Ah, the classic family beach trip. Lazy late mornings in a rented beach house, watching abnormal amounts of television, going through books like a warm knife through butter, and so, so many pictures. We pile into our car, the trunk overflowing with massive towels, coolers filled with snackies, and a rainbow umbrella, and meander our way to the shore.
Today, Assateague beach is the lucky patch of sand that we have chosen. Arms loaded down with paraphernalia, we tromp towards the walkway. Stopping to pitch trash in a dumpster, Dad stumbles across treasure: a boogie board! Sure, the styrofoam is broken inside the cloth sleeve, but its totally usable!
Our find in tow, we make our way to the shore, set up the umbrella and blankets and slather ourselves with sunscreen. Now, off to the waves! I dutifully wrap the velcro band of the boogie board around my wrist and begin the halted walk into the water, punctuated by gasps and squeals as we adjust to the cool. Drifting on swells, we catch up on each other's lives.
When I decide to try the board out, something clicks in me, and I begin to giggle like a kid - despite the futility of my attempts to ride the breakers. The waves washing over me are joined by waves of memories, of the last time I was on a boogie board.
It was the same shape and size, decorated with a cheesy picture of dolphins jumping in a sunset, complete with velcro and cord for when I got tussled by a badly planned wave. We bought them at the grocery store in San Salvador, the morning of some weekend beach excursion - one for my sis and one for me. Beach trips were more common for us in El Salvador since we lived about an hour from the coast and a day at Playa del Sol, a small resort, was dirt cheap. When we weren't at the resort's pool, we were in the waves, and when we were in the waves, we had our boogie boards.
We'd ride them in, and tug them out, and tip them the wrong way so they drug us under rough Pacific waves, and had competitions in the pool to see who could stand on them the longest without them sliding out from under our feet. They even served as islands of refuge from the all too real lava - black volcanic sand that singed our bare feet as we ran to and from the shore.
Giant frozen lemonades, lunches of whole fried fish (yes, tail, eyeballs and all), cramming into a hammock with mom as she read aloud, perching twenty feet in the air in the unoccupied guard's shack while we sipped fresh coconuts, a supper of rice pupusas on the way home, then falling asleep in the back seat of the truck. This was our family weekend.
This is what washes over me as I cling to a battered boogie board on the coast of Maryland. At once I am looking back a decade and few thousand miles to a place and time that made me, and looking forward to a time in life when family weekends will be few and far between. This is exciting, and scary, and a whole host of emotions I have yet to process.
But my past has taught me how to boogie:
Look at the waves of life with excitement, not fear. Run at them full force, preferably with good friends.
Hold on to what you know will keep you afloat in rough times - use velcro if necessary.
When - yes, when - the waves grab you and pull you under and spin you head over heel so fast you don't know which way is up, roll with it till you can put your feet down on something solid, stand, and take time to clear your eyes and catch your breath. Then turn back to the waves.
At the end of the day you'll be tired, but you'll also be washed clean inside and out. Close your eyes, smile, and embrace the way the memory of the waves rocks you to sleep.
It will be worth the ride.
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