The Beach Has Its Moments, I Guess

Florida is a big part of my personal brand, but I’m not really much of a beach guy.

My skin is too pale, pasty, and prone to sunburn. My distaste for sand and feeling dirty and gritty is much too high. My body dysmorphia is too… dysmorphic?

I grew up in a beach-adjacent town, which is completely different from growing up in a beach town. It was only a fifteen-minute drive across the causeways to the barrier islands on the Space Coast, but when I was a kid, making that short journey felt like traveling to another planet. My town was rednecky; pickup trucks and crew cuts were in vogue, and sitting by the river and wandering the spacious aisles of the Super Wal-Mart were the most popular pastimes. But when we drove over to Cocoa Beach to play a basketball game or a tennis match, we were greeted by long, sun-kissed hair (on girls and boys!), dark tans, sandals, and surfboards.

It was shocking. What a way to live. Maybe I would’ve turned out differently if I’d grown up 10 miles to the east, but as it stands, the best I can do is tolerate the beach two or three times per year.

My kids, on the other hand, love the beach. That probably comes as no surprise. Kids love a lot of things, it seems. I don’t remember being so eager when I was that age, but maybe the passage of time has clouded my memory. My kids would go to the beach every day if they could. Luckily, we live about an hour away, so that is impossible. If they ever start to get any big ideas, I remind them of the gas prices.

I try to be a fun dad, but I’m not really that fun. Except when other people’s kids join the mix. Then all bets are off.

So it was that I found myself driving a Kia Sorrento hybrid electric vehicle toward the beach not once, but twice, in one week. On both occasions, there were four children in the car with me: two of mine and two others. The other two were sisters who live around the corner from us and are the same age as my two younger kids. I’ve watched them grow up alongside my children. For whatever reason, I’ll often do things for them that I won’t do for my own flesh and blood. I always joke with my kids that the older of the two friends has always been my favorite, and what she says goes. When the friends ask to have a sleepover, I’m more likely to relent. When the friends ask me to bounce them on the trampoline, I sigh, grumble, and then catch some serious air. And as it turns out, when the friends ask me to take them to the beach, I’m more likely to suck it up and dip my toes into the disgusting sand.

We made the hour-and-fifteen-minute drive from our house to the beach late in the afternoon. I may be a pushover, but I wasn’t about to go to the beach during peak sun and heat time. In addition, the nighttime boundary made for an easy exit. The beach near my hometown is a National Seashore, so it closes at dusk. We arrived between 4:30 and 5:30 on the two visits, leaving us an amount of beach time I felt fairly confident I could survive.

We trudged from the nearly empty parking lot, across the dunes on a walkway that was recently rebuilt after it suffered hurricane damage, and dumped our stuff on the sand. The kids raced into the water. I took a moment to organize sand toys, boogie boards, and towels before settling in to watch the children like a hawk. The ocean is scary. It takes what it wants. Luckily, none of the kids had any interest in testing their limits. They were happy to splash and play and ride waves in waist-high water for a couple of hours.

I joined them in the warm, rolling ocean from time to time, feeling both a part of the action and completely separate from it. Like a seagull with its wings outstretched, floating against the ocean breeze. I took pictures to share with my wife and the friends’ parents. To provide proof of life and proof that we had lived.

As our few hours of beach time wound down, I sat on a blanket, a towel draped over my head to protect my beautifully creased skin and freckled complexion. I stared past the children in the water—mine and the ones that sometimes feel like mine—out toward the horizon. The day was dying, the light softening. The ocean was a ridiculously deep shade of blue. The beach was empty except for us, a few other stragglers, and a couple of greedy crows searching for snacks. It was kind of perfect.

Dang. Not at all the type of experience I was hoping for. I guess we’ll have to come back now.

Words by me, Andrew Knott. Best known for duck… and Baby-sitters Club.

My books:

Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, mini-golf, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music.

Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey