refrigerator and kerosene lanterns for light. Had campfires most nights. Heated water for showers in a solar 'heating bag'. Showering once every few days was a luxury. The non-potable water was from a well many miles down the dunes and it was trucked in. We paid $5/tank (on the roof), I think. And we made it last. We brought in bottled (distilled) drinking water. We would 'clean up' every evening for "Happy Hour" and socialize until dinner. The adults would enjoy a cocktail. The kids (of all ages) would play volleyball, or go for walks or runs on the beach, or have a campfire and sing. Dinner was very often fresh fish, tortillas, etc. It was a great way to 'live'.

After my father died (I was 6, my sister was 5, my older sister was 15 and my brother was 19), my mom kept that beach house where so many memories of my dad remained. That house is the only place I have any memories of him at all.

We continued to go 'to the beach house' as many weekends as we could and for the month of June every year. As soon as school was out, my mom packed us up and off we went. July and August were too hot to be there - the ocean breezes couldn't cool off the heat enough for it to be 'tolerable' to us folks used to A/C. But June was perfect. The ocean was like bath water. At first, without my dad, my little sister and I were scared to go. But we had plenty of uncles and aunts and cousins (some actual relatives, others just 'friends' who had always been my aunts and uncles, though not related) to 'help us' get used to just going there with our mom. We had so many adventures there - and I've always appreciated how my mom made even the scariest thing (and there were some scary things that happened from time to time) - seem fun - she always said 'well, we just had another adventure'.

When my little sister and I became 'teenagers', going down to the beach wasn't so great anymore. I dreaded spending an entire month of the summer away from my home and my friends.

I look back now and would give anything in the world to still have that place to go to. Even though we live very far away and probably wouldn't visit too often, I'd still pay any amount of money I could afford to have it back. I appreciated it a lot then, even though I griped about it - but now, I know how amazing it was to have that growing up. I became self sufficient, learned to think and plan ahead and grew up revering the ocean and nature and the sheer breathtaking beauty of ocean and sky and sunsets and beaches. I miss it still - like a hole in my soul that I can't fill. I dream about that beach pretty often - those dreams are the only dreams where one or both of my parents 'present' themselves to me in dreams. I miss it and long for it and can cry at the drop of a hat if I spend too much time thinking about it.

When my mom sold the cabin, she talked to me and J. about it - and at the time, though I longed to say 'we'll buy it', we couldn't. We had two babies, day care bills, not a lot of savings, etc. We were doing fine but living paycheck to paycheck just to cover daycare, diapers, etc. It wasn't feasible - though I still wish we had figured out a way. I would give anything to have it back again.

The old house had to be torn down, I've heard, through friends I still keep in touch with. My 3rd grade teacher and her husband still own their cabin, just up the hill from our old place and some family friends (of theirs) bought our place from the couple who had bought it from my mom. It had finally reached the point where the hand made bricks (which my father helped make) had disintegrated to a point that they had to be replaced. It isn't the 'same' house anymore, but it is - it still sits where ours sat. A quick walk down the dunes to the most breathtaking beach I have ever seen.

I am going to get that back in my life somehow, someday. I need it. If not that beach, then a beach. Somewhere. I wish my kids had that in their life. I wish they knew the relief an ocean breeze brings on a warm summer evening. Or the relief you feel when you've managed to get the beach buggy unstuck and avoided the tide all by yourself. It changes you to grow up knowing the beauty and risks of the ocean and the creatures in it. It's hard to teach those kind of life skills in a city - in a world where help is only a cell phone call away. I wish we had that experience for them. I wish we had that escape for us.

Someday.